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Ex-UK envoy: US Focused on Iraq Hours after 9/11
Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue of Iraq with the U.K. hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, Britain's former ambassador told an inquiry into the Iraq war Thursday.
Christopher Meyer, who served as then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's envoy to Washington between 1997 and 2003, said he spoke with Rice on Sept. 11, 2001.
"She said there's no doubt this was an Al-Qaida operation, we are just looking to see if there could possibly be any connection with Saddam Hussein," he told the panel.
The comments are important because they suggest that the United States quickly tied the attacks with Saddam's regime. Years later, President George W. Bush's administration was forced to acknowledge that they could find no connection between Saddam and the attacks.
The inquiry, billed as the most sweeping look yet at the conflict, was in its third day of hearing public evidence. It is examining Britain's involvement in Iraq, beginning with the run-up to the 2003 invasion and concluding in July 2009, but will not establish criminal or civil liability.
Meyer said that prior to the attacks, Bush's foreign policy circle - who he said were known as "the Vulcans" - were most concerned about Russia, not Iraq.
He said that in first talks after the terrorist attacks, Blair believed there should be a "laser-like focus on al-Qaida and Afghanistan."
But Meyer said that by the time of a key meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002 attitudes were hardening on Iraq. The meeting is important because war critics regard it as the moment Blair pledged backing to regime change - a year before Parliament's approved of involvement.
Bush and Blair spent a "large chunk of time" without advisers present, Meyer said.
"I'm not entirely sure to this day what degree of convergence was signed in blood" at the meeting, Meyer said, referring to Blair's acceptance that Saddam would need to be deposed by force.
Meyer said that before he won office, Bush had acknowledged his weakness on foreign policy and saw Russia and missile defense as his priorities.
Prior to Sept. 11, the issue of Iraq was "like a grumbling appendix," Meyer said.
Asked at what point war with Iraq was inevitable, Meyer told the panel: "That is a damn hard question to answer."
"What was inevitable was that the Americans were going to bust a gut to carry out the mandated policy of regime change," he said.
But until December 2002, regime change by force was not the only option. Meyer said Rice had hoped "the pressure of coercive diplomacy" would force Saddam into exile, or prompt an internal coup.
He said Britain argued that attempts to increase pressure on Iraq through the United Nations was not "limp-wristed, pitiful, European lack of will," but rather a "cunning plan to get the guy."
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4 Comments so far
Show AllWar criminals all.
They hung Saddam right quick.
Dead men tell no tales.
Yes kiddies and thats the way the story goes. The little boy finally made his wish that all the horrible monsters fall into quicksand and become fossils, er, I mean fall deep into the earth and under the instant pressure of millennia, turn into more oil.
Van Jones - you are not forgotten
Of course, no need for the Brits or the Yanks to talk about securing the region for oil and natural gas interests.
Set up your scarey, false-flag and/or tragic EVENT, create a monstrous ENEMY and churn out propaganda 24/7, start the already-prepared-for war, overthrow governments, with benign and beloved leaders or not killed or deposed, send your uniformed, young people to fight your battles for loot and no matter they are terribly wounded or killed, and by all means, profit on military contracts and sale of weapons and "reconstruction," eventually getting control of oil fields, minerals, land, whatever it is, to feed your money and power addiction, ... and of course, deny all truth and live with the lies as easily as having a second cup of coffee or tea in the morning.
The chances of most of The People realizing that the same STORY repeats and repeats and repeats and that the STORY has to be changed are slim to none. Once in a while it happens, because of REVOLUTION and new people come to power, and the results are up for grabs. If new leaders truly begin to succeed at leveling the playing field and the needs of The People are met, most often a new STORY will be created by the GREEDY Mammon Worshippers that includes assassinations, sanctions, incidents created by outside agents and blamed on the new leaders, defining the new ENEMY, and hence starting and staying with a new WAR OF NECESSITY [3-word Obama quote about Afghanistan].
Soul-lessness and withered hearts eventually come to dominate and be in charge of pulling The Puppet strings of those THEY have put in the leadership positions. The deadly flaw in all of these people is that their eyes are on The Money and The Power, and their twisted thinking works to keep it that way or get more, but what they don't seem to grasp at all is that this planet ... The Mother ... can take so much, and then all hell will break loose, and as the Native American Cree Prophecy goes:
When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
Cree Prophecy
/cm
Amazing info making it into the press elsewher(not in US MSM).
And they are keeping the good stuff hidden - not allowing access for the inquiry.!!!
One can only imagine what that revelations that contains.
Everyone forgets the court battle about access to the minutes of the Cheney-led energy committee hearings in Feb/Mar 2001 that allegedly referred to maps of Iraq showing how US oil companies would divide the spoils.
But I could be wrong !