Christian Conservative

From a new book called Hubris, written by two very well-respected journalists, Michael Isikof and David Corn.

"President Bush was driven by a visceral hatred of Saddam Hussein, which he privately demonstrated in expletive-laden tirades against the Iraqi dictator. In May 2002--months before he asked Congress for authority to attack Saddam-Bush bluntly revealed his ultimate game plan in a candid moment with two aides. When told that reporter Helen Thomas was questioning the need to oust Saddam by force, Bush snapped: "Did you tell her I intend to kick his sorry mother fucking ass all over the Mideast?" In a meeting with congressional leaders, the President angrily thrust his middle finger inches in front of the face of Senator Tom Daschle to illustrate Saddam's attitude toward the United States.

"As part of an aggressive prewar covert action program--codenamed Anabasis (after an ancient text about a botched invasion of Babylon)--the CIA was authorized by the White House in the winter of 2002 to blow up targets in Iraq and engage in "direct action" (an agency euphemism for assassination) to weaken Saddam's regime and to prepare for his ouster by the U.S. military. For Anabasis, the agency smuggled Iraqi exiles to a top-secret site in the Nevada desert and trained them in sabotage and explosives. The Iraqi force, known as the Scorpions, was being trained to seize an isolated Iraqi military post-in order to create a provocation that could trigger a war with Iraq.

"When Bush was first briefed that no WMDs had been found in Iraq, he was totally unfazed and asked few questions. "I'm not sure I've spoken to anyone at that level who seemed less inquisitive," the briefer told the authors.

"After the invasion, Dick Cheney's aides desperately sifted through raw intelligence nuggets in search of any evidence that would justify the war. On one occasion they sent the WMD hunters in Iraq a satellite photo that they suspected showed a hiding place for WMDs. But it was only an overhead photo of a watering hole for cows. (My note, how the fuck does the U.S. mistake a cow's watering hole for WMDs?)

"At the time of her outing, Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer in the CIA whose mission had been to gather intelligence about WMDs in Iraq. She was the operations manager of the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit in the clandestine service of the CIA. This unit desperately tried to obtain evidence to back up the Bush administration's assertions about Saddam's WMDs, yet it found no such evidence.

"Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, was the original leaker in the CIA leak case. But as he was disclosing information to columnist Robert Novak, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other top White House aides were engaged in a fierce campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson. Rove even told MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews that the Wilsons "were trying to screw the White House so the White House was going to screw them back."

"Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle seriously doubted the case for war-and questioned the top-secret briefings they received directly from Cheney. One senior Republican, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, warned the President in a September 2002 meeting that Bush would be stuck in a "quagmire" if he invaded Iraq. But Armey and others were afraid for political reasons to challenge the White House on the prewar intelligence."

For much, much more, visit RawStory.com