Bush 'called in 2001 for Iraq invasion plan'

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Bush 'called in 2001 for Iraq invasion plan'By Peter Spiegel in WashingtonPublished: April 19 2004 19:34 | Last Updated: April 19 2004 19:34

At the outset of Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward's book on the Iraq war that came out in the US on Monday, President George W. Bush pulls aside Donald Rumsfeld, his defence secretary, and asks what plans are on the shelf for toppling Saddam Hussein.

Mr Rumsfeld, with Mr Bush in a small office near the White House situation room, says the plans are a mess. As they stand, he tells the president, an invasion would amount to little more than a repeat of the first Gulf war, complete with multiple heavy divisions that would take months to deploy. Mr Bush listens intently, then tells the defence secretary to prepare a new plan for invasion.

It is not a surprising exchange between a president and his top military adviser on the eve of war. Not surprising except for the date it was held: November 21 2001, less than three months after the attacks on New York and Washington and days after the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.

Like two bestselling memoirs of recent months - former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill's grumpy recriminations and former counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke's angry rebuke - Mr Woodward's tome provides further evidence that the Bush White House had set a course for attacking Iraq even as it assured allies of its commitment to a diplomatic solution.

Indeed, Mr Bush himself acknowledges the secret planning for the first time: "I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential or a war plan for Iraq," Mr Bush says. "It would look like I was anxious to go to war."

The Woodward book details an administration often at war with itself, a president exceedingly reliant on religious faith to guide his hand during the conflict, and a vice-president whose "fever" to invade drove foreign policy.

Unlike Mr Clarke's accusations, Mr Woodward's revelations are unlikely to produce the kind of firestorm that led to Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, being hauled before a public inquiry to explain her actions. But just seven months before a presidential election, it is a boost for Mr Bush's opponents in their efforts to paint as questionable the president's actions in the run-up to war.

Among the more intriguing revelations in Mr Woodward's book is Mr Bush's close relationship with Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi prince who has served as Riyadh's ambassador to Washington since the Reagan administration. In January 2003, Mr Woodward writes, Prince Bandar was shown classified war plans labelled "NOFORN" - no foreign national permitted to see them - by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld.

Mr Woodward says Prince Bandar assured the White House that the Saudis would "fine-tune" oil prices over 10 months to "prime the economy" for 2004. "What was key, Bandar knew, were the economic conditions before a presidential election."

John Kerry, presumptive Democratic nominee, seized on the report on Monday, saying a "secret White House deal" to lower oil prices before the election was "outrageous and unacceptable to the American people".

Equally intriguing is Mr Bush's acknowledgment that "noise" surrounding the Afghan war was used by the administration to prepare for the Iraq invasion covertly, including the pre-positioning of forces in Kuwait and infrastructure projects at air bases in the Gulf state.

All told, Mr Woodward reported, the pre-war projects cost $700m (?582m, £387m) in funds from a congressional appropriation intended for the Afghan war. No congressional approval for the Kuwait spending was received.