NYT: Powell Said to Have Warned Bush Before the War, a New Book Says [View All]

(SNIP)

The book also provides new details about the hurriedly arranged airstrike on March 19, 2003, in which the White House jump-started the war with a bomb and missile strike on the Dora Farms compound near Baghdad in a failed attempt to kill Mr. Hussein.

The air raid, advocated by Mr. Tenet, had initially been opposed by General Franks, the book says, but was approved by President Bush and Vice President Cheney after they asked other advisers to leave the Oval Office.

The strike was launched, the book says, on the basis of first-hand reports from Iraqi sources at Dora Farms enlisted by a network of 87 Iraqi spies, designated with the cryptonym DB/ROCKSTARS, who had been recruited by a C.I.A. team that had infiltrated northern Iraq in the months before the war.

In calls by satellite phone to the C.I.A. team, the Iraqi sources reported that Mr. Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were at the compound, and that Mr. Hussein himself would return there. After the strike, the book says, one Iraqi source reported Mr. Hussein's body had been removed from the wreckage, prompting Mr. Tenet to celebrate what he thought had been a success.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/international/middleeast/17BOOK.html?pagewanted=1&hp

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