Editorial: Saddam, Osama/Bush chose wrong enemy (* Ignored R Clarke)

http://www.startribune.com/viewers/story.php?template=print_a&story=4323598

As criticism was heaped on him, however, O'Neill said he regretted some of his more colorful characterizations of President Bush. That's vintage O'Neill; he always was one to say exactly what he thought and worry about it later.

But he isn't backing away from the policy points he made in the book, and he shouldn't, because his comments help illuminate just how badly the Bush administration messed up the war against terrorism prior to Sept. 11, 2001: It focused on Saddam Hussein, while it should have been working to destroy Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida. This was not, as administration officials now claim, a continuation of President Bill Clinton's approach; it was a sudden, radical change.

The Bush administration was only a week old, O'Neill says, and already Iraq and Saddam had become a focus. After one meeting, Suskind writes, O'Neill wondered what was going on: "Was a multipronged assault on Saddam Hussein really a priority in early 2001? The dialogue today had been mostly about hows -- how to weaken or end Saddam's regime. With the administration at the start of its second week, O'Neill wondered, when, exactly, the whys -- why Saddam, why now, and why this was central to U.S. interests -- were to be discussed." Osama bin Laden wasn't even on the agenda.

He should have been. When Bush took office, the White House was told that a Predator drone had spotted Bin Laden several times recently in Afghanistan, and Richard Clarke wanted the suspended drone flights resumed to track the terrorist down and kill him.

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Consideration was not forthcoming; the Predators weren't put back in the air, and the administration sat on Clarke's attack plan. Meanwhile, Bush was contemplating his "multipronged assault on Saddam Hussein."

not only did he DO nothing, Bush spent 42% of his time on vacation, including the ENTIRE PRECEEDING MONTH. Dear God, if the American public knew the real truth about thse lying, incompetent fuckwads, they would be rioting in the streets.