Rumsfeld was intent on going after Saddam hours after the plane hit the Pentagon

http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/rumsfeld-was-intent-on-going-after-saddam-hours-after-the-plane-hit-the-pentagon

The Congress was beating the war drums for going into Iraq and killing Saddam Hussein strongly since 1998, and Bill Clinton was flinging missiles into the country, though Iraq never committed an act of aggression against the United States.

Now the dilemma. What reasons can we make to “justify” going into Iraq and getting Hussein? On this morning’s episode of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, Jim Miklaszewski did a little fact-checking on former Bush Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld’s new memoirs. Here is what he found (also see video):

“But the one point that I (Miklaszewski) really have a problem with is Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld’s account that it was two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, both here at the pentagon and in New York, that President Bush sat Rumsfeld down and said, we ought to go over plans to attack Iraq. In other words, Rumsfeld claiming that it was President Bush’s idea. But only four hours after the American flight 77 slammed here into the pentagon, just a few floors below where I’m standing now in the tank, which itself was filled with smoke at the time, Rumsfeld had all his top advisers, military and civilian together, and I have a copy of the log notes that were taken at that time. The timestamp is 1:45 in the afternoon. that's four hours after the plane struck the pentagon. And according to the note-takers and more than one set of notes reflects this, Rumsfeld said, my intent is to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time. We ought not to look only at UBL.

So here we are in Afghanistan 10 years later in the longest war in our history, in part because Mr. Rumsfeld had an axe to grind with Saddam Hussein. Remember, this is the 2011 CPAC “Defender of the Constitution”.