Transcripts:
Fast forward to today and we have indeed invaded and occupied Afghanistan.[Wesley Clark] About ten days after 9/11 I went to the Pentagon and I saw secretary Rumsfield and Deputy Secretary Wolfweitz.
I went downstairs to see some of the staff who used to work for me and one of the Generals called me in and said "Sir, you have got to come in. Come in, you have got to come in and talk to me a second."
I said "Well, you're too busy".
He said, "No, No, we have made the decision to go to war with Iraq". This was on or about the 20th of September [2001].
I said "We are going to war with Iraq? Why" [emphasis added].
He said, "I don't know" [crowd laughs]
He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do". [crowd boos].
So I said "Well, did they find come information connecting Saddam to Al-Queda?"
He said, "No, No. There is nothing new that way, they just made the decision to go to war with Iraq."
He said, "I guess its like, we don't know what to do about terrorists but we have a good military and we can take down governments"
So I came back to see him a few weeks later and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan.
I said "Are we still going to war with Iraq?"
And he said "Oh, its worse than that."
He reached over on his desk and picked up a piece of paper.
He said, "I just got this down from upstairs from the Secretary of Defense's office today. This is a memo that describes how we are going to take out 7 countries in 5 years."
"Starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon. Then Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Then finishing off Iran."
[Amy Goodman] "Go Through the countries again." [crowd laughs]
[Wesley Clark] "Well starting off with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, and Libya, Somalia and Sudan. and back to Iran."
Intelligence reports were fabricated to show that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to justify the ousting of Saddam Hussein.The released secret documents that revealed the intel reports were fabricated also revealed the invasion of Iraq was for the "prize of oil".
We are currently bombing Libya as the war hawks push for authorization to send in ground troops.
The US propaganda machine is also beating the war drum for an invasion of Syria.
To make matters worse if the World War 3 Legislation that is being voted on in Congress is passed there will be no need to push out propaganda to justify the invasion of the rest of the countries on the list. The president will have full authority just to invade any country he wants.
Some may recall Bush saying, shortly after the initial success in Afghanistan, something to the effect of "I'm going after Sadaam next".
There are things said at certain times that stick, that was one of them for me.
It caused much conversation at the time, due to Bin Laden being on the run.
It was totally out-of-character for the events taking place. A Bushian slip of the tongue.
I've gone back and tried to find the excerpt. Nothing doing. Erased, expunged.
Wesley Clarks' tip sheds some light on the why.