Washington — George W. Bush ordered up a secret plan to invade Iraq in late 2001, reinforcing the perception that the U.S. President was itching for a showdown with Saddam Hussein soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The White House has confirmed an account in a forthcoming book by journalist Bob Woodward that says the President told Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to draft invasion plans in November, 2001, while U.S. troops were busy toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Mr. Bush said yesterday he "couldn't remember dates that far back" and insisted his focus in the period after Sept. 11 was mainly on Afghanistan.
"I do know that it was Afghanistan that was on my mind and I really didn't start focusing on Iraq till later on," Mr. Bush told reporters after a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair — the latest in a series of meetings with world leaders focusing on the troubles in Iraq.
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan confirmed that Mr. Bush asked Mr. Rumsfeld on Nov. 21, 2001, to draw up a blueprint for dealing with Iraq — even though there was no evidence it had anything to do with the Sept. 11 terrorism strikes.
Mr. McLellan said that as the war was winding down in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush "did talk to Secretary Rumsfeld about planning related to Iraq."
Planning didn't imply an "actual decision" to invade, he added.
In his book Plan of Attack, to be published on Monday, Mr. Woodward says the plot to go after Iraq was kept secret even from some of Mr. Bush's national security officials because the President didn't want to be seen as a warmonger.
"I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq," Mr. Bush is quoted as telling Mr. Woodward, according to an advance copy of the book obtained by The Associated Press.
"It was such a high-stakes moment and ..... it would look like I was anxious to go to war. And I'm not anxious to go to war."
Mr. Woodward, a veteran reporter and editor at The Washington Post, is best known for his investigative work with Carl Bernstein into the Watergate scandal.
Plan of Attack is his second book on the Bush presidency, based in part on extensive interviews with the President.
The Bush administration has been stung by charges made to an independent commission probing the Sept. 11 attacks that its fixation on Iraq undermined the hunt for terrorism kingpin Osama bin Laden and his associates.
The United States now is fighting a bloody Iraqi insurgency that shows no sign of waning as a June 30 deadline nears to hand over control of the country to an interim Iraqi government. Iraqi guerrillas put a man they said was a captive U.S. soldier on display yesterday, and one of his captors said he was being held in a bid to obtain a prisoner exchange.
According to AP, Mr. Woodward's book says Mr. Bush told Mr. Rumsfeld to stay mum about their war scheme and adds that when the Defence Secretary asked to bring Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet into it, the President said not to do so yet.
Even Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, apparently was not fully briefed. Mr. Woodward said Mr. Bush told her that morning he had directed Mr. Rumsfeld to work on Iraq, but did not share details.
In an interview two years later, Mr. Bush told Mr. Woodward that if the news had leaked, it would have caused "enormous international angst and domestic speculation."
White House officials began to talk up the threat posed by Iraq in mid-2002. Intensive war planning at the Pentagon continued throughout that year and Mr. Bush met regularly with U.S. Army General Tommy Franks and his war cabinet to plan the attack, according to another account of the book posted yesterday on The Washington Post website.
Last spring, after failing to persuade the United Nations Security Council to back an invasion, the United States led a small coalition into Iraq.
In the book, Mr. Woodward describes Vice-President Dick Cheney as a "powerful, steamrolling force" within the Bush administration, pushing for war behind the scenes and sparring frequently with Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Post said.
Among the conclusions that pushed Mr. Bush to ultimately endorse an invasion was Mr. Tenet's assurances that it was a "slam-dunk" that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
