Gen. Hugh Shelton: Bush Officials Pushed For Iraq War 'Almost To The Point Of Insubordination' (VIDEO)

What happened at PresidentBush's very first NationalSe­curityCoun­cil meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.



“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that SaddamHussein was a bad person & needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.



“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid & sealed.”



As TreasurySecretary, PaulO'Neill was a permanent member of the NationalSe­curityCoun­cil. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" & "Why now?" were never asked.



"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" says O’Neill. “For me, the notion of preemption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.”



And that came up at this first meeting, says O’Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next NationalSe­curityCoun­cil meeting two days later.



O'Neill got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January & February of 2001.



http://www­.cbsnews.c­om/stories­/2004/01/0­9/60minute­s/main5923­30.shtml
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