Absolutely astounding. The George Soros funded Think Progress:

“The Bush administration has long maintained they had not decided to invade Iraq until the days before it actually began and that they did “everything” they could to “avoid war in Iraq.” President Bush even claimed that the “American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war.”

Yet there is evidence that the Bush administration, from its very early days, was actively plotting to go to war with the Arab country. From a British memo that noted that “Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme” to memoirs by administration members Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill, there have been numerous disclosures that strongly suggest that the Bush administration was plotting a war against Iraq while recognizing it was not a threat to the United States.

Now, with the help of a Freedom of Information Act request, the National Security Archive has obtained a newly declassified document that details talking points that emerged from a meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks in November 2001.

The talking points mainly revolve around the logistical planning for a war in Iraq. They detail the “decapitation” of the Iraqi government by U.S. forces and make regime change the goal. Interestingly, they already mention U.S. forces “coming out of Afghanistan” to join the invasion of Iraq. Yet the most alarming part of the document is a bullet point titled,

“How start?” (which is a discussion that actually appears after the planning of the entire war). The participants in the Rumsfeld-Frank meeting discussed possible ways to provoke a conflict with Iraq, including an attack by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish north, the U.S. discovering a “Saddam connection” to 9/11 or the anthrax attacks, or a dispute over WMD inspections. It appears from the language of the talking points that the Bush administration had already decided to go to war with Iraq and was looking for an opportunity to invade

No, dumbasses. This is a situational assessment, not a planning war document. I’m quite familiar with the memo and the notes. They look at three specific scenarios that might occur that would lead to a conflict with Iraq.

1. An attack by Saddam on the Kurds (something the Clinton administration constantly feared), and in fact briefed the incoming Bush administration about.

2. “If” it were determined that Saddam had any connection to 9/11, which wasn’t absolutely certain in November of 2001, or.

3. The third scenario which Saddam actually violated, stalling WMD weapon inspections.