Bush the Unready

The White House, January 31, 2003, two months before the invasion of Iraq. A meeting was held between President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Richard Norton-Taylor writing for the UK Guardian Unlimited reviews the contents of a memo of that meeting as printed in a new edition of Lawless World by Prof. Phillipe Sands. Ponder these nuggets:

• Bush intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons program.
• Bush told Blair, "The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning."
• Bush told Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that they thought of "flying US reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors." and Bush added, "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]."
• Bush said that it was "unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups."

Blair sent John Sawers as an envoy to Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion as reported this March by the Guardian. Sawers sent Blair a series of confidential memos in May and June of 2003 describing the US postwar administration in Baghdad as "an unbelievable mess.....No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis."

We were march-stepped into the war with Iraq by Bush the Unready who was determined to have his way at any cost and by any means.

As for the aftermath.......Bush is all strut and no direction.