Powell for Bush

"...The oil of Iraq belongs to the people of Iraq..." 

Wolfowitz for Bush

"...This is not a war about oil. This is going to—if we have to use force, it's going to be to liberate Iraq, not to occupy Iraq. The oil resources belong to the Iraqi people..." 

Rumsfeld for Bush

"...An Iraq war has absolutely nothing to do with oil..."

Perle for Bush

"...I find the accusation that this administration has embarked upon this policy for oil to be an outrageous, scurrilous charge for which, when you asked for the evidence, you will note there was none...It is a lie, congressman. It's an out-and-out lie."..."

Fleischer for Bush (Oct 2002)

"...The only interest the United States has in the region is furthering the cause of peace and stability. We are not interested in Saddam Hussein's country's ability to generate oil."..."

H. Josef Hebert (AP/Yahoo):
"...Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force appeared to have some interest in early 2001 in Iraq's oil industry, including which foreign companies were pursuing business there, according to documents released Friday by a private watchdog group. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, obtained a batch of task force-related Commerce Department (news - web sites) papers that included a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, terminals and pipelines as well as a list entitled "Foreign Suitors of Iraqi Oilfield Contracts." 
The papers also included a detailed map of oil fields and pipelines in Saudi Arabia and in the United Arab Emirates and a list of oil and gas development projects in those two countries..."

World Industry News via Whodies (Oct 2002):
"...The US State Department has pushed back its planned meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders on exploiting Iraq's oil and gas reserves after a US military offensive removes Saddam Hussein from power to early December. According to a source at the State Department, all the desired participants are not yet available.
The Bush administration wants to have a working group of 12 to 20 people focused on Iraqi oil and gas to be able to recommend to an interim government ways of restoring the petroleum sector following a military attack in order to increase oil exports to partially pay for a possible US military occupation government - further fueling the view that controlling Iraqi oil is at the heart of the Bush campaign to replace Hussein with a more compliant regime..."

Donald Barlett and James Steele (Time):
"...Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been firm and consistent on what the war in Iraq is not about. "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil," he says. If it sounds as though he's protesting too much, it's because the Bush Administration is up against a prevailing world view that the burden of proof is on the U.S. to show that it won't exploit Iraq's underground riches. Hours after the invasion began, U.S. forces had seized two offshore terminals that can transfer 2 million bbl. daily to tankers. They secured the southern Rumaila oil field so swiftly that Saddam Hussein's retreating troops managed to set only nine wells ablaze, compared with 650 Kuwaiti wells during Gulf War I, and U.S. airborne troops took the northern oil fields at Kirkuk largely intact.
Three weeks later, when U.S. forces rolled into downtown Baghdad, they headed straight for the Oil Ministry building and threw up a protective shield around it. While other government buildings, ranging from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to the National Museum of Antiquities, were looted and pillaged, while hospitals were stripped of medicine and basic equipment, Iraq's oil records were safe and secure, guarded by the U.S. military. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had an explanation: "I think it's, as much as anything else, a matter of priorities."
Rumsfeld's disclaimer aside, the fact is that oil—who has it, who produces it, who fixes its price—governs everything of significance in the Persian Gulf and affects economies everywhere. While the Bush Administration has repeatedly asserted that Iraq's oil belongs to its citizens—"We'll make sure that Iraq's natural resources are used for the benefit of their owners, the Iraqi people," the President said—the stakes go far beyond Iraq. The amount of oil that Iraq brings to market will not just determine the living standards of Iraqis but affect everything from the Russian economy to the price Americans pay for gasoline, from the stability of Saudi Arabia to Iran's future. Why is Iraq such a prize? Not only does it have the potential to become the world's largest producer, but no other country can do it as cheaply. That's because, for geological reasons, Iraq boasts the world's most prolific wells..."

"...said it was "reprehensible" that people would think the administration had "saved" its ammunition on Iraq to bring it out now, 60 days before an election. "So the suggestion that somehow, you know, we husbanded this and we waited is just not true," Cheney said..."

Misleader.org:
"...Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has acknowledged that in the first weekend after September 11th "the disagreement was whether [invading Iraq] should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first."²
Privately, the President began making it known in March 2002 that the decision to invade Iraq was a foregone conclusion. In an unscheduled appearance with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Republican and Democratic Senators, Bush cursed Saddam and vowed, "We're taking him out." Weeks later, Vice President Dick Cheney said to a Senate Republican policy lunch that the question of attacking Iraq was not if, but when.³
The strategy of seeking United Nations approval for the invasion was hatched during an August dinner with Secretary of State Colin Powell at which "the agenda was not whether Iraq, but how."⁴ Publicly, though, the President continued to mislead the American public, saying the U. N. resolution "does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable."⁵..."

Dwight Meredith (P.L.A.):
"...if Saddam’s WMD program is on the verge of having such capability, what was President Bush doing taking a month’s vacation in August? We suspect that President Bush knows that Saddam has no such capability and knows that such capability is not eminent..."

"...continued to say he has not yet decided whether to go to war..."

Bush

stated multiple times that war on Iraq will be a "last resort"

Bush

"...the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war..."

Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker):
"...By early March, 2002, a former White House official told me, it was understood by many in the White House that the President had decided, in his own mind, to go to war..."

Misleader.org:
"...Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has acknowledged that in the first weekend after September 11th "the disagreement was whether [invading Iraq] should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first."²
Privately, the President began making it known in March 2002 that the decision to invade Iraq was a foregone conclusion. In an unscheduled appearance with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Republican and Democratic Senators, Bush cursed Saddam and vowed, "We're taking him out." Weeks later, Vice President Dick Cheney said to a Senate Republican policy lunch that the question of attacking Iraq was not if, but when.³
The strategy of seeking United Nations approval for the invasion was hatched during an August dinner with Secretary of State Colin Powell at which "the agenda was not whether Iraq, but how."⁴ Publicly, though, the President continued to mislead the American public, saying the U. N. resolution "does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable."⁵..."

Robert Parry (Consortium News):
"...Americans also don’t seem to mind that Bush appears to have deceived them for months when he claimed he hadn’t made up his mind about invading Iraq. As he marched the nation to war, Bush presented himself as a Christian man of peace who saw war only as a last resort. But in a remarkable though little noted disclosure, Time magazine reported that in March 2002 – a full year before the invasion – Bush outlined his real thinking to three U.S. senators, “Fuck Saddam,” Bush said. “We’re taking him out.” Time actually didn’t report the quote exactly that way. Apparently not to offend readers who admire Bush’s moral clarity, Time printed the quote as “F--- Saddam. We’re taking him out.” Bush offered his pithy judgment after sticking his head in the door of a White House meeting between National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and three senators who had been discussing strategies for dealing with Iraq through the United Nations. The senators laughed uncomfortably at Bush’s remark, Time reported. [Time story posted March 23, 2003]. It now is clear that Bush never intended to avoid a war in Iraq, a conflict which has so far claimed the lives of at least 85 American soldiers and possibly thousands of Iraqis..."

"...dismissed any suggestions of a split. He called suggestions of tension between Powell and Cheney, "much ado about no difference."..."

Paul Krugman (New York Times):
"...Ari Fleischer's insistence that Mr. Powell and Mr. Cheney have no differences over Iraq seems to have pushed some journalists into facing up, at least briefly, to the obvious. ABC's weblog The Note described it as a "chocolate-is-vanilla" claim, admitting that "The Bush team has always had a credibility problem with some reporters because of their insistence on saying 'up is down' and 'black is white.'" But the administration needn't worry; if history is any guide, many reporters will soon return to their usual cringe. The next time the administration insists that chocolate is vanilla, much of the media — fearing accusations of liberal bias, trying to create the appearance of "balance" — won't report that the stuff is actually brown; at best they'll report that some Democrats claim that it's brown..."

"...Saddam Hussein regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble, and this is a risk we must not take..."

Powell for Bush

"...The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world..."

Cheney for Bush

"...The ability to criticize is one of the great strengths of our democracy. But those who do so have an obligation to answer this question: How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat?...Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information, or trying to wish it away, would be irresponsible in the extreme...When the decision fell to him, President Bush was not willing to place the future of our security, and the lives of our citizens, at the mercy of Saddam Hussein. And so the President acted [and invaded Iraq]..."

David Corn (The Nation):
"...But the influential UN members that opposed a war at this juncture--including Washington's closest allies--were not assuming Hussein's "good faith." They advocated reviving intrusive inspections and pursuing other means before contemplating war. But Bush implied--disingenuously--that weapons inspections would not work..."

Dave Koehler (Philly Burbs) via Carla Binion:
"...When facts are not available or convenient, there are many tricks one can use to present an argument. Here are a few examples of tactics the current administration is using to convince you and the world that invading Iraq is necessary. 
One of the favorite methods of the current administration is a false dilemma. This is when only two choices are given when, in reality, there are more options. Right after 9/11 you heard, “You are either with us or against us,” in the fight against terrorism. Actually, countries can be both against terrorism and not an ally of the U.S. More recently, many countries are showing that they are both against a pre-emptive war and against the current Iraqi regime. 
We are also hearing we must attack Iraq or Saddam will develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and threaten the world if we do nothing. Other options of monitoring with inspectors and containment are just flatly discounted. Are we to believe that Saddam could develop nuclear weapons while the world has him under a microscope?..."

"...Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, "Neither the United States of America, nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world," he said, "where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nations security to constitute maximum peril."..."

"...the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack..."

called Iraq a "..."direct and growing threat,"..."

and 

"...Bush also repeated his favorite passive phrase, "If war is forced upon us."..."

Cheney for Bush

"...What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat," Cheney instructed a Nashville gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August 2002, "is give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness."..."

Dwight Meredith (P.L.A.):
"...if Saddam’s WMD program is on the verge of having such capability, what was President Bush doing taking a month’s vacation in August? We suspect that President Bush knows that Saddam has no such capability and knows that such capability is not eminent..."

David Olive (Toronto Star):
"...With an invasion force the U.S. itself now boasts was of relatively minimal strength, Saddam's regime was easily toppled. On that point, the neo-con war hawks were correct. Iraq was poised to fall like a house of cards. By the second week of the conflict, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, was saying he felt embarrassed by the Iraqis' poor fighting skills — or unwillingness to fight at all. As the enormity of the rout was clear early last week, the Pentagon was dismissing the Iraqi forces as "a paper army." Pushed to the wall, the Iraqi regime did not try to blunt the enemy advance by dipping into its vaunted stockpile of "weapons of mass destruction" — or perhaps that, too, was a paper inventory. Of course, the outcome of this dubious contest between the world's lone superpower and a puny, impoverished adversary with no allies was never in doubt. The U.S. and its British ally were taking on an enemy that had not been able to obtain spare parts for its tanks for the past decade and proved unable to get its fighter jets airborne..."

CBS News:
"...Thielmann's last job at the State Department was director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs, which was responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Secretary Powell. He and his staff had the highest security clearances, and everything – whether it came into the CIA or the Defense Department – came through his office...
At the time of Powell's speech, Thielmann says that Iraq didn't pose an imminent threat to anyone: “I think it didn't even constitute an imminent threat to its neighbors at the time we went to war.”
But Thielmann also says that he believes the decision to go to war was made first, and then the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion..."

John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman (The New Republic):
"...Cheney's admonition is resonant, but not for the reasons he intended. The Bush administration displayed an acute case of willful blindness in making its case for war. Much of its evidence for a reconstituted nuclear program, a thriving chemical-biological development program, and an active Iraqi link with Al Qaeda was based on what intelligence analysts call "rumint." Says one former official with the National Security Council, "It was a classic case of rumint, rumor-intelligence plugged into various speeches and accepted as gospel."
In some cases, the administration may have deliberately lied. If Bush didn't know the purported uranium deal between Iraq and Niger was a hoax, plenty of people in his administration did--including, possibly, Vice President Cheney, who would have seen the president's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Rice and Rumsfeld also must have known that the aluminum tubes that they presented as proof of Iraq's nuclear ambitions were discounted by prominent intelligence experts. And, while a few administration officials may have genuinely believed that there was a strong connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, most probably knew they were constructing castles out of sand.
The Bush administration took office pledging to restore "honor and dignity" to the White House. And it's true: Bush has not gotten caught having sex with an intern or lying about it under oath. But he has engaged in a pattern of deception concerning the most fundamental decisions a government must make. The United States may have been justified in going to war in Iraq--there were, after all, other rationales for doing so--but it was not justified in doing so on the national security grounds that President Bush put forth throughout last fall and winter. He deceived Americans about what was known of the threat from Iraq and deprived Congress of its ability to make an informed decision about whether or not to take the country to war..."

"...Last October, the Director of Central Intelligence issued a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Continuing Programs of Weapons of Mass Destruction. That document contained the consensus judgments of the intelligence community, based upon the best information available about the Iraqi threat. The NIE declared -- quote: "We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of UN Resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." End quote. Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist [CG emphasis]..."

Hullaballoo:
"...It's very interesting to see the administration quoting at length from the vaunted NIE as if it were a sacred rune. On September 12, 2002, the president went to the UN and proclaimed:
Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program -- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons
[...]
Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We've tried sanctions. We've tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.

Just 2 days before, however, on the Senate floor, Dick Durbin said:
As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I am deeply concerned that the intelligence community has not completed the most basic document which is asked of them before the United States makes such a critical life-or-death decision...
I was stunned to learn last week that we have not produced a national intelligence estimate showing the current state of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is incredible, with all of the statements made by members of this administration about those weapons, is the fact that the intelligence community has not been brought together...
...When we are talking about a possible invasion of Iraq and a war against Iraq, why haven't we really created the most basic document that we have the power to create in this Government--the national intelligence estimate--so we know exactly what we may be up against in Iraq? It has not been done.

(being extremely compassionate here)

"...Some claim we should not have acted because the threat from Saddam Hussein was not imminent. Yet, as the president has said, "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intention, politely putting us on notice before they strike?'' ..."

"...In the days of the Cold War, we were able to manage the threat with strategies of deterrence and containment. But it’s a lot tougher to deter enemies who have no country to defend. And containment is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction, and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States..."

Gene Healy (Cato Institute):
"...The administration argues that Saddam Hussein may not be deterrable. But it has provided no reason to believe that deterrence—which sufficed to contain nuclear-armed Mao and Stalin, the gold and silver medallists in the 20th Century's genocidal Olympics—will not work And it ignores the fact that Hussein has demonstrably and repeatedly been deterred from using weapons of mass destruction against enemies capable, like the U.S., of massive retaliation...
...again, Hussein had chemical weapons during the Gulf War. However, in response to a thinly veiled American threat of nuclear retaliation, he chose not to use them. None of the 42 scuds launched at Israel was tipped with chemical weapons. He didn't even use them against American forces driving him out of Kuwait, and possibly marching onto Baghdad: none of the 40-some scuds shot at allied forces during the war had chemical payloads...
A scud delivery comes with a return address, they argue; delivery by terrorist intermediaries may not. But if Hussein ever considered this strategy, the evidence suggests that deterrence worked here as well. Hussein first got nerve gas over 20 years ago. His hatred of Israel predates his hatred of the U.S. (Israel launched a preventive airstrike on the Osirik nuclear reactor in 1981, after all). Hussein's had longstanding links with anti-Israel terror groups like the Palestine Liberation Front and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Thus, he's long had the means, the motive, and the requisite links with people who would carry out a sneak chemical attack on Israel. If using terrorists as a WMD delivery system is such a foolproof scheme and if it would be so hard to discern who the culprit was, then why hasn't Hussein tried at least once over the years to use them against (militarily dominant and nuclear armed) Israel? Hint: the answer's in the parentheses..."

"...spoke about a liberated Iraq showing "the power of freedom to transform that vital region" and said "a new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region."..."

"...called for a congressional resolution that "sends a clear signal that the country is determined to disarm Iraq and thereby bring peace to the world."..."

"...said that a disarmed Hussein could remain in power, because, in one artful phrase, it would mean "the regime will have effectively changed."..."

"...[said that] the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, [was] "wildly off the mark."..."

George Will (Washington Post):
"...Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, was wrong in congressional testimony before the war. Although he said "we have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground," he insisted that Gen. Eric Shinseki, a veteran of peacekeeping in the Balkans, was "wildly off the mark" in estimating that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in occupied Iraq. .."

"...Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq.
He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo..."