Bush Focused on Hussein in Late 2001, Book Says

President Bush asked for a plan to invade Iraq in November 2001, less than three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and at a time when U.S. forces were in the midst of ousting the Taliban regime from Afghanistan.

The timing of Bush’s war planning, revealed in a book to be released Monday and confirmed Friday by the White House, is likely to fuel criticism that the Bush administration was preoccupied with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at the expense of pursuing Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

“You’re talking about the late period of November, when things were winding down in Afghanistan,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters, confirming that Bush spoke to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at that time “about planning related to Iraq.”

“But there is a difference between planning and making a decision” to go to war, McClellan said.

The timing of Bush’s planning to oust Hussein is one of several insights in the new book, “Plan of Attack,” by journalist Bob Woodward.

In two other recent books, former administration insiders said they were surprised by the president’s early focus on Iraq.

Bush’s intense interest in Iraq became clear within days of his inauguration, said the president’s former treasury secretary, Paul H. O’Neill. Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official for Bush and previous presidents, wrote that the day after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush aggressively instructed him and other aides to “see if Saddam did this,” despite evidence pointing to the Al Qaeda network.

In his book, Woodward describes Vice President Dick Cheney as a “powerful, steamrolling force” in the administration who some in the government believed had a “fever” for taking down Hussein.

The Iraqi leader had invaded Kuwait during the administration of Bush’s father and was accused by the U.S. of later plotting to kill the former president, for whom Cheney served as defense secretary.

The book also says the current president was not satisfied with the early intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, according to Associated Press, which obtained an advance copy of the book. Bush and other administration officials later pointed to suspected illegal weapons caches as a justification for war.

The book states that after a CIA briefing on the intelligence, Bush said the data would leave the public unconvinced, according to Associated Press. But CIA Director George J. Tenet described the case against Iraq as a “slam dunk.”

Bush said he took Tenet’s assurances as a guarantee, Woodward said during an interview on the CBS program “60 Minutes,” scheduled to air Sunday.

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and critics have accused the administration of misleading Congress and the public in its haste to invade.

The book says Bush predicted “enormous international angst and domestic speculation” if word got out that he had asked so early for an Iraq plan, according to Associated Press.

“It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war,” the president is quoted as saying. “And I’m not anxious to go to war.”

The book describes resistance within the administration to the planning for war against Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks, who was leading the war in Afghanistan, cursed when he was asked to begin thinking about Iraq, according to the Associated Press account of the book.

The book comes at a time when a recent surge in violence in Iraq presents new challenges to Bush in maintaining public support for the war ahead of the November presidential election.

As were the Clarke and O’Neill books, the Woodward book is being released with a well-orchestrated publicity effort that was to begin with the “60 Minutes” interview.

The blitz was preempted, however, when Associated Press reported excerpts Friday, even beating Woodward’s own newspaper, the Washington Post, where he is an assistant managing editor.

Bush was asked Friday about his planning for an Iraq war less than three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he could not recall exact dates but insisted that his primary focus at the time was ousting the Taliban.

Referring to conversations that took place four days after the attacks in 2001, Bush said, “I sat down with my national security team to discuss the response, and the subject of Iraq came up.

“And I said as plainly as I possibly could, we’ll focus on Afghanistan.”

Bush made his comments during a Rose Garden news conference with his closest ally on the Iraq war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Executives for the book’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, refused Friday to release excerpts, sticking to their publicity plan that also forbade stores from putting the book on shelves until Monday.

CBS and Simon & Schuster are owned by Viacom.

According to Woodward, the administration quietly shifted money around to pay for early preparations for war in Iraq, without the approval of Congress.

He said those preparations included building landing strips and addressing other military needs in Kuwait.

The money, about $700 million, was taken in July 2002 from a budget item that had been approved for the war in Afghanistan, Woodward wrote.

“Some people are going to look at that document called the Constitution, which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress,” Woodward says in his CBS interview.