Reply #5: Woodward talked about it on 60 minutes [View All]

[eileen from OH]

And here's the pertinent cutting as described on the CNN website. (Sorry. Yeah, yeah, one of these days I'll learn to link properly. Will post the link separately.) Also, there was more, though it's not on this site. Bandahr had to hear it from Bush's lips, so they arranged a meeting with just the two of them. PLUS, Bandahr left the first meeting and immediately went back and tried to recreate the map from memory. Keep in mind too, that this was BEFORE Bush even told Powell that it was war.



eileen from OH

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Shortly after the meeting with Rice, Bush told Rumsfeld, "Look, we're going to have to do this, I'm afraid," according to the book.

Subsequently, on January 11, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers met in Cheney's office with Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

At that meeting, Myers showed Prince Bandar a map labeled "top secret noforn," meaning that it was not to be seen by any foreign national, Woodward told CBS.

The map outlined the U.S. battle plan for Iraq, which was to begin with an air attack, followed by land invasions moving north from Kuwait and south from Turkey, according to the book.

Myers said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition" that though he had not read Woodward's book, he was familiar with the account of the meeting, and it was "basically correct."

"At that time, we were looking for support of our allies and partners in the region. Saudi Arabia's been a strategic partner in the region over a very long time," he said.

"Part of the way we do that is to ask them and show them how and why we need their support in certain areas.

"I felt comfortable, at the time, doing what we were doing with the Saudi ambassador."

According to Woodward's account of that meeting, Bandar pressed Cheney, Rumsfeld and Myers for assurances that Saddam would be ousted in this war, unlike in the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Cheney is quoted as telling Bandar, "Once we start, Saddam is toast" -- a remark that disquieted even the outspoken Rumsfeld, Woodward writes.