Arab Amer. Pub says in May 2000 smirk said he was taking Iraq out

[donsu]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/11/1449253


Arab American Publisher Says Bush Told Him in May 2000 He Planned to "Take Out" Iraq


Osama Siblani, publisher of "The Arab American" newspaper, says George W Bush told him in May 2000 - before he was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate - that he is going to "take out" Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Excerpt of rush transcript:

OSAMA SIBLANI: I met with the President, and he wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: You met with the President of the United States?

OSAMA SIBLANI: Yes, when he was running for election in May of 2000 when he was a governor. He told me just straight to my face, among 12 or maybe 13 republicans at that time here in Michigan at the hotel. I think it was on May 17, 2000, even before he became the nominee for the Republicans. He told me that he was going to take him out, when we talked about Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

And I said, ‘Well, you know, I totally disagree with you. You just can’t go around taking leaders out of their countries, you know. Let the Iraqi people do it. They can't do it on empty stomachs. Lift sanctions. Keep the pressure on Saddam Hussein, but lift the sanctions on the Iraqi people. People can't make moves on an empty stomach. Once they start establishing, you know, a connection with the United States and helping democracy inside, they will overthrow him.’

And then he said, ‘We have to talk about it later.’ But at that time he was not privy to any intelligence, and the democrats had occupied the White House for the previous eight years. So, he was not privy to any intelligence whatsoever. He was not the official nominee of the Republican Party, so he didn't know what kind of situation the weapons of mass destruction was at that time.
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more proof that they knew they would take the election by coup

(you can purchase an audio or video of the interview)

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Why did he wait 5 years to tell anyone about this?

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. Possibly because he's an "Arab American"

And didn't want to be thrown into Gitmo on some phony terrorism charges (or lack of)?

[PuraVidaDreamin]

3. Daddy was still connected tho'

via CIA and wasn't he asking for and receiving some type of briefings that other past presidents had the same access to
but never requested?

[Lone Pawn]

4. George H. W. Bush

Would indeed have full access to the President's daily security briefing, and always took full advantage of it--a former CIA man, he takes a hell of an interest in intelligence.

Even if he didn't, we 'knew' he had WMD then. We all did. It was common knowledge that he used them in the Iran-Iraq war and the US-sponsored Shia uprising--before inspectors started denying us, what reason did we have (especially someone as out of it as GWB) to think they didn't?