(no subject)

[rozk]

Gakked from supergee this which in turn picks up on this. Now, there is an element of hesaid,shesaid in all of this, but short of active denial by Jacques Chirac that he told Romer or Maurice what these two quite reputable men say he told them, it really does seem that George W.Bush went into Iraq with apocalyptic missions in his head.

I don't want to swallow this story uncritically and am prepared to believe it is untrue, but it seems authentic enough to be worrying.

What particularly worries me about this is that if he said this to Chirac, he presumably also said it to eg Tony Blair, who, unlike Chirac, signed up for the whole thing. I do hope that the Chilcot enquiry presses him on this point, and asks him why he didn't tell Parliament about it.

Comments

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing an interview with Bush on the radio. Bush described himself as "The Lord's Anointed" and babbled about his "holy mission to lead this great nation of ours."

Amazingly, the radio announcer did NOT burst out laughing or say, "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding."

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

To be fair, American politicians seem to use that sort of liturgical language all the time - a speech isn't a speech unless you can fit in a reference to 'Gawd'.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I thought he sounded delusional and megalomaniacal. And I'm an American, born and raised.

[percyprune.livejournal.com]

This seems all too credible. Chirac is a nasty shit, but one grounded in reality. He was also, let's not forget, a veteran of a nasty war with Arab insurgents which gives him a perspective that Shrub has never possessed.

I'm reminded of Blair's sheepish admission to Paxman that he prayed with Bush. I would be unsurprised if Bush is a god-botherer who believes he had a mission from God.

[tomlloyd.livejournal.com]

Frankly, even if was entirely untrue it would still not detract from the terrifying level of crazyiness behind those decisions. From what I can tell the PR machine was so effective most Americans still believe Saddam routinely funded Islamic terrorism - rather than doing really nasty things to any of those he caught in Iraq and being the bulkhead they're trying to build in Iraq nowadays!

I remember a Bremner, Bird and Fortune special on the subject of the war where they said that Iraq had specifically asked Rumsfeld for the US's position on them possibly invading Kuwait the first time round, when he was there on official business. They only did so because he'd given them the go-ahead - and only afterwards checking where his country's oil came from.