Remember Bush's Plan to Create an Excuse to Attack Iraq?

I'm reading Joe Conason's brilliant new book "It Can Happen Here" and he points out that in 2003 Bush wanted a war so much that he concocted a plan to give him an excuse to attack.

The notes of a secret meeting between the president and British prime minister Tony Blair on January 31, 2003, show that Bush wanted to lure the Iraq dictator into a fatal error with a simple trick. Concerned that the U.N. weapons inspectors who ad returned to Iraq were failing to find any hidden weapons that would justify the invasion schedule for March, he told Blair that the United States might send "U-2 reconnaissance planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors..If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of U.N. resolutions]" And despite the absence of any forbidden weapons, the Anglo-American coalition would seize the excuse to invade.

[snip]
Three years later, Bush's scheme to lure Iraq into an armed provocation was revealed on the front page of the New York Times. Neither the British nor the American government denied the story.

One of the things that you learn from reading about these people is that they keep using the same tricks over and over again. And part of the trick is setting up a world view that gives them "permission" to do what they want. Then what they want to do is seen as "inevitable." Blair can say, "We HAD to do it. We REALLY want peace, but they hit our guys first, we just HAD to attack."

Will this be the Media's "Remember the Maine" Moment?
Remember the Maine! (But what about the Maine? The part were it was blown up because of an internal coal bunker fire (as the 1976 Rickover investigation believed) or the part where Hearst and the media wanted the American people to believe that the Spanish blew it up? Different investigations in 1898, 1911 and 1999 have lead to different conclusions. (link)


People who attack because they don't want to be seen as weak ARE the weak ones. What kind of man is more afraid of some name callers than taking effective action that will save lives and won't lead to a huge unneccessary conflict?