Holy Shit!: Former Cabinet Member Says Iraq Invasion Planned Pre-9/11

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told 60 Minutes yesterday that invading Iraq was a central theme at the very first meeting of the National Security Council--eight months before 9/11. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.'"

"The treasury secretary is not in the position to have access to that kind of information," said one senior White House official.

Except that this treasury secretary disclosed 19,000 internal documents to Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Ron Suskind, whose new book, The Price of Loyalty, comes out tomorrow. "[O'Neill] got every file from [CIA Director] George Tenet," Suskind says. One in particular, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

“It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions,” says Suskind. “On oil in Iraq.”

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