So, the war began when in the president's mind?
To which McClellan replied as the article continues "Well, not too long after September 11 -- in those few months after September 11, when he made the decision we're going to take a broad view of the war on terror and that Iraq is going to be part of that. I think that the decision had essentially been made, we're going to confront Iraq, and unless Saddam Hussein does something that-really I don't think anybody would expect he would do, like completely come clean, then we were headed on a path to war.
So I think the president, in a lot of ways, boxed himself in and left himself no out, partly because he was determined to go forward with the policy."
McClellan echoes Cannistraro as the article continues "So "What Happened" was, that the intelligence was packaged together in a way to make it sound more ominous and more grave and more urgent than it really was. I don't think that this was some deliberate, conscious effort to go and mislead American people, but it was part of this permanently campaign mentality that exists in Washington too often today and it was taken from other policies, and brought into the issue of war and peace where it becomes especially problematic and especially troubling.
And that's why I think what I get to in this book is so important for people to understand, so we that can learn from this and not make these kind of mistakes again where we're rushing into a war that now is very clearly one that was unnecessary."
Olbermann got McClellan to amplify the hypocrisy behind "Operation Iraqi Freedom as the article continues "But in terms of the coercive democracy, that was-and you bring up a very good point about the oxymoron there-but that was always the strategy for going into Iraq in first place. And I think that is what really drove the president's motivation to push ahead and rush into this.
When I think that there were probably other options-there were definitely other options available to him. He didn't have to box himself in. But when he went to the United Nations he said, either he disarms and the U.N.-if he doesn't, then the U.N. goes in, or the security council authorizes it, or we will do it ourselves."
Even the former Press Secretary knew we couldn't force democracy down the Iraqis throats at a barrel of a gun.
McClellan's great devotion for big bro 43 ended when he realized that W lied to him about destroying a covert CIA operatives WMD network as the article continues with Olbermann's question"In classifying parts of the National Intelligence Estimate, about Iraq and to use against Joe Wilson, is he, do you think, did he in essence or legally OK the leaking of Valerie Plame's CIA identity?"
To which McClellan replies as the article continues "But it did set in motion the chain events that led to the leak and to Valerie Plame's identity. I do not believe that the president was any way in-directly involved in the leaking of her identity.
But that was a very disillusioned moment when I found out-when it initially hit the press and we were I believe it was North Carolina, if I remember correctly. And the reporter shouted out to the president, is it true that you authorized the secret leaking of this previously classified information that the president does have the legal authority to walk on Air Force One?
And the president asked, what was the reporter asking. And I said, he asserted you were the one that authorized Scooter Libby leaking this information. And he said, yes, I did. And it really took me back. I could tell he didn't want to sit there and talk about it. And I walked back to the senior staff area on Air Force One, where I usually sit, and it took a while for that to sink in.
But that was just before I left. And at that point, I had made a decision that I could no longer continue in this administration. Now, there were changes coming in soon. I talked about this and Josh Bolten was looking to make some changes too. So my time frame was moved up a little bit from what I preferred. But that was the second defining moment that really caused me a lot of dismay and disillusionment."
McClellan believed W would be a "uniter not a divider"!
Could anyone really be that naïve? He stated as the article continues "But as I left the White House-I think you need some time to kind of step back from being in that bubble to really be able to reflect on events and try to understand and make sense of them. Because, when I went to work for the president, I had all of this great hope like a lot of people that he was going to come to Washington and change Washington, as he had governed in Texas, as bipartisan governor who had 70 percent approval.
It didn't happen and I wanted to go back and look, why didn't that happen? Why did things go so terribly off course from what he promised?
He assured people he was going to be a bipartisan leader, a person of honor and integrity, restore honor and integrity to the White House. Where did things go wrong? That's really the overall narrative in the book, but certainly the Plame episode was a defining moment for me that is a central part of the book."
