When Rice read an early draft, she was pleased that the president would be raising the connection between terrorism and WMD. It was an issue that had been put off of Bush's September 20, 2001 speech to Congress because he didn't want to scare the country any more than it already was. [YET - MG] Calling the connection an "axis" was clever and calling it an "axis of evil" was most clever, she thought.
Rice and Hadley were aware of the secret war planning on Iraq, and they worried that singling out Iraq as the embodiment of the "axis of evil" connection between WMD and terrorism would appear a declaration of war.
Rice was keeping tabs on what was by then a favorite parlor game in Washington: When does the Iraq war start? ... So she and Hadley suggested adding other countries. North Korea and Iran were the clear candidates because both supported terrorism and pursued weapons of mass destruction.
The president liked the idea of the three countries--Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Hadley had second thoughts about including Iran. The country had a complicated political structure with a democratically elected president, though the real power was held by the religious extremist and ayatollahs. Rice agreed initially and worried that there would be criticism that the president didn't understand that Iran was different, that it had a fledgling democracy movement.
I'm not entirely sure as to who didn't get the memo (about Iran being different) -- did Bush not get it? Did Cheney not get it?
I Read The Best and the Brightest, a few years ago. One theme pervaded - POWER. In reading present day political commentary, I find another theme pervading -- GAMES. So few of the elites have any personal stake in the continuing occupation of Iraq, and the presumptive invasion of Iran. Matters of life and death viewed as parlor games. The decadence and perversity of this environment sickens me.
(book continues, page 88)
Rice and Hadley proposed that Iran be dropped. Hadley said it would be inflammatory.
"No," the president said, "I want it in." Iran would stay. In an interview later, the president recalled he had specific reasons. (MG - someone sent him the memo that Iran, too, had OIL) "It is very important for the American president, at this point in history to speak very clearly about the evils the world faces," he said. "No question about it, North Korea, Iraq and Iran are the biggest threats to peace at the the time." Iran was unique, he said, because "there is a freedom in Iran and Iran is relatively open compared to other countries that are run by, you know, theocratic people, because of the Internet, the Diaspora here from the United States and Iran."
