George Bush told Tony Blair shortly before the invasion of Iraq that he intended to target other countries, including Saudi Arabia, which, he implied, planned to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Bush said he "wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan," according to a note of a telephone conversation between the two men on January 30 2003.
This is coming out in a book by Phillipe Sands, a British lawyer, who got hold of a policy memo from 10 Downing Street, according to the Guardian. Further:
In September 2003, the Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia had embarked on a strategic review that included acquiring nuclear weapons. Until then, the assumption in Washington was that Saudi Arabia was content to remain under the US nuclear umbrella despite the worsening relationship between Riyadh and Washington.
So this was to be another "WMD" rationale, except for one matter which has been glaring at us for a long time -- a curious ability to overlook nuclear weapons already in hand (and spreading through a black market) in Pakistan.
Despite hard evidence that Pakistan was deeply involved in exporting nuclear technology, the Bush administration embraced President Pervez Musharraf as an ally against al-Qaida. Washington's relations with Saudi Arabia remain cool. Mr Sands does not shed further light on the issue.
There's a nice, vituperative little piece by Kos this morning which reminds us that the original enemy wasn't Iraq. The manufactured rationale which took the US into Iraq came a little later. Meanwhile Osama and much of Al Qaeda were ensconced in the mountains of Pakistan. Couple that with Pakistan's nuclear export progam and you'd think Pakistan would be a target... But no... Not yet... Or is it?
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