As the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war approaches, Michael Isikoff, co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, is offering insight on the Bush administration’s steps to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
“There was a determination to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein from the moment that 9/11 took place,” Isikoff said to Alex Witt Sunday. “The very afternoon, Donald Rumsfeld is in a meeting with aides, tasking them to get the intelligence to show a link to Saddam Hussein before there was even any evidence. In fact there was no evidence of a link to Saddam Hussein but they were determined to find it from the get-go, which does show a predisposal to right the wrongs of not going to Baghdad in—during the First Persian Gulf War to redeem the good name of the first President Bush.”
Witt asked Isikoff what the motivation was for the invasion.
“This is one of history’s riddles at this point. There are bits and pieces one can take from the public record,” he said. “Certainly 9/11 played a big role and in the aftermath of 9/11, the heightened, awareness of threats to the country and a determination to see that nothing like that ever happened again. And that’s a given. But that wasn’t enough to make the case to the American public and the Congress that it was reason to go to war. “
Watch the documentary Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, which airs Friday, March 22, on msnbc.
