Paul O’Neill: The battle is joined

The featured charge in the 60 Minutes segment on Paul O’Neill was the charge that the Bush administration had committed itself pre-9/11 to the removal of Saddam Hussein. The removal of Saddam Hussein had of course been the goal of official American public policy since the adoption of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. (You may recall that the halcyon days of 1998 occurred during the golden age of American foreign policy when the regnant principle was that military action by American armed forces could only be undertaken if it did not serve the national interest of the United States.)
At the heart of the O’Neill/60 Minutes charge was a document entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraq Oilfield Contracts.” In context the document implied that the Bush administration’s removal of Saddam Hussein was driven not by legitimate national security concerns in the wake of 9/11, but rather by preexisting concerns for Iraqi oil. It would be hard to imagine a more damning allegation against the president of the United States.
This morning FrontPage carries our exposure of the hoax underlying the document at the heart of this most lurid charge against the Bush administration: “Paul O’Neill’s lies about Iraq.” To our original post on this hoax we have added this footnote: Paul Krugman is ecstatic about O’Neill’s allegations, and views them as vindicating his three years of over-the-top Bush hatred. Needless to say, Krugman has nothing to say about O’Neill’s and Suskind’s fraudulent misrepresentation of the documents on which their claims are based.
The battle is joined. CBS and the New York Times propagate lies, the blogosphere points out undeniable facts that are inconvenient for the left. Spread the word.