July 31, 2004: A Pretext for War - James Bamford

Art Bell interviews James Bamford, bestselling author of The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, about his new book A Pretext for War. Bamford describes how the Bush administration entered office with a predetermined agenda to attack Iraq, driven by both personal animosity toward Saddam Hussein and the ideological goals of neoconservative officials who had advocated regime change since 1996.

Bamford reveals that on September 11th, only 14 fighter jets were on alert across the entire United States, with none stationed near New York or Washington. He explains that the president's own account of seeing the first plane hit the World Trade Center on television before entering the classroom in Sarasota could not be true, since no footage of the first impact was broadcast until that evening. Bamford also details the chaos inside the White House as a plane approached and the evacuation of the Vice President to the underground bunker.

The discussion addresses intelligence failures and the role of Ahmed Chalabi in providing fabricated defector testimony to justify the war. Bamford argues that every source the government relied upon to claim a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda turned out to be fraudulent, and that pulling weapons inspectors out of Iraq before completing their work was a critical and costly mistake.