Bushspeak for peace

Bush made this statement on 6/7/05 in response to a question about the Downing St Minutes, at a joint press conference with Blair.

Rather ridiculous remark in light of this post at veiled4allah, on connecting the dots on Iraq. She picks up on the money point emerging from the flood of leaked documents out of the UK. The illegal bombing raids that started in 2002. Seems Raw Story unearthed a quote from a US General who admitted it was done to prepare for the invasion.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 "carefully selected targets" before the war officially started.

...The nine months of allied raids "laid the foundations" for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions.

...Moseley told the briefing at Nellis airbase in Nebraska on July 17, 2003, that the raids took place under cover of patrols of the southern no-fly zone; their purpose was ostensibly to protect the ethnic minorities.

If this doesn't show prior intent, then nothing does. This goes way beyond the White House excuse that they had to plan for the eventuality of war. It's clearly a premeditated, pre-emptive offensive in preparation for an invasion. Which means every word that came out of George Bush's mouth about war as a last resort, was and is, a bald-faced lie.