Bush started machinery of war in 2002, book says

US George W. Bush set the US on the path to war in Iraq with a formal order signed in February 2002, more than a year before the invasion, according to a book published on Monday.

The revelation casts doubt on the public insistence by US and British officials throughout 2002 that no decision had been taken to go to war, pending negotiations at the UN.

Rumsfeld's War is by Rowan Scarborough, the Pentagon correspondent for the conservative Washington Times newspaper, which is known for its contacts in the defense department's civilian leadership.

"On February 16, 2002, Bush signed a secret national security council directive establishing the goals and objectives for going to war with Iraq, according to classified documents I obtained," Scarborough wrote, in an account of the "global war on terrorism" as seen from the office of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The next month, he writes, the head of central command, General Tommy Franks, conducted a "major Iraq war exercise code-named `Prominent Hammer,' and in April he briefed the joint chiefs of staff on the invasion plan.

"Franks's plan called for 200,000 to 250,000 troops and a two-front land war ... striking from Kuwait and from Turkey," the book says.

The National Security Council refused to comment on the book's claims concerning the February directive.

"I don't do book reviews," a White House official said.