US President 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.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
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