The Bush administration’s obsession with Iraq began within days of Bush taking office. That divergence from more pressing priorities would not change, even after the 9/11 attacks. Whether Saddam was involved or not, Bush would keep his focus on Saddam. Even as the campaign was launched to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan, military hardware was being pre-positioned in Kuwait to prepare for an invasion in Iraq—without authority from Congress. By the end of July 2002, Bob Woodward wrote in “Plan of Attack” (Simon & Schuster, 2004), “Bush had approved some 30 projects that would eventually cost $700 million.” Many of those projects were funded with money diverted from the Afghan campaign. “Congress, which is supposed to control the purse strings, had no real knowledge or involvement, had not even been notified that the Pentagon wanted to reprogram money.”
There had been no al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the invasion. Soon after the invasion, however, al-Qaeda operatives began infiltrating Iraq. They established an autonomous group there, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and helped fuel the insurgency against American occupation—and impose Taliban-like repression on Iraqis in regions they controlled.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the relatively small number of American and NATO troops could barely contain a Taliban resurgence. And it could do little against a resurgence of al-Qaeda’s power in border regions with Pakistan. The Pakistani government of Pervez Musharraf went one step further in undermining Bush’s “war on terror.” He agreed to grant tribal leaders in those regions . Al-Qaeda has since strengthened its terrorist capabilities, according to American intelligence officials.
