The Unknown Known Page #4

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No, I don't think so.

If the purpose of the war

is to get rid of Saddam Hussein,

why can't they just

assassinate him?

Why do you have

to invade his country?

Who's "they?"

Us.

You said, "they."

You didn't say, "we."

Well, "we."

I will rephrase it.

Why do we have to do that?

We don't assassinate

leaders of other countries.

Well, Dora Farms,

we were doing our best.

That was an act of war.

The beginning of the war,

even before it started,

George tenet came to see me

in my office at the Pentagon.

He said, "we think we know

where Saddam Hussein is."

I said, "terrific,"

and I called the White House

and said to the president,

"we're coming over."

We met in his office.

George tenet would go

from the oval office

in to a side office

and talk to the people

in the central

intelligence agency

who were talking to the agents

on the ground in Iraq.

The word came back

that somebody had identified

Saddam Hussein

as being at Dora Farms.

George tenet was convinced

that his people on the ground

were giving him

the straight dope.

They were certain he was there.

We'd put on alert aircraft.

The aircraft took off

and went to that location.

The president

went around the room asking,

"should we do this

or not?"

Everyone in the room,

as I recall,

agreed it was

sufficiently solid intelligence,

sufficient to do it.

We just were so hopeful

that by killing Saddam Hussein,

we could end the need for a war,

that in fact, by that act,

you would change the regime.

The planes went in,

and they struck the farm...

...killed some people.

They came out

with a stretcher with a body.

People there

on the ground asserted

that it was Saddam Hussein.

They think they killed him.

And it turned out, it was not.

What a wonderful

thing it would have been

if he could have been killed.

The war would have been avoided.

It's possible.

May not have been,

but it's possible.

You wonder why

they didn't respond

to all the efforts

that were made

to avoid that war.

How could they be that mixed up

in what the inevitable

next steps would be?

Why they wouldn't sit down

and have

an agonizing reappraisal,

and it come to some

logical conclusion?

I was elected to congress.

I was 30 years old.

It was during the Vietnam war

and the civil rights era.

There were big issues before us.

I would come back sometimes

knowing I didn't know

if I voted right,

that there are arguments here

and there were arguments there.

"Ugh, I hope I voted

the right way.

Why did I do what I did?"

And I'd sit down

and dictate that.

After almost every vote,

every amendment,

I would go back

with my little dictaphone.

I would dictate a note and say,

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