An investigative journalist who authored a controversial book on the Bush dynasty says he approached major US newspapers about publishing a story regarding President George W. Bush’s alleged intent to invade Iraq before the 2004 election but was rebuffed. The journalist and author, Russ Baker, says he had a taped interview of Bush’s onetime biographer in which he says Bush told him he intended to invade Iraq as early as 1999, during his presidential campaign. The interview with former Bush ghostwriter Mickey Herskowitz took place before the 2004 election. Baker eventually published his story online in October of 2004. In it, Herskowitz is quoted as saying, “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999. It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it.”
The Bush campaign parted ways with Herskowitz during his 2000 campaign for president and replaced him with campaign adviser Karen Hughes. Herskowitz was a sports writer in Houston and co-authored a book while Bush was governor of Texas in 1993.
In a column published Tuesday, Baker is quoted as saying that his story was turned down by The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
Baker described the Post as “scared because of the Dan Rather thing, and they said to me, ‘What do you have in the way of evidence?’”
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