Woodward book: Bush hid Iraq war plan, page 1

CIA chief said to see 'slam dunk' on weapons of mass destruction

WASHINGTON - President Bush secretly ordered a war plan drawn up against Iraq less than two months after U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan and was so worried the decision would cause a furor he did not tell everyone on his national security team, says a new book on his Iraq policy.

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in �Plan of Attack,� a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book, which will be available in book stores next week.

�I knew what would happen if people thought we were developing a potential war plan for Iraq,� Bush is quoted as telling Woodward. �It was such a high-stakes moment and ... it would look like that I was anxious to go to war. And I�m not anxious to go to war.�

According to a report Friday by the Washington Post, Woodward also claims that:

Starting in late December 2001, Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he insisted he was pursuing a diplomatic solution.

CIA Director George Tenet assured the president that it was a "slam dunk" case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Some of Vice President Dick Cheney's colleagues felt he had a "fever" about removing Saddam Hussein by force.

Secretary of State Colin Powell felt Cheney and his allies � among them the undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office � had established what amounted to a separate government.

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