As he sends American troops and planes into Iraq, President Bush has in mind more then changing a country. His dream is to make the entire Middle East into a Different Place, and one safer for American Interest…It’s a dream that has grown slowly over the last half-dozen years, from seeds first sown by a small group of neoconservative thinkers laboring in the quiet vineyards of policy think tanks during the Clinton Administration…One of the places the idea was born was the Project for the New American Century, which was a fledgling and unnoticed neoconservative think tank[and included Jeb bush –Conor] in 1998. That’s when it told Mr.Clinton the time had dome to depose Saddam Hussein.

In a letter to Mr.Clinton put together by the group’s director, former intelligence official Gary Schmitt, the group declared: “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term this means a willingness to undertake military action… In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.”

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