CNN & ABC's Beck: Iraq war "was always about getting to Iran" -- WMDs just "a bonus"

On the April 3 edition of his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck claimed the war in Iraq "was never about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction. I mean, that was a bonus. It was always about getting to Iran, the head of the snake and the center of evil in the modern world."

Media Matters for America noted Beck's previous suggestion that the Bush administration's stated justification for going to war -- that former Iraq president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction - was, in fact, a cover for its real intention of "getting to Iran." On the July 24, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck stated the administration's weapons of mass destruction claim was "real" but "just gravy." He later added, "We went into Iraq three years ago to prevent World War III, as nuts as this might sound, to prevent the evil Iranian ideology from spreading across the region."

As Media Matters has also noted, ABC News announced January 9 that Beck will join Good Morning America as a regular commentator. At the time, GMA senior executive producer Jim Murphy said, "Glenn is a leading cultural commentator with a distinct voice."

From the April 3 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: From the beginning, I believe we, as a nation, have screwed this war up six ways to Sunday. George Bush framed it wrong in the first place. This was never about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction. I mean, that was a bonus. It was always about getting to Iran, the head of the snake and the center of evil in the modern world.

If he had been more up front at that point about that, I believe we wouldn't be facing the degree of opposition that we currently are and that he currently is.

—K.H.