During a discussion of former CIA director George Tenet's newly released book on the April 30 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews stated: “I wish somebody would write a book and tell me when President Bush, who's not an ideologue, why he went along with this war, with the neocons, with Tenet, with all the rest of them. I've never heard that really good account.” But contrary to Matthews' suggestion that Bush simply “went along” with the neoconservatives' push to invade Iraq, reporter Daniel Eisenberg wrote in a May 5, 2002, Time magazine article: “From the moment he took office, Bush has made noises about finishing the job his father started. Sept. 11 may have diverted his attention, but Iraq has never been far from his mind.”

Additionally, in a January 11, 2004, interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill claimed Bush's focus was on Iraq and Saddam Hussein even before the attacks of September 11: “And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. 'From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration -- eight months before Sept. 11.”

From the April 30 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

DAVID SHUSTER (correspondent): Well, and the language was always one of certainty. You always had Vice President Cheney saying “we know.” You have Donald Rumsfeld saying “we know.” You have the president saying, “The evidence is clear, we know.” And there's Rumsfeld, who acknowledges that it was --

MATTHEWS: Here's what I don't know. I wish somebody would write a book and tell me when President Bush, who's not an ideologue, why he went along with this war, with the neocons, with Tenet, with all the rest of them. I've never heard that really good account, have you?

SHUSTER: No, but --

MATTHEWS: We don't know why he took us to war. We know Cheney wanted to go from day one, according to Tenet.

SHUSTER: No, but what you pick up, Chris, especially with Tenet, is you pick up that there were series of people like George Tenet who were enablers. For whatever reason the president wanted to go to war, there was George Tenet, the head of the CIA, providing information, allowing the president to make his case and saying, “You know what? I'm going to be the team player.” Even though he now says he personally felt that the wrong case was being made, that the evidence didn't support what the administration was saying, he enabled the president through his silence, and that's where the criticism is coming in.

MATTHEWS: You know, I'm skeptical of ideology all the time. Anyway, thank you, David Shuster. Thank you. George Tenet will be our guest next Monday on Hardball.