Phillipe Sands, author of "Lawless World," joined Hardball yesteday and told us that Bush and Blair took us to war under false pretenses including blowing off any notion of an insurgency. They also delved into the passion that Dick Cheney had with Iraq-soon after he entered the White House.

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(Transcript)

Matthews: ...Here's what Cohen received, a call from the vice president, Cheney. Here's what he said. He said that he wanted to see one thing. He did not want to see a tour of the world or all the potential threats to our country, he wanted to get a briefing for the new president, his partner, George W. Bush, on one topic, Iraq. That's all he wanted."

I talked to Bill Cohen a number of times on this, and he said it was breath taking. All the vice president wanted to know about, he didn't care about the world all around the globe, the only thing he cared about was Iraq. He was already honing in on that decision in December of 2000. What does that tell you?

SANDS: Well, I think it tells us that all of this is completely consistent with the materials that emerged, the Downing Street Memo of July 2002, and now this White House meeting memo of January 2003, that an early decision was taken, and I think what it raises is fundamental questions about competence.