| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:43 pm Post subject: Why Iraq? The short answer—neocons |
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Why Iraq? The short answer—neocons.
Why? — Neoconservatives!
Neocon's 7-Year March to Iraq
Nine Most Effective Neocons in Starting War: Cheney Vice President Libby Cheney's chief of Staff
Rumsfeld Sect. of Defense Wurmser Cheney's Mideast Advisor
Wolfowitz Under Rumsfeld Abrams Security Council, Mideast
Feith Under Wolfowitz Podhoretz President's Freedom Medal
Perle Defense Policy Board
(Quotes are from neocon web sites.) The Neocons Page
Phase 1: The Focus on Israel
In early 1996 at IASPS, a “Jerusalem-based think tank with an office in Washington.” Wurmser, Feith, Perle and others wrote a report for the new Israeli prime minister, calling the removal of Saddam from power "an important Israeli strategic objective." Perle flew to Israel and presented the report to Netanyahu.
December, 1996. In Commentary Magazine, Podhoretz explained that Iraq was a threat to Israel because of its Scud missiles--this thinking seems to be the origin of the WMD rationale. Wurmser, however, wrote a report saying the danger of Iraq was that it was “crumbling” and was likely to be taken over by Syria or Iran, so pre-em-tive action was needed.
Phase 2: Joining Forces—PNAC is Born
June 1997. PNAC, the neocon think tank that lobbied hardest for the war was founded by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Abrams, and Podhoretz, among others.
January 1998. PNAC's first public statement, an open letter to Clinton (from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Perle, etc.) urged necessary “military steps”... “for removing Saddam's regime from power” to protect, our troops, Israel, and moderate Arab states from the “possibility” of Saddam acquiring the capability to deliver possible WMD. In May it wrote a similar letter to Senator Lott.
Phase 3: Theory, Planning and Positioning
March 1999. Wurmser publishes his book on Iraqi regime change. "Iraq's strategic importance to the US derives from a source beyond the pernicious, extortionist character of Saddam's regime. Iraq occupies some of the most strategically blessed and resource-laden territory of the middle east. ... Iraq also has large, proven oil reserves, water, ..." Wurmser also notes that Iraq threatens its neighbors, but in so saying, mentions only Israel.
January, 2001. Writing for OurJerusalem.com, Wurmser argues "Instead, Israel and the United States should ... strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region—the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza. That would [prove] fighting with either the U.S. or Israel is suicidal."
Cheney fights for and gets Rumsfeld, the rest of the neocon team follows.
May 2001. Reuel Gerecht, the Director of the Middle East Initiative, at PNAC, publishes “Liberate Iraq” in the neocon magazine “The Weekly Standard.” He says Chalabi is more informed than the CIA, and Bush is retreating, and lays out a strategy for war quite similar to the one eventually followed.
Phase 4: 9/11 and the Team Swings into Action
September 19, 2001. Rumsfeld calls a 19-hour meeting of Defense Policy Board (Perl, Wolfowitz, Feith, Chalabi, etc.). A letter is written, but published by PNAC in Washington Times (Sept. 20). It contains only two sentences on Bin Laden and Afghanistan, but large paragraphs on (1) Iraq (with Iran and Syria) and (2) Hezbollah as well as a paragraph on Israel and Palestine. One week after 9/11, the neocons focused almost entirely on Iraq and threats to Israel, did not mention Al Qaeda, and used Osama only as a stepping stone to their real goal–Iraq.
May 2003. Wolfowitz says “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction.” Then four days later, "The war in Iraq was impressively quick and successful."
more neocon background:PNAC Project for the New American Century. Neocon foreign and defense policy think tank. Includes: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Abrams, and Podhoretz.
JINSA The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs is committed to explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's security. Served on Advisory Board: Cheney (1994), Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle.
Rumsfeld Cheney's pick for Secretary of Defense
Wolfowitz Earliest critique of Bush I's decision to leave Saddam in Power. Time magazine's "godfather" of the 2nd Iraq war. Served under Cheney in first Iraq war.
Wurmser Cheney's Middle East advisor
Feith Undersecretary of Defense (to Wolfowitz) for policy
Perle Rumsfeld's pick for chairman of Defense Policy Board. Forced to step down as chairman, but still on the Board.
Libby Cheney's Chief of Staff. Wrote controversial “Defense Planning Guidance” with Wolfowitz in 1992 for Cheney. Wolfowitz and Libby were upset that Bush 1 did not remove Saddam.
Abrams Top Mideast advisor on the National Security Council. Author of Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America. Son-in-law of Podhoretz. Pled guilty to making false statements to Congress.
Podhoretz Now retired edi
Who's Most Responsible? Cheney ! He brought in neoconservatives to control the Defense Department and his section of the White House and even pushed one into Powell's State Department. These neoconservatives brought in more neoconservatives.
The role of the neoconservatives. They were the only group pushing to invade Iraq from 1997 through 2001. They gained the support of Bush only after 9/11 and false stories about Iraq's link to Al Qaeda. In fact all major aspects of the invasion—including major mistakes—were planned by the neoconservatives before 9/11. Timeline of Evidence
Why did they want to take Iraq? Wurmser, Dick Cheney's assistant, wrote in 1996 "Iraq ... occupies some of the most strategically important and well-endowed territories of the Middle East. ... whoever inherits Iraq dominates the entire Levant [Mideast] strategically." Wurmser was particularly worried that Syria or Iran, Israel's two most implacable enemies, would gain control of Iraq, which he viewed as a "crumbling state."
7-Year Leadup to War
Neoconservatives also wanted military bases in Iraq, oil company contracts and to control more oil (not to steal it). The U.S. was hoping to move military bases out of Saudi Arabia and into Iraq, thus helping stabilize the Saudi regime which had been under attack by bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslims for harboring U.S. troops.
What about the official reasons for the war?
Weapons of mass destruction?
• Didn't exist. Faked evidence. Actual worry was danger to Israel not U.S.
Al Qaeda?
• Not mentioned first 4 years. Said connection irrelevant.
• After 9/11 focused on Hezbolla not Al Qaeda.
Because Iraqis deserved freedom?
• Sure they do and Saddam was horrific. But Rumsfeld tried to sell him a pipeline while he knew Saddam was gassing his own people. The neocons never mention evil dictators in Africa or Cambodia or Pakistan.
Sanctions and inspections could not stop Saddam's weapons program?
• The military new they were working and the war proved them right.
• Wurmser told us in 1997 that Iraq was too weak.
Only neocons pushed for the war from 1997 through Rumsfeld's secret meeting to plan the war just after 9/11.
It's Cheney's War
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and 16 other neocons founded PNAC in 1997. It has openly pushed for the IRAQ war ever since. Cheney fought to bring Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz into the Defense Department and other neocons into the White House. Then a week after 9/11, Rumsfeld called a secret 19-hour expanded PNAC meeting, and the neocons planned the war--without Powell or Bush.
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Is the Potential AIPAC/Neocon Scandal About to "Blow Up"?
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/03/04/is-the-potential-aipac-neocon-scandal-about-to-blow-up.php
Last edited by Alpha on Sat Mar 05, 2005 2:28 am; edited 1 time in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:14 pm Post subject: Re: 'A Clean Break' (from James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War |
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Forwarded:
Here is an article written over 5 years ago by David
Wurmser, "Let's Defeat Syria, Not Appease It" By David
Wurmser ON THE ISSUES American Enterprise Institute
(AEI) Online (Washington) Publication Date:
February 25, 2000. Wurmser is one of the top neocon's
in the George W. Bush Administration. He is Middle
East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. Neocons
are not afraid to promote their war mongering views,
even 5 years ago. The real problem is putting people
like this, who advocate war which is a crime against
peace and a war crime under the Nuremberg Code, into
positions of power.
Ed Corrigan
Let's Defeat Syria, Not Appease It
By David Wurmser
Posted: Friday, February 25, 2000
ON THE ISSUES
AEI Online (Washington)
Publication Date: February 25, 2000
Although Syria has been
conducting peace
negotiations with Israel, past events show
that Syria’s Baathist regime
creates conflict to
survive. Therefore, as long as that
regime survives, Israel cannot
hope to achieve
peace with Syria.
As the violence in Lebanon
escalated in recent
weeks, one thing was certain: Israel
would attack Lebanese targets
but leave the
roughly 40,000 Syrian troops that were
deployed in Lebanon untouched.
This was so
because both Israel’s Labor
government and the Clinton
administration
believe Syria wants to make peace but is
perched precariously between
two trends:
Iranians and other "enemies of peace" face
the United States and the
"peace camp." It is a
neatly packaged story. It is also wrong.
The theory was articulated a
year ago by U.S.
Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk: "Syria
has become a type of nexus
point between the
negative, disturbing trends . . . and
other underlying trends that could, if the United
States succeeds in
advancing the peace process, coalesce and allow
the United States to advance its agenda while
containing the enemies
of peace. . . . The Syrian government would
prefer to follow the route of peace." The most
effective response for
Israel, then, is to restrain itself, offer Syria more
in
the negotiations, and downplay any Israeli or
American strategic
advantages in the region.
Yet, Israel has four times, under four different
Israeli governments
in the last five years, offered Syria the entire Golan
Heights. The current Israeli government also has
signaled that it will
recognize Syria’s takeover of Lebanon and lobby
for a monster economic payoff from the U.S. Congress
and massive
international development assistance from
elsewhere. Israel’s prime minister, against the
strong objections of
his military, argues for U.S. military sales to Syria.
The United States and the European Union have also
pressed Turkey to
warm its relations with Damascus, in line with
Mr. Indyk’s theory that Syria acts disturbingly
because it feels
vulnerable and isolated.
In other words, in exchange for the Golan Heights,
money, U.S. arms,
Lebanon, diplomatic support, strategic surrender,
and an international guarantee to help the Assad
regime survive, Syria
would only have to rein in Hezbollah and allow
Israel to plant its flag atop one embassy in
Damascus. It takes
considerable imagination to envision what more could
be offered to tempt Syria into peace.
Conflict: A Pillar of the Syrian Regime
Syria’s rejection of Israel’s two demands—reining in
Hezbollah and
diplomatic normalization—shows how impossible
it is for this regime in Damascus to ever make peace
with Israel.
Regimes fall not when they impoverish their nations
but when they lose their will to survive. Conflict
remains the pillar
of the Syrian regime’s legitimacy and the excuse for
its
repression and poverty. It would be suicidal for
Syria to surrender
the definitive idea of its regime—conflict with the
imperialist West and its local representative,
Israel—by allowing an
Israeli flag to fly in Damascus and disarming the
symbol of its continued struggle, Hezbollah.
Conflict is safe since
Damascus is confident that with each challenge,
Israel, under American encouragement, will shrink
from conflict and
instead limit itself to attacking easy but useless
targets. It also understands that Israel’s bombing
of Lebanese targets
is viewed in the region as weakness, since
everyone knows the Lebanese are mere Syrian puppets.
By now, Syria’s modus operandi should be clear. Ever
since Mr. Assad’s
secular Baathist regime took control of Syria, it
has behaved consistently. Since its Stalinist system
bars it from
accomplishing anything constructively, it vindicates
and enriches itself by creating problems and then
reaping the benefits
of "solving" them.
In 1964, it tried to trigger a conflict with Israel
and then offered
to enter Lebanon to "protect" it from Israel—a trap
the
Lebanese wisely, but only temporarily, averted.
Syria fomented a civil
war in Lebanon in 1976 and then came in as a
"peacekeeper," confiscating much of Lebanon’s wealth
in the process.
It shot down a U.S. plane in 1983 and then
"intervened" with the Lebanese to surrender the
pilot in a
well-choreographed scene. It created and encouraged
terror
groups to take U.S. hostages in the early 1980s and
then "helped"
release them, with equally impressive theatrics. It
unleashed Hezbollah in 1993 and 1996 against
Israel’s northern border,
and then stepped in to work out a cease fire.
That worked so well the second time—since it brought
U.S. Secretary of
State Warren Christopher to Damascus in
such a state of despair that he was willing to cool
his heals on
Damascus airport’s tarmac and return home without
meetings—that Mr. Assad has now returned to this
formula. After all,
it is not often that a tiny country with a collapsing
economy and few global allies can so easily tweak
the world’s only
superpower.
A Challenge to the Syrian Regime
In fact, conditions have never been riper for a
challenge to the
Baathist Syrian regime. Syria’s lordship over Lebanon
is
shaky. The Christian community harbors seething
hatred for Syria. The
new majority in Lebanon, The Shiite Muslims,
are beginning to focus on their own interests at
Syria’s cost. A large
body of Lebanese Shia are openly rejecting the
influence of the Iranian revolution, its
totalitarian religious
theories, and its military. Inter-clerical strife in
Lebanon
mirrors a similar development in Iran. The chances
for a
Shiite-Christian alliance emerging to expel Syria
haven’t been
brighter since 1982.
Israel should realize that it will have peace only
after it destroys
Syria’s Baathist regime. Then it could view each round
of conflict with Syria as an opportunity to strike
Syria’s forces and
fragile infrastructure in Lebanon. The Lebanese, many
of whom are waiting impatiently for the day in which
Syria is weakened
or shows signs of cracking, will take matters
into their own hands, and Syria will slowly bleed to
death there. The
Baathist regime in Syria is addicted to conflict. If
Israel raises the cost of this addiction, it will
trap Mr. Assad’s
government in a death spiral from which it cannot
extract
itself.
Such a shift in understanding would require more
than just a change of
heart in the United States and Israel. For the
peace process elite—like their antecedents, the
1970s arms-control
elite—the concept of regime destruction and
unabashed victory are simply unfathomable and
ludicrous. It would be
no more imaginable to defeat Baathism than it
would have been to defeat communism. Whole cottage
industries,
embellished with impressively powerful and
well-endowed institutions, have sprung up over the
last decade in
Washington and Israel dedicated to this ideology.
Careers and jobs are at stake. If there is ever to
be peace, it will
have to be preceded by a serious spring cleaning both
in the United States and in Israel. The real
question is, How much
more anguish in Israel and Lebanon will it take for
Israel’s Labor Party and the Clinton administration
to understand how
much war this peace process is causing?
David Wurmser is the director of Middle East studies
at AEI.
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