|
IRAQ: A WAR FOR ISRAEL?
Sources Information on neocons: Source Watch, Right Web, Eurolegal Services, PNAC.info 1. Neocons birth an Israeli policy: repudiate peace; press for regime change
in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia NEWMarch, 2006: Harvard's JFK School of Government academic dean
and professor of international affairs
and U. of Chicago professor of political science agree
that Iraq was a war for Israel.
From Financial Times of London: In the hours immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked for plans to be drawn up for an American assault on Iraq. The following day, in a cabinet meeting at the White House, Rumsfeld again insisted that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism." The president allegedly replied that "public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible," and instead chose Afghanistan as a much softer target. Philip Zelikow, at the time a member of the prestigious President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and confidant of then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice (and later Executive Director of the 9/11 commission), said this to a crowd at the University of Virginia: Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat is and actually has been since 1990 - it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name ... the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell. Rumsfeld's early targeting of Iraq therefore suggests that the Bush administration has had a hidden agenda. This is confirmed by the leaked Downing Street Memo that reveal that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It is thought that the desire to oust Saddam Hussein reflects the long-range interests of Israeli rightists who want to ensure the country's continuing regional military superiority. Many of the key figures - the "neo-cons" - in the second Bush administration and in PNAC (see below) have intimate connections with Likud, Israel's right-wing party. Intelligence and military officers as well as politicans point to the neo-cons and their actions to further the interests of Israel as the reason for the war on Iraq. According to Robert Dreyfuss, the FBI is investigating whether some of the neocons who have occupied senior posts at the White House, the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney's office have been involved in a conspiracy with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's Likud Party to influence U.S. policy and push the country to war. He writes: "They make up the very network of ideologues - from civilians at the Defense Department to fellow travelers at right-wing think tanks - who have been accused of pushing George W. Bush into war. The point of the [FBI] probe, sources believe, is not to examine the push to war but rather to ascertain whether Sharon recruited or helped place in office people who knowingly, and secretly, worked with him to affect the direction of US policy in the Middle East. The most likely targets of the inquiry are Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Harold Rhode of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment." "That's the story behind the latest Washington spy scandal, involving Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a mid-level civilian Pentagon employee [Larry Franklin] allegedly caught red-handed trying to deliver US secrets to the Israelis." Uri Avnery, who knows Israeli Prime Minister Sharon well, has written that Sharon has long planned grandiose schemes for restructuring the Middle East and that "the winds blowing now in Washington remind me of Sharon. I have absolutely no proof that the Bushies got their ideas from him. But the style is the same." Reported Joshua Micha Marshall in The Washington Monthly. More on spying
Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration 1996 - NEOCONS BIRTH AN ISRAELI POLICY: REPUDIATE PEACE; PRESS FOR REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ, LEBANON, SYRIA, IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA Ever since the first American war against Iraq, the "Gulf War" of 1991, the people in the White House and the Pentagon who planned and executed it have wanted to go back and finish what they started. In July 1996, several of them - as members of a study group for the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies that included John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser - wrote a position paper for then-incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party (Likud is the right-wing Israeli party headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon now) entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. It called on Israel to repudiate the Oslo Accords as well as the underlying concept of "land for peace" and to permanently annex the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip. It also recommended that Israel advocate the elimination of Saddam Hussein as a first step toward regime changes in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In November 2002, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, also of the Likud Party, echoed these ideas when he urged the United States to turn to attacking or subverting the Iranian government as soon as it had finished with Saddam. The report specifically recommended "rebuilding Zionism," not through peace negotiations but along "peace through strength" precepts, including "reestablishing the principle of preemption rather than retaliation alone." Pre-emption has been a familiar theme in the Bush Administration. More info: Clean Break or Dirty War?: Israel's Foreign Policy Directive to the United States 1997 - 2001 NEOCONS' PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY (PNAC) LOBBIES CONGRESS AND CLINTON FOR REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ In the spring of 1997, these 4 and a number of others [see PNAC Founders and other neocons] organized themselves as the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) and began to lobby for a regime change in Iraq. They have made their ideas readily available in a September 2000 report entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century. People involved in the 2000 PNAC report: Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Midge Decter, Vin Weber, Henry S. Rowen, Norman Podhoretz, Francis Fukuyama, Peter Rodman, Steve Rosen, George Weigel, William J. Bennett, Dan Quayle, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Donald Kagan, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Eliot A. Cohen, Paula J. Dobriansky Hasam Amin. Their ideas are also expressed in a book edited by Robert Kagan and William Kristol, Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy. In this book, Elliott Abrams outlined a new U.S. Mideast policy that called for "regime change" in Iraq and for cracking down on the Palestinian Authority. Foreshadowing the current U.S. policy based on superior military power, Abrams recommended that in the Middle East "our military strength and willingness to use it" should be the "key factor in our ability to promote peace." "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein," went the relevant passage in "Rebuilding America's Defenses. (5) In a letter to President Clinton dated January 26, 1998, they called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power," and in a letter dated May 29, 1998, to Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senator Trent Lott, they complained that Clinton had not listened to them, reiterating their recommendation that Saddam Hussein be overthrown. They added, "We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the [Persian] Gulf-and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power." Letter signed by: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John R. Bolton, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Peter Rodman, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber. 2001 - 9/11 TIME TO IMPLEMENT THE PLAN After George W. Bush became president, many of these men returned to positions of power in American foreign policy. For nine months, they bided their time. They were waiting, in the words of PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses," for a "catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor" that would mobilize the public and allow them to put their theories and plans into practice. September 11 was, of course, precisely what they needed. Condoleezza Rice called together members of the National Security Council and asked them "to think about 'how do you capitalize on these opportunities' to fundamentally change American doctrine, and the shape of the world, in the wake of September 11th." Still, the Bush administration could not just go to war with Iraq without tying it in some way to the 9/11 attacks. So it first launched an easy war against Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the White House launched one of the most extraordinary propaganda campaigns of modern times to convince the American public that an attack on Saddam Hussein should be a part of America's "war on terrorism." This propaganda campaign was implemented by a newly created unit in the Pentagon: the Office of Special Plans under the Undersecretary for Defense and neocon Douglas Feith. An intimate view of the birth of this unit, its activities and the people involved is given by Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. A couple weeks before Bush invaded Iraq, then U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Ariel Sharon "he had no doubt America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea," reported Aluf Benn for Ha`aretz on February 20, 2003. To some the motive for this ignomious war was Iraq's oil - its reserves are the second largest on earth after those of Saudi Arabia - but a number of government officials (military and/or intelligence) and politicians point to Israel as the primary reason for the neocons fierce drive for war against Iraq. The neocons' goal has been and is to benefit Israel's strategic interests in the Middle East. In setting this goal, some argue, they have shown little regard for the effect of their pro-Israel policies on the U.S. and its people. The neocons, however, have not been alone in pushing for this "endless war" policy. Some such as Senator Hollings (D-SC) also point to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) or the "Jewish lobby". ED. It should be remembered that certain American Christian evangelical groups have also supported the neocons' pro-Israel/pro-war policy and at least two of their leaders (Americans seemingly only by birth) have actually stated that their allegiance is to Israel not the U.S.. An example is Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who stated that the NAE supports Israel "come hell or high water". Another is Kay Arthur, one of the leading American TV evangelists, who recently announced at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in California that "if I had to choose between America and Israel, I would choose Israel," and that "God has chosen Israel above all the other nations of the earth." 11/05
Iraq war now costing $6 billion a month - a need for more troops A CHORUS OF AMERICAN VOICES ON THE HIJACKING OF U.S. POLICY FOR ISRAEL Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and in a variety of roles for the National Security Agency. In her final year at the Pentagon, she worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and neocon Douglas Feith. Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski provides a unique view of the Department of Defense during a period when the neocons formed the Office of Special Plans, whose task was to sell the war on Iraq to the American public. She also witnessed the surprising familiarity that Israeli officers had with the Pentagon's layout and the ease with which they accessed Douglas Feith. Because of the distortion of intelligence she observed, Karen asked for early retirement after 20 years of service. "I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods..." Since retiring, she has become a noted critic of the U.S. government's involvement in Iraq. She writes a biweekly column, "Without Reservations", for the website MilitaryWeek. Excerpts Another article by K.K. Hyenas in Washington General Anthony Zinni, a retired general in the United States Marine Corps. He was selected in 2002 to be a special envoy for the United States to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. His role was to try to negotiate a peace settlement between the two sides. His last position before retirement from the Armed Forces was as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command, responsible for all U.S. forces in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. He was succeeded by General Tommy Franks. In the interview, General Zinni states that the "Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time with the wrong strategy." Who is to blame for the disastrous decision? General Zinni lays it at the feet of the neocons in the Pentagon who "saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel." Zinni saw the neocons as "dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground."
They've screwed up 60 Minutes Interview with General Zinni
_top Ray McGovern, a Senior CIA analyst whose 27 years career spanned the administrations of John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray's duties at CIA included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President' Daily Brief (PDB). During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Ray received the Intelligence Commendation Medal. Ray is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School (inspired by the ecumenical Church of the Saviour) in Washington D.C., which provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in relationship with the marginalized poor. The department Ray heads at the School deals with the biblical injunction to "speak truth to power". His focus dovetails nicely with the passage carved into the marble entrance to CIA Headquarters: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free"‹the ethic mandating that CIA analysts were to "tell it like it is" without fear or favor. "You would not know from Woodward's book that the Oct. 1, 2002, National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi WMD -- used with Congress to hype the threat -- was written several months after the administration decided to make war on Iraq. That decision had little to do with such weapons. It had very much to do with the imperative seen by Bush's neoconservative advisors to use military force to gain dominant influence over oil-rich Iraq and to eliminate any possible threat to Israel's security." Taking the Fall for the Disater of Iraq by Ray McGovern In January 2003, when it became clear that that ethic was in serious jeopardy, a handful of intelligence community alumni/ae, including Ray, created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. VIPS now includes over 35 former professionals from CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Army Intelligence, the FBI, and the National Security Agency. "It is widely known that you have a uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This presents a strong disincentive to those who might otherwise warn you that Israel's continuing encroachment on Arab territories, its oppression of the Palestinian people, and its pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 1981 are among the root causes not only of terrorism, but of Saddam Hussein's felt need to develop the means to deter further Israeli attacks." Memo For: President Bush - Re: War on Iraq by
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
_top Pat Buchanan, journalist, author and senior advisor to 3 Presidents: Richard Nixon 1966-1974; Gerard Ford 1974; Ronald Reagan 1985-1987. Buchanan has run thrice for the Presidency: twice as a Republican and once as a Reform Party candidate. He is one of the founding editors of "The American Conservative" magazine. We charge them [neo-cons] with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people's right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity."..."They charge us with anti-Semitism‹i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry. False. The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a "passionate attachment" to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what's good for Israel is good for America."< Whose War? - A neoconservative
clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interest.
_top Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, a native of Charleston, represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1966 to 2004. A Democrat, he served as governor of South Carolina from 1959-1963. He is a graduate of The Citadel and the University of South Carolina School of Law. "With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel. Led by Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Charles Krauthammer, for years there had been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area." "First Lebanon would be bombed, then Syria invaded on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. Afterward, Saddam Hussein was to be removed in Iraq and replaced with a Hashemite ruler favorable to Israel." Excerpts Additional link:A Look at The 'Powerful Jewish Lobby' Recommended: US Neoconservatives. Scroll down about half way for The Neoconservative "Family" and Who's Who in the Neoconservative Extended Family. SOME OF THE ORIGINAL 25 SIGNATORIES OF PNAC This list includes only those signatories that have served or are still serving in the Administration of George W. Bush with the exception of Jeb Bush who is a governor. Most of these individuals have a long history of holding influential government positions in one or more Administrations.
_top OTHER PNAC MEMBERS WHO SERVED OR ARE SERVING UNDER GEORGE W. BUSH:
_top More on the neo-cons: Neoconservative clout seen in U.S. Iraq policy Democrats linking up with the neocons
Cheney's hawks 'hijacking policy'
TOP NEOCON THINK TANKS - AFFECTING POLICY AND THE MEDIA
OTHER NEOCON THINK TANKS
OTHER PERIODICALS From Iraqi Wars by Chalmers Johnson (2003) with minor additions from Neoconservatives Consolidate Control over U.S. Mideast Policy by Jim Lobe (2002) and the articles and interviews presented here. Chalmers Johnson is a professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He has written several books, including the best-selling Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. Jim Lobe writes on international affairs for Inter Press Service, Oneworld.net, Foreign Policy in Focus and AlterNet.org. External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein. SDP does not necessarily endorse the material on this website unless it is an official SDP statement. 
|
|