Steve,

"Bush and Cheney wanted to go to war"

The question that bugs me, WHY were Cheney and Bush so anxious to go to war? What was the driving force? Wolfowitz said the there were several reasons? Did they really believe Saddam was such threat or were there more determinative reasons?

Damn...this blog is really on a roll. Exciting. Keep up the great work.

It can't be said too loudly or too often: Bush and Cheney wanted a war and they made damn sure they got one.

Given their lying about the reasons and their lackadaisical approach to post-war planning it is clear that they assumed that everything would turn out OK.

That doesn't mean that the WHY question has been answered, as LJ above rightly points out.

Even when you consider the Plame matter as Cheney's way of intimidating the CIA into backing off whatever analysis they were inclined to provide that contradicted BushCo's stated rationales it still doesn't answer the WHY.

Possibles:
* real paranoia over Sadaam
* means to perpetual fear mongering and power grab over the U.S.
* oil

Look at all their other actions since Jan 20, 2001. Is there anything other than power and money influencing their actions?

What conclusion(s) does this lead to?

"WHY were Cheney and Bush so anxious to go to war?"

oil, israel, military industrial complex

Although I hear the oil argument all the time from the man or woman on the street, I really don't think oil as such had anything to do with it.

For W, it was personal: avenge Daddy. Remember, some of Saddam's goons tried to take Daddy out when he was in Kuwait shortly after the first war. And there were those incessant harpings of "Your Daddy should have finished the job while he was there."

For Cheney, it was neocon ideology -- he was reportedly "converted" by Wolfowitz some time around Gulf War I. It was no doubt extremely easy for him (with the help of Wolfowitz & Co.) to sway the impressionable W, already aching for vengeance. (Despite his "I don't believe in nation-building" quip in the debates with Gore in 2000...)

And they were "anxious" because they really thought it would be a "piece of cake", they'd be proven right, the world would be a better place and would thank them for it when it was all over.

Rose-tinted glasses, the road to hell, and all that.

The debate about evidence of WMD often misses an important point: in the months prior to the invasion, the world had an easy and effective way to learn the truth, short of war. The U.N. inspectors were in high gear, and, partly due to the threat of war, Saddam was giving them relatively broad access to suspected weapons sites. All that the inspectors asked for was a little more time. Compared to the shakey and flakey sources relied upon by the intelligence community, the U.N. inspection regime was a tool that could have resolved all doubts, had it been allowed to run its course. Tragically, it was cut short by the trigger-happy thugs in this Administration.

"The question that bugs me, WHY were Cheney and Bush so anxious to go to war? What was the driving force? Wolfowitz said the there were several reasons? Did they really believe Saddam was such threat or were there more determinative reasons?"

Posted by LJ

Read Naomi Klein's "Bagdad, Year Zero". There is PART of your answer........

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

Even when you consider the Plame matter as Cheney's way of intimidating the CIA into backing off whatever analysis they were inclined to provide that contradicted BushCo's stated rationales it still doesn't answer the WHY.

"Possibles:
* real paranoia over Sadaam
* means to perpetual fear mongering and power grab over the U.S.
* oil"

Posted by JB (not the U.N. John Bolton)

Israel. You forgot Israel. And the establishmment of a PERMANENT American military presence in the middle east to protect both the oil fields we intended to steal from Iraq, and to protect.....

ISRAEL.

President Bush has decided to defend himself by offering the American people four falsehoods regarding the path to war. "Same intelligence", "no manipulation", "no pressure" and "rewriting history"- are fitting lies for a President now viewed by a majority of Americans as dishonest and unethical.

For the full story, see:

"Bush Rewrites History"

"The debate about evidence of WMD often misses an important point: in the months prior to the invasion, the world had an easy and effective way to learn the truth, short of war. The U.N. inspectors were in high gear, and, partly due to the threat of war, Saddam was giving them relatively broad access to suspected weapons sites. All that the inspectors asked for was a little more time. Compared to the shakey and flakey sources relied upon by the intelligence community, the U.N. inspection regime was a tool that could have resolved all doubts, had it been allowed to run its course. Tragically, it was cut short by the trigger-happy thugs in this Administration."

Posted by Grampa

I too have been puzzled abourt the lack of discourse about the facts behind your comment. Saddam even INVITED the presence of CIA observers to travel with the UN inspection teams.

Another thing that puzzles me about the "selective memory" that BOTH SIDES exhibit on this issue is why, if it was obvious to the MILLIONS of lay people, world wide, that protested prior to the invasion, that these SONS A BITCHES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WERE LYING TO US? than why was it not obvious to Congress?

First of all, the oil component comes into this in the context of Saddam wanting to change the sale of oil from the petrodollar to the euro. This is also made obvious by the fact that the military secured the oil fields first while nuclear sites, museums and hospitals were being looted.
Second, Israel is buried knee deep in this scandal. One only needs to look as far as the Office of Special Plans, with Israeli generals walking around undocumented, Larry Franklin with AIPAC and the obvious infestation of Neo-con Likudniks working in the Pentagon and the media.

PROBLEM-REACTION-SOLUTION

Thnaks for the theories on why we went into Iraq. That Naomi Klein article is great. But this discussion replicates the food fight over at TPM Cafe a couple of weeks ago. Even Sy Hersch hints that nobody really knows.

STEVE: What do you think? Or are you as puzzled as Sy Hersch claims to be? I think this is important in that knowing why Bush took us to war indicates possibilities for getting out. For example, do you believe Bush et. al. really saw Saddam as a serious threat in the light of 9/11 and that forms the core of their casus belli?

The decision is ours: America or Not

At some point in the future, someone may read this.

Here is what I hope their response will be = "They got it and they did something about it."

That is not the response I have when I read books like Sebastian Hafner's "Defying Hitler."

We have one way to save the America of our Declaration of Independence, the America of our Constitution.

If we have to await other Nation's enacting sanctions and other penalties against the United States to halt our manifest and vast crimes against humanity (and our own citizens), then America is dead.

Sure, the geo-political entity called America today may still have the same name, but the meaning, the soul of America will be gone.

No other Nation began as our's did.

No other Nation, prior to America, was launched with the mandate explicit to our Declaration of Independence.

No other Nation, prior to America, began with a legal structure proclaimed by "We the People ... ."

The words of Jefferson ring loud and clear, today, because the threat he feared is now fully engaged in destroying America:

"Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless ... the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion." -- Thomas Jefferson in "Notes on the State of Virginia", Query 17, p. 161, 1784

"Our rights" are being systematically destroyed.

America is being systematically destroyed.

The whole world knows it.

The one way we can not just restore America, but move it to a special place of hope for every person on the planet is if we act now to bring the criminals to justice.

We must not await others to do our job for us.

Every person who has taken the oath to defend our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic is hear-by called to duty.

Every member of the legal and law enforcement profession, truly dedicated to defending America, must bring forth, through every available mechanism, the charges required to prosecute those who have aided and abetted Bush and Cheney.

Bush and Cheney must be impeached and tried.

Simultaneously, to whatever extent civil charges can be brought against them - by the Wilson's, by families of soldiers killed due to Bush and Cheney's lies, by whatever means, they must be brought to justice.

This is not a matter of elections and politics-as-usual -- because we have every reason to expect the election process of 2006 will be just as corrupt as those in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2005 (OH in particular).

We must recognize the extent and severity of the crimes these people have committed against non-US citizens, as well as, the gross treason of their actions toward all US citizens.

It IS Tribunal Time In The United States of America

We the people ... must be the vectors of justice.

We the people ... must be the beacons of hope to those elsewhere who suffer injustice, by virtue of the fact that beginning in late 2005 we made justice stick in America.

The responsibility is ours and we have no excuses.

The decision is ours: America or Not

What will someone read about America, one, five, ten or more years now.

The decision is ours.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5439461#5442827

Peace & Happy Thanksgiving -- and Thank you for TWN.

No one is talking about the Office of Special Plans, created after 9/11 and the implication that the office aggresively sought intelligence to build a case for the war. Seymore Hersh wrote a piece in the New Yorker in 5/03 detailing the office. It seems clear that extraordinary efforts were underdaken to create a case to justify their war. From the Hersh piece:

"According to the Pentagon adviser, Special Plans was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true—that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States."

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

The office mockingly referred to themselves as a "cabal" - that terms seems to be popular lately.

An aside - I would recommend that readers of this blog go see "Good Night, and Good Luck" for a corageous story about fighting for the Constitution in a time of great fear and suspicion.

Digging In

If the U.S. government doesn't plan to occupy Iraq for any longer than necessary, why is it spending billions of dollars to build "enduring" bases?

Joshua Hammer
March/April 2005 Issue

"When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters last December that he expected U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for another four years, he was merely confirming what any visitor to the country could have surmised. The omnipresence of the giant defense contractor KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), the shipments of concrete and other construction materials, and the transformation of decrepit Iraqi military bases into fortified American enclaves—complete with Pizza Huts and DVD stores—are just the most obvious signs that the United States has been digging in for the long haul. It's a far cry from administration assurances after the invasion that the troops could start withdrawing from Iraq as early as the fall of 2003. And it is hardly consistent with a prediction by Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, that the troops would be out of Iraq within months, or with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi's guess that the U.S. occupation would last two years. Take, for example, Camp Victory North, a sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport, which the U.S. military seized just before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Over the past year, KBR contractors have built a small American city where about 14,000 troops are living, many hunkered down inside sturdy, wooden, air-conditioned bungalows called SEA (for Southeast Asia) huts, replicas of those used by troops in Vietnam. There's a Burger King, a gym, the country's biggest PX—and, of course, a separate compound for KBR workers, who handle both construction and logistical support. Although Camp Victory North remains a work in progress today, when complete, the complex will be twice the size of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo—currently one of the largest overseas posts built since the Vietnam War.

Such a heavy footprint seems counterproductive, given the growing antipathy felt by most Iraqis toward the U.S. military occupation. Yet Camp Victory North appears to be a harbinger of America's future in Iraq. Over the past year, the Pentagon has reportedly been building up to 14 "enduring" bases across the country—long-term encampments that could house as many as 100,000 troops indefinitely. John Pike, a military analyst who runs the research group GlobalSecurity.org, has identified a dozen of these bases, including three large facilities in and around Baghdad: the Green Zone, Camp Victory North, and Camp al-Rasheed, the site of Iraq’s former military airport. Also listed are Camp Cook, just north of Baghdad, a former Republican Guard "military city" that has been converted into a giant U.S. camp; Balad Airbase, north of Baghdad; Camp Anaconda, a 15-square-mile facility near Balad that housed 17,000 soldiers as of May 2004 and was being expanded for an additional 3,000; and Camp Marez, next to Mosul Airport, where, in December, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the base's dining tent, killing 13 U.S. troops and four KBR contractors eating lunch alongside the soldiers.

At these bases, KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary that works in cooperation with the Army Corps of Engineers, has been extending runways, improving security perimeters, and installing a variety of structures ranging from rigid-wall huts to aircraft hangars. Although the Pentagon considers most of the construction to be "temporary"—designed to last up to three years—similar facilities have remained in place for much longer at other "enduring" American bases, including Kosovo's Camp Bondsteel, which opened in 1999, and Eagle Base in Tuzla, Bosnia, in place since the mid-1990s.

How long is "enduring"? The administration insists that troops will remain in Iraq as long as it takes to install a functioning, democratic government, quell the insurgency, and build an efficient Iraqi fighting force. Given the elusiveness of those goals, many military experts believe that Rumsfeld's hope that the troops might be out by 2008 is wildly optimistic. Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East from 1997 to 2000, recently predicted that American involvement in Iraq would last at least 10 more years. Retired Army Lt. General Jay Garner, the former interim administrator of reconstruction efforts in Iraq, told reporters in February 2004 that a U.S. military presence in Iraq should last "the next few decades." Even that, some analysts warn, could be an underestimate. "Half a century ago if anyone tried to convince you that we’d still have troops in Korea and Japan, you’d think they were crazy," says Pike, the military analyst. Suspicions also run deep both inside Pentagon circles and among analysts that the Department of Defense is pouring billions of dollars into the facilities in pursuit of a different agenda entirely: to turn Iraq into a permanent base of operations in the Middle East..."

If true, this scheme is fraught with danger. The presence of U.S. troops is a powerful recruitment tool for the Iraqi insurgency—as well as a source of bitter anti-American feeling throughout the Middle East. Politically, the occupation is becoming increasingly untenable: Practically every significant Iraqi political figure—from Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawar, an influential Sunni Muslim—opposes the occupation and wants the troops out, and any leader who hopes to maintain credibility will have to make that a priority. "The presence of bases there is going to be a source of instability and anger for the Iraqi people, whether they are currently for the insurgency or not," says Jessica Matthews, the head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. "It will convince people across the Arab world that we went there to install an American regime in the Middle East."

The other great danger of "enduring" bases, say critics, is that they tend to operate according to a well-tested axiom: The deeper you dig in, the harder it is to dig out. That's hardly reassuring to the 11,400 U.S. soldiers who’ve had their enlistments extended through the stop-loss clause in their contracts, and to others who’ve been forced to serve multiple tours in the combat zone.

One indication of an open-ended U.S. occupation is the amount of money that has already been spent on bases in Iraq. KBR’s first big building contract there, in June 2003, was a $200 million project to build and maintain "temporary housing units" for U.S. troops. Since then, according to military documents, it has received another $8.5 billion for work associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom. By far the largest sum—at least $4.5 billion—has gone to construction and maintenance of U.S. bases. By comparison, from 1999 to this spring, the U.S. government paid $1.9 billion to KBR for similar work in the Balkans.

Does the Department of Defense have a bigger agenda in Iraq? Brig. General Robert Pollman, chief engineer of base construction in Iraq, caused a stir—and forced his superiors to engage in damage control—when he told the Chicago Tribune last spring that the bases could be a "swap" for bases in Saudi Arabia. The United States has been closing bases and drawing down its forces in the kingdom in response to the growing unpopularity of the American presence there and repeated terror attacks. In mid-2003, roughly 4,500 U.S. troops reportedly redeployed from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, leaving only about 500 in the kingdom.

Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who served in the office of the Secretary of Defense until spring 2003, and has since become an outspoken critic of the war, says that the neoconservative architects of the Iraq invasion definitely foresaw a permanent, large-scale presence. Kwiatkowski says that Pentagon planners view the bases as vital both for protecting Israel and as launchpads for operations in Syria and Iran. The Pentagon, she says, went into the war assuming that once Saddam was toppled a so-called Status of Forces Agreement, like those the U.S. government signed with Japan and South Korea, could be quickly reached with Iraq. The growth of the insurgency and the vocal opposition to a prolonged U.S. occupation among Iraqi leaders haven't changed the plan, Kwiatkowski insists: "We’re pouring concrete. We’re building little fiefdoms with security, moats, and walls…. Eighty percent of Iraqis will grouse, but they have no political power," she says. "We'll stay whether they want us to or not."

Other American officials heartily dispute that assertion. One U.S. official who served alongside L. Paul Bremer in the Coalition Provisional Authority insists that base construction has been an ad hoc effort, reflecting the changing facts on the ground, not long-term strategy. "At no time did I ever overhear any meaningful discussion about 'permanent bases,'" he says. "I remember asking Bremer about it from time to time, and he would say, 'That's ludicrous.' Maybe there are some military guys brainstorming. But it just isn't on the agenda." The official concedes that permanent basing in Iraq "makes sense" from a strictly strategic perspective, given the steady reduction of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and the potential volatility of U.S. relations with other Gulf allies, like Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain, which currently have, all together, an estimated 30,000 U.S. troops stationed within their borders. But he agrees the consequences of such a move would be disastrous: Permanent bases "would be under siege, a temptation for terrorists, a symbol of U.S. occupation. It would totally undermine our political strategy in Iraq." Adds Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, "The next Iraqi leadership has to show they are truly sovereign and independent. And that’s hard to do if they lease significant parts of Iraq to the United States. We've already seen the ability of these insurgents to target our facilities and attack them. I'd be very reluctant to say this is a good place to base our troops."

That's not to say that the Pentagon isn't keen to maintain at least some American presence on the ground. According to one intelligence source in Baghdad, maintaining a quick reaction force in Iraq would be essential to prevent, for example, a coup against a friendly Iraqi government. And the Pentagon sees Iraq as possibly playing a role in its global realignment of U.S. forces—a shift away from the static, Cold War basing arrangements in Europe to smaller, more flexible deployments in volatile regions like the Middle East. One model they point to is Camp Lemonier, which was built in the Horn of Africa country Djibouti in 2002 and houses about 1,300 troops as well as facilities for fighter planes.

A high-ranking military officer in the Middle East says that the Pentagon envisions a small number of bases in Iraq that "in no way approximates what we have there now." He insists that "we are not planning to occupy the country. We’re talking about a small, unobtrusive presence—it could simply be facilities that give you the capability to come in and out." That version of "Occupation Lite" may eventually come to pass. For the foreseeable future, however, it is difficult to imagine anything other than an enduring status quo: a heavy troop presence, big bases spread across the country, and a steadily rising body count."

Joshua Hammer is the Jerusalem bureau chief for Newsweek and has reported extensively from Iraq. He is the author of A Season in Bethlehem: Unholy War in a Sacred Place and is currently a Nieman fellow at Harvard.

http://tinyurl.com/7zvcy

"The question that bugs me, WHY were Cheney and Bush so anxious to go to war?"

It's not really all that mysterious. As a conspirator in another major presidential scandal once told a couple of eager young reporters: "Follow the money."

Billions and billions of dollars for the taking, and nobody to stop them from stealing it all. It's pretty simple, if you think about it.

Why? Why? you ask! Perhaps we will learn that if there is ever, as there should be, a war crimes trial in, say, the Hague or, fittingly, Nuremberg. Whatever the motive, however, nothing excuses a war of aggression and the atrocities that have been visited upon innocents in the name of every citizen of our once-respected nation -- in my name, in your name, in all our names -- whether or not we supported going to war.

I keep having visions of the German civilians whom the Allies marched through neighboring concentration camps to view the handiwork done in their names. We, like those civilian witnesses to war crimes committed by their government, are truly villagers of the damned, and deserve the righteous wrath of an enlightened world if we fail to put a stop to the madness and hold accountable the criminals who, even now, have us wondering WHY? instead of resolving ENOUGH!

As for myself, I am no longer concerned about why our leaders took us to war. It was patently obvious from the start, and has been proven since by an ever-increasing mountain of evidence, that the war was never about any of the stated reasons. Bluntly put, our leaders lied to us, and continue to do so, in their zeal to wage an illegal, ill-conceived and unnecessary war that casts its shadow of culpability on all of us to one degree or another.

So, I agree with 'understandinglife.' The decision IS ours -- to end the war and bring its perpetrators before the bar of impeachment, then a war crimes tribunal. If we are fortunate, they will be hung by their toes from a lamp post. Until then, we ALL remain villagers of the damned!

"For example, do you believe Bush et. al. really saw Saddam as a serious threat in the light of 9/11 and that forms the core of their casus belli?"

Posted by LJ

You gotta be kidding. Do YOU believe anyone with half a brain cell would entertain such a notion?? The ONLY thing Bush "believed" is whatever Cheney TOLD him to believe. And if you think CHENEY had any thoughts that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 than you are naive beyond redemption.

"It IS Tribunal Time In The United States of America

We the people ... must be the vectors of justice.

We the people ... must be the beacons of hope to those elsewhere who suffer injustice, by virtue of the fact that beginning in late 2005 we made justice stick in America.

The responsibility is ours and we have no excuses.

The decision is ours: America or Not

What will someone read about America, one, five, ten or more years now.

The decision is ours."

Posted by understandinglife

You understand. Our nation, our democracy, is in grave danger. And there will be no knight in shining armor riding to our rescue through a compromised and corrupted electoral process.

“The question that bugs me, WHY were Cheney and Bush so anxious to go to war?”

LJ,

Journalist Mikey Herskowitz, whom George W. Bush had commissioned briefly to write his biography, writes that Bush had the Iraq invasion on his mind two years before 9/11. Then presidential candidate Bush wanted to become a great American president by acting on the caveat: “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.” Here's a link:

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761

In 1992 Cheney, then defense secretary, was converted to the neconservatives’ empire-building mission by Wolfowitz, his deputy. It envisioned, among other things, overthrowing the anti-Israeli and anti-American regime in oil-rich Iraq. The objective of toppling Saddam Hussein gained higher profile on the neocons agenda after 1996 when Richard Perle, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, David, and Meyrav Wurmser and others launched the project “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." It was initially submitted to then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but soon Cheney was brought on board. The project is floating all over the Internet.

"In 1992 Cheney, then defense secretary, was converted to the neconservatives’ empire-building mission by Wolfowitz, his deputy. It envisioned, among other things, overthrowing the anti-Israeli and anti-American regime in oil-rich Iraq. The objective of toppling Saddam Hussein gained higher profile on the neocons agenda after 1996 when Richard Perle, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, David, and Meyrav Wurmser and others launched the project “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." It was initially submitted to then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but soon Cheney was brought on board. The project is floating all over the Internet."

Posted by Mustafa

Which is one of the reasons I find it fascinating that it is nigh on impossible to engage people like Steve to debate the OBVIOUS role Israel played in decieving this nation into war. It is a line that so many are unwilling to cross, and really underscores how COWERED people are by the long arm of thew Israelis, and their tremendous influence in Washington.

we need to stop letting Busho frame the issue.... the question isn't whether Congress was lied to, its whether the American people were lied to.

Pissed Off American,

I believe that the whole brouhaha over the “failure” and “misuse” of intelligence is a diversion from the roots of the Iraq war. With or without intelligence, the neocons would have used 9/11 to drag America into the war for an additional objective: creation of a pro-Israeli Kurdish statelet. On Sept. 13, 2001 – just two days after the 9/11 tragedy – Paul Wolfowitz went on television and declared: “We shall end the states that harbor terrorists.” Middle Eastern intellectuals who were following neocon activities knew that he was talking about Iraq. They noted that he had vowed not just to change the Iraqi regime but “end the state.” As Seymour Hersh would write in The New Yorker (June 21, 2004), Israeli instructors were already busy building up the (60,000-strong) Peshmerga guerrilla force in northern Iraq, which now forms the backbone of the incipient “Kurdistan.” According to Hersh, Israel expects to use Kurdistan as a launching pad for anti-Arab, anti-Iranian missions.

I can't help wondering if Georgie wanted to avenge his father "by any means necessary".

Pissed Off: I'm sending you a paper bag for Thanksgiving! Sheesh! Once that turkey comes out of the oven, you may not survive the shock.

I am addressing the rationality in the minds of Bush and Cheney--the center of the cabal.

One of the reasons that has not been addressed is the perceived need to "shock and awe" the world--put on a military display--to discourage more worthy opponents. The results were to result in the world falling into line. General Odom's comments regarding the disasterous nature of this war, address the results of the failure of this elective war since it has revealed our military weaknesses. I call this theory "my dick's bigger than your dick."

Once again, Sy Hersch may have said it (paraphrase): 'Nobody knows whats going on there minds.'

The US went to war in Iraq, not over simple acquisition of oil reserves, but the geopolitical power associated with a permanent presence in the richest oil producing region on earth. This would include maintaining the petrodollar system and being able to hold a hammer over the heads of the Chinese and Indians whose growing need for oil has been one of the top news stories of 2005.

It's about maintaining American preeminence in world affairs. It seems more certain that world oil production is indeed nearing a maximum and that once it peaks, whoever has control of the remaining reserves is "The Man".

Carl,

I have read Petrodollar Warfare, by William R. Clark and appreciated it very much. I consider his argument to be a pretty good circumstantial case for the petrodollar thesis. It is my current favorite thesis; Saddam's WMD's were petrodollars which could in the intermediate term cause the US all kinds of serious problems.

But it is only true if it is true. The members of the cabal are not talking.

I can remember really clearly the days and weeks after 9/11 and the theories which flew around. One which sensible people avoid gives a scenario in which the Administration was complicit.

I don't think the 9/11 story is over, not by far. And trailing behind it are other horrors which are far beyond the usual degree of corruption and power-grabbing by previous administrations. No one has known what to do with it, not the Democratic Party, not the media, not you or me. Then, too, are the ties between this administration and those of Reagan and Bush 1, with many of the same people turning up as potential felons. Washington Dems haven't been able to separate themselves from the dirt.

We need a whole new brand of progressive politics with less rhetoric, greater distance from the corporate teat. Outspoken and clear. I keep remembering local rightwing Texans' reactions to Dean's "tell it like it is" style -- they loved him, they admired him, they couldn't believe he was a Democrat. When they climbed on the "ridicule Dean" bandwagon, it wasn't because of something he said, it was because he stood with the Party.

"We need a whole new brand of progressive politics with less rhetoric, greater distance from the corporate teat..."

We are, thanks to Dean, beginning to find non traditional ways to raise money.

Democratic Independence Grows
by Chris Bowers

"If we are indeed going to have an Indycrat realignment in 2006, it is going to be at least partially because of growing Democratic independence from traditional sources of power in Washington: lobbyists and big donors. As was reported back in June, Dean has already freed the DNC from any reliance on big donors whatsoever..."

Here is the rest of the article. (Scroll down to the third one.)
http://www.mydd.com/main/4

Mustafa,

Some interesting points you make, and thank you for the link to the GNN article by Russ Baker.

But if this is true ...

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”

... it seems Cheney might have already been a neo-con of sorts long before the reputed "conversion" by Wolfowitz.

"ascribed in part ..." -- hmmm. Need more data...

Do you have any recommended references to Cheney's 1992 conversion by Wolfowitz?

Thanks!

Digby has written an interesting post about Bernard Lewis and his influence on the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

"...I've written before about historian Bernard Lewis and his outsized influence on the thinking inside the Bush administration. He's the guy who persuaded the erstwhile hardliners that they were correct to be tough, macho and manly --- but they also needed to "democratize" the middle east. The arabs, you see, need our guidance, just as they've always needed somebody's guidance..."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

As a businessperson at the top of a given market, my belief is that when your competitor becomes satisfied with his role in the 2nd or 3rd tier of the market, you have won. When it comes to an adversary, it is better to subjugate him than to kill him, because you don't know what will come after.

It is obvious that Saddam, for all his bravado, had grown used to having the USA's foot firmly planted on his neck. We did as we pleased, bombed facilities when we felt threatened, or when they got out of line. Even pressure from our allies could be minimized by Saddam's continued rants, and our reports confirming him as a regional threat. We could have continued to keep him down indefinitely. It was easy. Once we had our inspectors in, our threats of military intervention loosened Saddam up. We could have easily had access to all possible WMD sites for enough time to determine for ourselves the real truth about his weapons programs. It would have taken at most 1 year to find the truth.

So why screw up a great situation? Well, a weak and pliable president with no education or curiosity about the consequences of misguided foreign policy, his trusted underlings whispering in his ear and feeding his ego about changing the region, establishing a democratic legacy in the Mideast, etc., not to mention of course the $$$$$'s to be made in the "Reconstruction". By awarding contracts to their buddies, and the willing lack of oversight from a rubber stamp Republican Congress, and by branding dissenters as traitors, an atmosphere had been created where there were no limits to the degree to which unscrupulous individuals could and would deplete our Treasury; so, like kids in a candy store, they did.

But now they feel that we have no right to question the way we went to war? Well, to them I say: KISS MY ASS!!!!

Not only do we need to get to the bottom of this, but those who went along need to be made to answer to the thousands of families of the dead and maimed, and to all of us who will be paying for this war for generations. The chicken-hawk bastards responsible for this horrid chapter in our American history must be held accountable. By making examples of these assholes they just might think twice next time they decide to buck the truth in favor of their narrow minded greedy, corrupt pursuit.

Hopefully soon, we will be able to dig in to this issue honestly, and relegate those behind this folly to the trash heap of history.

Upthread, someone challenged the argument that we went to Iraq for oil. According to this article, published in the Australian Financial Review, the invasion of Iraq was all about oil. Count me among the cynical Americans who don't see us leaving any time soon. The oil wars have just begun.

http://tinyurl.com/9pyu4

Iraqis miss oil fortune: report
Nov 24 06:53
AFP

Up to $US194 billion ($263 billion) in Iraqi oil revenues are going to multinational oil companies under long-term contracts, and not to the Iraqi people, a social and environmental group said.

In a report, the group known as Platform said that oil multinationals would be paid between $US74 billion and $US194 billion with rates of return of between 42 per cent and 162 per cent under proposed production-sharing agreements, or PSAs.

"The form of contracts being promoted is the most expensive and undemocratic option available," Platform researcher Greg Muttitt said.

"Iraq's oil should be for the benefit of the Iraqi people not foreign oil companies."

Muttitt added: "Iraq's institutions are new and weak. Experience in other countries shows that oil companies generally get the upper hand in PSA negotiations with governments.

"The companies will inevitably use Iraq's current instability to push for highly advantageous terms and lock Iraq to those terms for decades."

The report, titled Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth, said the majority of Iraqis were against the large-scale involvement of foreign companies in the post-Saddam era.

"Iraqi public opinion is strongly opposed to handing control over oil development to foreign companies," it said.

"But with the active involvement of the US and British governments a group of powerful Iraqi politicians and technocrats is pushing for a system of long-term contracts with foreign oil companies which will be beyond the reach of Iraqi courts, public scrutiny or democratic control."

Under PSAs, foreign companies provide capital investment, including drilling and the construction of infrastructure, and a proportion of oil extracted is allocated to the companies.

But Platform's report alleged that financing oil development could be done instead though government budgetary expenditure, using future oil flows as collateral to borrow money, or using international oil companies through shorter-term and less lucrative contracts.

Louise Richards, chief executive of aid charity War on Want, said: "People have increasingly come to realise that the Iraq war was about oil, profits and plunder."

"Iraq's oil profits, far from being used to alleviate some of the suffering the Iraqi people now face, are well within the sights of the oil multinationals."

JC, you’re welcome. Happy Thanksgiving. I don’t recall at this moment exactly where I read about how then deputy defense secretary Wolfowitz converted his boss Cheney to his thesis about keeping America as the world’s sole hegemon for all times. The anecdote could be in Micah Sifrey’s “Iraq War Reader,” Michael Hirsh’s “A War With Ourselves” or in Elizabeth Drew’s long article in the NY Review of Books, “Neocons in Power.” I’m sure Cheney signed on to the neocon project sometime before Feb. 18, 1992, when Wolfowitz circulated, with Cheney’s blessings, his classified draft of the “Defense Planning Guidance” among a select group of the Pentagon officials (including Colin Powell), which called for a trillion-dollar defense budget to shore up the American military power to maintain its global hegemony. The document proposed that America “deter potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” And Saddam Hussein became a prime target because he was a vocal critic, not only of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but of American and Israeli domination over the Middle East as well.

"I can remember really clearly the days and weeks after 9/11 and the theories which flew around. One which sensible people avoid gives a scenario in which the Administration was complicit."

Sensible in what sense? Pondering why an Administration sought to block and impede an investigation into the causes and circumstances of an attack on our nation seems highly sensible to me. Look, this whole 9/11 business has been carefully steered into the realm of "conspiracy theory" by the planting of fantastic scenarios designed to be advanced while wearing a size seven tinfoil hat. Pods on the wings, no actual plane hitting the Pentagon, yadayadayada. All planted BS stories designed to discourage the search for the TRUTH about what happened on 9/11. Hell, Chertoff's cousin even wrote the piece in Popular Mechanics that poo pooed any questions about what occurred, and paraded these fantastic hoaxes in front of our faces to deflect from the REAL QUESTIONS. Do you really think it is a coincidence that a Chertoff was tasked to write and compile this piece??? Anyone that thinks the TRUTH has been presented to us about 9/11 is an idiot. Personally, my gut tells me it was a Mossad operation closely assisted by some of the lunatic neocons in Bush's Administration. I DON'T think Cheney's pet monkey was in on it, because he is just too damned emotional and ignorant. Was Cheney part of it??? Well, what kind of monster advocates torture?

Ask yourself, if my theory is true, what will these crazy bastards do next to get us back on the fear train?

You gotta love the Net...

About 9/11:

Personally, my gut tells me it was a Mossad operation closely assisted by some of the lunatic neocons in Bush's Administration.

That was what some radical clerics were saying immediately post 9/11 as well. They more or less shut up when the video tape of UBL bragging about the operation was found in Afghanistan.

These levels of theories remind me the "Clinton had Vince Foster killed" days.

For all his duplicitousness, Cheney and/or Mossad having orchestrated the attacks on 9/11 is just a weeee bit too far "out there". (Of course, for some, that's proof enough of its truth...)

"For all his duplicitousness, Cheney and/or Mossad having orchestrated the attacks on 9/11 is just a weeee bit too far "out there". (Of course, for some, that's proof enough of its truth...)"

Posted by JC

Whatever, JC, believe whatever the hell you want to. No skin off my ass. You wanna believe passports rain from heaven, tapes that are cited by KNOWN LIARS, and three buildings can fall into their won footprints purely by chance, thats your business.

Me???? I didn't believe our soldiers would be shovin' light sticks in our prisoner's asses either. Or our citizens would be drowning in the streets while the Bush monkey's Rice shops for shoes. Or some rabid lunatic like Bolton would be considered "diplomatc material". Or some perjuring liar like Gonzales could BLATANTLY AND OPENLY lie during his confirmation hearings, yet still attain the position of Attorney General. So yeah, you're right....ALL of this stuff is is "OUT THERE". But I got news for you, if you BELIEVE the story we have been told about 9/11 than you are a God damned idiot.

JC, Would you please explain the five men arrested and held for 71 days who were filming the distruction of the WTC distruction? I'm surprised you seem to be unfimilar with the news reports.

http://ww1.sundayherald.com/37707
http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/israelispys.html

Just some brief comments first about motivations. I suspect whatever Bush's set of motivations were happened to be different than Cheney's which were different than Rumsfeld's which were different than Wolfowitz's which were different than some of the heavy hitters outside the administration who were either hardcore right wingers, neocons or even conservatives anxious to keep up with the others. Without going into a lot of detail, the biggest indicator I can see of mixed motivations were the numbers of democracy workers going around Iraq while events like Abu Ghraib were going on.

I think the motivation that may eventually get Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in trouble is simply a desire for power regardless of the means for achieving it. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are the core. For this group, power is simply: whatever works. That can mean privatization, oil, protecting the dollar, direct control over citizens, intimidation, money for the Republican party, the power that comes with being a war president, etc. If one thing doesn't work, other ideas are tried. Another factor is just pure arrogance. Go see the movie, The Oxbow Incident. It's a study in mob behavior but there's one main guy who pushes for the lynching of the innocent men out of sheer cussedness. Arrogance, the sin of people who are too used to being in power. An arrogance and subsequent recklessness that leads to criminality.

There's plenty of evidence at this point that Bush and company should be impeached. Whether they ever will be or not, I can't say. A Republican Congress whose ethics have gone out the window is obviously a big hindrance. Another big hindrance and the one that has slowly been changing over the last number of months is conventional wisdom. I mean the conventional wisdom of the media and the conventional wisdom that exists in places like Washington. Right wing Republicans have spent billions over the last thirty years trying to shape the conventional wisdom and they have succeeded in moving this country considerably to the right while paying lip service to values that most Americans take seriously whether liberal or moderate. Even the values of traditional conservatives often get lip service (fiscal conservatisim comes to mind). Bob Woodward seems oblivious to how much he has been swayed by the wining and dining of right wingers shaping a conventional wisdom that has fallen off a moral cliff.

Now I want to get back to Steve's post which included an article by Jofi Joseph in Foreign Policy. First, I want to say that both the aluminum tubes story (presented in September 2002) and the NIger/Iraq story (presented in January 2003) were the two scariest claims made by the Bush Administration. And both claims were based on lies that have become more and more evident over the last 30 months. Joseph says the aluminum tubes represented the greater danger, if it had been true, since Iraq already had uranium. But this overlooks the sequence of events.

It appears from things like the Downing Street Memos that the Bush Administration was trying to provoke Saddam Hussein and fully expected him to say no when the UN asked him to allow inspectors back in. That would have been sufficient cause for war. That Saddam Hussein said yes to UN inspections should have made an honest and rational administration pause in its rush to war. No such thing happened. Instead, a combination of lies and self-delusions kept us marching to war.

A major problem for the Bush Administration occurred when the UN inspectors went in and found Iraq's uranium stocks still under seal and fully accounted for. If the uranium was under seal, this was hardly evidence of a reconstituted uranium program. But to keep the drums of war beating, a 'reconstituted nuclear program' was needed.

But the Bush Administration was hardly stumped. If the uranium stocks were under seal, then where would Saddam Hussein get his uranium for his aluminum tubes if those tubes were to be used for uranium enrichment (one can't have a reconstituted nuclear program unless some tubes got through or some other method is available to enrich uranium; you can't talk about having a bomb in a few years unless you are presently and continuously enriching uranium)? That's where the Niger/Iraq yellowcake story comes in. It's a convoluted and farcical argument but the Bush Administration was arguing that Iraq was trying to get a secret supply from Niger when a untouched supply of uranium already existed in Iraq. Of course there would have been nothing secret about a Niger uranium deal since the mines are controlled by the French and it would have involved somewhere around half of NIger's uranium production. The only purpose of such a claim was to confuse and scare the American people. It was essential to create the impression that Saddam Hussein had indeed reconstituted his nuclear program.

I think it's clear that a number of officials, and one would have to include Cheney, knew the 'reconstituted nuclear program' argument didn't hold water. You simply cannot claim Saddam Hussein has a nuclear program if there is no uranium in play. It can't be done. Therefore, the nuclear experts who claimed the tubes were not likely intended for uranium enrichment but that they obviously matched the dimensions for aluminum tubes for artillery rocks weren't simply overlooked but deliberately ignored. As Eriposte of The Left Coaster has shown, the aluminum tubes story was one big lie.

And the other big lie was the implication that Saddam Hussein, one way or the other, had access to uranium that wasn't accounted for. At least some in the Bush Administration, and it certainly has to be determined who (may I suggest WHIG?), knew they were lying to the American people. They were also lying to our soldiers, not just about the nuclear claims but about other WMD issues as well, and our soldiers were sent to Iraq under the assumption they were there to remove or destroy WMDs. Part of the problem is that the Bush Administration was always claiming it had more evidence of WMDs and this caused many people to hesitate in their criticism of the little evidence that was presented. But the evidence did not exist and, in fact, it appears we rushed to war as the case for war was beginning to fall apart, particularly around the nuclear claims.

I think in time Bush and other administration figures will be held legally accoutable but there's still a lot of work to do to get there. The ground is shifting. And one can feel it.

------------------
Another thing that puzzles me about the "selective memory" that BOTH SIDES exhibit on this issue is why, if it was obvious to the MILLIONS of lay people, world wide, that protested prior to the invasion, that these SONS A BITCHES IN THE WHITE HOUSE WERE LYING TO US? than why was it not obvious to Congress?

Posted by: Pissed Off American at November 23, 2005 08:27 PM
----------

But it would have been obvious to Congress. They just agreed with the policy.
A policy to build military bases on the 2ND largest oil field in the world while being close enough to protect Israel. There is your reason.

The only trouble is and was, is that this was carried out by utter fools rather than competent rational people.

If you consider that the tax payers money is getting handed to a few select corporations, which may very well end up rich enough to control America completly, it may be difficult, in their view to call it a failed policy. Bad for America for sure, good for the few takeing control. Not to forget, they are not really spending or wasteing all that money, they are just moveing it into select bank accounts.

Senator Robert Byrd stood his ground.

An irresponsible, unfettered, naked capitalism lets loose the jackals. The feeding frenzy got you guys down?
PO'd Amrcn: Let up on the Israelis. You actually think Cheney and all his white Christian brethern gave a hoot about those zionist neos? He used them and their control of the major media(through the typical, tiring appeal to the jewish "guilt" through zionist b.s.) to get the NYT and WaPo to fall into line.
And, to all you Democrat vs. Republican gamers who never want to accept the complicity of the ENTIRE Congress in the their choice to go to war, try to step outside your cocoons for a couple hours. You may eventually recognize how dizzy you are.

John A:

JC, Would you please explain the five men arrested and held for 71 days who were filming the distruction of the WTC distruction? I'm surprised you seem to be unfimilar with the news reports.

I'm familiar with those reports. And assuming the worst-case scenario -- that Mossad knew about Atta & Co.'s plan and were monitoring it -- that's quite a far jump from Cheney and/or Mossad actually being behind 9/11!

Sorry, I'm no fan of Cheney (or Mossad!:), but that line of thinking is unadulterated tinfoil hat territory.

IMNSHO, of course. :)

BTW, since we're in tinfoil hat mode (i.e., that Mossad and/or Cheney was behind 9/11), here's a neo-con tinfoil hat theory: Saddam Hussein was behind the Oklahoma City bombing. This was parroted by ultra-neocon Frank Gaffney in the run-up to the war in a piece he wrote for Fox News.

Just gotta keep things balanced in the THU (Tinfoil Hat Universe)... :)

John A:

JC, Would you please explain the five men arrested and held for 71 days who were filming the distruction of the WTC distruction? I'm surprised you seem to be unfimilar with the news reports.
I'm familiar with those reports. And assuming the worst-case scenario -- that Mossad knew about Atta & Co.'s plan and were monitoring it -- that's quite a far jump from Cheney and/or Mossad actually being behind 9/11!

Sorry, I'm no fan of Cheney (or Mossad!:), but that line of thinking is unadulterated tinfoil hat territory.

IMNSHO, of course. :)

Posted by JC

Heres the deal. If they were aware of the plan, and allowed it to proceed, then the WERE behind it.

JC, That's a straw man dodge," (i.e., that Mossad and/or Cheney was behind 9/11)". But seeing you have stepped behind a tin foil sheild,"conspiricy theory", I think it is best to move on to the discussion of WHY?
Gary North clearly outlines the major players in his Lew Roclwell article today, http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north417.html. It's like Susan put it above; oil, israel, military industrial complex, however, North refers to the banking-oil complex, and the old American (foriegn relations) Establishment:
A VERY COMPLEX COMPLEX

American non-interventionists have faced an implacable public opinion ever since December 7, 1941. Public opinion can be controlled by controlling the flow of information. Until the advent of the Internet, this flow of information was systematically and self-consciously controlled by an inherently internationalist American Establishment.

The elite that has long controlled American foreign policy has also controlled the government-regulated and government-funded media, especially state-accredited higher education. This elite is committed to the ideal of American empire, but always in the name of pragmatism. Its primary academic manifesto set forth the Establishment's worldview over half a century ago: Robert E. Osgood's book, Ideals and Self-Interest in American Foreign Relations.

In his final speech as President, Dwight Eisenhower labeled this elite "the military-industrial complex." This was only 40% of the complex. The banking-oil complex has always been part of the larger complex. This co-partner is uniquely international.

Until May 15, 1948, when Truman recognized the newly formed State of Israel, the American Establishment had been overwhelmingly WASP. Yet the Establishment was divided over this issue in 1948. The incarnation of the older Establishment, Secretary of State George C. Marshall, told Truman a few days before the recognition that he would not resign in protest if Truman recognized the State of Israel, but he would surely vote against Truman in November, if he voted, which as a military man, he didn't. Somehow, this threat did not stop Truman. The Middle East from that day forth became a permanently divisive issue inside the American Establishment.

This five-part complex constitutes the largest concentration of capital in the world, and therefore is the most influential special-interest group in the world.

This special-interest group has its headquarters in New York City, but it rests on the cooperation of the political heads of oil-rich Muslim states. If the flow of oil stops because of a series of radical Islamic revolutions, the entire complex goes down, and with it the West's economy. Fractional reserve banking is lubricated by oil.

All sides understand this, including Osama bin Laden. All sides of the Establishment have a special interest in keeping the oil flowing. No side trusts the free market to allocate oil, for oil is not strictly a free market commodity. It is controlled at the wellhead by civil governments. Problem: the civil governments of Arabia are no more stable than the tribes and sects of Islam.

Craig: I think the motivation that may eventually get Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in trouble is simply a desire for power regardless of the means for achieving it. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are the core. For this group, power is simply: whatever works."

You really are describing the kind of leadership that would characterize leaders of ancient empires: lots of testosterone devoted to laying waste to their enemies. Hitler also had this kind of leadership style. Do you really think this gets to the bottom it?