Domain of the Diplo

PNAC
PNAC - The Project for the New American Century

Remember those four letters because they spell out the hidden agenda of the Bush administration. Sounds like some nutty conspiracy theory? Well, think again. Just consider the evidence :

PNAC stands for The Project for the New American Century and it's a right wing think-tank that includes some very influential members of the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney (vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). Check out the PNAC website and read their Statement Of Principles and note the signatures. Here's a quote from that statement (with my emphasis) :

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

These people have been pushing for war with Iraq well before the current Bush adminstration even came to power, as this letter published on their website in May 1998 shows (here's an extract) :

- We should take whatever steps are necessary to challenge Saddam Hussein's claim to be Iraq's legitimate ruler, including indicting him as a war criminal;

- We should help establish and support (with economic, political, and military means) a provisional, representative, and free government of Iraq in areas of Iraq not under Saddam's control;

- We should use U.S. and allied military power to provide protection for liberated areas in northern and southern Iraq; and

- 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 Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power.

The former British ambassador to Washington has confirmed the fact that Bush wanted to attack Iraq immediately after the September 11th terrorist attacks (even though there is no link between Iraq and those attacks). According to an article on the BBC News website :

US President George Bush was persuaded by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair not to attack Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, it has been claimed. According to a former British ambassador to Washington, the US president had come under intense pressure from some in his own military to attack Saddam Hussein in the days after the 2001 terrorist outrages in the US.

But, said Sir Christopher Meyer, when Mr Blair met the US president at his Camp David retreat a few days later he succesfully argued for al-Qaeda and the Taleban regime in Afghanistan to be confronted first.

This CBS News story also backs up this idea capturing a telling insight into the mind of Rumsfeld, only hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks :

CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq - even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.

That's according to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11 - notes that show exactly where the road toward war with Iraq began, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin....

...With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." - meaning Saddam Hussein - "at same time. Not only UBL" - the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.

Update: U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, after leaving the Bush cabinet, also backs up these statements in an interview with CNN in January 2004 :

The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go", O'Neill told CBS, according to excerpts released Saturday by the network. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this.' For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."

Even more recently Richard Clarke, a White House security agent under four succesive presidents, revealed that Bush was "obssessed" with Iraq to the point of ignoring the real threat from Bin Laden. As reported in March 2004 :

He said the US president had later tried to show links between al-Qaeda and Iraq, despite being told none existed.

He said it was "outrageous" Mr Bush was running for re-election on his record fighting terrorism, when in fact he had "ignored it" before the attacks.

"He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."

He said Mr Bush appeared obsessed with the idea of blaming former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way," Mr Clarke quotes Mr Bush as saying in the book.

"The entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this," he added.

He also told the US broadcaster CBS that the day after the 11 September attacks, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld called for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al-Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.

"Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan," he said. "And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said: 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.'"

He said he was so taken aback by the comments, he initially thought Mr Rumsfeld was joking.

Now Vanity Fair reveals in an interview with Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to Washington (quoted in The Observer :

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.

According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

The evidence overwhelmingly shows that Bush had already made his mind to attack Iraq and had seized upon 9/11 as the excuse to do so. He cynically exploited the wave of emotion generated by the attrocity to futher his own political ends whilst lying to the public, the UN and foreign governments about the reasons. Using theats of nebulous 'weapons of mass destruction', that never existed, he rail-roaded both the US and Britain into war. So, why were the neo-conservatives so set on Iraq as their target?

Now here's an extract from a PNAC blueprint PDF document from their website called 'Rebuilding Americas Defenses' (dated September 2000) that the Sunday Herald newspaper published in an article last year :

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. 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.'

The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.

This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'.

The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.

The PNAC report also:

  • refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';
  • describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';
  • reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;
  • says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';
  • spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to 'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratisation in China';
  • calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US;
  • hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';
  • and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.

Starting to sound familiar? And this is from an article published 3 years ago. Pay attention to the very last point about Libya and Syria being "dangerous regimes", and then consider the speech that Powell made on 30th March 2003 in Israel (as published in The Guardian) :

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iran must stop its drive for weapons of mass destruction and Syria must end its support for terrorism.

In a strongly worded speech to a pro-Israel lobby, Powell bracketed Iran and Syria with Iraq as promoters of terrorism and suggested they faced grave consequences.

His tough words matched those last week of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and served to signal unity within the Bush administration on the anti-terror front.

Both Iran and Syria have shown no inclination to bend to the Bush administration's growing rhetorical campaign against them.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said Sunday that ``Syria has a national interest in the expulsion of the invaders from Iraq.''

Rumsfeld on Friday accused Syria of supplying military technology to Iraq, a charge Syria denied. He also said the United States would hold Iran responsible for the entrance of Iran-sponsored forces into Iraq.

Carrying the threat a step forward, Powell on Sunday demanded Iran ``stop its support for terrorism against Israel'' and said Tehran also ``must stop its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and the ability to produce them.''

Turning to the regime in Damascus, Powell said ``Syria now faces a critical choice'' of whether to ``continue its direct support for terrorism in the dying days'' of President Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.

``Syria bears responsibility for its choices and consequences,'' Powell said sternly at the 44th annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Of the war in Iraq, he said ``let there be no doubt of the outcome. We will drive Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.''

And Powell said, to wide applause from the heavily Jewish audience, ``we will keep his weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East.''

Since that speech by Powell Washington has stepped up it's campaign against Syria which eerily parallels the language used against Iraq a year ago. The following article in The Guardian on April 13th makes this clear :

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - regarded as the real architect of the Iraqi war and its aftermath - said on Thursday that 'the Syrians have been shipping killers into Iraq to try and kill Americans', adding: 'We need to think about what our policy is towards a country that harbours terrorists or harbours war criminals.

'There will have to be change in Syria, plainly,' said Wolfowitz.

Washingtom intelligence sources claim that weapons of mass destruction that Saddam was alleged to have possessed were shipped to Syria after inspectors were sent by the United Nations to find them.

One of the chief ideologists behind the war, Richard Perle, yesterday warned that the US would be compelled to act against Syria if it emerged that weapons of mass destruction had been moved there by Saddam's fallen Iraqi regime.

Luckily people are beginning to wake up. Only recently General Anthony Zinni (ex commander-in-chief of the United States Central Command, in charge of all American troops in the Middle East) launched a scathing attack on the neo-cons and on Rumsfeld in particular. In an interview quoted on CBS News (May 2004) he clearly stated where the blame lies :

"Well, it starts at the top. If you're the secretary of defense and you're responsible for that. If you're responsible for that planning and that execution on the ground. If you've assumed responsibility for the other elements, non-military, non-security, political, economic, social and everything else, then you bear responsibility," says Zinni. "Certainly those in your ranks that foisted this strategy on us that is flawed. Certainly they ought to be gone and replaced."

Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the administration known as 'the neo-conservatives' who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.

Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq.

"I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do," says Zinni.

And one article, because I mentioned the neo-conservatives who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested."

Adds Zinni: "I know what strategy they promoted. And openly. And for a number of years. And what they have convinced the president and the secretary to do. And I don't believe there is any serious political leader, military leader, diplomat in Washington that doesn't know where it came from."

More recently leaked memos clearly show that Downing Street were aware of what was going on and had reservations about the US plans:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. 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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Ultimately, though, Blair went along with Bush, perhaps in an effort to try and curtail the worst excesses of the war-mongering machine that he headed. Even Blair must have been suprised, though, when he found he to try and talk Bush out of attacking a civilian TV station in an allied country simply because he didn't like the stories they were running:

President George W. Bush planned to bomb pan-Arab television broadcaster al-Jazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror said, citing a Downing Street memo marked "Top Secret"... The transcript of the pair's talks during Blair's April 16, 2004 visit to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite channel's headquarters.

Blair allegedly feared such a strike, in the business district of Doha, the capital of Qatar, a key western ally in the Persian Gulf, would spark revenge attacks.

As an aside it's also interesting to note that plans are afoot in Washington to establish an oil pipeline between Iraq and Israel, as reported in The Observer on April 20th 2003 :

Plans to build a pipeline to siphon oil from newly conquered Iraq to Israel are being discussed between Washington, Tel Aviv and potential future government figures in Baghdad.

The plan envisages the reconstruction of an old pipeline, inactive since the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948, when the flow from Iraq's northern oilfields to Palestine was re-directed to Syria.

Now, its resurrection would transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated Iraq, cutting out Syria and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke....

...The plan was promoted by the now Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the pipeline was to be built by the Bechtel company, which the Bush administration last week awarded a multi-billion dollar contract for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The memorandum has been quietly renewed every five years, with special legislation attached whereby the US stocks a strategic oil reserve for Israel even if it entailed domestic shortages - at a cost of $3 billion (£1.9bn) in 2002 to US taxpayers.

This bill would be slashed by a new pipeline, which would have the added advantage of giving the US reliable access to Gulf oil other than from Saudi Arabia.

Of course many people have denied that the War had anything to do with oil. So it's strange, then, that Wolfowitz stated the following in an interview with The Guardian :

Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.

"There are memos. One of them marked secret, says, 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,'" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001.

Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth.

He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

CBS News January 2004 quoting interviews with George Bush's former Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill.

Who are the men behind the project?



DONALD RUMSFELD US defence secretary

He was a favourite of US president Richard Nixon in the Vietnam War. He then became chief of staff and defence secretary in the 1970s to Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford. In the 1980s Rumsfeld was US president Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East. In 1983 he met Saddam Hussein to conclude a deal to supply US weapons to help Iraq in its war with Iran.

Donald Rumsfield shaking Saddam's hand

The US State Department admitted at the time "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons" in that war with Iran. The Los Angeles Times in 1991 reported that US-supplied helicopters "were among those dropping the deadly bombs" in Saddam Hussein's 1988 poison gas attack on Kurds in the town of Halabja. More recently Rumsfeld led the US Congress committee pushing the "Star Wars" National Missile Defence system.

For a more detailed biography of Rumsfeld check here. If you want more information on American companies selling Iraq chemical and biological agents then read this.

JOHN NEGROPONTE US ambassador to the UN

From 1964 Negroponte was a key aide in the US embassy in Vietnam. He was then a key adviser from 1971 to 1973 to Henry Kissinger, and was in charge of Vietnam policy on the US National Security Council. In the 1980s he was charged with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua", according to the New York Times.

As US ambassador to neighbouring Honduras he oversaw an expansion of US military aid to the right wing government from $4 million to $77 million. Negroponte helped organise and train Honduras's infamous Battalion 3-16. The US Baltimore Sun paper exposed how "The CIA and US embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture committed by Battalion 3-16, yet continued to collaborate closely with its leaders."

For more info on Negroponte check here.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ Deputy defence secretary

He was also an undersecretary for defence under George Bush Senior. In the 1980's Wolfowitz was US ambassador to Indonesia. He described the Indonesian dictator General Suharto as "a model of moderation". Wolfowitz ensured US military help for Suharto's regime while it was occupying East Timor in defiance of UN resolutions. Some 300,000 were killed in that occupation.

In the wake of 11 September 2001 Wolfowitz openly called for the US to use military might to "end states" which threatened its interests. Wolfowitz argues the US must be ready to confront, with force if needed, its "major strategic competitor and potential threat" - China. Wolfowitz is also on the board of several US corporations including Hasbro, a major investor in sweatshop factories across Asia.

For more info on Wolfowitz check here.

RICHARD PERLE Chair of Bush's Defence Policy Board

Perle opposes any nuclear arms control agreements and enthusiastically supports the US being prepared to wage nuclear war. Perle is a director of the shadowy venture capital firm Trireme Partners. It invests in companies dealing in "homeland security" technology and services. It has lucrative deals in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Perle ominously declared the US "must develop a strategy to contain France" because of its refusal to back war on Iraq.

On March 28, 2003, the Wall St. Journal reported that Mr. Perle resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board (but will remain on the board) and ceased advising Global Crossing Ltd. The story notes that "Mr. Perle's resignation comes weeks after the New Yorker magazine disclosed that he met in France with a Saudi Arabian arms dealer at a time when he was soliciting investment in a homeland-security fund he had set up. The fund, Trireme Partners, made presentations to potential investors elsewhere noting Mr. Perle's seat on the defense board." - see here for more info.

ELLIOT ABRAMS

He is the member of Bush's National Security Council responsible for the Middle East, as director of the office of "democracy, human rights and international operations". Abrams was found guilty of lying to Congress to cover up US organising and financing of the right wing terrorist Contra organisation in Nicaragua in the 1980s. The Contras murdered, raped and terrorised civilians, killing up to 40,000 people, in their war against the Sandinista government. Abrams was only saved from jail by a pardon issued by George Bush Senior in his last days of office.

Abrams was also involved in US intervention in El Salvador in the 1980's which he called a "fabulous achievement". Between 1980 and 1989 death squads organised by the US-backed government murdered 41,048 civilians, according to an official investigation. (For more information on this read this article).

Abrams gave the go-ahead to an attempted coup in April last year against Venezuela's elected president, Chavez. (more info).

WILLIAM KRISTOL

He was a junior member of Ronald Reagan's administration and chief of staff to Bush Senior's vice-president Dan Quayle. Kristol was also paid at least $100,000 to act as an adviser to the Enron energy corporation which collapsed amid a huge corruption scandal two years ago.

Kristol said the US government deliberately "allowed Saddam to suppress the rebellion" of Iraqi Shias and Kurds after the 1991 Gulf War. He admitted that the US and the Saudi Arabian regime did not "want to establish the principle that a regime should be removed by popular uprisings". Kristol unashamedly calls himself an "American imperialist".

Have a read of this article for more info on Kristol.

Further reading

Background issues

"Pick the topic you like: the Middle East, international terrorism, Central America, whatever it is - the picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies. It's all been a marvelous success from the point of view in deterring the threat of democracy, achieved under conditions of freedom, which is extremely interesting. It's not like a totalitarian state, where it's done by force. These achievements are under conditions of freedom."

- Noam Chomsky

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."


- Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II

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