The official justifications given for the 2003 U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq have been subjected to considerable scrutiny
over the last decade, stirring intense debate over what the actual
motivations for the war may have been. As is common with much of
the political discourse in America, this fairly complex topic has
fell victim to a continual barrage of speculation and blatant
misinformation from cable media outlets, political commentators,
and respected academic circles, leaving a majority of Americans
scratching their heads when asked why, exactly, the U.S. government
saw the need to invade Iraq in the first place. The most widely
offered alternative viewpoint to the absurd myth of Saddam Hussein
having posed an imminent nuclear threat to the United States is
that this war was strictly to gain control of Iraq's oilfields, and
not much else. This stand, while easy to digest and worthy of
initial consideration, is not supported by any actual evidence, and
has only served to complicate the more plausible answer outlined in
the following research. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of
oil contracts following the occupation were obtained by Chinese
companies, not US or British firms. Given this fact, it is a
mystery how this simplistic narrative remains at the forefront of
the left- leaning political discourse critical of the invasion.
Another popular theory, perhaps only a close second behind the "war
for oil" argument, is the assertion that Iraq was invaded primarily
to suit the financial interests of the military-industrial complex.
While weapons manufacturing firms and private contracting agencies
such as Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, and Dynacorp have profited
enormously from continued military operations in Iraq, there is
little to suggest that these competing institutions had the means,
capability, and carte blanche political influence necessary to push
the US government to war. The "war for strictly profit" argument
falls most noticeably short in its implied disregard of the
tendencies of nation-states to employ military force in an effort
to achieve geopolitical goals, which, historically speaking, has
been the primary objective of almost all modern warfare. (Read: The
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Paul Kennedy, for more on
this). In the case of Iraq, then, it is much more feasible that the
rampant war profiteering achieved by US firms has simply been the
vulgar byproduct of deeply flawed international policymaking,
rather than the driving force behind the war effort. Conspicuously
absent from this overtly partisan dialogue has been a serious
discussion regarding the well-documented imperial ambitions of
neighboring Israel, supposedly the only democracy in the Middle
East, and the undue influence a number of staunch pro-Israel think
tanks have had in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the region. There
is a mountain of evidence available which proves, beyond any
reasonable doubt, that a prominent group of high-level U.S.
neoconservative policy makers had long viewed regime change and the
subsequent occupation of Iraq as a vital objective in ensuring
Israels security and national interests. The following pages will
explore this matter in depth, examining the historical context of
the stated regional goals of the Israeli government while analyzing
the influence its proponents have had in shaping U.S. policy during
the buildup to war.The neoconservative movement within the U.S.
government has solidified its political power by fostering a
close-knit network of think tanks, institutions, and journalists
that look to shape the direction of U.S. foreign policy. The term
neoconservative was originally used to describe liberals who began
shifting rightward on the political spectrum as the Democratic
Party moved towards an anti-war stance in the late 1960s. Their
gradual rise to power began during the Reagan administration, where
Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Michael Ledeen, and
Douglas Feith served in various prominent roles in the defense
department. Political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg notes:'One major
factor that drew them inexorably to the right was their attachment
to Israel and their growing frustration during the 1960s with a
Democratic party that was becoming increasingly opposed to American
military preparedness and increasingly enamored of Third World
causes [e.g., Palestinian rights]. In the Reaganite right's
hard-line anti-communism, commitment to American military strength,
and willingness to intervene politically and militarily in the
affairs of other nations to promote democratic values (and American
interests), neocons found a political movement that would guarantee
Israel's security. ( The Transparent Cabal, 17)The neoconservatives
close ties to the Likud wing of the Israeli government were first
brought to light after Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were
implicated in an Israeli spying scandal in the 1970s. Although they
were never indicted, Perle and Wolfowitzs dual-Israeli citizenship
and strong ties to the Likud party should have served as a red flag
throughout political circles. In 1981, the neocons again came under
scrutiny for their heavy involvement in the Iran-Contra affair for
the central role they played in illegally arming the Nicaraguan
Contras. For the first time in American history, the federal
government was forced to publicly acknowledge that a faction within
its ranks had been engaged in a clandestine arms-dealing operation
that operated outside of established international law. Elliot
Abrams was charged and pled guilty to withholding information
during congressional hearings. Despite his well-known criminal
past, Abrams was later appointed as Deputy National Security
Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy by President Bush in 2001.
The decision to appoint Abrams, along with Wolfowitz and Perle, to
prominent positions within foreign policy departments of the
administration ensured the illegal precedent set by those involved
in the Iran-Contra scandal would be revisited prior to the 2003
invasion of Iraq, as this research will plainly demonstrate. The
neoconservative ascension into the upper echelon of U.S. politics
began in force during the 1990s. In 1997, a highly influential
study group staffed by Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Richard
Perle, and Elliot Abrams was formed. Using the title The Project
for a New American Century (PNAC), their stated goal was for the
U.S. to maintain its role as reigning superpower by exerting its
military influence around the world. Their central policy document,
titled Rebuilding Americas Defenses, strongly advocated for U.S.
intervention in troubled areas across the globe, especially Arab
states. It encouraged the waging of preemptive war where U.S. and
allies interests were threatened and called for a dramatic
restructuring of the Middle East. Throughout the 1990s, the PNAC
members authored numerous policy papers and letters to then
President Clinton, strongly urging regime change in Iraq. The
language and demands found within the letters were verbatim the
talking points later used during the media blitz to garner public
support for the war. Political analyst Jeffrey Record notes:The
neoconservatives who populated the upper ranks of the Bush
administration had been gunning for Saddam Hussein for years before
9/11. They had an articulated, aggressive, values-based foreign
policy doctrine and a specific agenda for the Middle East that
reflected hostility toward Arab autocracies and support for Israeli
security interests as defined by that countrys Likud political
party (Dark Victory, Salon.com)In 1996, a study group at The
Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS),
named A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing the Realm, staffed
by PNAC members and future policy makers in the Bush Administration
Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser encouraged Israel's
incoming Likud government led by Benjamin Netanyahu to favor a
hardline military posture toward Middle East countries considered
hostile to Israel, most notably Iraq and Syria. The study groups
recommendations closely mirror the military actions taken by the
Bush administration in the Middle East directly after the September
11th attacks. Importantly, it presented regime change in Iraq as a
vital Israeli strategic objective: Israel can shape its strategic
environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening,
containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on
removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq an important Israeli
strategic objective in its own right as a means of foiling Syrias
regional ambitions. ("A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing
the Realm." Israeleconomy.org). Of the Clean Break papers,
political observer William James Martin correctly notes that This
document is remarkable for its very existence because it
constitutes a policy manifesto for the Israeli government penned by
members of the current U.S. government.A number of the
Israeli-centric ideas found within both the PNAC letters and the
Clean Break study group were first published in 1982 by Israeli
Foreign Ministry official Oded Yinon. Yinon outlined a concise
military doctrine titled A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen
Eighties, which articulated the long term geostrategic goals of the
Likud wing of the Israeli government. It promoted the dissolution
of a number of Arab states into smaller sectarian and ethnic
provinces, thus reducing their capability of confronting or
threating Israeli power in the region. The recommendations
presented by Yinon served as the ideological heritage for Middle
East policies that would later be undertaken by the Bush
Administration, as evidenced by the militant language and
objectives within the document that reappeared in numerous
prominent neoconservative publications throughout the 1990s. Yinon
writes: Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on
the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its
dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq
is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which
constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war
will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it
is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every
kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run
and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up
Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a
division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria
during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will
exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and
Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish
north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation
will deepen this polarization. ("A Strategy for Israel in the
Nineteen Eighties." Cosmos.ucc.ie) Tellingly, the balkanization of
Iraq into a number of sectarian provinces first encouraged by
Yinon, and later by Perle and Feith, is precisely what has occurred
over the last 10 years. For more on this topic, and the rise of
ISIS in the region, go here: Although the interwoven strategic
objectives of the neoconservatives and their Israeli counterparts
have been labeled as a sort of conspiracy, there is no evidence to
support this assertion. Their long standing ambitions of
transforming the Middle East and promoting Israeli interests were
far from hidden, as the readily available letter signed by numerous
neoconservatives to then-president Bush on April 3, 2002
demonstrates: Furthermore, Mr. President, we urge you to accelerate
plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. As you have
said, every day that Saddam Hussein remains in power brings closer
the day when terrorists will have not just airplanes with which to
attack us, but chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, as well.
It is now common knowledge that Saddam, along with Iran, is a
funder and supporter of terrorism against IsraelIf we do not move
against Saddam Hussein and his regime, the damage our Israeli
friends and we have suffered until now may someday appear but a
prelude to much greater horrors "(Letter to President Bush on
Israel, Arafat and the War on Terrorism."
Newamericancentury.org)There is an extensive amount of
documentation which proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, a
deliberate intent to deceive the American public and the
international community by using faulty intelligence reports as
evidence during the build-up to war in Iraq. A 2007 study concluded
935 false statements had been made by Bush administration officials
prior to the invasion. In an ideal world, the mountain of evidence
available would be used for penning criminal indictments against
the architects of the war. Unfortunately, we do not live in an
ideal world.Literally all of the propagated evidence used as
justification for the war came directly from an office within the
Department of Defense. This office was staffed by hard line
neoconservatives from The Project for A New American Century that
were heavily influenced by Likud wing Israeli officials whose
stated goal was to reshape the Middle East to favor their
interests. This theory is not limited to opponents of the Iraq war.
Neoconservative Philip Zelikow, prominent member of Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board and co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission,
notes: Why would Iraq attack America or use their nuclear weapons
against us? Ill tell you who I think the real threat is and
actually has been since 1990 its the threat against Israel.. In an
August 2002 interview, Four Star General and NATO Supreme Allied
Commander Wesley Clark commented: Those who favor this attack now
will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true
that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. But they are
afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to
use it against Israel. ("Whos Afraid of Iraq?" Counterpunch.org)In
April 2002, Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz created the
aforementioned intelligence cell within the DOD named the Office of
Special Plans (OSP) headed by Clean Break author and Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. It is an irrefutable
fact that the OSPs sole purpose was to cherry pick intelligence
reports in order to justify the facts around the policy of regime
change in Iraq. The OSP operated independent of the established
intelligence community, enabling Feith and his team to routinely
disseminate discredited and faulty intelligence reports directly to
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfelds office. The Office of Special
Plans was frequently visited by Israeli generals and diplomats who
were allowed to bypass normal security screening. Colonel Karen
Kwiatkowski, who worked directly under Feith, notes :I witnessed
neoconservative agenda bearers within the OSP usurp measured and
carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and
distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact
falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the
president. (Karen Kwiatkowski Sourcewatch.com) In 2005 George
Tenet, former Director of the CIA, corroborated Kwiatkowskis claim,
observing that:A special intelligence unit at the Pentagon provided
private prewar briefings to senior White House officials on alleged
ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda without the knowledge of [the] CIA
Director ... [and the] disclosure suggests that a controversial
Pentagon office played a greater role than previously understood in
shaping the administration's views on Iraq's alleged ties to the
terrorist network behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and that it bypassed
usual channels to make a case that conflicted with the conclusions
of CIA analysts. (Senate Report on Intelligence Activities Relating
to Iraq,Psu.edu) An Inspector General report issued in 2007 found
that Feith and the OSPs actions were inappropriate because a policy
office was producing intelligence products and was not clearly
conveying to senior decision-makers the variance with the consensus
of the Intelligence Community. In 2005, OSP employee Larry Franklin
pled guilty to espionage charges for passing classified documents
to American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy
director Steve Rosen and AIPAC Iran analyst Kenneth Weisman.
Franklin was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Rosen and Weisman
were later indicted for illegally gathering and disclosing
classified information regarding U.S. national security to Israel.
The case was eventually dismissed, likely due to the enormous
amount of influence AIPAC has over U.S lawmakers in congress. The
occurrence of these blatant crimes being committed within the OSP
strengthens the case surrounding the central role Israeli interests
played in the buildup to the war.The most notorious intelligence
failure during the buildup to the invasion was the widely promoted
myth of Sadaam Hussein having obtained weapons of mass destruction.
When UN Resolution 1441 was issued in 2002, it ordered weapons
inspectors to report any interference by Iraq with inspection
activities, as well as any failure by Iraq to comply with its
disarmament obligations, upon which the U.N. Security Council would
convene and consider the situation and the need for (Iraqi)
compliance. Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspection team, found no
evidence of any nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons during its
five months in Iraq. Nevertheless, Resolution 1441 was later used
as the legal justification for the invasion by the Bush
Administration. Obviously, no such weapons were ever found. Recent
evidence has emerged detailing how CIA and British intelligence
agencies were well aware prior to the invasion there were no
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The purposeful
misinterpretation of Resolution 1441 and the many lies preceding it
clearly brings the international legality of the war into question.
The deception hardly stopped at the WMD myth, however. Literally
every pre-war bit of evidence used for justifying the invasion of
Iraq has been proven to be the product of suspect intelligence and,
in almost all cases, outright deception. The now infamous Niger
forgeries, which indicated Iraqi officials had illicitly purchased
yellow cake uranium, were known by the CIA prior to their release
to be poorly crafted fakes. They have since been attributed to
neocon Michael Ledeen. Nevertheless, the forgeries were used as
hard evidence of Saddams procurement of uranium when Colin Powell
presented the Bush Administrations case for war to the UN Security
Council on February 5, 2003. Another widely discredited report used
as justification in the lead up to the invasion was a supposed
transfer of anthrax between 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraq
officials during a meeting in Prague in 2001. Attributed to Israeli
intelligence sources, this blatant lie was intended to promote the
idea that Sadaam Hussein had a role in the September 11 attacks.
The fictional meeting in Prague, along with speculation of mobile
biological weapons labs under Saddams palace, first appeared in
numerous PNAC papers in 2001 and was reported by neoconservative
journalist Judith Miller in the NY Times. Miller later went to
prison for her role in Valerie Plame-Lewis Libby scandal. Her close
connection with PNAC contributor and Assistant to The President
Lewis Scooter Libby allowed her unauthorized access to classified
information concerning Plames status as a CIA operative. Plames
husband and Foreign Service Agent Joe Wilson had written a piece in
the New York Times disputing the purchase of yellow cake uranium by
Iraq. Although impossible to confirm, it is likely Plame was ousted
as a CIA agent as retribution for her husband providing significant
pushback against the Bush Administrations lies concerning the Niger
forgeries. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison;
unsurprisingly, his sentence was later commuted by George Bush upon
his leaving office in 2007. The Plame-Libby affair offered a prime
display of the interconnected network and overlapping sphere of
influence the neoconservatives had in shaping the view promulgated
by major U.S. news media outlets.Shortly after the staged toppling
of Saddam Husseins statue in Baghdad in 2003, which was later
admitted to be part of a massive U.S. propaganda campaign, the
initial evidence used as justification for the war began to fall
apart. A new, even less plausible motive for the invasion began to
take shape throughout the state sanctioned U.S. media. Audaciously,
the U.S. government began to claim there to be a moral imperative
in liberating the Iraqi people from Sadaam Husseins tyrannical
rule, a narrative that, when juxtaposed with historical record, was
mind bogglingly absurd. Any sudden concern to help Iraqi civilians
seemed preposterous when contrasted to the 500,000 Iraq children
who died as a result of U.S. led international sanctions in the
1990s. When asked about the staggering number during a 60 Minutes
report, Secretary of State Madeline Albright replied It was worth
it. Or in light of the fact the U.S. government stood by silently
as Saddam murdered over 5,000 Kurdish civilians in 1988 with
chemical weapons supplied to him by the U.S. government during the
Iraq-Iran war. Furthermore, the U.S. government has seen fit to
fully fund and provide material support to repressive and brutal
authoritarian regimes all over the world for decades. These easily
verifiable examples make the purported humanitarian motivations on
behalf of U.S. policy makers a tough pill to swallow.By all
accounts, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been an
unmitigated disaster. The war has left an incomprehensible amount
of human suffering in its aftermath. Conservative estimates put the
death toll at 150,000 Iraqis, although that number continues to
climb. Cities such as Fallujah have seen a four time increase in
infant mortality rates and a dramatic uptick in the instances of
cancer as a result of highly toxic munitions such as depleted
uranium having been used during the occupation. The country
continues to be plagued by sectarian violence. Iraqs infrastructure
is in ruins and plans for reconstruction have been thwarted by
rampant corruption and mismanagement. Basic necessities such as
food and water are not being met and many hospitals lack
electricity and adequate medical supplies to treat patients. An
estimated four million Iraqis have been displaced or forced to flee
their homes as a result of the occupation. These conditions
virtually guarantee Iraq will remain a breeding ground for
extremist groups during the ongoing struggle for political power.
Here at home, the Iraq war has left a powerful and irreversible
imprint on countless families. 4,488 U.S. soldiers have been killed
and tens of thousands substantially wounded and maimed during the
occupation . The emotional toll on the psyche of those who have
been in combat has led to an incredibly high rate of suicide among
military members returning home from the war . In every way
imaginable, the invasion of Iraq and its bloody aftermath has had
devastating consequences for all parties involved. This research
aims to illustrate the broad scope and complexity of international
affairs while highlighting the pivotal role played by a select
group of policy makers in the lead up to the war in Iraq. There are
an extensive amount of government policy papers and documents
concerning this topic available, making it somewhat difficult to
pick those most relevant to the discussion. However, the ideas
repeatedly articulated by the neoconservatives help provide a
stunning birds-eye view of the Middle East through an explicitly
imperialistic, Israeli-centric lens. Viewed in a vacuum, and
without the support of high ranking U.S. bureaucrats, these
policies would be nothing more than bellicose rhetoric on behalf of
a small faction within the Israeli government. When combined with
the unprecedented power of the neoconservative ideologues within
the Bush administration, however, the long standing ambitions of
the Israeli Likud party became the driving force behind U.S. policy
in the Middle East.***