[WCUSP] [HumanRights] Israeli lobbies and the upcoming war on Iran
yvonne simmons
roweenayvonne at yahoo.com
Sun Feb 11 07:00:29 CST 2007
> -------> Philip Weiss is a Jewish American who has
blogged
> about Jewish attitudes and
> most importantly about the Jewish American
> "leadership" (in quotes because
> they are "leaders" by their self-definition but some
> dispute this --
> leadership for political Zionism only). His blogs
> (http://mondoweiss.observer.com) provide interesting
> angles not revealed in
> mainstream media. For example, the claim that
> American Jews were more
> concerned about Iran in 2002 and early 2003 and were
> thus less inclined to
> support the war on Iraq is interesting but simply
> false on many grounds
>
(http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/05/my-jewish-problem-cted-my-tribe-is-no-longer-a-progressive-p.html
>
> ). American Jewish opinions on the Iraq war before
> it happened was solidly
> supportive of war (as was the wider American and
> Israeli publics who were
> shielded from facts by a political Zionist
> manipulated media and government)
> and there was no mention of Iran until after
> "finishing-off" of Iraq. In
> fact, some of these surveys were carried out by the
> American Jewish
> Establishment itself; here is one example from the
> American Jewish
> Committee:
>
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/K/5/pub5802.html
>
> What Weiss and other logical people agree to is that
> attitudes do not shape
> policy, actions do and in this case the
> self-declared Jewish leaders and
> politically driven Zionist pundits were very
> influential and pushed
> methodically to convince Jews and others to support
> war on Iraq (using lies
> and deception in the process) as they are now doing
> with Iran. I need not
> here rehash the neocon Zionist work for regime
> change in Iraq before
> September 11, 2001. People by now are familiar with
> their memo to Netanyahu
> in 1996 and with the "Project for New American
> Century" the neocon project
> that said preemptive war would be difficult to sell
> to the US public "save
> for a Pearl Harbor like event" (which they
> conveniently got a few years
> later). But let us focus in this article on the
> period between September
> 11, 2001 and March 2003 because understanding that
> period helps understand
> the period now leading up to the conflict with Iran.
>
> The "Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs"
> (Dick Cheney was on its
> board before he became VP) issued a statement
> September 13, 2001 even before
> the dead were burried from the attacks of 9/11: “In
> response to the attack
> on September 11, 2001 JINSA calls on the United
> States to: Halt all US
> purchases of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil for Food
> Program and to provide all
> necessary support to the Iraq National Congress,
> including direct American
> military support, to effect a regime change in
> Iraq.”
>
> In an April 2003 issue of the Jewish Forward
> magazine, we read “As President
> Bush attempted to sell the ... war in Iraq,
> America’s most important Jewish
> organizations rallied as one to his defense. In
> statement after statement
> community leaders stressed the need to rid the world
> of Saddam Hussein and
> his weapons of mass destruction.”
>
> In the 1 October 2001 issue of the Weekly Standard,
> Israeli apologists
> Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for regime
> change in Iraq after
> changing the regime in Afghanistan. They and the
> cadre of Israeli
> apologists (both leaning to the Democratic Party and
> leaning to the neocon
> wing of the Republican party) repeated these calls
> often in countless
> interviews and articles. One could fill a whole
> book on these quotes but it
> is the actions of Israeli advocates within Congress
> and within the
> administration carried more weight. Ofcourse those
> within government are
> functionaries who pay heed to where their money and
> support comes from when
> elections come around. You can bet that those
> inside the government watched
> carefully and got the messages when the the Council
> of Presidents of Major
> Jewish Organizations had Iraq on top of its agenda
> on July 26, 2002
> (http://spme.net/cgi-bin/facultyforum.cgi?ID=231 ).
>
> The history of this period leading up to the war
> will be written by
> historians when all the documents are declassified
> and/or leaked from the
> hundreds of Israel-first think tanks and other lobby
> organizations become
> available. But enough material exists to draw a
> rather somber reminder for
> those who now bought the non-sense that Iran is a
> threat to the US. I think
> it is critical for people who want to understand and
> hopefully prevent the
> upcoming war on Iran to first understand the lobby's
> role in pushing the war
> on Iraq. While I wrote about this issue before (see
> for example,
>
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/connectingthedotsiraqpalestine/
> ), the most thorough
> research on this issue was done by Professors
> Mearsheimer and Walt. So
> below is the section of the work of these two
> distinguished professors that
> is worth reading or rereading. This will help start
> the process of
> rethinking the slippery slope that the endless and
> misnamed "war on
> terrorism" has been taking people and why. Only such
> an understanding
> disseminated to people around the world who then act
> could help humanity
> avoid the international catastrophe that would be an
> attack on Iran (which
> would make the mayhem in Iraq look like a walk in
> the park by comparison).
> -------------------
> (excerpts from M&W, full text at
>
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011
> ; BTW, an
> even longer version is now being published by M&W as
> a book)
>
> Israel and the Iraq War
>
> Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only
> factor behind the U.S.
> decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was a
> critical element. Some
> Americans believe that this was a “war for oil,” but
> there is hardly any
> direct evidence to support this claim. Instead,
> the war was motivated in
> good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.
> According to Philip
> Zelikow, a member of the President’s Foreign
> Intelligence Advisory Board
> (2001?2003), executive director of the 9/11
> Commission, and now Counselor
> to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the “real
> threat” from Iraq was not
> a threat to the United States.139 The “unstated
> threat” was the “threat
> against Israel,” Zelikow told a University of
> Virginia audience in
> September 2002, noting further that “the American
> government doesn’t want
> to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is
> not a popular sell.”
> On August 16, 2002, eleven days before Vice
> President Cheney kicked off the
> campaign for war with a hard?line speech to the
> Veterans of Foreign Wars,
> the Washington Post reported that “Israel is urging
> U.S. officials not to
> delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam
> Hussein.”140 By this point,
> according to Sharon, strategic coordination between
> Israel and the U.S. had
> reached “unprecedented dimensions,” and Israeli
> intelligence officials had
> given Washington a variety of alarming reports
> about Iraq’s WMD
> programs.141 As one retired Israeli general later
> put it, “Israeli
> intelligence was a full partner to the picture
> presented by American and
> British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non?
> conventional capabilities.”142
>
> Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when
> President Bush decided to seek
> U.N. Security Council authorization for war in
> September, and even more
> worried when Saddam agreed to let U.N. inspectors
> back into Iraq, because
> these developments seemed to reduce the likelihood
> of war. Foreign
> Minister Shimon Peres told reporters in September
> 2002 that “the campaign
> against Saddam Hussein is a must. Inspections and
> inspectors are good for
> decent people, but dishonest people can overcome
> easily inspections and
> inspectors.”143
>
> At the same time, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak
> wrote a New York Times
> op? ed warning that “the greatest risk now lies in
> inaction.”144 His
> predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, published a
> similar piece in the Wall
> Street Journal entitled “The Case for Toppling
> Saddam.”145 Netanyahu
> declared, “Today nothing less than dismantling his
> regime will do,” adding
> that “I believe I speak for the overwhelming
> majority of Israelis in
> supporting a pre?emptive strike against Saddam’s
> regime.” Or as Ha’aretz
> reported in February 2003: “The [Israeli] military
> and political leadership
> yearns for war in Iraq.”146
>
> But as Netanyahu suggests, the desire for war was
> not confined to Israel’s
> leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam conquered
> in 1990, Israel was the
> only country in the world where both the politicians
> and the public
> enthusiastically favored war.147 As journalist
> Gideon Levy observed at the
> time, “Israel is the only country in the West whose
> leaders support the war
> unreservedly and where no alternative opinion is
> voiced.” 148 In fact,
> Israelis were so gung?ho for war that their allies
> in America told them to
> damp down their hawkish rhetoric, lest it look like
> the war was for
> Israel.149
>
> The Lobby and the Iraq War
>
> Within the United States, the main driving force
> behind the Iraq war was a
> small band of neoconservatives, many with close
> ties to Israel’s Likud
> Party.150 In addition, key leaders of the Lobby’s
> major organizations lent
> their voices to the campaign for war.151 According
> to the Forward, “As
> President Bush attempted to sell the . . . war in
> Iraq, America’s most
> important Jewish organizations rallied as one to
> his defense. In statement
> after statement community leaders stressed the need
> to rid the world of
> Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass
> destruction.”152 The editorial goes
> on to say that “concern for Israel’s safety
> rightfully factored into the
> deliberations of the main Jewish groups.”
>
> Although neoconservatives and other Lobby leaders
> were eager to invade Iraq,
> the broader American Jewish community was not.153
> In fact, Samuel Freedman
> reported just after the war started that “a
> compilation of nationwide
> opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that
> Jews are less
> supportive of the Iraq war than the population at
> large, 52% to 62%.”154
> Thus, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on
> “Jewish influence.”
> Rather, the war was due in large part to the
> Lobby’s influence, especially
> the neoconservatives within it. The
> neoconservatives were already
> determined to topple Saddam before Bush became
> President.155 They caused a
> stir in early 1998 by publishing two open letters
> to President Clinton
> calling for Saddam’s removal from power.156 The
> signatories, many of whom
> had close ties to pro?Israel groups like JINSA or
> WINEP, and whose ranks
> included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith,
> William Kristol,
> Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and
> Paul Wolfowitz, had little
> trouble convincing the Clinton Administration to
> adopt the general goal of
> ousting Saddam.157 But the neoconservatives were
> unable to sell a war to
> achieve that objective. Nor were they able to
> generate much enthusiasm for
> invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush
> Administration.158 As
> important as the neoconservatives were for making
> the Iraq war happen, they
> needed help to achieve their aim.
>
> That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the
> events of that fateful day
> led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become
> strong proponents of a
> preventive war to topple Saddam. Neoconservatives
> in the Lobby—most
> notably Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and
> Princeton historian Bernard
> Lewis—played especially critical roles in
> persuading the President and
> Vice?President to favor war.
>
> For the neoconservatives, 9/11 was a golden
> opportunity to make the case for
> war with Iraq. At a key meeting with Bush at Camp
> David on September 15,
> Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before
> Afghanistan, even though there was
> no evidence that Saddam was involved in the
> attacks on the United States
> and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan.159
> Bush rejected this advice
> and chose to go after Afghanistan instead, but war
> with Iraq was now
> regarded as a serious possibility and the President
> tasked U.S. military
> planners on November 21, 2001 with developing
> concrete plans for an
> invasion.160 Meanwhile, other neoconservatives
> were at work within the
> corridors of power.
>
> We do not have the full story yet, but scholars like
> Lewis and Fouad Ajami
> of John Hopkins University reportedly played key
> roles in convincing Vice
> President Cheney to favor the war.161 Cheney’s
> views were also heavily
> influenced by the neoconservatives on his staff,
> especially Eric Edelman,
> John Hannah, and chief of staff Libby, one of the
> most powerful individuals
> in the Administration. The Vice President’s
> influence helped convince
> President Bush by early 2002.162 With Bush and
> Cheney on board, the die for
> war was cast.
>
> Outside the administration, neoconservative pundits
> lost no time making the
> case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the
> war on terrorism.
> Their efforts were partly aimed at keeping pressure
> on Bush and partly
> intended to overcome opposition to the war inside
> and outside of the
> government. On September 20, a group of prominent
> neoconservatives and
> their allies published another open letter, telling
> the President that
> “even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to
> the [9/11] attack, any
> strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and
> its sponsors must
> include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein
> from power in
> Iraq.”163 The letter also reminded Bush that,
> “Israel has been and remains
> America’s staunchest ally against international
> terrorism.” In the October
> 1 issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and
> William Kristol called for
> regime change in Iraq immediately after the Taliban
> was defeated. That same
> day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington
> Post that after we were
> done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next,
> followed by Iran and Iraq. “The
> war on terrorism,” he argued, “will conclude in
> Baghdad,” when we finish off
> “the most dangerous terrorist regime in the
> world.”164
>
> These salvoes were the beginning of an unrelenting
> public relations campaign
> to win support for invading Iraq.165 A key part of
> this campaign was the
> manipulation of intelligence information, so as to
> make Saddam look like an
> imminent threat. For example, Libby visited the CIA
> several times to
> pressure analysts to find evidence that would make
> the case for war, and he
> helped prepare a detailed briefing on the Iraq
> threat in early 2003 that
> was pushed on Colin Powell, then preparing his
> infamous briefing to the
> U.N. Security Council on the Iraqi threat.166
> According to Bob Woodward,
> Powell “was appalled at what he considered
> overreaching and hyperbole.
> Libby was drawing only the worst conclusions from
> fragments and silky
> threads.”167 Although Powell discarded Libby’s
> most outrageous claims, his
> U.N. presentation was still riddled with errors, as
> Powell now
> acknowledges. The campaign to manipulate
> intelligence also involved two
> organizations that were created after 9/11 and
> reported directly to
> Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.168 The
> Policy Counterterrorism
> Evaluation Group was tasked to find links between
> al Qaeda and Iraq that
> the intelligence community supposedly missed. Its
> two key members were
> Wurmser, a hard core neoconservative, and Michael
> Maloof, a
> Lebanese?American who had close ties with Perle.
> The Office of Special
> Plans was tasked with finding evidence that could be
> used to sell war with
> Iraq. It was headed by Abram Shulsky, a
> neoconservative with longstanding
> ties to Wolfowitz, and its ranks included recruits
> from pro?Israel think
> tanks.169
>
> Like virtually all the neoconservatives, Feith is
> deeply committed to
> Israel. He also has long?standing ties to the
> Likud Party. He wrote
> articles in the 1990s supporting the settlements
> and arguing that Israel
> should retain the occupied territories.170 More
> importantly, along with
> Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous “Clean
> Break” report in June 1996
> for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin
> Netanyahu.171 Among other
> things, it recommended that Netanyahu “focus on
> removing Saddam Hussein
> from power in Iraq ?? an important Israeli
> strategic objective in its own
> right.” It also called for Israel to take steps to
> reorder the entire
> Middle East. Netanyahu did not implement their
> advice, but Feith, Perle
> and Wurmser were soon advocating that the Bush
> Administration pursue those
> same goals. This situation prompted Ha’aretz
> columnist Akiva Eldar to warn
> that Feith and Perle “are walking a fine line
> between their loyalty to
> American governments ... and Israeli interests.”172
>
> Wolfowitz is equally committed to Israel. The
> Forward once described him as
> “the most hawkishly pro?Israel voice in the
> Administration,” and selected
> him in 2002 as the first among fifty notables who
> “have consciously pursued
> Jewish activism.”173 At about the same time, JINSA
> gave Wolfowitz its
> Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award for
> promoting a strong
> partnership between Israel and the United States,
> and the Jerusalem Post,
> describing him as “devoutly pro?Israel,” named him
> “Man of the Year” in
> 2003.174 Finally, a brief word is in order
> about the neoconservatives’
> prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous
> Iraqi exile who headed
> the Iraqi National Congress (INC). They embraced
> Chalabi because he had
> worked to establish close ties with Jewish?American
> groups and had pledged
> to foster good relations with Israel once he gained
> power.175 This was
> precisely what pro?Israel proponents of regime
> change wanted to hear, so
> they backed Chalabi in return.
>
> Journalist Matthew Berger laid out the essence of
> the bargain in the Jewish
> Journal: “The INC saw improved relations as a way to
> tap Jewish influence in
> Washington and Jerusalem and to drum up increased
> support for its cause.
> For their part, the Jewish groups saw an
> opportunity to pave the way for
> better relations between Israel and Iraq, if and
> when the INC is involved
> in replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime.”176
>
> Given the neoconservatives’ devotion to Israel,
> their obsession with Iraq,
> and their influence in the Bush Administration, it
> is not surprising that
> many Americans suspected that the war was designed
> to further Israeli
> interests. For example, Barry Jacobs of the
> American Jewish Committee
> acknowledged in March 2005 that the belief that
> Israel and the
> neoconservatives conspired to get the United States
> into a war in Iraq was
> “pervasive” in the U.S. intelligence community.177
> Yet few people would
> say so publicly, and most that did ?? including
> Senator Ernest Hollings
> (D?SC) and Representative James Moran (D? VA) ??
> were condemned for raising
> the issue.178 Michael Kinsley put the point well
> in late 2002, when he
> wrote that “the lack of public discussion about the
> role of Israel ... is
> the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees
> it, no one mentions
> it.”179 The reason for this reluctance, he
> observed, was fear of being
> labeled an anti?Semite. Even so, there is little
> doubt that Israel and the
> Lobby were key factors in shaping the decision for
> war. Without the
> Lobby’s efforts, the United States would have been
> far less likely to have
> gone to war in March 2003.
>
> Dreams of Regional Transformation
>
> The Iraq war was not supposed to be a costly
> quagmire. Rather, it was
> intended as the first step in a larger plan to
> reorder the Middle East.
> This ambitious strategy was a dramatic departure
> from previous U.S. policy,
> and the Lobby and Israel were critical driving
> forces behind this shift.
> This point was made clearly after the Iraq war began
> in a front?page story
> in the Wall Street Journal. The headline says it
> all: “President’s Dream:
> Changing Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro?U.S.,
> Democratic Area is a
> Goal that Has Israeli and Neo Conservative
> Roots.”180
>
> Pro?Israel forces have long been interested in
> getting the U.S. military
> more directly involved in the Middle East, so it
> could help protect
> Israel.181 But they had limited success on this
> front during the Cold War,
> because America acted as an “off?shore balancer” in
> the region. Most U.S.
> forces designated for the Middle East, like the
> Rapid Deployment Force,
> were kept “over the horizon” and out of harm’s way.
> Washington maintained
> a favorable balance of power by playing local
> powers off against each
> other, which is why the Reagan Administration
> supported Saddam against
> revolutionary Iran during the Iran?Iraq war
> (1980?88).
>
> This policy changed after the first Gulf War, when
> the Clinton
> Administration adopted a strategy of “dual
> containment.” It called for
> stationing substantial U.S. forces in the region to
> contain both Iran and
> Iraq, instead of using one to check the other. The
> father of dual
> containment was none other than Martin Indyk, who
> first articulated the
> strategy in May 1993 at the pro?Israel think tank
> WINEP and then
> implemented it as Director for Near East and South
> Asian Affairs at the
> National Security Council.182
> ------------
> Footnotes to this section of M&W analysis
>
> 139 Emad Mekay, “Iraq Was Invaded ‘to Protect
> Israel’ – US Official,” Asia
> Times Online, March 31, 2004. Zelikow also served
> with Rice on the
> National Security Council when George H. W. Bush
> was President, and
> co?authored a book with her on German
> reunification. He was also one of
> the principal authors of the second Bush
> Administration’s 2002 National
> Security Strategy, which is the most comprehensive
> official presentation of
> the so?called Bush Doctrine.
> 140 Jason Keyser, “Israel Urges U.S. to Attack,”
> Washington Post, August 16,
> 2002. Also see Aluf Benn, “PM Urging U.S. Not to
> Delay Strike against
> Iraq,” Ha’aretz, August 16, 2002; Idem, “PM Aide:
> Delay in U.S. Attack Lets
> Iraq Speed Up Arms Program,” Ha’aretz, August 16,
> 2002; Reuven Pedhatzur,
> “Israel’s Interest in the War on Saddam,” Ha’aretz,
> August 4, 2002; Ze’ev
> Schiff, “Into the Rough,” Ha’aretz, August 16, 2002.
> 141 Gideon Alon, “Sharon to Panel: Iraq is Our
> Biggest Danger,” Ha’aretz,
> August 13, 2002. At a White House press conference
> with President Bush on
> October 16, 2002, Sharon said: “I would like to
> thank you, Mr. President,
> for the friendship and cooperation. And as far as I
> remember, as we look
> back towards many years now, I think that we never
> had such relations with
> any President of the United States as we have with
> you, and we never had
> such cooperation in everything as we have with the
> current administration.”
> For a transcript of the press conference, see
> “President Bush Welcomes
> Prime Minister Sharon to White House; Question and
> Answer Session with the
> Press,” U.S. Department of State, October 16, 2002.
> Also see Kaiser, “Bush
> and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.”
> 142 Shlomo Brom, “An Intelligence Failure,”
> Strategic Assessment (Jaffee
> Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University),
> Vol. 6, No. 3 (November
> 2003), p. 9. Also see “Intelligence Assessment:
> Selections from the Media,
> 1998?2003,” in ibid., pp. 17?19; Gideon Alon,
> “Report Slams Assessment of
> Dangers Posed by Libya, Iraq,” Ha’aretz, March 28,
> 2004; Dan Baron,
> “Israeli Report Blasts Intelligence for Exaggerating
> the Iraqi Threat,”
> JTA, March 28, 2004; Greg Myre, “Israeli Report
> Faults Intelligence on
> Iraq,” New York Times, March 28, 2004; James Risen,
> State of War: The
> Secret History of the CIA and the Bush
> Administration (New York: Simon &
> Schuster, 2006), pp. 72?73.
> 143 Marc Perelman, “Iraqi Move Puts Israel in Lonely
> U.S. Corner,” Forward,
> September 20, 2002. This article begins, “Saddam
> Hussein’s surprise
> acceptance of ‘unconditional’ United Nations
> weapons inspections put Israel
> on the hot seat this week, forcing it into the open
> as the only nation
> actively supporting the Bush administration’s goal
> of Iraqi regime change.”
> Peres became so frustrated with the UN process in
> the following months
> that in mid?February 2003 he lashed out at the
> French by questioning
> France’s status as a permanent member of the
> Security Council. “Peres
> Questions France Permanent Status on Security
> Council,” Ha’aretz, February
> 20, 2003. On a visit to Moscow in late September
> 2002, Sharon made it
> clear to Russian President Putin, who was leading
> the charge for new
> inspections, “that the time when these inspectors
> could have been effective
> has passed.” Herb Keinon, “Sharon to Putin: Too Late
> for Iraq Arms
> Inspection,” Jerusalem Post, October 1, 2002.
> 144 Ehud Barak, “Taking Apart Iraq’s Nuclear
> Threat,” New York Times,
> September 4, 2002.
> 145 Benjamin Netanyahu, “The Case for Toppling
> Saddam,” Wall Street Journal,
> September 20, 2002. The Jerusalem Post was
> particularly hawkish on Iraq,
> frequently running editorials and op?eds promoting
> the war, and hardly ever
> running pieces against it. Representative
> editorials include “Next Stop
> Baghdad,” Jerusalem Post, November 15, 2001; “Don’t
> Wait for Saddam,”
> Jerusalem Post, August 18, 2002; “Making the Case
> for War,” Jerusalem Post,
> September 9, 2002. For some representative op?eds,
> see Ron Dermer, “The
> March to Baghdad,” Jerusalem Post, December 21,
> 2001; Efraim Inbar, “Ousting
> Saddam, Instilling Stability,” Jerusalem Post,
> October 8, 2002; Gerald M.
> Steinberg, “Imagining the Liberation of Iraq,”
> Jerusalem Post, November 18,
> 2001.
> 146 Aluf Benn, “Background: Enthusiastic IDF Awaits
> War in Iraq,” Ha’aretz,
> February 17, 2002. Also see James Bennet, “Israel
> Says War on Iraq Would
> Benefit the Region,” New York Times, February 27,
> 2003; Chemi Shalev,
> “Jerusalem Frets As U.S. Battles Iraq War Delays,”
> Forward, March 7, 2003.
> 147 Indeed, a February 2003 poll reported that 77.5
> percent of Israeli Jews
> wanted the United States to attack Iraq. Ephraim
> Yaar and Tamar Hermann,
> “Peace Index: Most Israelis Support the Attack on
> Iraq,” Ha’aretz, March 6,
> 2003. Regarding Kuwait, a public opinion poll
> released in March 2003 found
> that 89.6 percent of Kuwaitis favored the impending
> war against Iraq. James
> Morrison, “Kuwaitis Support War,” Washington Times,
> March 18, 2003.
> 148 Gideon Levy, “A Deafening Silence,” Ha’aretz,
> October 6, 2002.
> 149 See Dan Izenberg, “Foreign Ministry Warns
> Israeli War Talk Fuels US
> Anti? Semitism,” Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2003,
> which makes clear that “the
> Foreign Ministry has received reports from the US”
> telling Israelis to cool
> their jets because “the US media” is portraying
> Israel as “trying to goad
> the administration into war.” There is also
> evidence that Israel itself was
> concerned about being seen as driving American
> policy toward Iraq. See
> Benn, “PM Urging U.S. Not to Delay Strike”;
> Perelman, “Iraq Move Puts
> Israel in Lonely U.S. Corner.” Finally, in late
> September 2002, a group of
> political consultants known as the “Israel Project”
> told pro?Israel leaders
> in the United States “to keep quiet while the Bush
> administration purses a
> possible war with Iraq.” Dana Milbank, “Group
> Urges Pro?Israel Leaders
> Silence on Iraq,” Washington Post, November 27,
> 2002.
> 150 The influence of the neoconservatives and their
> allies is clearly
> reflected in the following articles: See Joel
> Beinin, “Pro?Israel Hawks and
> the Second Gulf War,” Middle East Report Online,
> April 6, 2003; Elisabeth
> Bumiller and Eric Schmitt, “On the Job and at Home,
> Influential Hawks’
> 30?Year Friendship Evolves,” New York Times,
> September 11, 2002; Kathleen
> and William Christison, “A Rose by Another Name: The
> Bush Administration’s
> Dual Loyalties,” CounterPunch, December 13, 2002;
> Robert Dreyfuss, “The
> Pentagon Muzzles the CIA,” The American Prospect,
> December 16, 2002; Michael
> Elliott and James Carney, “First Stop, Iraq,”
> Time, March 31, 2003;
> Seymour Hersh, “The Iraq Hawks,” New Yorker, Vol.
> 77, issue 41 (December
> 24?31, 2001), pp. 58?63; Glenn Kessler, “U.S.
> Decision on Iraq Has Puzzling
> Past,” Washington Post, January 12, 2003; Joshua M.
> Marshall, “Bomb
> Saddam?” Washington Monthly, June 2002; Dana
> Milbank, “White House Push for
> Iraqi Strike Is on Hold,” Washington Post, August
> 18, 2002; Susan Page,
> “Showdown with Saddam: The Decision to Act,” USA
> Today, September 11, 2002;
> Sam Tanenhaus, “Bush’s Brain Trust,” Vanity Fair,
> July 2003. Note that all
> these articles are from before the war started.
> 151 See Mortimer B. Zuckerman, “No Time for
> Equivocation,” U.S. News & World
> Report, August 26/September 2, 2002; Idem, “Clear
> and Compelling Proof,”
> U.S. News & World Report, February 10, 2003; Idem,
> “The High Price of
> Waiting,” U.S. News & World Report, March 10, 2003.
> 152 “An Unseemly Silence,” Forward, May 7, 2004.
> Also see Gary Rosenblatt,
> “Hussein Asylum,” Jewish Week, August 23, 2002;
> Idem, “The Case for War
> against Saddam,” Jewish Week, December 13, 2002.
> 153 Just before the U.S. military invaded Iraq,
> Congressman James P. Moran
> (D?Va) created a stir when he said, “If it were not
> for the strong support
> of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we
> would not be doing
> this.” Spencer S. Hsu, “Moran Said Jews Are Pushing
> War,” Washington Post,
> March 11, 2003. However, Moran misspoke, because
> there was not widespread
> support for the war in the Jewish community. He
> should have said, “If it
> were not for the strong support of the
> neoconservatives and the leadership
> of the Israel Lobby for this war with Iraq, we would
> not be doing this.”
> 154 Samuel G. Freedman, “Don’t Blame Jews for This
> War,” USA Today, April 2,
> 2003. Also see Ori Nir, “Poll Finds Jewish
> Political Gap,” Forward,
> February 4, 2005.
> 155 It is no exaggeration to say that in the wake of
> 9/11, the
> neoconservatives were not just determined, but were
> obsessed with removing
> Saddam from power. As one senior Administration
> figure put it in January,
> 2003, “I do believe certain people have grown
> theological about this. It’s
> almost a religion – that it will be the end of our
> society if we don’t take
> action now.” Kessler, “U.S. Decision on Iraq Has
> Puzzling Past.” Kessler
> also describes Colin Powell returning from White
> House meetings on Iraq,
> “rolling his eyes” and saying, “Jeez, what a
> fixation about Iraq.” Bob
> Woodward reports in Plan of Attack (New York: Simon
> and Schuster, 2004), p.
> 410, that Kenneth Adelman “said he had worried to
> death as time went on and
> support seemed to wane that there would be no war.”
> Also see ibid., pp.
> 164?165.
> 156 The first letter (January 26, 1998) was written
> under the auspices of
> the Project for the New American Century and can be
> found on its website.
> The second letter (February 19, 1998) was written
> under the auspices of the
> Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf and can
> be found on the Iraq
> Watch website. Also see the May 29, 1998 letter to
> Speaker of the House
> Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
> written under the
> auspices of the Project for the New American Century
> and found on its
> website. The neoconservatives, it should be
> emphasized, advocated invading
> Iraq to topple Saddam. See “The End of
> Containment,” Weekly Standard,
> December 1, 1997, pp. 13?14; Zalmay M. Khalizad and
> Paul Wolfowitz,
> “Overthrow Him,” in ibid., pp. 14?15; Frederick W.
> Kagan, “Not by Air
> Alone,” in ibid., pp. 15?16.
> 157 See Clinton’s comments after he signed the “Iraq
> Liberation Act of
> 1998.” Statement by the President, White House
> Press Office, October 31,
> 1998.
> 158 One might think from the publicity and the
> controversy surrounding two
> books published in 2004—Richard Clarke’s Against
> All Enemies: Inside
> America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press,
> 2004) and Ron Suskind, The
> Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House,
> and the Education of
> Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004)—
> that Bush and Cheney were
> bent on invading Iraq when they assumed office in
> late January 2001.
> However, this interpretation is wrong. They were
> deeply interested in
> toppling Saddam, just as Bill Clinton and Al Gore
> had been. But there is no
> evidence in the public record showing that Bush and
> Cheney were seriously
> contemplating war against Iraq before 9/11. In
> fact, Bush made it clear to
> Bob Woodward that he was not thinking about going
> to war against Saddam
> before 9/11. See Plan of Attack, p. 12. Also see
> Nicholas Lehmann, “The Iraq
> Factor,” New Yorker, Vol. 76, issue 43 (January 22,
> 2001), pp. 34?48; Eric
> Schmitt and Steven Lee Meyers, “Bush Administration
> Warns Iraq on Weapons
> Programs,” New York Times, January 23, 2001. And
> Cheney had defended the
> decision not to go to Baghdad throughout the 1990s
> and during the 2000
> campaign. See Timothy Noah, “Dick Cheney, Dove,”
> Slate, October 16, 2002;
> “Calm after Desert Storm,” An Interview with Dick
> Cheney, Policy Review,
> No. 65 (Summer 1993). In short, even though the
> neoconservatives held
> important positions in the Bush Administration,
> they were unable to
> generate much enthusiasm for attacking Iraq before
> 9/11. Thus, the New York
> Times reported in March 2001 that “some Republicans”
> were complaining that
> Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz “are failing to live up to
> their pre?election
> advocacy of stepping up efforts to overthrow
> President Hussein.” At the
> same time, a Washington Times editorial asked, “Have
> Hawks Become Doves?”
> See Jane Perlez, “Capitol Hawks Seek Tougher Line on
> Iraq,” New York Times,
> March 7, 2001; “Have Hawks Become Doves?”
> Washington Times, March 8, 2001.
> 159 Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 25?26. Wolfowitz
> was so insistent on
> conquering Iraq that five days later Cheney had to
> tell him to “stop
> agitating for targeting Saddam.” Page, “Showdown
> with Saddam.” According
> to one Republican lawmaker, he “was like a parrot
> bringing [Iraq] up all
> the time. It was getting on the President’s nerves.”
> Elliot and Carney,
> “First Stop, Iraq.” Woodward describes Wolfowitz as
> “like a drum that would
> not stop.” Plan of Attack, p. 22.
> 160 Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 1?44.
> 161 Regarding the neoconservatives’ influence on
> Cheney, see Elliott and
> Carney, “First Stop, Iraq”; Page, “Showdown with
> Saddam”; Michael Hirsh,
> “Bernard Lewis Revisited,” Washington Monthly,
> November 2004, pp.13?19;
> Frederick Kempe, “Lewis’s ‘Liberation’ Doctrine for
> Mideast Faces New
> Tests,” Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2005;
> Carla Anne Robbins and
> Jeanne Cummings, “How Bush Decided that Hussein
> Must Be Ousted from Atop
> Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2002. On
> Cheney’s critical role in
> the decision?making process, see Glenn Kessler and
> Peter Slevin, “Cheney is
> Fulcrum of Foreign Policy,” Washington Post, October
> 13, 2002; Barbara
> Slavin and Susan Page, “Cheney Rewrites Roles in
> Foreign Policy,” USA
> Today, July 29, 2002.
> 162 The New York Times reported shortly after 9/11
> that, “Some senior
> administration officials, led by Paul D. Wolfowitz
> ... and I. Lewis Libby
> ... are pressing for the earliest and broadest
> military campaign against
> not only the Osama bin Laden network in
> Afghanistan, but also against other
> suspected terrorist bases in Iraq and in Lebanon’s
> Bekka region.” Patrick
> E. Tyler and Elaine Sciolino, “Bush Advisers Split
> on Scope of
> Retaliation,” New York Times, September 20, 2001.
> Also see William Safire,
> “Phony War II,” New York Times, November 28, 2002.
> Woodward succinctly
> describes Libby’s influence in Plan of Attack (pp.
> 48?49): “Libby had three
> formal titles. He was chief of staff to Vice
> President Cheney; he was also
> national security adviser to the vice president;
> and he was finally an
> assistant to President Bush. It was a trifecta of
> positions probably never
> held before by a single person. Scooter was a power
> center unto himself
> .... Libby was one of only two people who were not
> principals to attend the
> National Security Council meetings with the
> president and the separate
> principals meetings chaired by Rice.” Also see
> ibid., pp 50?51, 288?292,
> 300?301, 409?410; Bumiller and Schmitt, “On the Job
> and at Home”; Karen
> Kwiatkowski, “The New Pentagon Papers,” Salon.com,
> March 10, 2004; Patrick
> E. Tyler and Elaine Sciolino, “Bush Advisers Split
> on Scope of
> Retaliation,” New York Times, September 20, 2001. On
> Libby’s relationship to
> Israel, an article in the Forward reports that
> “Israeli officials liked
> Libby. They described him as an important contact
> who was accessible,
> genuinely interested in Israel?related issues and
> very sympathetic to their
> cause.” Ori Nir, “Libby Played Leading Role on
> Foreign Policy Decisions,”
> Forward, November 4, 2005. 163 This letter was
> published in the Weekly
> Standard, October 1, 2001.
> 164 Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “The Right
> War,” Weekly Standard,
> October 1, 2001; Charles Krauthammer, “Our First
> Move: Take Out the
> Taliban,” Washington Post, October 1, 2001. Also
> see “War Aims,” Wall
> Street Journal, September 20, 2001.
> 165 Even before the dust had settled at the World
> Trade Center, pro?Israel
> forces were making the case that Saddam was
> responsible for 9/11. See
> Michael Barone, “War by Ultimatum,” U.S. News and
> World Report, October 1,
> 2001; Bill Gertz, “Iraq Suspected of Sponsoring
> Terrorist Attacks,”
> Washington Times, September 21, 2001; “Drain the
> Pond of Terror,” Jerusalem
> Post editorial, September 25, 2001; William Safire,
> “The Ultimate Enemy,”
> New York Times, September 24, 2001.
> 166 See James Bamford, A Pretext to War (New York:
> Doubleday, 2004); chaps.
> 13?14; Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 288?292,
> 297?306. Also see ibid., pp.
> 72, 163, 300?301.
> 167 Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 290.
> 168 See Bamford, Pretext to War, pp. 287?291,
> 307?331; David S. Cloud,
> “Prewar Intelligence Inquiry Zeroes In On
> Pentagon,” Wall Street Journal,
> March 11, 2004; Seymour M. Hersh, “Selective
> Intelligence,” New Yorker,
> Vol. 79, issue 11 (May 12, 2003), pp. 44?50;
> Kwiatkowski, “New Pentagon
> Papers”; Jim Lobe, “Pentagon Office Home to Neo?Con
> Network,” Inter Press
> Service News Agency, August 7, 2003; Greg Miller,
> “Spy Unit Skirted CIA on
> Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2004; Paul R.
> Pillar, “Intelligence,
> Policy, and the War in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, Vol.
> 85, No. 2 (March?April
> 2006), pp. 15?27; James Risen, “How Pair’s Finding
> on Terror Led to Clash
> on Shaping Intelligence,” New York Times, April 28,
> 2004; Eric Schmitt and
> Thom Shanker, “Threats and Responses: A C.I.A.
> Rival; Pentagon Sets Up
> Intelligence Unit.” New York Times October 24, 2002.
> 169 The Office of Special Plans relied heavily on
> information from Ahmed
> Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles and it had close
> links with various Israeli
> sources. Indeed, the Guardian reports that it
> “forged close ties to a
> parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel
> Sharon’s office in
> Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the
> Bush administration
> with more alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq than
> Mossad was prepared to
> authorize.” Julian Borger, “The Spies Who Pushed for
> War,” Guardian, July
> 17, 2003.
> 170 See, for example, Douglas J. Feith, “The Inner
> Logic of Israel’s
> Negotiations: Withdrawal Process, Not Peace
> Process,” Middle East
> Quarterly, March 1996. For useful discussions of
> Feith’s views, see
> Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Little Learning: What Douglas
> Feith Knew and When He
> Knew It,” New Yorker, Vol. 81, issue 12 (May 9,
> 2005), pp. 36? 41; Jim Lobe,
> “Losing Feith, or is the Bush Team Shedding Its
> Sharper Edges?” The Daily
> Star, January 31, 2005; James J. Zogby, “A Dangerous
> Appointment: Profile of
> Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under
> Bush,” Middle East
> Information Center, April 18, 2001; “Israeli
> Settlements: Legitimate,
> Democratically Mandated, Vital to Israel’s Security
> and, Therefore, in U.S.
> Interest,” The Center for Security Policy,
> Transition Brief No. 96?T 130,
> December 17, 1996. Note that the title of the latter
> piece, which was
> published by an organization in the Lobby, says that
> what is in Israel’s
> interest is therefore in America’s national
> interest. In “Losing Feith,”
> Lobe writes: “In 2003, when Feith, who was standing
> in for Rumsfeld at an
> interagency ‘Principals’ Meeting’ on the Middle
> East, concluded his
> remarks on behalf of the Pentagon, according to the
> Washington insider
> newsletter, The Nelson Report, [National Security
> Advisor Condoleezza] Rice
> said, ‘Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli
> position we’ll invite the
> ambassador’.”
> 171 The “Clean Break” study was prepared for The
> Institute for Advanced
> Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem and
> published in June 1996.A
> copy can be found on the Institute’s web site.
> 172 Akiva Eldar, “Perles of Wisdom for the
> Feithful,” Ha’aretz, October 1,
> 2002.
> 173 “Rally Unites Anguished Factions under Flag of
> ‘Stand with Israel’,”
> Forward, April 19, 2002; “Forward 50,” Forward,
> November 15, 2002.
> 174 John McCaslin, “Israeli?Trained Cops,”
> Washington Times, November 5,
> 2002; Bret Stephens, “Man of the Year,” Jerusalem
> Post (Rosh Hashana
> Supplement), September 26, 2003; Janine Zacharia,
> “Invasive Treatment,” in
> ibid. Other useful pieces on Wolfowitz include
> Michael Dobbs, “For
> Wolfowitz, A Vision May Be Realized,” Washington
> Post, April 7, 2003; James
> Fallows, “The Unilateralist,” Atlantic Monthly,
> March 2002, pp. 26? 29; Bill
> Keller, “The Sunshine Warrior,” New York Times
> Magazine, September 22, 2002;
> “Paul Wolfowitz, Velociraptor,” Economist,
> February 9?15, 2002.
> 175 According to Feith’s former law partner, L. Marc
> Zell, Chalabi also
> promised to re? build the pipeline that once ran
> from Haifa in Israel to
> Mosul in Iraq. See John Dizard, “How Ahmed Chalabi
> Conned the Neocons,”
> Salon.com, May 4, 2004. In mid?June 2003, Benjamin
> Netanyahu announced
> that, “It won’t be long before you will see Iraqi
> oil flowing to Haifa.”
> Reuters, “Netanyahu Says Iraq?Israel Oil Line Not
> Pipe?Dream,” Ha’aretz,
> June 20, 2003. Of course, this did not happen and
> it is unlikely to happen
> in the foreseeable future.
> 176 Matthew E. Berger, “New Chances to Build
> Israel?Iraq Ties,” Jewish
> Journal, April 28, 2003. Also see Bamford, Pretext
> to War, p. 293; Ed
> Blanche, “Securing Iraqi Oil for Israel: The Plot
> Thickens,”
> Lebanonwire.com, April 25, 2003. Nathan Guttman
> reports that “the American
> Jewish community and the Iraqi opposition” had for
> years “taken pains to
> conceal” the links between them. “Mutual Wariness:
> AIPAC and the Iraqi
> Opposition,” Ha’aretz, April 8, 2003.
> 177 Nir, “FBI Probe.” On the eve of the war, Bill
> Keller, who is now the
> executive editor of the New York Times, wrote: “The
> idea that this war is
> about Israel is persistent and more widely held
> than you think.” Keller,
> “Is It Good for the Jews?” New York Times, March 8,
> 2003.
> 178 In an op?ed written in mid?2004, Hollings asked
> why the Bush
> Administration invaded Iraq when it was not a
> direct threat to the United
> States. “The answer,” which he says “everyone
> knows,” is “because we want to
> secure our friend Israel.” Senator Ernest F.
> Hollings, “Bush’s Failed
> Mideast Policy Is Creating More Terrorism,”
> Charleston Post and Courier,
> May 6, 2004; “Sen. Hollings Floor Statement.” Not
> surprisingly, Hollings
> was called an anti?Semite, a charge he furiously
> rejected. Matthew E.
> Berger, “Not So Gentle Rhetoric from the Gentleman
> from South Carolina,”
> JTA, May 23, 2004; “Sen. Hollings Floor Statement”;
> “Senator Lautenberg’s
> Floor Statement in Support of Senator Hollings,”
> June 3, 2004, a copy of
> which can be found on Hollings’ web site. On Moran,
> see note 151. A handful
> of other public figures like Patrick Buchanan,
> Maureen Dowd, Georgie Anne
> Geyer, Gary Hart, Chris Matthews, and General
> Anthony Zinni, have either
> said or strongly hinted that pro?Israel forces in
> the United States were
> the principle movers behind the Iraq war. See Aluf
> Benn, “Scapegoat for
> Israel,” Ha’aretz, May 13, 2004; Matthew Berger,
> “Will Some Jews’ Backing
> for War in Iraq Have Repercussions for All?” JTA,
> June 10, 2004; Patrick J.
> Buchanan, “Whose War?” American Conservative, March
> 24, 2003; Ami Eden,
> “Israel’s Role: The ‘Elephant’ They’re Talking
> About,” Forward, February
> 28, 2003; “The Ground Shifts,” Forward, May 28,
> 2004; Nathan Guttman,
> “Prominent U.S. Jews, Israel Blamed for Start of
> Iraq War,” Ha’aretz, May
> 31, 2004; Lawrence F. Kaplan, “Toxic Talk on War,”
> Washington Post,
> February 18, 2003; E.J. Kessler, “Gary Hart Says
> ‘Dual Loyalty’ Barb Was Not
> Aimed at Jews,” Forward, February 21, 2003; Ori Nir
> and Ami Eden,
> “Ex?Mideast Envoy Zinni Charges Neocons Pushed Iraq
> War to Benefit Israel,”
> Forward, May 28, 2004.
> 179 Michael Kinsley, “What Bush Isn’t Saying about
> Iraq,” Slate, October 24,
> 2002. Also see idem, “J’Accuse.”
> 180 Robert S. Greenberger and Karby Leggett,
> “President’s Dream: Changing
> Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro?U.S.,
> Democratic Area is a Goal that
> Has Israeli and Neo Conservative Roots,” Wall
> Street Journal, March 21,
> 2003. Also see George Packer, “Dreaming of
> Democracy,” New York Times
> Magazine, March 2, 2003. Although not all
> neoconservatives are Jewish,
> most of the founders were and virtually all were
> strong supporters of
> Israel. According to Gal Beckerman in the Forward,
> “If there is an
> intellectual movement in America to whose invention
> Jews can lay sole claim,
> neoconservatism is it.” See “The Neoconservative
> Persuasion,” Forward,
> January 6, 2006.
> 181 See, for example, Rebuilding America’s Defenses:
> Strategy, Forces and
> Resources for a New Century, A Report for the New
> American Century,
> September 2000, p. 14.
> 182 Martin Indyk, “The Clinton Administration’s
> Approach to the Middle
> East,” Speech to Soref Symposium, Washington
> Institute for Near East
> Policy, May 18, 1993. Also see Anthony Lake,
> “Confronting Backlash
> States,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73. No. 2
> (March/April 1994), pp. 45?53.
> -----------------
> Mazin
> http://qumsiyeh.org
>
> > >
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