Cheney lies to Congress, media snoozes

PDiddie
PDiddie, the Iraq war "smoking gun" has finally emerged. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et as were dividing up Middle Eastern oil fields just like the Brit's did after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. We also are setting up puppet governments in the same manner as the Brit's ill-fated imposition to favor it's oil interests.

We also learn from this information in which countries the US has an interest in going to war.

It is, after all, true that to get to the bottom of things, one must follow the money---oil money. Somethings never change, especially if it can be hidden from public view.

Cudos to Judicial Watch!!!

---BumbleBeeBoogie

The Brits (& U.S.) didn't learn from their 1020 mistakes
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bush et al are repeating the same mistakes the Brits et al did; they apparently are not knowledgeable about Middle Eastern history.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

REMAKING HISTORY
Britain Tried First. Iraq Was No Picnic Then.
By JOHN KIFNER - New York Times - 7/19/03

The public, the distinguished military analyst wrote from Baghdad, had been led "into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor."

"They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information," he said. "The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows."

He added: "We are today not far from a disaster."

Sound familiar?

That was T. E. Lawrence ?- Lawrence of Arabia ?- writing in The Sunday Times of London on Aug. 22, 1920, about the British occupation of what was then called Mesopotamia. And he knew. For it was Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence and the intrepid British adventuress Gertrude Bell who, more than anyone else, were responsible for the creation of what was to become Iraq. A fine mess they made of it, too.

During the First World War, Lawrence had been present at the birth of modern Arab nationalism and fought alongside its guerrillas to victory against the Ottoman Empire, only to see the same guerrilla tactics turned against the British in a rebellion in Iraq.

It is perhaps instructive to look back on that earlier effort by the leading Western power to remake the Middle East as the American occupation of Iraq appears increasingly beset.

It has not been going well, especially in Sunni-controlled central Iraq. Rather than being hailed as liberators, the American troops face "a classical guerrilla-type campaign" there that is increasingly organized, their new regional commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, said last week. A Pentagon-approved independent body of experts criticized the lack of postwar planning. Soldiers of the Army's Third Infantry Division, have been told they are not going home as planned. The cost, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld now says, is running about $3.9 billion a month, nearly twice earlier estimates, and tens of thousands of troops may have to remain for years to come.

At the same time, the rationale for war is increasingly questioned. Terror weapons have not yet been found in Iraq, nor have links to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration is scrambling to explain how allegations based on forged documents purporting to show Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger found their way into the State of the Union address. All this has not helped build global support: last week, India rejected an American request to send some 17,000 peacekeeping troops.

Meanwhile, clashes and increasingly sophisticated ambushes have been running at a rate of a dozen a day; by week's end, at least 33 American soldiers had been killed in hostilities since May 1, the date when President Bush declared that major combat was over.

Ominously, Iraqi crowds have emerged to dance and cheer around burned-out American Humvees.

Many American officers had sensed trouble ahead. As their armor clanked north to Baghdad, officers in the First Marine Division said over and over that the war was no problem; the difficulties would come with the rebuilding of Iraq. Indeed, in the face of American might and technology, the enemy, for the most part, simply did not show up for the big battles.

The British had a tougher time of it in World War I; they lost thousands of troops ?- most of them Indian ?- in a five-month Turkish siege of Kut. But they regrouped and captured Baghdad on March 11, 1917. Maj. Gen. Stanley Maude greeted the populace with a speech that could have been written today: "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators."

Well, not quite, General.

When World War I began in 1914, most Arab lands were under the decaying Ottoman Empire, whose ruler, the caliph, was also Islam's supreme authority. The Ottomans were Germany's allies, and Britain saw a chance to seize the Middle East; its interests were to command the trade routes to India and, as it would develop, to control the emerging resource of oil. Lord Kitchener, the war minister, wanted to set up his own caliph ?- an Arab ?- as Britain's ally among the Muslims. Attention focused on Hussein ibn Ali, who as sherif of Mecca was the guardian of Islam's holiest sites.

Enter the Arab Bureau, a special intelligence unit set up in Cairo. It had little expertise, and its early efforts to inspire an Arab revolt failed. Then Lawrence, a young captain at the time, volunteered to take a look on his vacation time. He recruited Hussein's second son, Feisal, as the charismatic leader of what became known as the Great Arab Revolt. His raiders crossed the desert to capture the port of Aqaba from the rear, repeatedly blew up the Turks' railroad tracks and harassed their troops, and finally entered Damascus in triumph (although this had to be staged because the Australian cavalry got there first).

The British had promised Feisal that he would be king of the Arabs in Damascus and he arrived at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference as the chief Arab spokesman. But Britain and France had secretly agreed to divide up the Middle East, and Feisal's reign in Damascus lasted just months ?- until the French came over the mountains from Lebanon.

Meanwhile, things were not going well for the British in Mesopotamia. Bell was arbitrarily drawing lines on the map to make a new country out of three former Ottoman provinces ?- Mosul in the north, Baghdad in the center and Basra in the south. The districts were composed, respectively, of Kurds, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, all of whom hated each other ?- and the British even more. For one thing, the British were more efficient than the Turks in collecting taxes.

By 1920, the country was in full rebellion, from Shiite tribesmen in the south to Kurds in the north. There were some 425 deaths on the British side and an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 among the Iraqis.

Hoping to restore order, the British, at the urging of Bell and Lawrence, switched Feisal's franchise to Iraq in 1921, although he had never set foot there. In a rigged plebiscite, the new king got 96 per cent of the votes. King Feisal and his strongman prime minister, Nuri as-Said, managed to solidify Sunni minority control over the rest of the country. But there was frequent turmoil.

IN response, the British turned to technology, with their air force commander, Arthur (Bomber) Harris, boasting that his biplanes had taught Iraqis that "within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or wounded." Winston Churchill, who, as colonial secretary, presided over the creation of Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Palestine, called Iraq an "ungrateful volcano."

Still, it took 35 years for the disaster that Lawrence predicted to become total. Iraq gained independence in 1931, but the British-sponsored monarchy hung on and guarded British interests until 1958, when the royal family was murdered and dragged through the streets. That ushered in a period of successive military and Baath Party coups, all brutal, and by 1979 Saddam Hussein had assumed total control.

Like the Arab Bureau, neoconservative policy makers in the Defense Department, who have long been the most prominent advocates of removing Mr. Hussein, have a vision of the Middle East and a candidate. The vision is of a democratic Iraq that would be an example of change to other, undemocratic, Arab nations ?- the kind of change they believe would remake the region and make easier an Arab-Israeli peace.

They have promoted as a leader Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite from a wealthy family that had been close to the old monarchy, even though some Middle East specialists in the State Department distrust him and consider him ineffectual. As the head of the Iraqi National Council, Mr. Chalabi recently returned to Iraq after living in exile for decades. The American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, has appointed a 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, with Mr. Chalabi among them.

One other thing about Colonel Lawrence. While some of his exploits are doubtless exaggerated, his guerrilla tactics are still much studied. He came to realize that when a small band faced more powerful conventional forces, its strength lay in avoiding direct battles and instead conducting stealthy raids. His own guerrilla force, he wrote in his memoir, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," had "a sophisticated alien enemy, disposed as an army of occupation in an area greater than could be dominated effectively from fortified posts. It had a friendly population, in which some 2 in the 100 were active, and the rest quietly sympathetic to the point of not betraying the movements of the minority."

That larger army could be demoralized and worn down, its patrols and sentries made nervous and drawn, waiting for the next attack and never sure from where it would come. It is a feeling the weary soldiers of the Third Infantry Division are coming to know well.

Well, there have been quite a few, sayong that Iraq oil was on the minds of at least some members of the task force long before the war.

I only wonder what all the strict oponents of that 'theory' will say now.

What can they say? But wait a minute; these people think we're all stupid and won't connect the dots. Can this be the basis for impeachment? c.i.

Having been mostly "away from the news" for several days, I love this discussion. All the right stuff is coming out. My only tiny quibble is I wish it were this time in 2004 and/or I hope by July 2004 the **** is still a-flyin'. In the meantime I'm going to sit back and enjoy! Thanks PDiddie!

(OK, the fact that this thread is going mostly unnoticed is driving me more than a little crazy...)

Does everyone get that March 2001 is six months before September 11, 2001?!?

Cheney was carving up Iraq six months before the World Trade Center fell?

How is it possible that Osama made all of Dick's dreams come true?

Serendipity? Kismet?

See, I thought those meetings were just about Enron bankrupting California by manipulating the price of kilowatts.

Silly me...

I should stop thinking that it's a crime for the Vice President of the United States and executives of a completely corrupt energy company to plot a takeover of another country's oilfields and then use a subsequent terrorist attack that kills thousands of Americans to justify that takeover, even though there is no connection between the terrorists and the country with all of the oil.

Apparently that's because there's nothing really all that wrong with fabricating the evidence for an invasion to take over another country's oilfields.

No, it could only be a crime if Bill Clinton's zipper was involved...

Beats me, P. If I could, I'd hang a banner over A2K. Yes, this needs examination. The media owe us on this one.

Just out of curiosity, I typed in "judicial watch" (in quotes) in the NYTimes search engine giving it a 30-day window and, guess what, nothing, nuzzing, nada, niente, rien de tout.

Watch as US News does agonizing twists into pretzel shape trying to defend the administration against unfair, choosy, anecdotal reporting: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030728/opinion/28john.htm

Since it's just you and me talking, Tarty, here's a little bit of mainstream mention of this story:

Yahoo!

CBS Marketwatch

I think the problem with this news is that for half the audience it's a 'd'oh, what did you think it was about' - for the other half, well, they wouldn't believe it if they were given a videotape of it.

I'm still reading the report. This is hot stuff, Pdiddie.

===
I'm going silent for a few days VACATION.

Hope the world is still here when I get back.

Peace, still possible,

Joe

http://www.judicialwatch.org/

Well, it's why I like google. Go here, and they list a lot of stuff pertaining to this. I would suspect that this will not go unnoticed. We are now in the position of desperately needing help in Iraq, and there are many in many different countries who will read this. One of the big complaints, after all, was that the U.S. did not open up bidding on various construction jobs in Iraq, and I seriously doubt that any country will come in without wanting something.

Boy, when things start to burst open, it's like breaking a pinata. All kinds of goodies fall out. No wonder they tried to keep that eneergy report under wraps. And I would not be surprised if the pre-9/11 papers started being released.

Now, the republicans made the biggest fuss out of Clinton lying. They said it didn't matter so much the offense as the lie. And they kept talking about lying. I've been waiting and waiting to see who shoves whom first. My first bet's on Rice.

PD,
The report you posted from Judicial Watch corroborates a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that I've posted elsewhere on A2K. Thanks for the report.


http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/templates/Publications.asp?p=8&PublicationID=1214

Origins of Regime Change in Iraq
Proliferation Brief, Volume 6, Number 5
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Long before September 11, before the first inspections in Iraq had started, a small group of influential officials and experts in Washington were calling for regime change in Iraq. Some never wanted to end the 1991 war. Many are now administration officials. Their organization, dedication and brilliance offer much to admire, even for those who disagree with the policies they advocate.

We have assembled on our web site links to the key documents produced since 1992 by this group, usually known as neo-conservatives, and analysis of their efforts. They offer a textbook case of how a small, organized group can determine policy in a large nation, even when the majority of officials and experts originally scorned their views.

In the Beginning
In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, then-under secretary of defense for policy, supervised the drafting of the Defense Policy Guidance document. Wolfowitz had objected to what he considered the premature ending of the 1991 Iraq War. In the new document, he outlined plans for military intervention in Iraq as an action necessary to assure "access to vital raw material, primarily Persian Gulf oil" and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and threats from terrorism.

The guidance called for preemptive attacks and ad hoc coalitions but said that the U.S. should be ready to act alone when "collective action cannot be orchestrated." The primary goal of U.S. policy should be to prevent the rise of any nation that could challenge the United States. When the document leaked to the New York Times, it proved so extreme that it had to be rewritten. These concepts are now part of the new U.S. National Security Strategy.

Links to Likud
In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, now administration officials, joined in a report to the newly elected Likud government in Israel calling for "a clean break" with the policies of negotiating with the Palestinians and trading land for peace. They said "Israel can shape its strategic environment…by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq…Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly." They called for "reestablishing the principle of preemption."

In 1998, 18 prominent conservatives wrote a letter to President Clinton urging him to "aim at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power." Most of these experts are now officials in the administration, including Elliot Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

The Power of Planning
In 2000, the Project for the New American Century, which is chaired by William Kristol and includes Robert Kagan as a director, issued a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses." The Project had organized the 1998 letter to Clinton and the 2000 report seems to have become a blueprint for the administration's foreign and defense policies. The report noted, "The U.S. has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in the 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."

While not explicitly calling for permanent bases in Iraq after regime change, the report notes the difficulty of basing forces in Saudi Arabia, given "Saudi domestic sensibilities," and calls for a permanent Gulf military presence even "should Saddam pass from the scene" as "Iran may well prove as large a threat."

The official National Security Strategy of the United States, issued September 2002, holds that our defense "will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia."

A Rising Chorus
Immediately after September 11, Paul Wolfowitz and other officials urged President Bush to attack Iraq. New Yorker writer Mark Danner notes as part of a PBS Frontline special that they saw this as a "new opportunity presented by the war on terror-that is, an opportunity to argue to the public that Iraq presented a vital danger to the United States." Colin Powell and the joint chiefs opposed them. "Powell's view was that Wolfowitz was fixated on Iraq, that they were looking for any excuse to bring Iraq into this," Washington Post reporter Dan Balz told Frontline. Powell won, but briefly.

Neo-conservative writers began to urge regime change as part of a larger strategy for remaking the Middle East. In June 2002, Michael Kelly wrote that a democratic Iraq and Palestine "will revolutionize the power dynamic in the Middle East…A majority of Arabs will come to see America as the essential ally."

"Change toward democratic regimes in Tehran and Baghdad would unleash a tsunami across the Islamic world," claimed Joshua Muravchik in August of that year. Michael Ledeen on September 4, 2002, called for the US to launch "a vast democratic revolution to liberate all the peoples of the Middle East…It is impossible to imagine that the Iranian people would tolerate tyranny in their own country once freedom had come to Iraq. Syria would follow in short order."

Democracy experts, including Carnegie's Tom Carothers, call this vision "a dangerous fantasy." But on September 12, President Bush embraced the strategy when he told the United Nations, "The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world." The president seems to have absorbed the entire expansive strategy. Now, for him, regime change in Iraq is not the end, it is just the beginning.

Click here for all these documents and more insight into the people and strategy behind the occupation of Iraq.

Joseph Cirincione is a Senior Associate and Director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The real reason Bush can't go to the UN for Iraq help
More and more people are asking why doesn't Bush go to the UN to asked for help managing post-war Iraq?

Has it occurred to anyone else that the major reason Bush is reluctant to got to the United Nations to ask for troop and financial assistance with the Iraq occupation is Dick Cheney's prior oil deals delineated earlier in this thread?

The UN will be sure to demand control of Iraq's oil fields and their revenues to pay for any assistance it may provide. But of course, Bush can't do this because Cheney has already made deals (if not signed contracts) handing out the oil fields to his oil-soaked cronies. If he betrays these cronies, he is risking public exposure of his dastardly deeds.

Poor Bush and Cheney, they's got their little balls caught in a ringer.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

There's a lot going on with the UN. Negroponte wants UN help, but the Security Council comes back offering a fresh resolution to help the US in Iraq. Oops -- no. Please, please, no resolution, says Negroponte. A fresh resolution would mean the old resolution didn't, in effect, sanction the US's going it alone. So there's a wonderful, I think quite deliberate, attempt by the SC to make things Really Hard on the administration, as well they should. Make 'em suffer and beg, fellas!

It will be interesting to see a) if the end of Saddam's sons is legit (they were identified by a top deck-of-cards guy in US custody, which makes the deal a little iffy, n'est-ce pas?)

And b) what effect, if any, this triumph has on the Iraqis (after they've used up enough ammunition joyfully shooting into the air)... and our depressed military.

Bumble -- It's really tempting to go after Cheney, only I think he's a potential fall guy. I'd love to see him fall, but don't want to pay the price by watching Bush emerge "vindicated." I hope we -- and the media -- will keep an eye focused on the Oval Office.

According to an NPR report today,

Iraqi Governing Council Addresses U.N.
http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=ATC&showDate=22-Jul-2003&segNum=5&mediaPref=RM

the Bush Admin. is trying to push UN resolution 1483 onto the member countries of the UN Security Council, the very council and resolution the Bush Admin. and the willing coalition forwent in their vigilante invasion and occupation of Iraq. The rest of the council wants a new resolution. The Bush Administration is opposed to a new one because that would imply its invasion and occupation is illegitimate.

JOHN NEGROPONTE (U.S. ambassador to the UN): "Resolution 1483 appeals to member states and concerned organizations to contribute to conditions of stability and security in Iraq. And we strongly encourage member states to contribute stability forces under this resolution."

Could the Bush Administration be any more hypocritical and self-serving?

Trying to give this administration the benefit of the doubt on any issue is all gone; they always seem to shoot themselves in the foot. I've given up on trying to understand why these clowns continue to enjoy a positive rating by Americans. c.i.

But at least there were no blowjobs involved...



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