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Banned
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ace, this is pretty simple....a confluence of neocons, in two position papers between 1998 and 2000, pushed for the removal of Saddam Hussein by US military forces, as well as ramping up US military spending and forces for a new aggressive military and foreign policy. Both papers specified the need for a "catalyzing event", a new "PEarl Harbor", as a trigger to "get 'er done".... and Bush appointed people from the PNAC group, from Cheney to Libby, to Rumsfeld, to run his administration. Then, he appointed a commission to investigate 9/11, with Zelikow, a man who touted the need for both a new "Pearl Harbor", and a curtailment of civil liberties, following the attack, to be the committee's executive director. Recently, an NY Times reporter authors a book that claims Zelikow interfered with the investigation.
The president himself, is documented below, repeating over and over, inaccurate statements intended to tie "al-Qaeda in Iraq", to Saddam Hussein and his government.
ace, some of us here show you EXACTLY why we have no faith in this administration's veracity and policies, and you show us...IBD editorials.....
Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200303151...ac_030310.html
The Plan
Were Neo-Conservatives’ 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
March 10 [2003]— Years before George W. Bush entered the White House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the direction of his presidency, a group of influential neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power.
The group, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.
<h3>And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."
That event came on Sept. 11, 2001. By that time, Cheney was vice president, Rumsfeld was secretary of defense, and Wolfowitz his deputy at the Pentagon.
The next morning — before it was even clear who was behind the attacks — Rumsfeld insisted at a Cabinet meeting that Saddam's Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round of terrorism," according to Bob Woodward's book Bush At War.
What started as a theory in 1997 was now on its way to becoming official U.S. foreign policy.
....Of the 18 people who signed the letter, 10 are now in the Bush administration.</h3>
As well as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they include Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; John Bolton, who is undersecretary of state for disarmament; and Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. Other signatories include William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, and Richard Perle, chairman of the advisory Defense Science Board.......
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ace, not only was the president enormously deceptive about his rationale for war in Iraq, he overloaded his administration with PNAC members in key defense and foreign policy positions, folks who all signed a PNAC position paper that stated that aggressive military policies that they intended to pursue would come about "slowly"....unless there was ""some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.""
President Bush, after resisiting a formal investigation of the 9/11 attacks, appointed a sham commission to do an investigation, literally years after the attacks took place. Appointed executive director of the 9/11 commisssion, Mr. Zelikow, who was one of three authors of a 1998 policy paper that stated:
Quote:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/visions/p...orming%20Event
Constitutional liberties would be challenged as the United States sought to protect itself from further attacks by pressing against allowable limits in surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and the use of deadly force. More violence would follow, either as other terrorists seek to imitate this great "success" or as the United States strikes out at those considered responsible. Like Pearl Harbor, such an event would divide our past and future into a "before" and "after."
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Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/30/zelikow-interfered/
Key 9/11 Commission Staffer Held Secret Meetings With Rove, Scaled Back Criticisms of White House
A forthcoming book by NYT reporter Philip Shenon — “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation” — asserts that former 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow interfered with the 9/11 report.....
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
<h3>I still don't understand the relevance of the organization...... Bush has not been deceptive either. I don't get it.</h3>
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Quote:
Press Conference by the President August 21, 2006. Press Conference by the President ...... who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- <h3>who had relations with Zarqawi. ...</h3>
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060821.html
Press Conference by the President September 15, 2006
....Martha.
Q Mr. President, you have said throughout the war in Iraq and building up to the war in Iraq that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi and al Qaeda. A Senate Intelligence Committee report a few weeks ago said there was no link, no relationship, and that the CIA knew this and issued a report last fall. <h3>And, yet, a month ago you were still saying there was a relationship. Why did you keep saying that? Why do you continue to say that? And do you still believe that? </h3>
THE PRESIDENT: The point I was making to Ken Herman's question was that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terror, and that Mr. Zarqawi was in Iraq. He had been wounded in Afghanistan, had come to Iraq for treatment. He had ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen in Jordan. <h3>I never said there was an operational relationship. .....</h3>
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060915-2.html
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They lied about why they invaded Iraq....but they were altar boys concerning what happened on 9/11?
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060912-2.html
.....Q Well, one more, Tony, just one more. Do you believe -- does the President still believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to Zarqawi or al Qaeda before the invasion?
MR. SNOW: The President has never said that there was a direct, operational relationship between the two, and this is important. Zarqawi was in Iraq.
Q There was a link --
MR. SNOW: Well, and there was a relationship -- there was a relationship in this sense: Zarqawi was in Iraq; al Qaeda members were in Iraq; they were operating, and in some cases, operating freely from Iraq. Zarqawi, for instance, directed the assassination of an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan. But they did they have a corner office at the Mukhabarat? No. Were they getting a line item in Saddam's budget? No. There was no direct operational relationship, but there was a relationship. They were in the country, and I think you understand that the Iraqis knew they were there. That's the relationship.
Q Saddam Hussein knew they were there; that's it for the relationship?
MR. SNOW: That's pretty much it. ....
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Here's Dick Cheney, just weeks later, contradicting Bush and Tony Snow:
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...061019-10.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
October 19, 2006
Satellite Interview of the Vice President by WSBT-TV, South Bend, Indiana
2nd Congressional District -
Representative Chris Chocola
........Q Are you saying that you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq established?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the fact of the matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, who was the lead terrorist in Iraq for three years, fled there after we went into Afghanistan. He was there before we ever went into Iraq. The sectarian violence that we see now, in part, has been stimulated by the fact of al Qaeda attacks intended to try to create conflict between Shia and Sunni......
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But.....here's Dick Cheney, seven months later....same lie...:
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0070405-3.html
So those are very real problems and to advocate withdrawal from Iraq at this point seems to me simply would play right into the hands of al Qaeda.
Q It may not just be Iraq. Yesterday I read that Ike Skelton, who chairs -- I forget the name of the committee -- in the next defense appropriations bill for fiscal '08 is going to actually remove the phrase "global war on terror," because they don't think it's applicable. They want to refer to conflicts as individual skirmishes. But they're going to try to rid the defense appropriation bill -- and, thus, official government language -- of that term. Does that give you any indication of their motivation or what they think of the current plight in which the country finds itself?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure -- well, it's just flawed thinking. I like Ike Skelton; I worked closely with Ike when I was Secretary of Defense. He's Chairman of the Armed Services Committee now. Ike is a good man. He's just dead wrong about this, though. Think about -- just to give you one example, Rush, remember Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, al Qaeda affiliate; ran a training camp in Afghanistan for al Qaeda, then migrated -- after we went into Afghanistan and shut him down there, he went to Baghdad, took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq; organized the al Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene, and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He's the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra Mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni. This is al Qaeda operating in Iraq. And as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. ..
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It's kind of difficult to overlook or overemphais the background and history of their al Zarqawi lie and their attempts to link Saddam to al Zarqawi:
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040617-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 17, 2004
President Discusses Economy, Iraq in Cabinet Meeting
Remarks by the President After Meeting with His Cabinet
The Cabinet Room
.... I'll be glad to answer a couple of questions. Deb, why don't you lead it off?
Q Mr. President, why does the administration continue to insist that Saddam had a relationship with al Qaeda, when even you have
denied any connection between Saddam and September 11th. And now the September 11th Commission says that there was no
collaborative relationship at all.
THE PRESIDENT: The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there
was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between
Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. For example, Iraqi intelligence
officers met with bin Laden, the head of al Qaeda, in the Sudan. There's numerous contacts between the two. ...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040618-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 18, 2004
President Bush Salutes Soldiers in Fort Lewis, Washington
Remarks by the President to the Military Personnel
Fort Lewis, Washington
.....And we're beginning to see results of people stepping up to defend themselves. Iraqi police and Civil Defense Corps have
captured several wanted terrorists, including Umar Boziani. He was a key lieutenant of this killer named Zarqawi who's ordering
the suiciders inside of Iraq. By the way,
''he was the fellow who was in Baghdad at times prior to our arrival. He was operating out of Iraq. He was an Al Qaeda associate.
See, he was there before we came. He's there after we came. And we'll find him.''.....
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060320-7.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 20, 2006
THE PRESIDENT:..We also did say that Zarqawi, the man who is now wreaking havoc and killing innocent life, was in Iraq. .....but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America....
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=130169
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130169&page=1
Bush Calls Off Attack on Poison Gas Lab
Calls Off Operation to Take Out Al Qaeda-Sponsored Poison Gas Lab
By John McWethy
W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 20 (2002)
President Bush called off a planned covert raid into northern Iraq late last week that was aimed at a small group of al Qaeda
operatives who U.S. intelligence officials believed were experimenting with poison gas and deadly toxins, according to
administration officials....
http://web.archive.org/web/200304012...?bid=3&pid=371
Capital Games By David Corn
Powell's One Good Reason To Bomb Iraq--UPDATED
02/06/2003 @ 12:12am
.....But here's the first question that struck me after Powell's presentation:
why hasn't the United States bombed the so-called Zarqawi camp shown in the slide? The administration obviously knows where it is, and Powell spoke of it in the present tense.
http://209.85.207.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=8&gl=us
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The, Feb 7, 2003 by GREG MILLER
SHOWDOWN ON IRAQ
Why not hit terrorist camp?
Lawmakers question lack of military action
By GREG MILLER Los Angeles Times
Friday, February 7, 2003
Washington -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week
describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al-Qaida affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with
explosives and poisons.
"Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why
have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"
Powell declined to answer, saying he could not discuss the matter in open session.
"I can assure you that it is a place that has been very much in our minds. And we have been tracing individuals who have gone in
there and come out of there," Powell said.
Absent an explanation from the White House, some officials suggested the administration had refrained from striking the compound
in part to preserve a key piece of its case against Iraq.
"This is it, this is their compelling evidence for use of force," said one intelligence official, who asked not to be identified.
But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?....
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Host, I am one of the people in the world who felt Saddam Hussein should have been removed from power during the Gulf War. If I had been an elected official with any influence, I would have made the case for his removal. I would have had a plan for his removal and I would have had conditions under which I would have wanted those plans executed - given the fact we failed to march into Bagdad during the Gulf War. If this is what you fault PNAC for, o.k. - I get your point of view. Again, I just don't have a problem with having a plan and conditions under which the plan should be executed. My guess is that even Jimmy Carter had military plans and conditions for execution that he gave thought to. I agree, that these plans and the conditions for execution may not look "pretty" when published.
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Quote:
http://web.archive.org/web/200302070...rald.com/27735
Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President
Sept. 22, 2002
By Neil Mackay
A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.
The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'
The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.
This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'.
The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.
The PNAC report also:
l refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';
l describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';
l reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;
l says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';
l spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to 'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratisation in China';
l calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US;
l hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';
l and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.
Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, father of the House of Commons and one of the leading rebel voices against war with Iraq, said: 'This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war.
'This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing.'
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Last edited by host; 06-01-2008 at 01:20 PM..
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