The Trail of Premeditated War

Tuesday, December 5

The Iraq War - Music by Edwin Starr

Many of us already know this story and know it well. But a new article on CommonDreams.org by Dr. Richard Behan amazingly pulls together all the strands which succinctly explain the behavior of the Bush Administration and it's deliberate, headlong, relenteless march into war with Afghanistan and Iraq.

The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were not simply justified and honorable retaliations to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. They couldn’t possibly have been that, because both of them were premeditated—conceived, planned, and prepared long before September 11, 2001.

A bold claim, but not one made without ample evidence...

Behan notes correctly that Iraq and Afghanistan are far from the first premeditated war engaged by the United States. There have been many others, from Panama, Granada to Kosovo, but rarely have the true rationale and justifications for a War been to heavily cloaked, and the public so deliberately and viciously misled into War.

To best tell this story, let begin - at the beginning.

The opening chapter of the story reveals a photograph dating to the Reagan years of Donald Rumsfeld cordially shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. We supported Saddam in his war with Iran. But history convulses: on January 26, 1998, Mr. Rumsfeld and 17 others, members of the Project for a New American Century, wrote a letter to President Clinton, urging the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime. If we fail to do so, they were candid in asserting, “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will be put at hazard.

(In addition to Mr. Rumsfeld, 10 others of the [PNAC] signatories would serve in the Bush Administration: Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, William Schneider, Jr., Robert Zoellick, and Paul Wolfowitz.)

This desire to set our national and foreign policy based on access and control of larger and larger portions of the worlds oil supply became a defining mantra of the Bush Administration, brought about in no small part by the top heavy representation of U.S. Oil executives among high ranking positions within the Bush Administration.

When George W. Bush took office, a concern for the “significant portion of the world’s oil supply” was never far from view, because the Administration’s personal linkages to the oil industry were intimate, historic, and numerous. The president and vice president were just the first examples: eight cabinet secretaries and the national security advisor were recruited directly from the oil industry, and so were 32 others in the secretariats of Defense, State, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, and the Office of Management and Budget.

From his very second week in office, Bush's focus on Energy Policy was evident as Dick Cheney chaired his secret "Energy Task Force" (the full meeting minutes and attendee list is still clouded in secrecy, but we do know that the late Enron Felon Kenneth Lay was in attendence).

One this is known at this point, the task force focused heavily on Oil reserves available in Iraq and proceeded to carve up it's oil fields like a Thanksgiving Turkey, and examine all "foreign suitors" for harvesting that oil.

Not a single U.S. oil company, however, was among the “suitors,” and that was intolerable. Mr. Cheney’s task force concluded, “By any estimation, Middle East oil producers will remain central to world security. The Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy.”

Condoleezza Rice’s National Security Council, meanwhile, was directed by a top secret memo to “cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered melding two seemingly unrelated areas of policy.” The NSC was ordered to support “the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

As 2001 rolled forward and the California rolling blackouts - engineered by Bush's Top Fundraiser Ken Lay on Enron while the Bush Administration itself sat on it's hands - would throw that state into a $Billion debt which would sweep their Democratic Governor Gray Davis from office mid-term to be replace by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Energy Policy devised by Lay and Cheney would dovetail directly into National Security under former Oil executive Condoleeza Rice.

Condoleezza Rice’s National Security Council, meanwhile, was directed by a top secret memo to “cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered melding two seemingly unrelated areas of policy.” The NSC was ordered to support “the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

But then there was one little roadblock to this plan to "capture Iraqi Oil Fiends", international Law regarding the declarations of War. How would Bush navigate this -- let us again return to the writings of the PNAC as they described in 1997 the process by which our Military Infrastructure could be rebuilt and transformed (PDF)...

Indeed, Any serious effort at transformation must occur within the larger framework of U.S. national security strategy, military missions and defense budgets. The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.

Simultaneous to Bush's aims for Iraq Oil, was a parrallel track happening regarding Afghanistan dating back to a little known pipeline contract between the Taliban and an Argentinian Oil company named Bridas.

The strategic location of Afghanistan can scarcely be overstated. The Caspian Basin contains some $16 trillion worth of oil and gas resources, and the most direct pipeline route to the richest markets is through Afghanistan.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the first western oil company to express interest and take action in the Basin was the Bridas Corporation of Argentina. It acquired production leases and exploration contracts in the region, and by November of 1997 had signed an agreement with General Dostum of the Northern Alliance and with the Taliban to build a pipeline across Afghanistan.

Not to be outdone, the American company Unocal fought Bridas at every turn, even spurning an invitation from Bridas to join an international consortium in the Basin. Unocal wanted exclusive control of the trans-Afghan pipeline, and hired a number of consultants in its conflict with Bridas: Henry Kissinger, Richard Armitage (now Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration), Zalmay Khalilzad (a signer of the PNAC letter to President Clinton) and Hamid Karzai. (Eventually Bridas sued Unocal in the U.S. courts, and won.)

The goal was to break the Bridas contract with the Taliban and ensure Unocal's exclusive control of the pipeline. Many meetings between Taliban leaders were held at Unocal headquarters in Texas.

Unocal and the Clinton Administration hoped to have the Taliban cancel the Bridas contract, but were getting nowhere. Mr. John J. Maresca, a Unocal Vice President, testified to a House Committee of International Relations on February 12, 1998, asking politely to have the Taliban removed and a stable government inserted.

The East Africa Bombings attributed to Osama Bin Laden in 1998 led to the Clinton Administrations retaliatory cruise missle attack on Afghanistan, but also to an executive order freezing all trade with the Taliban and effectively putting a hold on Unocal's attempt to cancel the Bridas contract. This changed as soon as Bush came into office in 2001.

Immediately on taking office, the new Bush Administration actively took up negotiating with the Taliban once more, seeking still to have the Bridas contract vacated in favor of Unocal. The parties met three times, in Washington, Berlin, and Islamablad, but the Taliban wouldn’t budge.

Behind the negotiations, however, planning was underway to take military action against the Taliban. The State Department sought and gained concurrence from both India and Pakistan to do so, and in July of 2001 three American officials met with Pakistani and Russian intelligence people to inform them of planned military strikes against Afghanistan the following October.

State Department official Christina Rocca told the Taliban, at their last pipeline negotiation in August of 2001, just five weeks before 9/11, “Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”

In this context, Condolezza Rice's blowing off George Tenet in mid 2001 as he urgently attempted to indicate grave warnings concerning al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin begin not to look like simple ignorance, but instead deliberate negligence as part of larger National Security Strategy to foster a "New Pearl Harbor" as an excuse to roll out the "Carpet of Bombs".

When President Bush assumed office three other members of the Project for a New American Century joined his administration: Richard Cheney, Douglas Feith, and Lewis Libby. Pre-emptive, premeditated war was formally adopted when the President signed the National Security Strategy early in his tenure.

Yes, it was in all likelyhood, Premediated War.

Look at the facts:

George Bush's responding to the August 6th PDB with "Now you've covered your ass" begin to ring more ominously. His sitting and staring at "My pet goat" when he was told, "The Nation is under attack" - seems far more disturbing.

The Bush Administartion did not even try to stop 9-11, yet less than one week after it finally occured... they were looking at taking control of Iraq's Oil fields.

In the first hours of frenetic response, fully aware of al Qaeda’s culpability, both President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld seek frantically to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks, we know from on site-witnesses. They are anxious to proceed with their planned invasion. And less than a week later, at a meeting of the National Security Council, President Bush ordered the Defense Department to be ready to handle Iraq, “possibly occupying Iraqi oil fields.”

We now have the Senate Intelligence Committee report which has clearly revealed that Bush Manipulated the Facts surrounding our involvement in the Iraq war. We also have Col Lawrence Wilkerson who saw the efforts to maniplate reasons to invade Iraq as a "Cabal" (between PNAC Signatory) Cheney and Rumsfeld. Fixing the Facts to Fit the Policy is never just a misnomer over the British definition fo "Fixed".

The march to war was clearly inevitable, not as noble cause to spread peace and democracy or to combat global terrorism, but as a cover to gain control of Iraqi Oil and access to the Caspian Sea energy reserves via Afghanistan - it's also clear just how much the Bush Family and many of his cronies now in our Government have to gain from such a plan.

Also common to both lines of dots [linking Iraq, Afghanistan and U.S. Foreign Policy], and integral to the overall story, is the historic, intimate, and profitable relationship across several generations between the Bush family and the royal family of Saudi Arabia. It can be seen today in the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based investment company focused primarily in the arms, security, and energy industries. Both George H.W. and George W. Bush have been deeply involved in Carlyle, and so have a number of the Saudi royalty. (And so, incidentally, has the family of Osama Bin Laden.)

Talk about playing both sides against the middle.

Carlyle has profited immensely from the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. Its legal matters are handled by Baker, Botts—James Baker’s law firm in Texas. Mr. Baker also has a personal interest in Carlyle, amounting to some $180 million. (Baker, Botts defended Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, who was sued by the families of Trade Tower victims for alleged complicity in the attacks.) Another client of Baker, Botts is Exxon-Mobil.

So let me get this straight, the guy who is currently co-chairing the Iraq Survey Group - whose recommendations on Iraq are due tommorrow - has direct financial ties to an oil, energy and weapons investment group which has raked in $Billions as a result of this War? Conflict of Interest much?

But Baker certainly isn't the only one who stands to gain enormous riches as the spoils of war.

the two “seemingly unrelated areas of policy” had been “melded,” so here was an epic opportunity to bait-and-switch--and the opportunity was not missed for a moment. Conjoining the terrorist and the state that harbored him made a “war” plausible: it would be necessary to overthrow the Taliban as well as to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. (As it turned out, of course, the Taliban was overthrown instead of bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, but the energy policy goal was achieved, at least. And years later President Bush was astonishing in his candor, when he admitted “Osama bin Laden isn’t important.”)

Of course he isn't, bin laden and ending terrorism has never been the goal - they have only been an excuse. If bin Laden actually were caught or killed, as he should have been at Tora Bora, and al-Qaeda truly dismantled the excuse for all Bush done to amass power onto himself and riches onto the Oil Industry, would soon fade.

The first monstrous and intentional deception—the declaration of a “war on terror”—took place. There was no talk of contracts, pipelines, or Argentinian oil companies. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were cleverly, ingeniously conflated, and there was only talk of war.

On October 7, 2001 the carpet of bombs is unleashed over Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the former Unocal consultant, is installed as head of an interim government. Subsequently he is elected President of Afghanistan, and welcomes the first U.S. envoy—Mr. John J. Maresca, Vice President for International Relations of the Unocal Corporation, who had implored Congress three years previously to have the Taliban overthrown. Mr. Maresca was succeeded by Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad—also a former Unocal consultant. (Mr. Khalilzad has since become Ambassador to Iraq.)

The Afghanistan President, and both the Afghan and Iraqi Ambassadors - all former Unocal Consultants. Coincidince? I think not.

With the Taliban banished and the Bridas contract moot, Presidents Karzai of Afghanistan and Musharraf of Pakistan meet on February 8, 2002, sign an agreement for a new pipeline, and the way forward is open for Unocal once more.

Mission Accomplished!

Now is all of this nothing more than speculation, a mere connecting of truly unrelated dots which have led us to the near genocide we are currently experiencing in Iraq, while the Taliban resurface in Afghanstan?

Time will tell.

The story told here has to be considered “circumstantial.” None of it results from testimony under oath, none of it has been admitted as legal evidence in a jurisprudential undertaking, and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven remains axiomatic. And we might well reiterate the humane and civil plea, heard frequently after 9/11: what we need is justice, not vengeance.

We should not proceed directly to impeachment. At the very least, however, the story of George Bush’s premeditated wars raises questions of presidential dereliction as grave as any in our history.

We need to know the truth and all the truth. The time has come, as well as the opportunity, for formal, Congressional investigations, based on subpoenas, sworn testimony, and direct evidence about 9/11 and about the created reality of the “war on terror.”

Indeed, this story needs to unravelled fully and told succinctly to the American People. They need to understand exactly what has taken place and why. And in this case, as in so many others - much can be learned by simply following the money.

Vyan, vyan1.geo@yahoo.com