Prayer and Probability

The Roots Of This War
The Creation of Bush World

Some of the deception and lies of the Bush Administration are finally beginning to come to light with the indictment of Scooter Libby. How far and how deep the light will reach remains to be seen. We can certainly hope that the true nature and reasons for the Bush Iraqi war will finally come into public view.

For over four years the Bush gang has tried to sell the American people a bill of false goods. They say we are in Iraq because of the attack on 9/11 and to fight terrorism. Neither of which is true. In rare moments of candor or more likely just momentary slips of the tongue Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have all admitted that were no weapons of mass destruction. Claims of pre-war Iraqi ties to al Qaeda were at best nothing more than the delusions of an administration already predisposed to invade Iraq. But again most likely, they were deliberate lies used to foster the Bush and neocon agenda of world dominance.

Just hours after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was calling for an attack on Saddam Hussein. The next day (9/12/01) President Bush told his intelligence groups to find an Iraq connection to the attacks. Paul Wolfowitz reiterated this message three days later at Camp David. Obviously the administration did not want the facts to stand in the way of a good hidden agenda.

This agenda is perhaps best defined by Richard Barnet in his book, Roots Of War. In it he says the Holy Grail of American defense and security managers is this, “The world will be rescued through American power and technique. Those who know how to use power and are not afraid to use it will save themselves and all humanity.” Welcome to Bush World.

We can trace the origins of this line of thinking back to 1950 with the top secret NSC-68(1) paper that dealt with the containment and defeat of Communism. But by 1992 Communism had collapsed and new enemies had to be found to sustain the vast ‘military-industrial complex’ that President Eisenhower had warned us about in his Farewell Address to the nation on January 17, 1961. Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz were just the men to find them, and so they did.

In 1991 then Defense Secretary Richard Cheney had his under secretary for policy, Paul Wolfowitz, draft a plan for the American military in the post cold war era. Completed in 1992 the forty-six page document was titled, “Defense Planning Guidance," (2) . The original document listed seven scenarios for potential problems, with Iraq being one of the main two. One solution called for a unilateral and preemptive strike by the United States. The election of Bill Clinton forced further official development of these plans to be put on hold.

However, being out of power did not stop the neocon extremists from continuing to work for the overthrow of Hussein. In 1996 they prepared a report calling for his overthrow. In 1997 they formed the Project for the New American Century (3). Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby, and Elliott Abrams were all charter members of the group. In January 1998 they sent a letter(4) to President Clinton calling for military action and the removal of Saddam.

On December 12, 2000 when the Supreme Court effectively appointed(5) George W. Bush President of the United States the neocons were assured of being able to implement their plans. All they needed was some way to finagle a plan that would justify it. On September 11th Osama bin Laden provided the excuse.

1 NSC-68
2 DPG
3 PNAC
4 Clinton Letter
5 Bush v Gore

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.