Neo-Conned! Again
Page 3
As for our own views, they do not, strictly speaking, appear in this volume. In compiling and editing the Neo-CONNED! texts, we have, of course, sought to produce a coherently integrated whole. Nevertheless, our authors speak for themselves throughout. While most grateful for their participation, and feeling, of course, a general sympathy for what they have contributed, we do not necessarily subscribe to their each and every view as expressed either in these volumes or in their writings in other places, on other subjects. No doubt the contributors would feel the same about our own view of things.
These works are about Iraq, and Iraq alone. We believe that they vindicate the principles of the Catholic just-war tradition, which convict the war in Iraq of manifest injustice. We pray that these volumes serve the cause of Truth, for it is in that spirit that they are presented.
The Editors
Neo-conned Again.
Copyright © 2007 IHS Press.
All rights reserved.
See the Acknowledgements for any additional copyright information regarding individual contributions.
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Footnotes to the contributions are their authors' except where indicated. Information from periodicals available through the Internet is referenced as “online” (or identified by the web-based source title) in lieu of page numbers or URLs. References to scholarly works have been standardized by the editors across contributions.
ISBN-10: 1-932528-42-3
ISBN-13 (eBook): 978-1-932528-42-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neo-conned! again: hypocrisy, lawlessness, and the rape of Iraq: the illegality and
the injustice of the Second Gulf War / editors, D.L. O'Huallachain and J. Forrest
Sharpe; foreword by Joseph Cirincione; introduction by Scott Ritter.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-932528-07-5 (alk. paper)
1. Iraq War, 2003- --Causes. 2. Iraq War, 2003- --Public opinion. 3.
Public opinion—United States. 4. Illegality—Case studies. 5. Hypocrisy—Political
aspects—United States—Case studies. 6. United States--Military policy. 7.
Conservatism—United States. 8. War on Terrorism, 2001- . I. O'Huallachain,
D. L. II. Sharpe, J. Forrest.
DS79.76.N46 2005
956.7044'31--dc22
2005016071
Printed in the United States of America.
Light in the Darkness Publications is an imprint of IHS Press.
IHS Press is the only publisher dedicated exclusively to the
Social Teachings of the Catholic Church. For information on
current or future titles, contact IHS Press at:
toll-free phone/fax: 877.447.7737 (877-IHS-PRES)
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CONTENTS
Foreword. The Greatest Con of Our History
Joseph Cirincione
Introduction. Oil, War, and Things Worth Fighting For
Scott Ritter
AN EXERCISE IN CRITICAL THINKING: TODAY'S SHARPEST MINDS TACKLE THE WAR AND ITS CONTEXT
1. The Thirteen Years' War
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
Postscript. Some Final Thoughts
Alexander Cockburn
2. Iraq, 1917
Robert Fisk
3. Global Democracy … Through Superior Firepower
Maurizio Blondet
Postscript. On Luttwak's Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook
Maurizio Blondet
4. Simple Truths, Hard Problems: Some Thoughts on Terror, Justice, and Self-Defense
Prof. Noam Chomsky, Ph.D.
DRIVING THE RUNAWAY TRAIN: NEOCONS, 9/11, AND THE PRETEXTS FOR WAR
5. The Ideology of American Empire
Prof. Claes G. Ryn, Ph.D.
6. Neoconservatives, Israel, and 9/11: The Origins of the U.S. War on Iraq
Stephen J. Sniegoski, Ph.D.
7. A Real Hijacking: The Neoconservative Fifth Column and the War in Iraq
Justin Raimondo
8. Unjust-War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem
Prof. David W. Lutz, Ph.D.
9. Manipulating Catholic Support for the War: The Black Operation Known as “Conservatism”
E. Michael Jones, Ph.D.
10. What the War Is All About
Kirkpatrick Sale
11. Risky Business: The Perils of Profitmongering in Iraq
Naomi Klein
Postscript. The More Things Change
Prof. William O'Rourke
THE PROFESSIONALS SPEAK: MILITARY REACTIONS TO OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM
12. An Inside Look at Pentagon Policy-Making in the Run-Up to Gulf War II
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, USAF (ret.)
13. The Moral Responsibility of the U. S. Military Officer in the Context of the Larger War We Are In
Robert Hickson, USA (ret.), Ph.D.
Introduction to Chapter 14. To War or Not to War, That Is the Question
Jack Dalton
14. Hindsight is 20–20: Iraq and “War on Terror” Veterans on Gulf War II
A Roundtable with Chris Harrison, former Army 1st Lt.; Jimmy Massey, former Marine Corps Staff Sgt.; Tim Goodrich, former Air Force Sgt.; and Dave Bischel, former Air Force Sgt.
15. Just Following Orders: One Sailor and His Vision of the Higher Law
An Interview with Petty Officer Third Class Pablo Paredes, USN
Introduction to Chapter 16. The Case of Staff Sgt. Al Lorentz
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, USAF (ret.)
16. Why We Cannot Win
Staff Sgt. Al Lorentz, USAR
THE PROFESSIONALS SPEAK II: THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND THE INTELLIGENCE DEBACLE
17. Drinking the Kool-Aid: Making the Case for War with Compromised Integrity and Intelligence
Col. W. Patrick Lang, USA (ret.)
18. Sham Dunk: Cooking Intelligence for the President
Ray McGovern
THE PROFESSIONALS SPEAK III: WAR COLLEGE PROFESSORS APPLY THEIR EXPERTISE
19. The “War on Terror”: Ingenious or Incoherent?
An Interview with Prof. Jeffrey Record, Ph.D.
20. A War Crime or an Act of War?
Stephen C. Pelletière, Ph.D.
THE PROFESSIONALS SPEAK IV: A SCIENTIST AND A DIPLOMAT
21. Neocons & Loose Nukes
Gordon Prather, Ph.D.
22. A Call to Conscience
Roger Morris
DEFYING WORLD ORDER: REACTIONS FROM VATICAN AND UN PERSPECTIVES
23. The Iraq War and the Vatican
Mark and Louise Zwick
24. The United Nations Charter and the Invasion of Iraq
John Burroughs, J.D., Ph.D., and Nicole Deller, J.D.
25. Legal Nonsense: The War on Terror and its Grave Implications for National and International Law
An Interview with Prof. Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D.
PROPPING UP A DYING GIANT: AMERICAN ECONOMIC AND MILITARY SURVIVAL TACTICS
26. In Her Death Throes: The Neoconservative Attempt to Arrest the Decline of American Hegemony
Prof. Immanuel Wallerstein, Ph.D.
27. A New “American Century”? Iraq and the Hidden Euro-Dollar Wars
F. William Engdahl
ONE GOOD SCANDAL DESERVES ANOTHER: THE SNOWBALLING OF AMERICAN LAWLESSNESS
28. The Law of Armed Conflict and the “War on Terror”
Gabor Rona, J.D., Ll.M.
> 29. A Prison Beyond the Law
Joseph Margulies, Esq.
Postscript. Seeking to Render Rasul Meaningless
Amnesty International
Postscript. An Illusion of Lawful Process
Joseph Margulies, Esq.
30. Far, Far Worse Than Watergate: The “Outing” of Valerie Plame
Jeffrey Steinberg
Postscript. The Anonymity Trap
Jacob Weisberg
31. A Torture(d) Web
Col. Dan Smith, USA (ret.)
Postscript. A Voice in the Wilderness for the Rule of Law
Rear Adm. John Hutson, USN (ret.), J.D.
SO MUCH FOR THE FOURTH ESTATE: OUR IMPERIAL PRESS
32. Chronicles of Abdication: Press Coverage of the War in Iraq
Tom Engelhardt
1. Yellow Journalism: “Anonymous” Lives and Thrives in Washington
2. Which War Is This Anyway?
33. Weapons of Mass Deception: The Air War
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
34. Truth from These Podia: A Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Information Warfare, and Psychological Operations in Gulf War II
Col. Sam Gardiner, USAF (ret.)
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY: HONEST MEN CONSIDER THE SITUATION OF IRAQ
35. Behind the Smoke Screen: Why We Are in Iraq
An Interview with Prof. Ayad S. Al-Qazzaz
36. A Priest Looks at the Former Regime
An Interview with Fr. Jean-Marie Benjamin
37. Portrait of Noble Resignation: Tariq Aziz and the Last Days of Saddam Hussein
Milton Viorst
ENDURING INJUSTICE: IRAQ AND THE CURRENT POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
38. Nemesis and Name-Calling: Who Are the Iraqi Rebels?
Col. Donn de Grand Pré, USA (ret.)
39. The Politics of Electoral Illusion
Mark Gery
The Context of the Election
The Conduct of the Election
40. A Trial Indeed: The Treatment of Saddam Hussein vs. the Rule of Law
Curtis Doebbler, Esq., Ph.D.
APPENDICES. PERSPECTIVES ON GULF WAR I
Appendix I. Off to a Bad Start: International Law and War Crimes in the Case of Gulf War 1
Michael Ratner, Esq.
Appendix II. The Mother of All Clients: The PR Campaign of Gulf War I
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
Index
About the Contributors
Acknowledgements
Further Resources
… the whole world knows by now that Iraq has lost well over a million of its people as a direct result of the sanctions that have been in place for eight years …. Many critics seem to think the government of Iraq is supposed to stand idle while watching a whole generation of its people melt away like snowflakes ….
Iraq will never be able to satisfy UNSCOM because it is being asked to prove the negative: that it does not have any more weapons. There is, of course, no way Iraq can prove that it has nothing if it has nothing. How many more Iraqis will have to die because Richard Butler's team has not yet found another document, which cannot be located because there is no such document in the first place? The inspectors are searching for a black cat in a dark room where the cat does not exist.
… many American officials have stated that even if Iraq complies with the Security Council's resolutions, the United States will not approve the lifting of sanctions. The declared goal of Washington is to remove the current government of Iraq. WE WONDER IF THIS GOAL IS IN LINE WITH THE LETTER AND SPIRIT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS. Iraq continues to believe that the resolutions are used by the United States as a cover for an illegal political agenda. The allocation of money to the Central Intelligence Agency for subversion in Iraq is just a unit in this series. One might wonder why Iraq should continue being part of this futile and endless game.
… many high-ranking American officials keep speaking about Iraq as being a threat to American interests and the region. We would like to assure these officials, and through them the American people, that Iraq is eager to live in peace with its neighbors and the world. But Iraq will not submit to intimidation, bullying, and coercion. Peace will come only through dialogue based on mutual respect for the principles of independence, sovereignty, and the observance of international law.
—Nizar Hamdoon, former Iraqi Ambassador
to the UN, “A Black Cat in a Dark Room,”
New York Times, August 20, 1998
FOREWORD
The Greatest Con of Our History
………
Joseph Cirincione
WITH SO MANY scholars presenting so much material in this book, it would perhaps be impossible to agree with everything the authors say. What is important is that they are saying it. Americans are speaking out against the greatest con in the history of the American presidency. The President, the vice president, and their senior officials willfully and systematically misled the American people and our closest allies on the most crucial question any government faces: Must we go to war?
Not one of the dozens of claims our officials made about Iraq's alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, missiles, unmanned drones, or most importantly, Iraq's nuclear weapons and ties to al-Qaeda, was true. Yet no one in the administration has been held accountable for the hundreds of false statements or – if they made the statements in good faith – for their faulty judgments and incompetence. Almost all the key officials are still in office for the administration's second term. Several have received awards or promotions.
We now know that during the buildup to the 2003 Iraq War, Saddam Hussein did not have any of these weapons, did not have production programs for manufacturing these weapons, and did not have plans to restart programs for these weapons. The most that Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, was able to tell Congress in October 2004 was that Saddam might have had the “intention” to restart these programs at some point. The evidence for even this claim is largely circumstantial and inferential.
The administration, having extended the search for these weapons past the November 2004 elections, officially ended it in January 2005. The search found no evidence that the weapons were destroyed shortly before the war or moved to Syria, as some still claim. They never existed. As Duelfer reported, the weapons and facilities had been destroyed by the United Nations inspectors and U.S. bombing strikes in the 1990s, and he found no evidence of “concerted efforts to restart the program.”
There is now a coordinated effort underway to reframe the rationale for the Iraq War, to claim that we went to war to promote democracy, or to save the Iraqi people, or, most recently, as part of the struggle to end tyranny. Weapons, we are told, were just one of the reasons. As Senator Carl Levin of Michigan pointed out on the Senate floor on January 25, 2005, in opposition to the confirmation of Condoleeza Rice as secretary of state, this is an attempt to rewrite history.
The simple fact is that before the war, the administration repeatedly and dramatically made the case for war on the issue of Iraq possessing and continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction, and the likelihood that it would provide those weapons to terrorists like al-Qaeda. For Dr. Rice to suggest that there were many other, equally compelling, reasons to go to war simply does not square with the reality of how the administration persuaded the American people and the Congress of the need for war. Her suggestion is an effort to revise the history of the administration's presentations to the American people.
Indeed, the President's final speech to the American people as the war began was entirely about the urgent need to disarm Saddam. He mentioned human rights and democracy only in passing near the conclusion of his remarks.
The key document in the administration's campaign, the report that convinced many Americans, was the CIA White Paper on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs. The White Paper was hurriedly produced and distributed to the public in October 2
002 as an unclassified version of the now-infamous National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was given to Congress in the same month, just a few days before the vote to authorize the use of force. These two documents convinced the majority of congressional members, experts, and journalists that Saddam had a powerful and growing arsenal.
I have pored over these two deeply flawed documents (for the January 2004 Carnegie study, WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications). There is not one claim in the reports that proved true, except the finding that Saddam was highly unlikely to transfer any weapons to terrorist groups – a finding that the administration ignored and was not included in the public White Paper.
One brief example serves to demonstrate the way the information, faulty to begin with, was shaped to present the worst possible case to the American people. The first paragraph of the White Paper concludes that Iraq “probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.” This claim was then repeated endlessly to the public with much talk of “mushroom clouds.” But the classified NIE only said that Iraq might acquire a bomb some time between 2007 and 2009. A danger, but not a threat that required war in March 2003. The estimate itself was wildly wrong (there was no program, there was no bomb), but by dropping the dates, officials who honestly believed the estimate could be right frightened the public into believing Saddam might already have a bomb. The danger was urgent. We had to act. We had no choice but to terminate the UN inspections and invade.
Officials knew or should have known that this was not true at the time. But dissenters to the worst-case scenarios were ignored. Caveats and qualifications were discarded. Only those who supported the policy were allowed into the decision-making circles, or as Patrick Lang reports later in this book, only those “who drank the Kool-Aid” got to sit at the table.
Anger over this unnecessary war, of course, is not confined to the authors of this book. The majority of Americans do not believe the war in Iraq has been worth the heavy cost paid. During the debate on the Rice nomination, many respected senators took to the floor to denounce the administration's deceptions. Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota said Rice had briefed him at the White House before the vote to authorize the use of force. He said most of what Rice told him was wrong. “I don't like to impugn anyone's integrity,” he said, “but I really don't like being lied to, repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally. It's wrong. It's undemocratic. It's un-American. And it's dangerous.” Senator Carl Levin said, “Voting to confirm Dr. Rice as Secretary of State would be a stamp of approval for her participation in the distortions and exaggerations of intelligence that the administration used to initiate the war in Iraq, and the hubris which led to their inexcusable failure to plan and prepare for the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein with tragic ongoing consequences.”