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Iraq White Paper
The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq:
A Pattern of Lies and Deception

Prepared by

Stephen R. Shalom,
Dept. of Political Science,
William Paterson University,

for New Jersey Peace Action, October 11, 2003.
Distributed by the NJ Coalition Against War On Iraq

• Executive Summary
• Complete White Paper

Executive Summary

  • The Bush administration has claimed that the war in Iraq is part of the "war on terrorism," and that waging this war would strike a vital blow against international terrorism of the sort that targeted the United States on September 11, 2001. Vice President Cheney described Iraq as 'the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.'"{1} In fact, however, (1) there is no evidence of any significant connection between Iraq and 9-11 (2) there is no evidence of any significant connection between Iraq and al Qaeda; (3) the US government has long known there was no such connection; (4) the war in Iraq has now turned Iraq into a base for global terrorists; and (5) the war in Iraq has further alienated Muslim and Arab public opinion, which has the effect of adding to the pool of potential recruits for anti-American terrorist groups.
  • The Bush administration justified the war in Iraq as a means of dealing with the overwhelming danger of weapons of mass destruction. Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer declared on April 10, "we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."{42} In fact, however, no such weapons have been found{43} and (1) the US government was well aware that there was no such danger from Iraq; (2) the war has increased the dangers that materials for a "dirty bomb" or other weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists; (3) the war has seriously increased the dangers of proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; and (4) U.S. foreign policy more generally has made the proliferation danger greater.
  • The Bush administration argued that its war in Iraq would spread democracy to Iraq and through the Middle East more generally. In fact, (1) the United States has been a major obstacle to democracy in the Middle East for years; (2) this war was a perfect illustration of the fact that US officials define democracy as subservience to US interests, not actual popular control; (3) the democratic credentials of the Bush administration are deeply suspect; (4) while Saddam Hussein has been removed from power, the Iraqi people have not been empowered; and (5) democracy has not been spreading in the Middle East
  • The Bush administration has denied that this war had anything to do with US empire, US bases, US control of oil, or US corporate domination. Asked whether the US was bent on "empire building." Rumsfeld replied: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been. I can't imagine why you'd even ask the question."{97} In fact, however, (1) Iraq is being considered as a US military base; (2) the US has been moving to control Iraqi oil; (3) the US is trying to remake Iraq into an economic neoconservative outpost, without the approval of any Iraqi democratic authority; and (4) the chief beneficiaries of US policies in Iraq have been politically-connected US economic interests.

Complete White Paper

  1. The Bush administration has claimed that the war in Iraq is part of the "war on terrorism," and that waging this war would strike a vital blow against international terrorism of the sort that targeted the United States on September 11, 2001. Vice President Cheney described Iraq as 'the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.'"{1} In fact, however, (1) there is no evidence of any significant connection between Iraq and 9-11 (2) there is no evidence of any significant connection between Iraq and al Qaeda; (3) the US government has long known there was no such connection; (4) the war in Iraq has now turned Iraq into a base for global terrorists; and (5) the war in Iraq has further alienated Muslim and Arab public opinion, which has the effect of adding to the pool of potential recruits for anti-American terrorist groups.
    1. There is no evidence of connection between Iraq and 9-11 -- as even the administration admits.
      1. George W. Bush: "we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th"{2}
      2. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: "'I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say' Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda's suicidal hijackings."{3}
      3. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice: "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9/11."{4}
      4. "Neither the CIA nor the congressional joint inquiry that investigated the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon found any evidence linking Iraq to the hijackers or the attacks."{5}
    2. There is no evidence of any significant connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.
      1. Senior U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge that they have not yet found any new and conclusive evidence inside Iraq of connections between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda.{6}
      2. "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, the two highest-ranking Qaeda operatives in custody, have told investigators that Mr. bin Laden shunned cooperation with Saddam Hussein. A United Nations team investigating global ties of the bin Laden group reported last month that they found no evidence of a Qaeda-Iraq connection."{7}
    3. The US government has long known there was no such connection
      1. According to two former members of the National Security Council:
        "the connection the administration asserted between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the organization that made catastrophic terrorism a reality, seems more uncertain than ever.

        "In making its case for war, the administration dismissed the arguments of experts who noted that despite some contacts between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden's followers over the years, there was no strong evidence of a substantive relationship. As members of the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999, we closely examined nearly a decade's worth of intelligence and we became convinced, like many of our colleagues in the intelligence community, that the religious radicals of Al Qaeda and the secularists of Baathist Iraq simply did not trust one another or share sufficiently compelling interests to work together.

        "But Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised that the Bush administration had "bulletproof evidence" of a Qaeda-Iraq link, and Secretary of State Colin Powell made a similar case to the United Nations. Such claims now look as questionable as the allegation that Iraq was buying uranium in Niger."{8}
      2. "one Central Intelligence Agency official told The Washington Post that a review panel of retired intelligence operatives put together by the agency found that although there were some ties among individuals in the two camps, 'it was not at all clear there was any coordination or joint activities.' And Rand Beers, the senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council who resigned earlier this year, has said that on the basis of the intelligence he saw, he did not believe there was a significant relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda."{9}
      3. Despite Rumsfeld's claim that American intelligence had "bulletproof" evidence of links between Al Qaeda and the government of President Saddam Hussein, in fact "The intelligence available to the U.S. …on Iraq's … links to Al Qaeda, was fragmentary and sporadic." according to a letter from the senior Republican and the senior Democrat on the house Intelligence Committee.{10}
      4. Rumsfeld's recent remark that the United States has "bulletproof" evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Hussein "struck many in the intelligence community as an exaggerated assessment of the available evidence."{11}
      5. "Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism specialist, said that Cheney's 'willingness to use speculation and conjecture as facts in public presentations is appalling. It's astounding.'"

        "In particular, current intelligence officials reiterated yesterday that a reported Prague visit in April 2001 between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent had been discounted by the CIA, which sent former agency Director James R. Woolsey to investigate the claim. Woolsey did not find any evidence to confirm the report, officials said, and President Bush did not include it in the case for war in his State of the Union address last January."{12}
      6. An FBI official told the New York Times: "We've been looking at this hard for more than a year and you know what, we just don't think it's there."{13}
      7. According to a classified British intelligence report seen by BBC News, "There are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network."{14}
      8. According to Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, "Since U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001, I have examined several tens of thousands of documents recovered from Al Qaeda and Taliban sources. In addition to listening to 240 tapes taken from Al Qaeda's central registry, I debriefed several Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. I could find no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda."{15}
      9. On October 7, 2002, George Bush stated "We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade." But an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate "warned that evidence of a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda was largely circumstantial and noted that accounts from Iraqi defectors and al Qaeda captives often conflicted."{16}
      10. The Bush administration claimed that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi was a senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad. But "the Washington Post, citing unnamed intelligence analysts and congressional sources, noted that at the time US officials were making this claim, 'U.S. intelligence already had concluded that Zarqawi was not an al Qaeda member but the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al Qaeda adherents.'"{17}
      11. On October 7, 2002, George Bush stated "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." But, an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate "said that if Saddam ever struck U.S. targets, he would likely rely on his own 'special forces or intelligence operatives.' Saddam might turn over his weapons to terrorists only as a 'last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.' The NIE deemed this scenario an "extreme step" on Hussein's part."{18} "[T]here were two points on which the United States and the British agreed: that there was no evidence before the war that Hussein had given chemical or biological materials to terrorists, and that the Iraqi leader probably would take such a step only if his government was about to collapse under attack."{19}
      12. "a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.

        " These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses - including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network..."{20}
      14. "British intelligence agencies are dismissing claims by the Bush administration that there are links between Iraq and the al Qaida terrorist network."{21}
      15. According to a British parliamentary report:
        "In their assessment International Terrorism: War with Iraq, dated 10 February 2003, the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] reported that there was no intelligence that Iraq had provided CB materials to al-Qaida or of Iraqi intentions to conduct CB terrorist attacks using Iraqi intelligence officials or their agents. However, it judged that in the event of imminent regime collapse there would be a risk of transfer of such material, whether or not as a deliberate Iraqi regime policy. The JIC assessed that al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq.

        " The JIC assessed that any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, not necessarily al-Qaida."{22}
    4. The war in Iraq has now turned Iraq into a base for global terrorists
      1. "America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one," notes Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill.{23}
      2. Iraq could become, warned Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on al Qaeda, "a very significant theater for these jihadists."{24}
      3. "Intelligence officials believe that Islamic jihadists are gaining strength in Iraq, operating out of mosques and communicating in ways that cannot be traced by electronic eavesdropping devices."{25}
    5. The war in Iraq has further alienated Muslim and Arab public opinion, which has the effect of adding to the pool of potential recruits for anti-American terrorist groups.
      1. Muslim and Arab opinion alienated
        1. "[T]the bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world. Negative views of the U.S. among Muslims, which had been largely limited to countries in the Middle East, have spread to Muslim populations in Indonesia and Nigeria. Since last summer, favorable ratings for the U.S. have fallen from 61% to 15% in Indonesia and from 71% to 38% among Muslims in Nigeria…. In the wake of the war, a growing percentage of Muslims see serious threats to Islam. Specifically, majorities in seven of eight Muslim populations surveyed express worries that the U.S. might become a military threat to their countries.… Support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism also has fallen in most Muslim publics. Equally significant, solid majorities in the Palestinian Authority, Indonesia and Jordan and nearly half of those in Morocco and Pakistan say they have at least some confidence in Osama bin Laden to 'do the right thing regarding world affairs.'"{26}
        2. In Pakistan, virulently anti-American Islamicists won local elections in two out of four of the country's provinces and are now the third largest party in the national parliament, their best showing ever. For the first time, their support comes not just from the areas bordering Afghanistan, but even from urban areas.{27}
        3. In Kuwait, elections in July returned Islamic traditionalists and supporters of the royal family, while liberals suffered a severe defeat.{28}
        4. In Indonesia, the New York Times' Jane Perlez reports, ""Jemaah Islamiyah was only the most extreme of a number of groups that were galvanized by the events of 9/11 and the American response in Afghanistan. Indonesia's Council of Muslim Scholars, considered a fairly benign organization, intensified its polemics, calling on all Muslims of the world to unite against the United States."{29}
        5. The State-Department's Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, reported on October 1, 2003, "The bottom has indeed fallen out of support for the United States. In Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, only 15 percent view the United States favorably, compared with 61 percent in early 2002. In Saudi Arabia, according to a Gallup poll, only 7 percent had a "very favorable" view of the U.S. while 49 percent had a "very unfavorable" view. In Turkey, a secular Muslim, non-Arab democracy that is a stalwart member of NATO and a longtime supporter of America, favorable opinion toward the U.S. dropped from 52 percent three years ago to 15 percent in the spring of 2003, according to the Pew Research Center."{30}
        6. According to a poll conducted by Zogby International in March 2003, 4 percent of Saudis had a favorable opinion of the United States and 97% believed that the threat of terrorism against the United States would increase after a war in Iraq. Only 6 percent in Jordan and Morocco, 8.8 percent in the United Arab Emirates, 13 percent in Egypt, and one out of three in Lebanon had a favorable opinion of the US. This was a significant drop over the previous year, leading John Zogby to state, "We have lost a lot of good will for a long time."{31}
      2. Such hostility helps terrorist recruiting
        1. A senior American counterintelligence official said: "An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups….And it is a very effective tool."{32}
        2. An American official, based in Europe, said Iraq had become "a battle cry, in a way," for Al Qaeda recruiters.{33}
        3. France's leading counter-terrorism judge said: "Bin Laden's strategy has always been to demonstrate to the Islamic community that the West, and especially the U.S., is starting a global war against Muslims. An attack on Iraq might confirm this vision for many Muslims. I am very worried about the next wave of recruits."{34}
        4. Pollster John Zogby is especially concerned about angry youth: "The problem is that someone will reach them and organize them and that does not bode well for the United States."{35}
        5. Rohan Gunaratna, a Southeast Asian expert on al Qaeda, said the organization had been weakened, but had no trouble in recruiting fresh members among Muslims whose anti-Western passions had been fuelled by the war in Iraq. "For every three to five members, they have five to 10 more recruits. As a result, active terrorist groups will be able to grow and become more powerful and influential."{36}
        6. Gunaratna told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States that outside of Palestine fewer than 20% of the population of any Muslim country actively supports terrorism. But, he continued, "This may change with time. This may change, especially after 9/11, especially after U.S. intervention in Iraq."{37}
        7. According to Gunaratna, there was general support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, but the Iraq war generated displeasure: "And the terrorist organizations will harness that displeasure and that resentment and that anger in the Muslim world, and they will grow in strength and size and they will become a greater threat to you with time. By going into Iraq, you have not reduced the threat of terrorism to the United States in any way."{38}
        8. Jason Burke, author of a forthcoming book on al Qaeda, has written "That the conflict in Iraq led to a rise in recruitment for radical groups is now so clear that even U.S. officials admit it. This is a huge setback in the 'war on terror.'"{39}
        9. "The Iraq war 'clearly increased the terrorist impulse,' said Jonathan Stevenson, senior fellow for counter-terrorism at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies."{40}
        10. The London-based World Markets Research Center, which provides top corporate clients with terrorism threats, ranks Colombia, Israel and Pakistan as the only countries with a greater terror risk than the United States. "Another Sept. 11-style terrorist attack in the United States is highly likely," they warned in August 2003. "Networks of militant Islamist groups are less extensive in the U.S. than they are in Western Europe, but U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan and Iraq has exacerbated anti-U.S. sentiment."{41}
  2. The Bush administration justified the war in Iraq as a means of dealing with the overwhelming danger of weapons of mass destruction. Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer declared on April 10, "we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."{42} In fact, however, no such weapons have been found{43} and (1) the US government was well aware that there was no such danger from Iraq; (2) the war has increased the dangers that materials for a "dirty bomb" or other weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists; (3) the war has seriously increased the dangers of proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; and (4) U.S. foreign policy more generally has made the proliferation danger greater.
    1. The US government was well aware that there was no such danger from Iraq
      1. Constant claims by the Bush administration that there was documentary evidence linking Iraq to attempted uranium purchases in Niger, despite the fact that the documents were forgeries and CIA analysts doubted their authenticity.{44}
      2. A British intelligence report on Iraq's security services that was in fact plagiarized, with selected modifications, from a student article.{45}
      3. The frequent citation of the incriminating testimony of Iraqi defector Hussein Kamel, while suppressing that part of the testimony in which Kamel stated that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed following the 1991 Gulf War.{46}
      4. On October 7, 2002, George Bush stated that Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons." But in "September 2002, a Defense Intelligence Agency study had warned that "no reliable information" exists "on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons…"{47}
      5. On October 7, 2002, George Bush stated that Iraq is "seeking nuclear weapons." But "Richard J. Kerr, a former CIA deputy now leading an evaluation of U.S. intelligence estimates on Iraq, says that the CIA collected almost no hard information about Iraqi weapons programs after U.N. inspectors left in 1998, and that many of the intelligence community's reasons for saying that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program were largely 'inferential.'"{48}
      6. On October 7, 2002, George Bush stated that in 1995, the Iraqi regime "was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions." But "The U.N. inspectors did not reach this conclusion. Their final report in 1999 indicated that 520 kilograms (1,144 pounds) of yeast extract (bacterial growth media) remained unaccounted for and was 'sufficient to produce 26,000 liters of Bacillus anthracis spores or over 3 times the amount declared by Iraq.' Inspectors did not know if Iraq had actually used this growth media to produce more anthrax, nor did they draw any conclusions about what weapons Iraq might possess. Iraq's biological weapons, if they existed, could 'kill millions' only if the regime had a large arsenal of highly effective long-range missile, rocket, and airborne delivery systems, such as those the United States and the Soviet Union perfected during the Cold War. There was no evidence that Iraq possessed such delivery systems."{49}
      7. The British government issued a dossier claiming that Saddam Hussein represented a serious threat to Britain and that his forces would be able to use chemical weapons on 45 minutes notice. However, Robin Cook, the British Foreign Minister at the time has written that Prime Minister Tony Blair privately conceded to him two weeks before the war that Iraq did not have usable chemical weapons. Cook has also written that John Scarlett, chair of the joint intelligence committee, also 'assented' in the view that Saddam had no such weapons.{50}
      8. President Bush told reporters on December 31, 2002, "We don't know whether or not he [Saddam Hussein] has a nuclear weapon." But the October 2002 NIE said, if "left unchecked, it [Baghdad] will probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade".{51}
      9. On October 7, 2002, George Bush stated: " Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." But according to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the State Department's Intelligence Bureau was "not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors." The State Department cited the conclusions of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy, who deemed the tubes "poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment."{52} And "A British government report last month, which reflects the judgments of British intelligence, notes that 'no definitive intelligence' links the tubes to a nuclear program."{53}
      10. "Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, 'circumstantial' and 'fragmentary' information with 'too many uncertainties' to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. . ."{54}
      11. "The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied."{55}
      12. The CIA reported in October 2002,
        "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or C.B.W. chemical and biological weapons against the United States.

        "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions. Such terrorism might involve conventional means, as with Iraq's unsuccessful attempt at a terrorist offensive in 1991, or C.B.W."{56}
      13. Asked in October 2002 whether Saddam Hussein would initiate an attack using a weapon of mass destruction if he didn't feel threatened, a "Senior Intelligence Witness" testified that "My judgment would be that the probability of him initiating an attack -- let me put a time frame on it -- in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low."{57}
      14. "In making its case for war with Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration painted a much more threatening picture of Iraqi drones than was justified, according to Air Force intelligence estimates now coming to light."{58}
    2. The war has increased the dangers that materials for a "dirty bomb" or other weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists
      1. US officials allowed Iraqi nuclear facilities (not weapons sites, but research facilities whose nuclear material had been under international supervision and seal) to be looted and refused help from the International Atomic Energy Agency, thus losing control of potentially dangerous radioactive material.{59}
      2. Surface to air missiles capable of shooting down a civilian airliner -- possibly hundreds of them -- have gone missing in Iraq as a result of the war, "compounding the security risks for airports and airlines in Iraq and around the world." The missiles are easy to smuggle and can fetch $5,000 on the international black market, ten times what the United States military is offering.{60}
    3. The war has seriously increased the dangers of proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons
      1. "Paradoxically, the runaway American victory in the conventional arms race might inspire a new round of proliferation of atomic weapons. With no hope of matching the United States plane for plane, more countries may seek atomic weapons to gain deterrence."{61}
      2. "U.S. officials report that North Korea is accelerating its nuclear program, not abandoning it. Iran, too, has consciously raised the public profile of its ostensibly civilian nuclear program and insisted that it would acquire full nuclear fuel-cycle capability, thus enabling it to enrich uranium to weapon-grade levels and reprocess plutonium from reactor fuel. Like India's army chief of staff after the first Iraq war, officials in Pyongyang and Tehran may believe that if one day you find yourself opposed by the United States, you'd better have a nuclear weapon."{62}
      3. The toppling of Saddam Hussein, argue American officials, will induce Iran, Syria and Libya to stop trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. "But the fate of Iraq points the other way, does it not? North Korea used its inclusion in Mr Bush's "axis of evil" and the outcry over the Iraq war to justify rejecting international inspections and to step up its nuclear claims and threats. And if Iran has weapons ambitions, won't it now redouble its bomb-building efforts? America was evidently readier to use force against Iraq, which had no bomb, than against North Korea, which claims to have two."{63}
    4. U.S. foreign policy more generally has made the proliferation danger greater
      1. At the international disarmament conference that began in late April 2003 in Geneva, "disarmament experts said that American lack of commitment to non-proliferation was as damaging as the behavior of the proliferators."{64}
      2. The U.S. lack of commitment has been demonstrated by Bush's signing of Presidential National Security Directive 17 saying that the U.S. reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapons state (in violation of Security Council resolution 984 of 1995), by its refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and by the Pentagon's request to have Congress lift the 10-year ban on developing small nuclear warheads.{65}
      3. The United States has blocked efforts to improve compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.{66}
      4. The United States has insisted on a reservation to the Chemical Weapons Convention allowing the U.S. President the right to refuse an inspection of U.S. facilities on national security grounds.{67}
      5. With regard to nuclear weapons, the Bush administration has withdrawn from the ABM treaty, has refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and has stated that it can't rule out a resumption of testing. It has declared that it might use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological threats and that new nuclear weapons are needed for chemical and biological weapons targets, as well as deeply buried and hardened targets. It has begun research on modifications of two types of existing nuclear gravity bombs and has proposed the repeal of a ten-year old ban on low-yield nuclear weapons research and development. As the Arms Control Association has noted, "Coming from the United States, the world's pre-eminent military and political power, such policies undermine nonproliferation efforts by suggesting to other states that nuclear weapons are legitimate and necessary tools that can achieve military or political objectives. Such an approach, if implemented, only increases the odds that another country or group will race to acquire—and perhaps someday use—the destructive power of these terrible weapons."{68}
      6. The preemptive attack on Iraq, billed in part as a battle in a larger war against nuclear proliferation, may well have convinced other nervous nations that nukes are their only hedge against a similar fate. Then here's the administration's push for low-yield and tactical nuclear weapons, and for a nuclear policy that goes beyond mere deterrence. Throw in a pathological aversion in the Bush White House to international obligations and you have all the ingredients for destabilization, a new arms race and an increasingly unsafe world."{69}
      7. "An example of the Bush administration's blasé attitude toward arms control is the Moscow Treaty, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin last year. It requires that each country must have no more than 1,700 to 2,200 "operationally deployed" nuclear warheads by Dec. 31, 2012 (down from the current 6,000), but there's no timetable for the reductions, no enforcement mechanism, and the treaty expires the day the limits go into effect."{70} So essentially, the treaty actually limits nuclear arsenals for just a single day.
  3. The Bush administration argued that its war in Iraq would spread democracy to Iraq and through the Middle East more generally. In fact, (1) the United States has been a major obstacle to democracy in the Middle East for years; (2) this war was a perfect illustration of the fact that US officials define democracy as subservience to US interests, not actual popular control; (3) the democratic credentials of the Bush administration are deeply suspect; (4) while Saddam Hussein has been removed from power, the Iraqi people have not been empowered; and (5) democracy has not been spreading in the Middle East
    1. The United States has been a major obstacle to democracy in the Middle East for years
      1. The United States subverted some of the few democratic governments in the Middle East (Syria in 1949, Iran in 1953).{71}
      2. The United States backed the bloody coup by Saddam Hussein's Baath party in Iraq in 1963, and provided the Baath with lists of Communists to liquidate.{72}
      3. The reactionary absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia maintains its power with the help of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, "alost entirely armed, trained and managed by the United States, largely through a network of military contractors."{73}
      4. Despite its corrupt and autocratic government, Egypt is the second largest recipient of US economic and military assistance in the world.{74}
      5. Turkey's long and brutal repression of its Kurdish minority has been backed by US arms and diplomatic support.{75}
      6. The United States supported the crushing of anti-Saddam Hussein revolts in Iraq in 1991.{76}

        7.
    2. This war was a perfect illustration of the fact that US officials define democracy as subservience to US interests, not actual popular control
      1. Most countries opposed the US rush to war. But even in those countries whose governments supported war, the populations were solidly opposed. In Britain, Spain, and Italy overwhelming majorities opposed the launching of the war. Nor were things any different in the "New Europe." In Bulgaria, for example, a January poll showed 59 percent of the population opposed to war in any circumstances and another 28 percent opposed to war without Security Council backing, with only 5 percent favoring a unilateral war by the United States and its allies.{77}
      2. When the Turkish parliament voted in accord with the wishes of over 90 percent of its population to reject participation in the US war on Iraq, the Bush administration applied "intense pressure" to try to get a reversal.{78}
    3. The democratic credentials of the Bush administration are deeply suspect
      1. George Bush became president only with the help of deeply undemocratic practices, such as the improper disenfranchisement of thousands of African American voters in Florida, where his brother was Governor.{79}
      2. Within the United States, the Bush administration has put civil liberties under assault, prompting the conservative former House majority leader Dick Armey to warn that the Justice Department was "out of control" and the most dangerous agency of government" and leading the legislatures of three states, including Republican-controlled Alaska, and more than 150 cities, towns, and counties to challenge the Patriot Act.{80}
      3. Consider the administration's champion of democracy, Paul Wolfowitz. In 1997, the year before the Indonesian people drove their dictator, Suharto, into exile, Wolfowitz told Congress that “any balanced judgment of the situation in Indonesia today, including the very important and sensitive issue of human rights, needs to take account of the significant progress that Indonesia has already made and needs to acknowledge that much of this progress has to be credited to the strong and remarkable leadership of president Suharto.” This is the same Suharto who had come to power by killing hundreds of thousands “of his own people” (with the help of U.S.-provided arms and lists of names of Communists to liquidate).{81}
    4. While Saddam Hussein has been removed from power, the Iraqi people have not been empowered
      1. At the end of June, "U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders."{82}
      2. "the Coalition Provisional Authority, charged with actually running Iraq until the Iraqis can take over, is the source of increasing ridicule. “CPA stands for the Condescending and Patronizing Americans,” a Baghdad diplomat told a Newsweek reporter. “So there they are, sitting in their palace: 800 people, 17 of whom speak Arabic, one is an expert on Iraq. Living in this cocoon. Writing papers. It’s absurd,” says one dissident Pentagon official. He exaggerates, but not by much. Most of the senior civilian staff are not technical experts but diplomats, Republican appointees, White House staffers and the like."{83}
      3. Officials sent to Iraq by the United States were vetted by the Defense Department, purging 15 of 20 State Dept. officials; "The vetting process 'got so bad that even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion,' recalled one of Garner’s team."{84}
      4. "Almost six months after their 'liberation,' the Iraqis are still short of power (both electrical and electoral) and jobs."{85}
      5. "Some Iraqi exiles recruited by the Pentagon to help rebuild their homeland are pressing for a bigger role in reconstruction, saying they have been sidelined by Americans who view them as foot soldiers rather than partners in policymaking.

        "One prominent political scientist has resigned from the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, and others are threatening to leave if the U.S.-led coalition governing Iraq does not address their concerns."

        "The population of Iraq perceives correctly that it is the occupiers who are running things. Everybody else is there in some secondary or subservient role," said Chicago attorney Feisal Istrabadi, an advisor to Iraqi Governing Council member Adnan Pachacha.

        "'It's just like in the old days under the British mandate,' Istrabadi said. 'Technically, you had an Iraqi minister. But it was the senior advisor, who was always a Briton, who was running things. If you wanted to get things done, you went and saw the fellow with the blue eyes, not the Iraqi. That is very much the situation as it's perceived today.'"{86}
      6. Even Ahmed Chalabi, the exiled Iraqi banker and Pentagon favorite who was airlifted by U.S. military forces into southern Iraq in early April and appointed by U.S. officials to serve on the Iraqi Governing Council, has recently been calling for a speedy handover of power in Baghdad. According to U.S. officials quoted in the Los Angeles Times, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice confronted Chalabi. "She was instructed to tell him to behave. She stressed how unhelpful it was for Iraqis to be enunciating positions that were personally embarrassing for the president...."{87}
      7. According to Mahmoud Othman, one of the members of the appointed Iraq Governing Council, told the Independent that "the council 'does not have much power.' He pointed out that the US had invited 10,000 Turkish soldiers into Iraq without first consulting council members."{88}
    5. Democracy has not been spreading in the Middle East
      1. A Feb. 26, 2003 classified State Department report was leaked to the press. The thrust of the document, according to a source, was "that this idea that you're going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible." "Even if some version of democracy took root -- an event the report casts as unlikely -- anti-American sentiment is so pervasive that elections in the short term could lead to the rise of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to the United States….Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."{89}
      2. According to Amnesty International, "After the military action by US and UK forces began on 20 March 2003, a backlash against human rights was witnessed around the world. This included: * attacks on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly as millions of people worldwide took to the streets to protest against the war; * excessive use of force by police against anti-war demonstrators; * restriction of asylum rights."{90}
      3. Egypt passed Law 84/2002 on June 3, 2002 requiring existing groups to apply for registration with the Ministry of Social Affairs as NGOs within a year. In June 2003 two human rights groups were denied legal status, leading Human Rights Watch to comment that the Egyptian government has thereby "confirmed that the new NGO law is intended to stifle civil society.”{91}
      4. In August 2003, Egypt charged five anti-war activists under emergency legislation, showing, in the words of Human Rights Watch, "its contempt for the most elemental right to peaceful dissent."{92}
      5. "Egypt has a long history of using anti-terrorism decrees and emergency rule to suppress peaceful dissidents, as well as to punish opponents advocating or using violence. But repressive measures have intensified since the September 11 attacks. ... President Mubarak said in December 2001... that the U.S. decision to authorize military tribunals “proves that we were right from the beginning in using all means, including military tribunals.”{93}
      6. In September 2003, Amnesty International reported that in Yemen there was "a significant regression in the government's human rights policy and practice since the 11 September 2001 attacks on the U.S."{94}
        f. "Despite the U.S. claim that it intends to spread democratic values and ideals throughout the world, war with Iraq will bring less democracy in the view of 95% of Saudis, 66% of Moroccans, 60% of Egyptians, 58% of Jordanians, and 74% of Lebanese.... Most optimistic are the Jordanians and the Lebanese; but only 7% of respondents in both countries believe a war against Iraq will bring more democracy.{95}
      7. Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that "excessive" praise" by US officials for "the cautious, top-down political reforms that are being implemented by some Arab monarchies" -- as Secretary Powell did regarding Bahrain, Qatar, and Morocco in December 2002 -- "raises the question of whether the United States is committed to democracy or will settle for face-saving steps by autocratic regimes whose core power remains unchallenged."{96}
  4. The Bush administration has denied that this war had anything to do with US empire, US bases, US control of oil, or US corporate domination. Asked whether the US was bent on "empire building." Rumsfeld replied: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been. I can't imagine why you'd even ask the question."{97} In fact, however, (1) Iraq is being considered as a US military base; (2) the US has been moving to control Iraqi oil; (3) the US is trying to remake Iraq into an economic neoconservative outpost, without the approval of any Iraqi democratic authority; and (4) the chief beneficiaries of US policies in Iraq have been politically-connected US economic interests.
    1. Iraq is being considered as a major US military base
      1. "The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region, senior Bush administration officials say."

        ***

        "'There will be some kind of a long-term defense relationship with a new Iraq, similar to Afghanistan,' said one senior administration official. 'The scope of that has yet to be defined -- whether it will be full-up operational bases, smaller forward operating bases or just plain access.'"{98}
        b. "Until now, the American-led occupying force has made only desultory efforts to train a force to replace Saddam Hussein's army of 400,000, which disintegrated with Mr. Hussein's defeat.

        "Whether the Americans simply underestimated Iraqi resistance or whether the United States wanted Iraq to depend on America for security -- as some Iraqis contend -- the delay has fueled Iraqis' distrust of Washington's intentions. . . .

        ***

        "The new army will be of little use against well-armed guerrillas, much less as a deterrent to the established armies of Iran and Turkey, Iraq's neighbors to the east and north, said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy institute. That is likely to remain the case for the next several years, he said.
        "'One of the great problems here is that they are creating an Iraqi army that is seen by most Iraqis as not an Iraqi army, but as a paramilitary force that looks more like a tool of the occupation than a national defense force,' Mr. Cordesman said.

        "Bush administration officials deny that allegation. They say the future Iraqi government will decide how many troops Iraq needs and whether to allow the United States to establish permanent bases here, should the Pentagon seek them."{99}
        c. "The US commander in charge of all forces in Iraq said yesterday American troops might not be brought home once international peacekeepers are deployed to the war-torn country, a reversal that means 150,000 US soldiers may stay in Iraq indefinitely."{100}
    2. The US has been moving to control Iraqi oil
      1. The U.S.-appointed chair of the U.S.-established "advisory" committee for the Iraqi oil industry, Philip J. Carroll, former head of Shell Oil and of Fluor (a firm currently bidding on Iraq reconstruction projects) and with substantial stock in both, has indicated that Iraq might "choose" not to remain within OPEC, which would serve the U.S. aim of breaking the oil cartel. The one near-certainty, said Carroll, is that the future expansion of Iraq's oil industry will be driven in part by foreign capital.{101}
      2. "Iraqi Oil: The U.S. has just recently lined up long-term oil deals with 12 companies around the world in a hastened effort to gain revenue to pay for reconstruction. According to its senior American advisor, Philip Carroll, a former executive of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization, plans to supply an average of 725,000 to 750,000 barrels of oil a day to U.S. firms like ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhilipps, Marathon and Valero Energy; as well as European giants like Shell, BP, Total, Repsol YPF; the Chinese firm Sinochem; Switzerland-based oil dealer Vitol and Japan's Mitsubisha. The choices of oil contractors seem to be entirely political, with Carroll’s former company on the list, along with National Se curity Advisor Condoleeza Rice’s former firm, Chevron. The contract with BP is may be a partial payback for the United Kingdom’s commitment of combat troops to the U.S.-led war against Hussein’s regime; and the Japanese deal has been discussed as "bait" to lure the Japanese government into supplying personnel for security and policing functions in occupied Iraq. And, of course, while Washington’s man from Royal Dutch Shell exercises veto power over the decisions of the new Iraqi oil ministry, the money for rebuilding Iraq’s devastated oil producing infrastructure goes to Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, on a cost-plus basis."{102}
    3. The US is trying to remake Iraq into an economic neoconservative outpost, without the approval of any Iraqi democratic authority
      1. The US economic plan for Iraq, "already approved by L. Paul Bremer III, the American in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority, is extreme — in fact, stunning. It would immediately make Iraq's economy one of the most open to trade and capital flows in the world, and put it among the lowest taxed in the world, rich or poor.

        "The new plan reduces the top personal income and corporate tax rate to only 15 percent. It reduces tariffs on imports to 5 percent. And it abolishes almost all restrictions on foreign investment. It would allow a handful of foreign banks to take over the domestic banking system."

        According to Fadhil Mahdi, the regional program manager for the United Nations Development Program in Beirut, speaking for himself, "Opening up to imports at a mere 5 percent tariff will most probably ruin many producers and exacerbate unemployment."{103}
      2. "Iraq was in effect put up for sale yesterday when the American-appointed administration announced it was opening up all sectors of the economy to foreign investors…

        " …the Iraqi Governing Council announced sweeping reforms to allow total foreign ownership without the need for prior approval.

        "The initiative bore all the hallmarks of Washington's ascendant neoconservative lobby, complete with tax cuts and trade tariff rollbacks. It will apply to everything from industry to health and water, although not oil."{104}
      3. In May 2003, the Wall Street Journal reported on a confidential 100-page U.S. contracting document titled "Moving The Iraqi Economy From Recovery to Sustainable Growth"

        "The Bush administration has drafted sweeping plans to remake Iraq's economy in the U.S. image.

        "Hoping to establish a free-market economy in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. is calling for the privatization of state-owned industries such as parts of the oil sector, forming a stock market complete with electronic trading and fundamental tax reform.

        "Execution of the plan -- which is expected to be complicated and possibly contentious -- will fall largely to private American contractors working alongside a smaller team of U.S. officials."{105}
      4. "A more substantial assault on Saddam's legacy is under way in the Republican Palace, where the occupation authority is making preparations to dismantle the food distribution system which gave free rations of flour, rice, cooking oil and other staples to every Iraqi.

        "Described by the UN as the world's most efficient food network, the system still keeps Iraqis from going hungry. But the US civilian administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, views it as a dangerous socialist anachronism. The coalition provisional authority (CPA) is planning to abolish it in January, despite warnings from its own technical experts that this could lead to hunger and riots."{106}
    4. The chief beneficiaries of US policies in Iraq have been politically-connected US economic interests
      1. "Former US government officials with close connections to the Bush family have set up a consultancy with the former Thatcher aide Lord Powell to advise companies how to win contracts" in Iraq. Called New Bridge Strategies, it is chaired by Joe Allbaugh, Bush's campaign manager in the 2000 presidential election, and head of FEMA in the first 2 years of Bush's presidency.{107}
      2. The former law firm of Pentagon official Douglas Feith is assisting US companies "in their relations with the United States government in connection with Iraqi reconstruction projects as prime contractors and consultants". The firm also hosts the website of an firm headed by Salem Chalabi, nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, Ahmed Chalabi " a former banker in Jordan, fled the country in 1989 before he could be arrested in connection with a $200 million financial scandal. He was later tried in his absence and sentenced by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison on 31 charges of embezzlement, theft, misuse of depositor funds and currency speculation." Ahmed Chalabi provided "'intelligence' about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (much of which proved to be wrong)" and boasted "that he had a secret network inside Iraq which could be harnessed to help run the country once the US invaded" -- which "did not materialize."{108}
      3. Halliburton:
        1. formerly headed by and still paying Vice President Dick Cheney, which was fined $2 million to resolve fraud claims in 2002, and which has given $674,000 in campaign contributions to Republicans from 1999-2002, was awarded by the Pentagon a secret, no-bid contract for work in Iraq worth as much as $7 billion.{109}
        2. Halliburton: Since September 11, the Bush administration has doled out over $2.2 billion in defense-related contracts to Cheney’s former company. Halliburton’s contract to secure and protect oil fields in Iraq, secretly awarded by the Army without any competitive bidding, could be worth up to $1 billion. From September 2002 to April 2003, Halliburton received over $443 million in defense related contracts to provide services ranging from logistical support to building enemy prisoner of war camps and refueling military tanks. From 1999 to 2002, Halliburton donated $708,770 in soft money and PAC contributions, 95% of that total going to Republicans. A recent Newsweek article reports that "while Defense secretary in the first Bush administration, Cheney awarded [Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root] KBR the Army's first private contract to manage troop tent cities. During the Clinton years Halliburton lost that contract after KBR came under fire for allegedly overcharging the government. But after Cheney was elected, KBR was again awarded that Army contract and has rung up $1.15 billion so far on the 10-year deal." Due to a decision he made upon leaving Halliburton, Cheney still receives annual deferred compensation of roughly $180,000 from his former company.{110}
      4. Bechtel: whose former chief executive and current board member is George Shultz, Reagan's Secretary of State and head of the advisory committee of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, whose current CEO is on Bush's Export Council, whose other current or former board members include Reagan's Secretary of Defense and CIA director and a member of Bush's Defense Policy Board, which has given $766,000 in campaign contributions to Republicans from 1999-2002, and which tried to work out a pipeline deal with Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s with the help of emissary Donald Rumsfeld, was awarded the largest Iraq reconstruction contract by USAID.{111}
      5. Other well-connected firms getting in on the Iraq bonanza are Science Applications International Inc. (whose "ranks overflow with former or retired government person, many from the military and intelligence agencies"), Baker-Hughes (the Baker is James Baker III, George Bush Senior's Secretary of State and the head of Junior's 2000 election legal effort), Fluor International, and Dyncorp.{112}

Notes

  1. Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, "Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney," Washington Post (hereafter WP), Sept. 29, 2003, p. A1.
  2. David E. Sanger, "Bush Reports No Evidence of Hussein Tie to 9/11," New York Times (hereafter NYT), Sept. 18, 2003, p. A22.
  3. Richard Sisk, "No Iraq Link To 9-11 Rummy, Rice say it isn't so," Daily News (New York), Sept. 17, 2003, p. 4.
  4. Richard Sisk, "No Iraq Link To 9-11 Rummy, Rice say it isn't so," Daily News, Sept. 17, 2003, p. 4.
  5. Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, "Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney," WP, Sept. 29, 2003, p. A1.
  6. James Risen, "Prewar Views of Iraq Threat Are Under Review by C.A.A.," NYT, May 22, 2003, p. A1.
  7. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, "The Next Debate: A Qaeda Link," NYT, July 20, 2003, p. IV:11.
  8. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, "The Next Debate: A Qaeda Link," NYT, July 20, 2003, p. IV:11.
  9. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, "The Next Debate: A Qaeda Link," NYT, July 20, 2003, p. IV:11.
  10. Carl Hulse and David E. Sanger, "New Criticism On Prewar Use Of Intelligence," NYT, Sept. 29, 2003, p. A1; Rumsfeld quoted in Eric Schmitt, "Rumsfeld Says U.S. Has 'Bulletproof' Evidence of Iraq's Links to Al Qaeda," NYT, Sept. 28, 2002, p. A9.
  11. Greg Miller and Bob Drogin, "CIA Feels Heat on Iraq Data," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11, 2002, p. I:1.
  12. Anne E. Kornblut and Bryan Bender, "Cheney Link of Iraq, 9/11 Challenged," Boston Globe, September 16, 2003, p. A1.
  13. James Risen and David Johnston, "Split at C.A.A. and F.B.A. On Iraqi Ties to Al Qaeda," NYT, Feb. 2, 2003, p. I:13.
  14. "Leaked Report Rejects Iraqi al-Qaeda Link," BBC News, Feb. 5, 2003.
  15. Rohan Gunaratna, "Iraq and Al Qaeda: No Evidence of Alliance," International Herald Tribune, Feb. 19, 2003.
  16. Joseph Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War," Foreign Policy, web-only, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=1381, visited Oct. 5, 2003.
  17. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War." On Zarqawi: see also David Cortright, Alistair Millar, George A. Lopez, and Linda Gerber Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq, Fourth Freedom Forum and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Policy Brief F12A, June 2003, pp. 11-12.
  18. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War."
  19. Walter Pincus, "U.S.-British Differences Show Iraq Intelligence Gap," WP, Sept. 30, 2003, p. A12.
  20. Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay, "Some administration officials expressing misgivings on Iraq," Houston Chronicle, Oct. 8, 2002, p. A11.
  21. Richard Norton Taylor, "UK spies reject al Qaida link: MI5 and MI6 dismiss Iraq terror 'evidence'," Guardian, Oct. 10, 2002, p. 4.
  22. Intelligence and Security Committee, Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction – Intelligence and Assessments, Sept. 2003, p. 34, http://www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/reports/isc/pdf/iwmdia.pdf.
  23. Jessica Stern, "How America Created a Terrorist Haven," NYT, Aug. 20, 2003, p. A21.
  24. Hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States "Terrorism, Al Qaeda, And The Muslim World" Washington, D.C. Wednesday, July 9, 2003, p. 33, http://www.911commission.gov/.
  25. John Barry and Evan Thomas, "The Unbuilding of Iraq," Newsweek, Oct. 6, 2003, p. 34.
  26. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, Views of A Changing World, June 2003, p. 3, http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/185.pdf.
  27. David Rohde, "Pakistani Fundamentalists and Other Opponents of Musharraf Do Well in Elections," NYT, Oct. 11, 2002, p. A13; David Rohde, "Turning Away From U.S., Pakistan's Elite Gravitate Toward Islamic Religious Parties," NYT, Oct. 13, 2002, p. I:8; David Rohde, "World Briefing Asia: Pakistan: Hard-Liners Win More Seats," NYT, Jan. 17, 2003, p. A8.
  28. John Kifner, "Islamic Traditionalists Sweep Liberals in Kuwaiti Election," NYT, July 7, 2003, p. A6.
  29. Jane Perlez, "Once Mild, Islam Looks Harsher In Indonesia," NYT, Sept. 3, 2003, p. A6.
  30. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, Changing Minds, Winning Peace: a new strategic direction for U.S. public diplomacy in the Arab & Muslim world, Washington, DC: October 1, 2003, Submitted to the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/24882.pdf, p. 19.
  31. Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, New York: HarperCollins, 2003, p. 356n14.
  32. Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler, "Anger On Iraq Seen As New Qaeda Recruiting Tool," NYT, March 16, 2003, p. I:1.
  33. Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler, "Anger On Iraq Seen As New Qaeda Recruiting Tool," NYT, March 16, 2003, p. I:1.
  34. Don Van Natta Jr. and Desmond Butler, "Anger On Iraq Seen As New Qaeda Recruiting Tool," NYT, March 16, 2003, p. I:1.
  35. Quoted in Stern, Terror in the Name of God, p. 356n14.
  36. Robin Gedye, "Al-Qa'eda 'getting ready to strike back'," Daily Telegraph, May 22, 2003, p. 4.
  37. Hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States "Terrorism, Al Qaeda, And The Muslim World" Washington, D.C. Wednesday, July 9, 2003, p. 13. http://www.911commission.gov/.
  38. Hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States "Terrorism, Al Qaeda, And The Muslim World" Washington, D.C. Wednesday, July 9, 2003, p. 28, http://www.911commission.gov/.
  39. Jason Burke, "The return of al Qaeda," Observer, May 18, 2003, p. 17.
  40. "Iraq war helped boost Al Qaeda," Toronto Star, May 20, 2003, p. A01.
  41. Don Van Natta Jr., "Report Calls U.S. a Top Target for Terror Attack Within a Year," NYT, Aug. 17, 2003, p. I:9.
  42. White House Press briefing, April 10, 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030410 6.html.
  43. "Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections....We have multiple reports that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991, possibly including mustard - a long-lasting chemical agent - but we have to date been unable to locate any such munitions. ...we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile Material." Statement by David Kay on the Interim Progress Report on the Activities of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG)
    Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Oct. 2, 2003, http://www.odci.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html. Joseph Cirincione notes that Kay strove to downplay these findings because he is "stuck in a fundamental contradiction: he is both salesman and fact finder for the administration." (Joseph Cirincione, "The Kay Contradiction," Oct. 03, 2003, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/templates/article.asp?NewsID=5442) In fact, he has been more than that: ""Until October last year, Mr Kay was the vice-president of a major San Diego-based defence contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), co-ordinating its homeland security and counter-terrorism initiatives. It was while he held this role that he claimed that Iraq could launch terrorist attacks on the US mainland." (Glen Rangwala, "Survey Group head's link to arms industry," Independent, Oct. 5, 2003.)
  44. This was known even before the war. See the evidence collected in Cong. Henry Waxman's letter to George W. Bush, 3/17/03, http://www.house.gov/waxman/text/admin_iraq_march_17_let.htm.
  45. See Glen Rangwala's report, http://traprockpeace.org/britishdossier.html.
  46. See Glen Rangwala's report, http://traprockpeace.org/britishdossier.html.
  47. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War."
  48. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War."
  49. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War."
  50. David Cracknell, "Blair 'knew Iraq had no WMD'," Times (London), Oct. 5, 2003, p. 1.
  51. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War."
  52. Cirincione and Mukhopadhyay, "Revisiting the Case for War."
  53. Greg Miller and Bob Drogin," CIA Feels Heat on Iraq Data," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11, 2002, p. I:1.
  54. Dana Priest, "House Probers Conclude Iraq War Data Was Weak," WP, Sept. 28, 2003, p. A1.
  55. Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus, "Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence," WP, Aug. 10, 2003, p. A1.
  56. "C.I.A. Letter to Senate on Baghdad's Intentions," NYT, Oct. 9, 2002, p. A12.
  57. "C.I.A. Letter to Senate on Baghdad's Intentions," NYT, Oct. 9, 2002, p. A12.
  58. David Rogers, "Air Force Doubts Drone Threat; Report Says Bush Exaggerated Perils of Unmanned Iraqi Aircraft," Wall Street Journal (Eastern ed.), Sept. 10, 2003, p. A4.
  59. See Barton Gellman, "Seven Nuclear Sites Looted; Iraqi Scientific Files, Some Containers Missing," WP, May 10, 2003, p. A01; Donald Macintyre, "In the Wreckage of Saddam's Nuclear Research Centre, Looters Take Their Pick of Lethal Spoils," Independent, May 10, 2003, p. 4; Walter Pincus, "U.N. Atomic Chief Again Warns U.S. About Iraq," WP, May 20, 2003, p. A8.
  60. Raymond Bonner, "U.S. Can't Locate Missiles Once Held In Arsenal Of Iraq," NYT, Oct. 8, 2003, p. A1.
  61. Gregg Easterbrook, "American Power Moves Beyond the Mere Super," NYT, April 27, 2003, p. IV:1.
  62. Joseph Cirincione, "Can Preventive War Cure Proliferation?" Foreign Policy, July-Aug. 2003, p. 68.
  63. "After Iraq," The Economist, May 31, 2003, U.S. Edition.
  64. Peter Popham, "Nuclear War Risk Grows As States Race To Acquire Bomb," Independent, April 29, 2003, p. 13.
  65. See William J. Broad, "Facing A Second Nuclear Age," NYT, Aug. 3, 2003, p. IV:1; Julian Borger, "Pentagon wants mini-nuke ban to be lifted," Guardian, March 7, 2003, p. 18.
  66. Jonathan Tucker, "The Fifth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention," Feb. 2002, http://www.nta.org/e--research/e3--7b.html.
  67. Amy E. Smithson, "U.S. Implementation of the CWC," in Jonathan B. Tucker, The Chemical Weapons Convention: Implementation Challenges and Solutions, Monterey Institute, April 2001, pp. 23-29, http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/tuckcwc.htm.
  68. Christine Kucia, "For Second Year Running, U.S. a No-Show at CTBT Conference," Arms Control Today, Sept. 2003; Arms Control Association, "New Nuclear Policies, New Weapons, New Dangers," April 2003, http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/newnuclearweaponsissuebrief.asp?print.
  69. Drake Bennett, "Critical Mess; How the neocons are promoting nuclear proliferation," American Prospect, July-Aug. 2003, pp. 47ff.
  70. Drake Bennett, "Critical Mess; How the neocons are promoting nuclear proliferation," American Prospect, July-Aug. 2003, pp. 47ff.
  71. See Douglas Little, "Cold War and Covert Action: The United States and Syria, 1945 1958," Middle East Journal, vol. 44, no. 1, Winter 1990, pp. 55 57; and Mark J. Gasiorowski, "The 1953 Coup D'Etat in Iran," International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 19, Aug. 1987, pp. 261-86.
  72. Roger Morris, "A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making," NYT, March 14, 2003, p. A29.
  73. Stephen Zunes, Tinderbox: US Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2003, pp. 7, 15.
  74. Zunes, Tinderbox, pp. 17-18.
  75. Zunes, Tinderbox, pp. 19-21.
  76. Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, New York: HarperPerennial. 1999, chap. 1.
  77. Gallup international poll, Jan. 2003, http://www.gallup-international.com/surveys.htm.
  78. Dexter Filkins, "Turkey Will Seek a Second Decision on a G.I. Presence," NYT, March 3, 2003, p. A1.
  79. Greg Palast, "Ex-Congame," Harper's Magazine, March 2002, pp. 48-49; Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, London: Pluto Press, 2002, pp. 6-39.
  80. Armey quoted in Nat Hentoff, "Conservatives Rise for the Bill of Rights," Village Voice, April 25, 2003, http://www.villagevoice.com/issues /0318/hentoff.php; Bill of Rights Defense Committee, http://www.bordc.org/OtherLocalEfforts.htm, accessed Oct. 11, 2003.
  81. Wolfowitz quoted in Tim Shorrock, "Paul Wolfowitz, Reagan's Man in Indonesia, Is Back at the Pentagon," Foreign Policy in Focus, Feb. 2001, p. 3. On Suharto and the U.S., see the documentation in National Security Archive, "CIA Stalling State Department Histories; Archive Posts One of Two Disputed Volumes on Web; State Historians Conclude U.s. Passed Names of Communists to Indonesian Army, Which Killed at Least 105,000 in 1965-66," July 27, 2001, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/.
  82. William Booth and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq," WP, June 28, 2003, p. A20.
  83. John Barry and Evan Thomas, "The Unbuilding of Iraq," Newsweek, Oct. 6, 2003, p. 34.
  84. John Barry and Evan Thomas, "The Unbuilding of Iraq," Newsweek, Oct. 6, 2003, p. 34.
  85. John Barry and Evan Thomas, "The Unbuilding of Iraq," Newsweek, Oct. 6, 2003, p. 34.
  86. Warren Vieth, "Iraqi Exiles Say They're Excluded From Rebuilding," Los Angeles Times, Aug. 10, 2003, p. I:12.
  87. Robin Wright and Maggie Farley, "U.S. Tries to Stop a Key Iraqi Official From Embarrassing Bush," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3, 2003.