The Legacy Of Iraq

Innovation and ideas emerge from simple and complex stimulation no matter their origin they can and have altered history. When one adds ideology into the formula it can be like pouring gasoline onto a fire to use a really bad euphemism. That can best describe the policy making apparatus of the George W. Bush administration which took the foreign policy ideas of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and set forth to implement them. Founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan PNAC was meant to be a platform to return America to its place as the worlds preeminent Super Power. They the Neo-Cons saw the first Persian Gulf war as a failure because Saddam Hussein continued to hold power in Iraq even though Iraqi military forces had been thoroughly defeated on the battlefield. President George H.W. Bush believed that continuing to Baghdad and removing Saddam Hussein from power would lead to the destabilization of the Middle East. In other words a Middle East dominated by Iran with Iraq divided along religious and ethnic lines.

Following the election of George W. Bush as President of the United States one of the advisors retained from the Clinton administration was Richard A. Clarke a counter terrorism expert who began his carrier in government as a member of the Ronald Reagan administration.

9/11 Commission

On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings.[9] At the outset of his testimony Clarke offered an apology to the families of 9/11 victims and an acknowledgment that the government had failed: "I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11...To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in this room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness."[9] Many of the events Clarke recounted during the hearings were also published in his memoir. Among his highly critical statements regarding the Bush Administration, Clarke charged that before and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq andSaddam Hussein. Clarke had written that on September 12, 2001, President Bush pulled him and a couple of aides aside and "testily" asked him to try to find evidence that Saddam was connected to the terrorist attacks. In response he wrote a report stating there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA. The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note saying "Please update and resubmit."[10] After initially denying that such a meeting between the President and Clarke took place, the White House later reversed its denial when others present backed Clarke's version of the events.[11][12] Prior to the 9/11 Commission, portions of the Clarke's August 6 Daily Briefing Memo to President Bush were subsequently redacted by The White House for national security reasons. Despite the title of the memo, in response to aggressive questioning from Richard Ben-Veniste – a Democratic member of the 9/11 Commission – Rice stated that the document "did not warn of attacks inside the United States."[citation needed] Clarke then asked on several occasions for early principals meetings on these issues, and was frustrated that no early meeting was scheduled. No principals committee meetings on Al-Qaida were held until September 4, 2001.[13] In a late November truthout interview, former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal said, "Clarke urgently tried to draw the attention of the Bush administration to the threat of Al-Qaeda.. the Bush administration is trying to withhold documents from the 9/11 bipartisan commission. I believe one of the things that they do not want to be known is what happened on August 6, 2001. It was on that day that George W. Bush received his last, and one of the few, briefings on terrorism. I believe he told (Clarke) that he didn't want to be briefed on this again, even though Clarke was panicked about the alarms he was hearing regarding potential attacks. Bush was blithe, indifferent, ultimately irresponsible... The public has a right to know what happened on August 6, what Bush did, what Condi Rice did, what all the rest of them did, and what Richard Clarke's memos and statements were."[14] Former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, the only member of the 9/11 Commission to read the President's Daily Brief, revealed in the hearings that the documents "would set your hair on fire" and that the intelligence warnings of al-Qaida attacks "plateaued at a spike level for months" before 9/11

Seeking confirmation through intelligence services allied with the United States the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) provided the cover sought by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq it came from an informant known as Curve Ball whose debriefing would be used by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powel at the United Nations in February 2003 that led to the resolution allowing for use of military force against Iraqg.

Rafed's deceptions unleashed their full power on Feb. 5, 2003 at the United Nations building in New York City. It was the day that US Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the UN Security Council in an effort to convince the world that an invasion of Iraq was an absolute necessity. It was 10:30 a.m. local time, when Powell launched into his lecture, and it immediately became clear that he was playing to an audience larger than the UN representatives gathered before him. He was speaking to the world. “Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources," he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” As Powell moved through his 76-minute-long presentation, a horror scenario unfolded. Baghdad, he said, was still in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, including atomic, chemical and biological devices. That pursuit, Powell made clear, was in violation of UN sanctions.

All of this subterfuge led to the invasion of a country which posed no overt military threat to either the United States or the Gulf States after its defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Joe Wilson was asked to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought yellow cake uranium from Niger which is an important material necessary in the production of nuclear weapons.

blockquote> Former Ambassador Wilson had claimed that he found no evidence of Saddam Hussein ever attempting or buying yellowcake uranium from Niger on his trip to Niger.[16] The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence suggested that the evidence Wilson found could be interpreted differently: “ [Wilson's] intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, (REDACTED) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq"

All those wild pronouncements about mushroom clouds over Iraq or worse Western Eu rope or America were simply lies created to advance an ultraconservative view of the world. One in which the American century was given a rebirth as though its political, economic or military power had somehow been diminished.

Today Iraq has a barely functioning government due to political infighting and the willingness of those in power to retain it at any cost. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead over 4,000 American deaths all because George W. Bush believed he and his advisors understood the political and ethnic divides of a country they knew nothing about