| On October 4, 2002, Random Lengths News published a story I wrote, connecting "Rebuilding" with PNACer Paul Wolfowitz's involvement in drafting a similarly minded Defense Department document in 1992, and a September 11, 2002 USA Today story revealing that the decision to invade Iraq had been made within weeks of 9/11, around the same time that new information this week says planning first began for the torture of prisoners not yet in hand.
Between the latest revelations, summarized so succinctly by Olberman, and my story connecting these dots (which shared 5-way honors for Project Censoreds's #1 story for 2002-2003), there was a third strand of evidence: the Downing Street Memos, the most prominently cited of which described "the facts and the intelligence" as "being fixed" to provide a justification to invade Iraq.
In this diary, I want to present three different perspectives on this story. First, I will reproduce my October 4, 2002 story, which gives a good foundation to which the Downing Street Memos and torture memos information can be added. Second, I will present excerpts from "Rebuilding America's Defenses" which serve to underscore the nature of neo-con intentions. Third, I will present an integrated timeline of events, allowing the interconnections of torture and other means of advancing a fraudulent narrative to advance the neo-con agenda.
The Basic Template
Random Lengths News, October 4, 2002
Iraq Attack: The Aims and Origins of Bush's Plan
By Paul Rosenberg, Editor
In recent weeks a smattering of stories has emerged about the aims and origins of Bush's proposed attack on Iraq. They reveal an early, insular decision that had nothing to do with consulting anyone-not the UN, not the U.S. Congress, not even the military and intelligence agencies-and precious little to do with fighting terrorism.
One account, published in USA Today on September 11, 2002 tells how the decision was made last fall "by osmosis," within weeks of the terrorist attacks. Another account, published in Scotland's Sunday Herald, highlights a policy document created during the 2000 campaign, while Bush was publicly saying the U.S. must act like a "humble nation." A third account goes back much farther, to a draft of the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) written in 1992 for Bush (the Elder) by Paul Wolfowitz (now Deputy Secretary of Defense) and Lewis Libby (now Cheney's chief of staff), which called for U.S. military dominance over Eurasia.
For 50 years, American foreign policy rested on the foundations of containment, deterrence, multilateral alliances, and international treaties to stabilize and limit threats that could otherwise spin out of control. In the twinkling of an eye, all that is gone. These accounts paint a chilling portrait of how and why Bush has casually abandoned core principles embraced by every president-Republican and Democrat-from Truman to Clinton.
USA Today traced the decision to the immediate aftermath of September 11. Four days later Bush met with top advisers at Camp David. "Wolfowitz argued the threat Saddam posed to the United States dwarfed that of bin Laden." Others urged action against Iraq as well. But Arab support wasn't there, nor were the American people ready for such a sudden shift of focus. Forgetting bin Laden would take more than a few days. But deciding to go after Iraq would not. Early fears, later dismissed, played a crucial role in shaping the decision: fears of anthrax and nuclear attacks.
The anthrax was not from Iraq, but because Saddam was such an inviting suspect, it hardly mattered if the evidence wasn't there. The Iraq-Al Qaeda nuclear link never had any substance, either. Unlike Pakistan, Iraq was neither a nuclear power nor an Al Qaeda political ally, nor was there any evidence of contact with Al Qaeda. But Pakistani contacts with Al Qaeda were real, USA Today noted, "Pakistani police picked up two Pakistani nuclear scientists who had traveled to Afghanistan; other Pakistani nuclear scientists were considered suspect." Pakistan was a U.S. ally, Iraq was not, so evidence of potential Pakistani nuclear collusion served to fuel hostility toward Iraq. By the end of October 2001, the decision to invade Iraq was made.
The White House never asked the CIA for a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. An intelligence official told USA Today that the White House basically wanted to avoid highlighting the lack of supporting evidence. Senior military leaders were so worried they took their concerns to Congress. When Senate Armed Services Chair Carl Levin (D-MI) told Bush about these grave reservations, in early September, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO)-also present-said that Bush looked stunned. He paused, then replied, ''Well, I wish they'd tell me about their concerns.''
Bush could have just turned on the radio. On August 29, NPR reported a talk by General Anthony Zinni, the former commander of all US forces in the Middle East. The report noted, "Zinni suggested that war against Iraq would distract the United States from larger problems," followed by Zinni ticking off items: "The Middle East peace process, to my mind, has to be a higher priority. Winning the war on terrorism has to be a higher priority. The situation[s] in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia need to be resolved. Making sure Al Qaeda can't rise again from the ashes that are destroyed; Taliban cannot come back."
None of that mattered. Bush had made up his mind nearly ten months earlier.
Other stories look farther back, pointing to documents that called for a massive deployment of American forces in Asia. The Sunday Herald highlighted a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century," written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC), chaired by William Kristol.
Perhaps most tellingly, PNAC saw Saddam more as a pretext than a threat: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." The report also called for the U.S. to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars" as a "core mission," stressed the need to dominate space militarily, and build US military bases around the world-particularly in the Balkans and Central and Southeast Asia. It also called for building missile defenses with a specifically offensive intent, "to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world."
But PNAC's report was hardly the beginning, as Jim Lobe, a contributing editor at Foreign Policy in Focus, has pointed out for months. In March, writing for TomPaine.com, he wrote, "The Bush Administration's actions fit neatly into a plan for United States hegemony first mapped out in a draft Pentagon paper ten years ago. The secret document, known as the 'Defense Policy Guidance,' was written by two relatively obscure civilian Pentagon officials in the aftermath of the Gulf War"-Wolfowitz and Libby.
Revelations at the time caused an uproar, and the final draft was toned down considerably. But the original called for preventing the emergence of a rival superpower (even Europe!) by preventing dominance of "a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power." Regions named included "East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and Southwest Asia." These are, Lobe notes, "the same three regions" where Bush deployed most military force after 9/11. Pre-emptive attacks were also advised, Lobe has written more recently.
Most significantly for the current debate, neither the Wolfowitz/Liddy DPG draft nor the CNP's report were much concerned with terrorism. Indeed, such grandiose plans actually promote terrorism, according to the Department of Defense's own Defense Science Board, which wrote in 1997, "Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States. In addition, the military asymmetry that denies nation states the ability to engage in overt attacks against the United States drives the use of transnational actors [that is, terrorists from one country attacking in another]."
In short, the more we pursue such grand imperialist adventures, the more we should expect repeats of 9/11. Is it any wonder, then, that Bush did not consult the experts in deciding to attack Iraq?
PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses"-Telling Excerpts
The September 2000 PNAC document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" is extremely telling for the insight it provides into neo-con thinking, which played a major role in driving us to war with Iraq. Here are some telling extracts.
(1) Terrorism is virtually non-existent in "Rebuilding America's Defenses"
What follows is a complete catalogue of all the references in the document.
p. 2 (A now-arhcaic usage): "Moreover, the bipolar nuclear balance of terror made both the United States and the Soviet Union generally cautious."
p. 5 ("terrorsts" mentioned as one of a countless number of threats we must meet, or else risk being seen as global pussies-but, once mentioned, the topic is never picked up again):
America's global leadership, and its role as the guarantor of the current great-power peace, relies upon the safety of the American homeland; the preservation of a favorable balance of power in Europe, the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region, and East Asia; and the general stability of the international system of nation-states relative to terrorists, organized crime, and other "non-state actors." The relative importance of these elements, and the threats to U.S. interests, may rise and fall over time. Europe, for example, is now extraordinarily peaceful and stable, despite the turmoil in the Balkans. Conversely, East Asia appears to be entering a period with increased potential for instability and competition. In the Gulf, American power and presence has achieved relative external security for U.S. allies, but the longer-term prospects are murkier. Generally, American strategy for the coming decades should seek to consolidate the great victories won in the 20th century - which have made Germany and Japan into stable democracies, for example - maintain stability in the Middle East, while setting the conditions for 21st-century successes, especially in East Asia.
A retreat from any one of these requirements would call America's status as the world's leading power into question. As we have seen, even a small failure like that in Somalia or a halting and incomplete triumph as in the Balkans can cast doubt on American credibility. The failure to define a coherent global security and military strategy during the post-Cold-War period has invited challenges; states seeking to establish regional hegemony continue to probe for the limits of the American security perimeter. None of the defense reviews of the past decade has weighed fully the range of missions demanded by U.S. global leadership: defending the homeland, fighting and winning multiple large-scale wars, conducting constabulary missions which preserve the current peace, and transforming the U.S. armed forces to exploit the "revolution in military affairs." Nor have they adequately quantified the forces and resources necessary to execute these missions separately and successfully. While much further detailed analysis would be required, it is the purpose of this study to outline the large, "fullspectrum" forces that are necessary to conduct the varied tasks demanded by a strategy of American preeminence for today and tomorrow.
p. 8 (Another now-archaic use of the term):
Today's strategic calculus encompasses more factors than just the balance of terror between the United States and Russia.
p. 40 (An incidental mention of "terrorists" as part of making another point-our forces are shrinking):
When the USS Lincoln carrier battle group fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at terrorist camps in Afghanistan and suspected chemical weapons facilities in Sudan, it did so with 12 percent fewer people in the battle group than on the previous deployment.
p. 51: ("terror' mentioned while making the argument for missile defense)
Ever since the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a Saudi warehouse in which American soldiers were sleeping, causing the largest single number of casualties in the war; when Israeli and Saudi citizens donned gas masks in nightly terror of Scud attacks; and when the great "Scud Hunt" proved to be an elusive game that absorbed a huge proportion of U.S. aircraft, the value of the ballistic missile has been clear to America's adversaries.
p. 55 (My favorite passage-terrorists in space!):
The U.S. Space Command foresees that in the coming decades,an adversary will have sophisticated regional situational awareness. Enemies may very well know, in nearreal time, the disposition of all forces....In fact, national military forces, paramilitary units, terrorists, and any other potential adversaries will share the high ground of space with the United States and its allies. Adversaries may also share the same commercial satellite services for communications, imagery, and navigation....The space "playing field" is leveling rapidly, so U.S. forces will be increasingly vulnerable. Though dversaries will benefit greatly from space, losing the use of space may be more devastating to the United States.It would be intolerable for U.S. forces...to be deprived of capabilities in space.
In short, the unequivocal supremacy in space enjoyed by the United States today will be increasingly at risk.
p. 60 (The term "terror" is used to minimize existing threats)::
And advanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.
These uses of "terror" and its cognates are so minor and ancillary as to count for almost nothing. Indeed, the very fact that they appear at all, but do not lead to any sort of serious discussion is, in a sense, even more damning.
(2) Iraq Is Referred to As A Generic Bugaboo, AND As A Place Where US Bases Should Be Established
Iraq appears in two primary guises in the report, first as a generic example of a rogue state, as seen in these first two passages
p. 4:
Yet for all its problems in carrying out today's missions, the Pentagon has done almost nothing to prepare for a future that promises to be very different and potentially much more dangerous. It is now commonly understood that information and other new technologies - as well as widespread technological and weapons proliferation - are creating a dynamic that may threaten America's ability to exercise its dominant military power. Potential rivals such as China are anxious to exploit these transformational technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate. Yet the Defense Department and the services have done little more than affix a "transformation" label to programs developed during the Cold War, while diverting effort and attention to a process of joint experimentation which restricts rather than encourages innovation.
p. 8:
U.S. nuclear force planning and related arms control policies must take account of a larger set of variables than in the past, including the growing number of small nuclear arsenals - from North Korea to Pakistan to, perhaps soon, Iran and Iraq - and a modernized and expanded Chinese nuclear force. Moreover, there is a question about the role nuclear weapons should play in deterring the use of other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological, with the U.S. having foresworn those weapons' development and use.
Second, Iraq is clearly seen as an ideal location for US military bases, with Saddam Hussein's presence as Iraq's leader seen more as an excuse for accomplishing that desired end than anything else In a section titled "REPOSITIONING TODAY'S FORCE," which deals with global repositioning of forces, we find the following passage (p. 14):
Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Toward An Integrated Torture Timeline
The front-paged DKos diary, "What We Know So Far: A Torture Timeline (Updated)" by DanK Is Back offers a good taste of the sort of comprehensive integrative viewpoint we need to develop. Here is an excerpt:
11 Oct 2001 Former CIA Director James Woolsey is sent to England "in search of evidence that Saddam Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...."
Late 2001 The Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) issues a memo warning against using SERE techniques, such as waterboarding, in interrogations. The memo has not yet been declassified, but is referenced in the just-released July 2002 JPRA memo (see below).
December 2001 "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh is captured in Afghanistan. Lindh, an American citizen, was pictured blindfolded, duct-taped naked to a board.... in what is probably the first recorded instance of torture of a detainee under the Bush administration. (Hat tip to Jesselyn Radack.)
January 2002James Mitchell, a retired Air Force psychologist, and Bruce Jessen, the senior SERE psychologist at the agency, drafted a paper on "al-Qaeda resistance capabilities and countermeasures to defeat that resistance." WaPo 22 Apr 2009, analyzing the Senate ASC report
9 Jan 2002 John Yoo writes a memo (PDF) stating that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda members.
25 Jan 2002 White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez accepts Yoo's argument, saying that the new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." SoS Colin Powell and the JAG object to this interpretation, but their objections are ignored.
2 Feb 2002 William Howard Taft IV, the State Dept's legal adviser, sends Gonzales a memo (PDF) saying that the Geneva Convention does apply to captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and that rejecting the convention's protections could have serious policy consequences.
7 Feb 2002 Bush signs a memorandum stating the Article 3 protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees.
13 Feb 2002 Bush has decided to overthrow Hussein.
28 March 2002 Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al-Qaeda official, is arrested in Pakistan and brought to the United States for interrogation. Ali Soufan, a supervisory special FBI agent, and a second agent, with CIA agents watching, use traditional interrogation methods to question him from March through June 2002, and learn that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was the mastermind of the 11 September attacks.
Spring 2002 Senior officials begin studying how to use SERE techniques in prisoner interrogations. SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY 12 Dec 2008 In April, the CIA begins videotaping interrogation sessions, some of which apparently include waterboarding. It is not yet clear whether Zubaydeh was among those waterboarded at that time. The tapes have all been reported destroyed.
6 May 2002 John Bolton, at that time Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, formally informs the UN that the US "does not intend to become a party to the treaty [establishing the International Criminal Court]."
May 2002 Condoleeza Rice and "other top Bush administration officials" are briefed about "alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding." In July, Rice tells CIA Director George Tenet he can proceed to use these techniques.
23 Jul 2002 Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), reports to Prime Minister Tony Blair on his recent meeting with his counterparts in Washington:
Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The Downing Street Memo (Emphasis added)
July 2002 The JPRA sends a memo to DoD general counsel William Haynes warning him that the use of harsh interrogation techniques such as those used in SERE training constitute torture and produce unreliable intelligence.
1 Aug 2002 Assistant Attorney General Jay Baybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, issues a memorandum to the CIA telling them that "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding do not, in the OLC's opinion, constitute torture.
August 2002 Abu Zubaydeh is subjected to waterboarding at least 83 times. A former CIA officer, John Kiriakou, who interrogated Zubaydeh (but who did not witness any of the waterboarding says that "it took only 35 seconds once the technique was employed for Zubaydah to start talking." Kiriakou says that it was torture, but it was necessary. He does not appear to be aware of the multiple waterboardings.
While clearly impressive in its own terms, particularly as a diary produced by one person in a very short time, what's really needed is further integration of the torture-related information into the timeline already created at DowningStreetMemo.com. Here's just a brief sample of the entry subject lines from the first two months of 2001:
01/02/01 Paper and letterhead stolen from Niger embassy in Rome
01/10/01 Pentagon briefs Bush, "Iraqi policy is very much on his mind"
01/17/01 Britain promised flexibility towards Baghdad if it opened talks to resume UN weapons inspections in Iraq
01/17/01 Boucher: Saddam still threat ten years after Gulf war
01/17/01 Chalabi already in touch with incoming members of Bush administration
01/18/01 Bush sees Saddam as 'big threat,' may use force
01/22/01 Boucher: 'Maintain and reenergize sanctions'
01/29/01 Bush discusses removing Saddam with Imam Qazwini
01/29/01 Cheney's Energy Task Force begins
01/30/01 Bush sought 'Way' to invade Iraq from Day 1
01/30/01 Bush funds Iraqi opposition
01/30/01 Former Bush aide: US plotted Iraq invasion long before 9/11
01/30/01 First National Security Council meeting focuses on Iraq
02/01/01 Powell: Saddam threatens the region with WMD
02/01/01 Second NSC meeting keeps focus on Iraq
02/02/01 Ari Fleischer on funding Iraqi opposition
02/02/01 Boucher: Funding of Iraqi National Congress (INC)
02/04/01 Powell can't confirm WMD, but says "we reserve the right to use whatever means necessary" if Saddam has WMD
02/09/01 Powell: Acknowledges Iraqi opposition given US OK to operate inside Iraq
02/11/01 Powell: Saddam much weaker but still a threat
02/11/01 Rumsfeld: Saddam has an enormous appetite for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
02/11/01 Rumsfeld: Iraq Not a Nuclear Threat
02/13/01 Boucher: State Dept meets with Iraqi Opposition groups
02/15/01 Woolsey: "Iraq may have had a substantial hand in the World Trade Center bombing"
02/16/01 US, British planes attack Iraqi targets outside No-Fly Zone for first time since 1998
02/20/01 Rear Admiral Craig Quigley says engaging Iraq still ongoing operation
02/22/01 Bush: We won't tolerate [Saddam] developing WMD
02/22/01 Rice: US and UK will review all alternatives in dealing w/Iraq
02/22/01 Bush: Air strike of February 16th meant to send Saddam a message
02/23/01 Powell: Containment a Success
02/23/01 Bush, Blair committed to sanctions, containment
02/24/01 Powell: Saddam has "no significant WMD capability"
02/25/01 German Intelligence (BND) claims Saddam has resumed nuclear program
02/26/01 Powell says US argument is with Hussein, not Iraqi people
02/28/01 Boucher: Tightening of Iraqi Sanctions on Military Goods
By bringing together such a mass of information about specific actions and statements, the larger patterns and connections become irrefutably clear: torture was, above all, an integral part of the fraudulent war plans that sprang directly from the neo-con's strategic vision for world dominance.
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