Even CIA guys think Pentagon hawks are nuts . . .
Tom
alternet.org
Beyond Osama: The Pentagon’s Battle With Powell Heats Up
Jason Vest, Village Voice
November 20, 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The simmering conflict within the Bush
administration over how to prosecute the next phase of the "war on
terrorism" suddenly flared up last week as the Taliban fled Kabul. "Where to
go next and how big it should be is what's being argued right now—and
Baghdad is what's being debated at the moment," said a senior Pentagon
official. "This is both an internal discussion at the Pentagon, and one
between departments. Our policy guys are thinking Iraq. Our question is, do
we make a move earlier than anyone expects?"
To some, this goes well beyond madness: With Osama bin Laden and Al
Qaeda still at large and no obvious ties between Bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein or Palestinian groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, taking the fight to
Baghdad, Syria, or Lebanon makes little military or diplomatic sense. In the
wake of the policy and intelligence failures that contributed to September
11, many here take it for granted that the U.S. government needs all the help
it can get from its allies, in addition to taking a long, nuanced view as it
navigates the shoals of diplomacy in the Arab and Islamic worlds, lest
perceived American arrogance-in-action exacerbate already tense ties. At
this pole of grand strategy sits Colin Powell's State Department, considered
by its detractors to be obsessed with maintaining a tenuous international
coalition against Al Qaeda and the Taliban at the expense of swift, decisive,
and much more expansive military action.
At the other pole is Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, increasingly seen by some
as an asylum where a coterie of vengeful Cold War unilateralist relics plot a
return to a forceful, Reaganesque Pax Americana, broadening the war to
encompass military action against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—essentially
fusing Israel's national security agenda with that of the United States. No
fans of multilateralism or diplomatic initiatives, this crew—despite its
majority's lack of uniform service or time spent in combat zones—is
particularly bellicose, and contemptuous of Powell and his belief in conflict
limitation. "Powell's such a product of Vietnam—he tries to prevent conflict,
rather than realizing it's inevitable," sneers a Pentagon official who, despite
never having heard a shot fired in anger, is spoiling for a larger war. "When
conflict is inevitable, we should be the ones who decide the outcome. It's
not about schmoozing and sucking up."
Taking point for this policy option has been deputy secretary of defense
Paul Wolfowitz, backed by a so-called "cabal" that includes undersecretary
of defense for policy Douglas Feith, assistant secretaries Peter Rodman and
J.D. Crouch, longtime Wolfowitz comrade-in-arms Richard Perle, members
of the advisory Defense Policy Board Perle chairs and, less visibly, some
hawkish brethren at the State Department who were forced on Powell early
in the administration, including undersecretary of state John Bolton.
For this group, the events of the past two months present an almost
rapturous opportunity to realize an item on the far right's national security
agenda. In their view, September 11 is nothing short of a mandate to do
what they feel the U.S. should have done over a decade ago—take the fight
to Baghdad and destroy Saddam, coalition partners and world opinion be
damned. And updating to the Wolfowitz Cabal the Reagan-era view of then
CIA director William Casey that all terrorist groups were interconnected via
the Soviet, the links between Saddam, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and
just about every other Middle East Islamist group are clear—thus
necessitating the speedy deployment of bombs, and possibly even troops, to
Iraq as well as Syria and Lebanon.
At a meeting in the White House Situation Room last month, Feith was so
impassioned on this point that he took to banging his fist on the table, saying
it was essential that the historically Hezbollah-controlled Sheikh Abdullah
barracks north of Beirut be bombed. Others interviewed by the Voice
report that there have been "epic shouting matches" in White House
meetings over the issue of war expansion, and personnel at both Foggy
Bottom and Langley have found their patience increasingly tried by the
Wolfowitz Cabal. Indeed, despite the CIA's cowboy image, the Agency's
old Afghan and Middle East hands marvel at what they consider lunacy.
"The Agency as an institution would never offer up a view of these people,
but if you ask individuals, they think these guys are more than a little nuts,"
says a veteran of the CIA's Directorate of Operations.
Adds another longtime case officer: "I think there's a common view in the
intelligence community that if we're really serious about dismantling Osama
bin Laden's network, intelligence is key, and for that, we necessarily have to
work with our allies to get the best intelligence we possibly can, which is
going to take time and cooperation. Powell's done a good job of putting a
coalition together and keeping it together—he recognizes the reality that any
coalition will break apart in a nanosecond if there's a call to go after Iraq.
And going after Hamas or Hezbollah would be a terrible mistake—neither
has broad-based support in Palestine, neither is an exclusively terrorist
organization, neither is attacking Americans, and if we do go after them,
they'll start targeting Americans. Attack those places and there will be
consequences that we simply will not be able to deal with. But Perle and
Wolfowitz are absolutists, and they're stupid."
According to both Pentagon and intelligence sources, in mid September the
Project for the New American Century—a hawkish private policy group
whose membership overlaps with the official Defense Policy Board—sent
President Bush a letter after a two-day conference, declaring that failure to
promptly remove Saddam would constitute a "decisive surrender in the war
against terrorism." Ominously, it also held that if Syria and Iran refused to
drop all support for Hezbollah, "the administration should consider
appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of
terrorism."
Perle's Defense Policy Board also sent Bush a letter recommending all
measures be taken to install the heretofore dubious and ineffectual Iraqi
National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi as new leadership in Baghdad,
backed by the deployment of American troops to secure Iraqi oil fields. The
board also implicitly slammed Powell, declaring that "coalition-building has
run amok," and arguing that Powell was less interested in achieving anything
of substance than simply get[ting] a lot of members."
The Project for the New American Century conclave and subsequent
memos were news to Powell, who reportedly considered the whole scheme
a highly improper end run. At the Pentagon, some hold that Powell did the
administration a disservice when, after Wolfowitz made a passing reference
to "ending states" that sponsor terrorism, Powell—in response to a
reporter's question on the remark—edgily shot back that Wolfowitz was not
speaking for the administration. "Powell essentially took a polite,
behind-the-scenes policy debate public," says a Pentagon staffer, adding
that "privately, Paul has said he misspoke," and implying that Powell knew
as much, thus making his public rebuke bad form.
But according to intelligence and diplomatic sources, Powell—as well as
George Tenet—was infuriated by a private intelligence endeavor arranged
by Wolfowitz in September. Apparently obsessed with proving a
convoluted theory put forth by American Enterprise Institute adjunct fellow
Laurie Mylroie that ties Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, Wolfowitz, according to a veteran
intelligence officer, dispatched former director of central intelligence and
cabalist James Woolsey to the United Kingdom, tasking him with gathering
additional "evidence" to make the case. Woolsey was also asked to make
contact with Iraqi exiles and others who might be able to beef up the case
that hijacker Mohammed Atta was working with Iraqi intelligence to plan
the September 11 attacks, as well as the subsequent anthrax mailings.
Perhaps the most conservative of early Bill Clinton appointees, Woolsey has
only moved rightward since his tenure as DCI—which ended with his
resignation in 1995, in part due to failures of attempted anti-Saddam covert
operations. Apparently proving that directors of intelligence organizations do
not themselves make ideal field operatives, Woolsey's pursuit of the World
Trade Center connection led him to the small town of Swansea, Wales,
where his sleuthing piqued the curiosity of the local constabulary, whose
chief decided to ring the U.S. Embassy in London for clarification as to
whether Woolsey was visiting in an official capacity. This was the first
anyone at State or CIA had heard of Woolsey's British expedition, and
upon being apprised of it, Powell and Tenet were not amused. "It was a
stupid, stupid, and just plain wrong thing to do," an intelligence consultant
familiar with the "operation" said.
According to a senior Pentagon official, the fact that Wolfowitz has been
keeping a much lower profile since his earlier public statements and
behind-the-scenes antics indicates that while Donald Rumsfeld may be with
Wolfowitz in spirit, the secretary has found his actions irksome in a practical
sense. "Wolfowitz either muzzled himself," the official said, "or someone did
it for him."
Other fellow travelers who are not in government, however, have been
picking up the slack and saying things that have caused the jaws of
diplomats and intelligence officers to drop. At an October 29 American
Enterprise Institute panel moderated by Perle, Iran-Contra luminary Michael
Ledeen nicely summed up the hawks' worldview.
"No stages," he said. "This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies.
There are lots of them out there. And all this talk about, well, first we are
going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq, then we will take a look
around and see how things stand, that is entirely the wrong way to go about
it. Because these guys are all talking to each other and are all working with
one another. . . . If we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we
embrace it entirely, and we don't try to be clever and piece together clever
diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these
tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing great songs
about us years from now." |
