WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, ARI?
Justin Raimondo
March 14, 2003
A foreign intelligence service forged phony 'evidence' of Iraqi nukes – guess which one ...
In the midst of a furious debate over the key role of pro-Israel ideologues in pushing us into war, the FBI has announced it is looking into the possibility that "a foreign government is using a deception campaign to foster support for military action against Iraq." Remember the forged "evidence" the U.S. submitted to the UN to support their contention that Iraq sought fissionable materials? We now learn that, according to the Washington Post:
"Officials are trying to determine whether the documents were forged to try to influence U.S. policy, or whether they may have been created as part of a disinformation campaign directed by a foreign intelligence service. … [The forged documents] came to British and U.S. intelligence officials from a third country. The identity of the third country could not be learned yesterday."
Unless it's the African nation of Niger – where Iraq was supposedly trying to buy uranium to develop nukes – that is desperately trying to drag us into war, for obscure reasons of its own, the identity of this mysterious "third country" is no mystery.
"By way of deception, thou shalt do war" – the Mossad, Israel's legendary intelligence agency, have more than lived up to their motto in the past, and, in this instance, seem to have surpassed themselves. To feed the U.S. such a crude forgery – the fake letters were rife with fairly obvious and easily checkable errors – and have Colin Powell take it to the UN as "proof" of Iraqi perfidy was a calculated insult, and soon had the desired result.
Attitudes hardened on the Security Council, and prospects faded for a compromise that would give the Iraqis at least some small hope that war could be avoided. As the loose cannon known as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rolled around on the American ship of state, alienating even the British, the likelihood increased that the President would lose patience and jumpstart the stalled war drive, even if that meant going it alone.
Alone, that is, but for Israel.
The FBI, which may or may not have jurisdiction over the investigation into the forged "evidence," is not exactly hot on the trail of the forgers and their possible connection to a "third country," as their spokesman made all too clear:
"We're looking at it from a preliminary stage as to what it's all about."
What's it all about, Ari? That's a key question the President ought to ask the next time he gets on the horn to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
What it's all about is this: as Pat Buchanan points out in the latest issue of The American Conservative, a cabal of pro-Israeli lobbyists and high administration officials planned this war from start to bloody finish. They have been gunning for Iraq – and Iran, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan – since long before 9/11. When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, the neoconservative branch of the War Party came to the President with "a pre-cooked meal," as Pat put it on MSNBC yesterday [Wednesday]. In a debate with a spokesman for the American Jewish Committee, publisher of the stridently pro-war Commentary magazine, Pat quoted Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz calling for "World War IV" – regime change not just in Iraq, but in a whole slew of Middle Eastern countries, including even Egypt (the second-biggest recipient of U.S. aid, after Israel).
"In whose interest," thundered Pat, "is such a policy being pushed? Why not 'liberate' Cuba?" The AJC spokesman, reduced to stuttering evasion, said he didn't "necessarily" agree with Podhoretz's polemics. But he didn't say he disagreed with the editor of his own publication, either.
Buchanan is right. The tragic irony of this war is that it is being fought to secure an empire: not our own, but Ariel Sharon's. As Arnaud de Borchgrave pointed out in the Washington Times, the "Bush-Sharon Doctrine" was formulated by Israel's staunch supporters within the Bush regime. The documentary trail leads straight back to a number of high administration officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Elliot Abrams, who have relentlessly pursued Israeli rather than American interests.
This fifth column has been backed up by a phalanx of well-connected neoconservative think-tankers organized around Bill Kristol and the Project for a New American Century, which is heavily involved in the war propaganda apparatus on the home front. If you want to know why we are headed toward a bloody and disastrous war in Iraq, you have merely to peruse the pages of a 1996 study, "A Clean Break," co-authored by Wolfowitz, Perle, and Wurmser, and prepared for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which regime-change in Iraq is cited as the path to security for Israel. Syria, the authors aver, is the main danger to Israel – and the path to Damascus goes through Baghdad.
As America pursues an imperial project, Israel, formerly an island in an Arab sea, may be able to break out of its militarily precarious position and find enough elbow room to secure defensible borders – and, not incidentally, realize the longstanding Likudnik dream of a "Greater Israel." As to whether Israeli security is worth the price of an American effort of monumental proportions – and uncounted Iraqi casualties – the answer to that question depends on where you sit – in Washington, or Tel Aviv. The problem is that U.S. policymakers make no such differentiation.
Much more at
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