Welcome to Baghdad

May 19, 2004
by Rob Lafferty

A major criticism of the invasion of Iraq is that no exit strategy was in place before the fighting began. Even today, no workable exit strategy has been developed. Bush administration officials aren’t concerned about that – and weren’t concerned before the occupation – because they know we won’t be leaving. They’ve known that for at least twelve years.

A vital element in our current government’s long–term strategy is the creation of permanent military bases in Iraq to maintain a strong presence the Middle East. That plan is spelled out clearly in the “National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” a document President Bush released on September 20, 2001, just nine days after the Twin Towers were brought down. That statement of American policy is a close match to an earlier report issued by the Project For A New American Century. In many places, it uses the same language.

“Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century” was written in 2000 by the PNAC, a Washington–based think tank created in 1997. Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, National Security Advisor Lewis Libby and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

The 2000 report directly acknowledges its basis in a still-earlier document known as the “Defense Policy Guidance” drafted in the aftermath of the Gulf War by the Defense Department. The main authors of that 1992 policy paper were Wolfowitz and Libby. The Defense Secretary in 1992 was Cheney.

That once-secret document describes itself as a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.” It features the United States creating world peace by using military and economic power. When leaked to the press, however, the ambitious proposal drew so much criticism from Congress that the first President Bush refused to support it.

Cheney responded to the criticism by having a Pentagon spokesman dismiss the document as a “low-level draft” and claim that Cheney had not seen it – even though one section stated that it contained “definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense.”

The 2000 PNAC document that came along eight years later describes itself as “a blueprint for shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” It says that “even should Saddam pass from the scene,” bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently as “Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has.”

The Plan revealed in those three documents shows that Bush’s cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: “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.”

Donald Kagan, a co–chairman of the PNAC project, wants permanent military bases in Iraq to make sure the oil flows. “You saw the movie ‘High Noon’?” he once asked. “We’re Gary Cooper. We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it’s been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies.”

All three documents speak of protecting “American interests” in the Middle East. America has only three significant interests in the Middle East – the nation of Israel, the royal House of Saud and those vast deposits of oil within easy reach under the sands of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The invasion of Iraq was carried out to establish a forward post in the battle to create an American Empire. Those who dream of Empire haven’t overlooked the rest of the world, either. The 2000 document mentions China as being ripe for “regime change” and says, “It is time to increase the presence of American forces in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia.” According to the plan’s architects, this will lead to “American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratization in China.”

The United States is undergoing an historic change in who we are as a nation. There has already been a fundamental shift in how we operate internationally. Candidate George Bush certainly did not advocate such an ambitious Grand Plan while he was campaigning. During his foreign policy debate with Al Gore, Bush spoke of his commitment to a far more humble foreign policy.

Instead, he and his administrators have denounced entire countries – and the United Nations – for not going along with the Plan. They have encouraged “regime change” in Cuba and Venezuela and imposed sanctions on Syria. Bush even used much of the same language in his comments towards Syria that he once used in building a case for the invasion of Iraq.

“Despite many months of diplomatic efforts to convince the Government of Syria to change its behavior, Syria has not taken significant, concrete steps to address the full range of U.S. concerns,” Bush said in a message to Congress. He declared a “national emergency” to address the “unusual and extraordinary threat” posed by Syria.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Haven’t we heard those phrases before?

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials have been openly selling nuclear weapons technology to anyone with the necessary cash. North Korea brags openly about their nuclear weapons and willingness to use them. And despite invading Iraq for allegedly having chemical and biological weapons, the Bush administration may seek to develop more for American military use.

In the future, according to an especially chilling passage in ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’, the PNAC envisions that “…new methods of attack – electronic, ‘non–lethal’, biological – will be more widely available. Combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes. Advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

It also urges the development of small nuclear warheads. This year the House of Representatives gave the Pentagon approval to develop a “Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator”. As of this writing, the Senate has refused to take that step.

Bush and his people didn’t suddenly get tough after 9/11. They are implementing the early phases of their Plan and using the “War On Terror” as justification for any action they choose to take. They have committed the full resources of the US military and reserves in pursuit of their vision. And they expect the American people to sacrifice thousands of lives and pay the hundreds of billions of dollars it will cost to try and turn those dreams of Empire into reality.

For more on this topic read “Dreaming War – Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta" by Gore Vidal.