Powell bezoekt Syrië voor 'tough talks', schrijft MSNBC vandaag: '“I am here to pursue diplomacy and mutual political efforts that both sides can be taking. So the issue of war hostilities is not on the table”'. Toch maakt Syrië zich zorgen. Mede om te zien in hoeverre het terecht is te denken dat Syrië op dezelfde lijst staat als Irak en een aanval kan verwachten, is het goed om de aanloop te bestuderen naar de oorlog met Irak. Er is namelijk een direct verband.
Door Daan de Wit
De komst van de laatste, of beter: de meest recente Golfoorlog, was achteraf te haarscherp voorspellen. Aan de hand van twee documenten.
Voorstellen die toentertijd 'nuts' waren...
Document 1. Het eerste document staat centraal in de documentaire The War Behind Closed Doors, van PBS-Frontline en uitgezonden door Zembla op 20 maart. In de documentaire gaat het over de opvallende gelijkenis tussen de Nationale Veiligheidsstrategie van de huidige Amerikaanse regering en de conceptnota uit 1992 van vooral de huidige onderminister van Defensie Paul Wolfowitz. Die conceptnota, de Defense Planning Guidance, is 'a strategy document that advocated that the U.S. maintain its position as the sole superpower after the Cold War and included the first mention of preemptive intervention to prevent countries from obtaining weapons of mass destruction -- and how published reports in The Washington Post and The New York Times led to an international and domestic outcry', aldus (geparafraseerd door Frontline) Barton Gellman van The Washington Post in de documentaire. Het geheime rapport werd gelekt, naar onderanderen Gellman: 'It did get out because, inside the U.S. defense planning establishment, there were people who thought this thing was nuts, and they wanted a public debate about it. That's why they talked to me, and that's why they talked with the New York Times.'
... zijn onder Bush Nationale Veiligheidsstrategie
Die waanzin van de preventieve aanval lees je vandaag weer terug in de Nationale Veiligheidsstrategie van de huidige Amerikaanse regering: '"You simply have to lay the documents side by side and you will see huge areas in which they're the same," he says, "and frankly, very few in which there are striking differences"', aldus Gellman. Waar ook weinig verschil in is te ontdekken, zijn de spelers op het veld, toen en nu. Zij die toentertijd verantwoordelijk waren voor de Defense Planning Guidance, zitten tegenwoordig in de regering. 'Now you have to remember, these are exactly the same people who are most influential right now in the U.S. government, and in the formation of U.S. strategic policy. It's Dick Cheney as defense secretary. It's Paul Wolfowitz as undersecretary [of defense] for policy. And it's a guy named Scooter Libby who is, right now, Dick Cheney's chief of staff and chief strategist, who was deputy to Paul Wolfowitz. They were the three drafting authorities for this Guidance. [...] Well, Cheney is vice president now. Wolfowitz is number two at Defense Department. These people have had enormous influence in drafting President George W. Bush's key strategic concept for the world. Whereas a political fury in 1992 required them to back off, that hasn't happened this time.'
Dezelfde spelers, dezelfde voorstellen in 1998 en 2000
Document 2. Het tweede document is afkomstig van het PNAC, het Project for the New American Century (Zie ook deze site die kritiek heeft op het PNAC). In 2000 publiceerde het Rebuilding America's Defenses, een rapport (PDF) dat twee jaar eerder was voorafgegaan door een brief aan president Clinton. 'In 1998, 18 prominent conservatives wrote a letter to President Clinton urging him to "aim at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power." Most of these experts are now officials in the administration, including Elliot Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz', schrijft Joseph Cirincione, Senior Associate en Director van de Non-Proliferation Project aan de Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Cirincione's artikel is een prima overzicht van hoe PNAC's therorie pnactijk werd dankzij Bush: 'The Project had organized the 1998 letter to Clinton and the 2000 report seems to have become a blueprint for the administration's foreign and defense policies.'
Wat toen ontbrak, was er in 2001: Bush en een nieuw Pearl Harbor
ABC schrijft: 'In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year [1998], the group called for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power" and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam. And in a report [Rebuilding America's Defenses] just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power [subtiel!], the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor." That event came on Sept. 11, 2001. By that time, Cheney was vice president, Rumsfeld was secretary of defense, and Wolfowitz his deputy at the Pentagon.' De interpretatie van deze feiten komt van American Free Press: '“The process of transformation,” the plan [het rapport van PNAC uit 2000] said, “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” American Free Press asked Christopher Maletz, assistant director of the PNAC about what was meant by the need for “a new Pearl Harbor.” “They needed more money to up the defense budget for raises, new arms, and future capabilities,” Maletz said. “Without some disaster or catastrophic event” neither the politicians nor the military would have approved, Maletz said.
11 september: 'Doelwit Irak'
De plannen van de neo-conservatieven hadden een nieuw Pearl Harbor nodig om gerealiseerd te worden. Nadat Bush niet de verkiezingen won, maar wel de macht had gegrepen, kwam op 11 september het nieuwe Pearl Harbor en konden de plannen in werking worden gesteld. Joseph Cirincione schrijft: 'Immediately after September 11, Paul Wolfowitz and other officials urged President Bush to attack Iraq. New Yorker writer Mark Danner notes as part of a PBS Frontline special that they saw this as a "new opportunity presented by the war on terror-that is, an opportunity to argue to the public that Iraq presented a vital danger to the United States."' CBS in een artikel met de kop: 'Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11': 'CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.' Cirincione besluit zijn artikel: 'Now, for [Bush], regime change in Iraq is not the end, it is just the beginning.'
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