Lone Superpower Plan: Ammunition for Critics
By PATRICK E. TYLER (NYT) excerpt from 1186 words
NY Times: March 10, 1992

On Feb. 18, the draft "Defense Planning Guidance," prepared under the supervision of Paul D. Wolfowitz, the Pentagon's Under Secretary for Policy, was circulated to General Powell, who serves as the President's principal military adviser, the secretaries of all four military departments, Mr. Cheney's under secretaries and assistant secretaries of defense and the chiefs of all four military services.

A week after the draft document was circulated, Adm. David E. Jeremiah, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the document would be issued by Mr. Cheney in early March, thus indicating it was in an advanced drafting stage. A cover memo from Mr. Wolfowitz's deputy, Dale A. Vesser, also indicates that the policy statement is near final form and asks recipients to "focus your comments on major substantive concerns."

One 15-page section of the guidance states that it has been approved by Mr. Cheney and begins, "This section constitutes definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense" to be used in conjunction with "fiscal guidance published by the Secretary on 15 February 1992."

U.S. STRATEGY PLAN CALLS FOR INSURING NO RIVALS DEVELOP
By PATRICK E. TYLER, ( Special to The New York Times ) 2089 words
Published: March 8, 1992

In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.

A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."

The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy. Rejecting Collective Approach

To perpetuate this role, the United States "must sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order," the document states.

With its focus on this concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest rejection to date of collective internationalism, the strategy that emerged from World War II when the five victorious powers sought to form a United Nations that could mediate disputes and police outbreaks of violence.

Though the document is internal to the Pentagon and is not provided to Congress, its policy statements are developed in conjunction with the National Security Council and in consultation with the President or his senior national security advisers. Its drafting has been supervised by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the Pentagon's Under Secretary for Policy. Mr. Wolfowitz often represents the Pentagon on the Deputies Committee, which formulates policy in an interagency process dominated by the State and Defense departments.

The document was provided to The New York Times by an official who believes this post-cold-war strategy debate should be carried out in the public domain. It seems likely to provoke further debate in Congress and among America's allies about Washington's willingness to tolerate greater aspirations for regional leadership from a united Europe or from a more assertive Japan.

Together with its attachments on force levels required to insure America's predominant role, the policy draft is a detailed justification for the Bush Administration's "base force" proposal to support a 1.6-million-member military over the next five years, at a cost of about $1.2 trillion. Many Democrats in Congress have criticized the proposal as unnecessarily expensive.

Implicitly, the document foresees building a world security arrangement that pre-empts Germany and Japan from pursuing a course of substantial rearmament, especially nuclear armament, in the future.

In its opening paragraph, the policy document heralds the "less visible" victory at the end of the cold war, which it defines as "the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic 'zone of peace.' "

The continuation of this strategic goal explains the strong emphasis elsewhere in the document and in other Pentagon planning on using military force, if necessary, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in such countries as North Korea, Iraq, some of the successor republics to the Soviet Union and in Europe.

Nuclear proliferation, if unchecked by superpower action, could tempt Germany, Japan and other industrial powers to acquire nuclear weapons to deter attack from regional foes. This could start them down the road to global competition with the United States and, in a crisis over national interests, military rivalry.

The policy draft appears to be adjusting the role of the American nuclear arsenal in the new era, saying, "Our nuclear forces also provide an important deterrent hedge against the possibility of a revitalized or unforeseen global threat, while at the same time helping to deter third party use of weapons of mass destruction through the threat of retaliation." U.N. Action Ignored

The document is conspicuously devoid of references to collective action through the United Nations, which provided the mandate for the allied assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and which may soon be asked to provide a new mandate to force President Saddam Hussein to comply with his cease-fire obligations.

The draft notes that coalitions "hold considerable promise for promoting collective action" as in the Persian Gulf war, but that "we should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general agreement over the objectives to be accomplished."

What is most important, it says, is "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in a crisis that demands quick response.

Bush Administration officials have been saying publicly for some time that they were willing to work within the framework of the United Nations, but that they reserve the option to act unilaterally or through selective coalitions, if necessary, to protect vital American interests.

But this publicly stated strategy did not rule out an eventual leveling of American power as world security stabilizes and as other nations place greater emphasis on collective international action through the United Nations.

In contrast, the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." Sent to Administrators

The document is known in Pentagon parlance as the Defense Planning Guidance, an internal Administration policy statement that is distributed to the military leaders and civilian Defense Department heads to instruct them on how to prepare their forces, budgets and strategy for the remainder of the decade. The policy guidance is typically prepared every two years, and the current draft will yield the first such document produced after the end of the cold war.

Senior Defense Department officials have said the document will be issued by Defense Secretary Cheney this month. According to a Feb. 18 memorandum from Mr. Wolfowitz's deputy, Dale A. Vesser, the policy guidance will be issued with a set of "illustrative" scenarios for possible future foreign conflicts that might draw United States military forces into combat.

These scenarios, issued separately to the military services on Feb. 4, were detailed in a New York Times article last month. They postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea, as well as a Russian assault on Lithuania and smaller military contingencies that United States forces might confront in the future.

These hypothetical conflicts, coupled with the policy guidance document, are meant to give military leaders specific information about the kinds of military threats they should be prepared to meet as they train and equip their forces. It is also intended to give them a coherent strategy framework in which to evaluate various force and training options. Fears of Proliferation

In assessing future threats, the document places great emphasis on how "the actual use of weapons of mass destruction, even in conflicts that otherwise do not directly engage U.S. interests, could spur further proliferation which in turn would threaten world order."

"The U.S. may be faced with the question of whether to take military steps to prevent the development or use of weapons of mass destruction," it states, noting that those steps could include pre-empting an impending attack with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons "or punishing the attackers or threatening punishment of aggressors through a variety of means," including attacks on the plants that manufacture such weapons.

Noting that the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is up for renewal in 1995, the document says, "should it fail, there could ensue a potentially radical destabilizing process" that would produce unspecified "critical challenges which the U.S. and concerned partners must be prepared to address."

The draft guidance warns that "both Cuba and North Korea seem to be entering periods of intense crisis -- primarily economic, but also political -- which may lead the governments involved to take actions that would otherwise seem irrational." It adds, "the same potential exists in China."

For the first time since the Defense Planning Guidance process was initiated to shape national security policy, the new draft states that the fragmentation of the former Soviet military establishment has eliminated the capacity for any successor power to wage global conventional war.

But the document qualifies its assessment, saying, "we do not dismiss the risks to stability in Europe from a nationalist backlash in Russia or effort to re-incorporate into Russia the newly independent republics of Ukraine, Belarus and possibly others."

It says that though U.S. nuclear targeting plans have changed "to account for welcome developments in states of the former Soviet Union," American strategic nuclear weapons will continue to target vital aspects of the former Soviet military establishment. The rationale for the continuation of this targeting policy is that the United States "must continue to hold at risk those assets and capabilities that current -- and future -- Russian leaders or other nuclear adversaries value most" because Russia will remain "the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States."

Until such time as the Russian nuclear arsenal has been rendered harmless, "we continue to face the possibility of robust strategic nuclear forces in the hands of those who might revert to closed, authoritarian, and hostile regimes," the document says. It calls for the "early introduction" of a global anti-missile system. Plan for Europe

In Europe, the Pentagon paper asserts that "a substantial American presence in Europe and continued cohesion within the Western alliance remain vital," but to avoid a competitive relationship from developing, "we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO."

The draft states that with the elimination of United States short-range nuclear weapons in Europe and similar weapons at sea, the United States should not contemplate any withdrawal of its nuclear-strike aircraft based in Europe and, in the event of a resurgent threat from Russia, "we should plan to defend against such a threat" farther forward on the territories of Eastern Europe "should there be an Alliance decision to do so."

This statement offers an explicit commitment to defend the former Warsaw Pact nations from Russia. It suggests that the United States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf. And to help stabilize the economies and democratic development in Eastern Europe, the draft calls on the European Community to offer memberships to Eastern European countries as soon as possible.

In East Asia, the report says, the United States can draw down its forces further, but "we must maintain our status as a military power of the first magnitude in the area.

"This well enable the United States to continue to contribute to regional security and stability by acting as a balancing force and prevent the emergence of a vacuum or a regional hegemon." In addition, the draft warns that any precipitous withdrawal of United States military forces could provoke an unwanted response from Japan, and the document states, "we must also remain sensitive to the potentially destabilizing effects that enhanced roles on the part of our allies, particularly Japan but also possibly Korea, might produce."

In the event that peace negotiations between the two Koreas succeed, the draft recommends that the United States "should seek to maintain an alliance relationship with a unified democratic Korea."

Photo: Paul D. Wolfowitz, the Pentagon's Under Secretary for Policy, who has overseen the drafting of a policy statement on the nation's mission in the post-cold-war era. (The New York Times) (pg. 14) Map of the world indicating areas where U.S may need to retain its military power. (pg. 14) Chart: "Maintaining a One-Superpower World" According to a draft document being circulated by the Pentagon, part of the American military mission in the era after the cold war will by "convincing potential competitions that they need not aspire to a greater role," thus insuring that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge. 1. Cuba and North Korea The U.S. must be prepared for what the report describes as irrational acts from Cuba and North Korea, which are viewed as "entering period of intense crisis" in the economic and political spheres. 2. Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan and India The U.S. "may be faced with the question of whether to take military steps to prevent the development or use of weapons of mass destruction." 3. Russia The U.S must continue to aim nuclear arms at "those assets and capabilities that current -- and future -- Russian leaders or other nuclear adversaries value most." 4. Europe The U.S must preserve a strong presence to maintain NATO alliance and Extend Western defense commitment into Eastern Europe "should there be an Alliance decision to do so." 5. Japan The U.S. must "remain sensitive to the potentially destabilizing effects" in East Asia if our allies there, "particularly Japan but also possibly Korea," take on enhanced roles as regional powers. (pg. 14)

The PNAC Letter of 9/20/2001 reflects the dominant (neocon) conclusions from Rumsfeld's 2-day Defense Policy Board meeting.

Because this letter, basically announcing that Cheney's Iraq-War clique was going to war, was more concerned with Israel's security than with US security, it gives twice as much space to Hezbolla as to Osama bin Laden. This is just nine days after 9/11, and it we knew Osama was mainly responsible.

Quotes from the Neocon Letter of 9/20/2001
"Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, ... remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."
"... any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah."
"We should insist that the Palestinian Authority ... imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel."

Context and Summary: The authors appear to have little interest in bin Laden but are afraid of appearing to have an agenda unrelated to the present crisis. So bin Laden is mentioned first, but given only two sentences—65 words, compared with 154 for Iraq and 127 for Hezbollah, Israel’s nemesis.

Aside from the two sentences on Osama, the letter is unified by its focus on enemies of Israel: Iraq, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the Palestinian Authority, while it ignores entirely the two states most likely to supply bin Laden with nuclear weapons, North Korea and Pakistan. See discussion of Defense-Policy-Board meeting.
Page with this popNote and full text of letter.

The Honorable George W. Bush                                 September 20, 2001
President of the United States

Dear Mr. President,

We write to endorse your admirable commitment to “lead the world to victory” in the war against terrorism. We fully support your call for “a broad and sustained campaign” against the “terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them.” We agree with Secretary of State Powell that the United States must find and punish the perpetrators of the horrific attack of September 11, and we must, as he said, “go after terrorism wherever we find it in the world” and “get it by its branch and root.” We agree with the Secretary of State that U.S. policy must aim not only at finding the people responsible for this incident, but must also target those “other groups out there that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S. personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.”

In order to carry out this “first war of the 21st century” successfully, and in order, as you have said, to do future “generations a favor by coming together and whipping terrorism,” we believe the following steps are necessary parts of a comprehensive strategy.

Osama bin Laden

We agree that a key goal, but by no means the only goal, of the current war on terrorism should be to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy his network of associates. To this end, we support the necessary military action in Afghanistan and the provision of substantial financial and military assistance to the anti-Taliban forces in that country.

Iraq

We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statement that Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth….” It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.

Hezbollah

Hezbollah is one of the leading terrorist organizations in the world. It is suspected of having been involved in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Africa, and implicated in the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Hezbollah clearly falls in the category cited by Secretary Powell of groups “that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S. personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.” Therefore, any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority

Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East. The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. We should insist that the Palestinian Authority put a stop to terrorism emanating from territories under its control and imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Until the Palestinian Authority moves against terror, the United States should provide it no further assistance.

U.S. Defense Budget

A serious and victorious war on terrorism will require a large increase in defense spending. Fighting this war may well require the United States to engage a well-armed foe, and will also require that we remain capable of defending our interests elsewhere in the world. We urge that there be no hesitation in requesting whatever funds for defense are needed to allow us to win this war.

There is, of course, much more that will have to be done. Diplomatic efforts will be required to enlist other nations’ aid in this war on terrorism. Economic and financial tools at our disposal will have to be used. There are other actions of a military nature that may well be needed. However, in our judgement the steps outlined above constitute the minimum necessary if this war is to be fought effectively and brought to a successful conclusion. Our purpose in writing is to assure you of our support as you do what must be done to lead the nation to victory in this fight.

Sincerely, William Kristol
Richard V. Allen / Gary Bauer / Jeffrey Bell / William J. Bennett     
Rudy Boshwitz / Jeffrey Bergner / Eliot Cohen / Seth Cropsey  
Midge Decter / Thomas Donnelly / Nicholas Eberstadt / Hillel Fradkin
Aaron Friedberg / Francis Fukuyama / Frank Gaffney / Jeffrey Gedmin  
Reuel Marc Gerecht / Charles Hill / Bruce P. Jackson / Eli S. Jacobs  
Michael Joyce / Donald Kagan / Robert Kagan / Jeane Kirkpatrick
Charles Krauthammer / John Lehman / Clifford May / Martin Peretz
Richard Perle / Norman Podhoretz / Stephen P. Rosen / Randy Scheunemann
Gary Schmitt / William Schneider, Jr. / Richard H. Shultz / Henry Sokolski
Stephen J. Solarz / Vin Weber / Leon Wieseltier / Marshall Wittmann

Also available at: www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2002(CBS)
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.

That's according to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11 – notes that show exactly where the road toward war with Iraq began, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.

At 9:53 a.m., just 15 minutes after the hijacked plane had hit the Pentagon, and while Rumsfeld was still outside helping with the injured, the National Security Agency, which monitors communications worldwide, intercepted a phone call from one of Osama bin Laden's operatives in Afghanistan to a phone number in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

The caller said he had "heard good news" and that another target was still to come; an indication he knew another airliner, the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania, was at that very moment zeroing in on Washington.

It was 12:05 p.m. when the director of Central Intelligence told Rumsfeld about the intercepted conversation.

Rumsfeld felt it was "vague," that it "might not mean something," and that there was "no good basis for hanging hat." In other words, the evidence was not clear-cut enough to justify military action against bin Laden.

But later that afternoon, the CIA reported the passenger manifests for the hijacked airliners showed three of the hijackers were suspected al Qaeda operatives.

"One guy is associate of Cole bomber," the notes say, a reference to the October 2000 suicide boat attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which had also been the work of bin Laden.

With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." – meaning Saddam Hussein – "at same time. Not only UBL" – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.

Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.

"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml

JINSA Online, September 13, 2001
Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Thomas Neumann, Executive Director, JINSA
202-833-0020

This Goes Beyond Bin Laden

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 13, 2001 - In the face of horrendous acts of terrorism against the United States, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) calls on the American government and on all world leaders to be decisive in their actions to confront the terrorists and their supporters, who rely on our taking half measures in response.

We must begin by condemning them and their organizations by name; we know who they are. Osama Bin Laden, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are only the most prominent. The countries harboring and training them include not just Afghanistan - an easy target for blame - but Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, the Palestinian Authority, Libya, Algeria and even our presumed friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

We must make them believe there is not one inch of soil on the planet that is a haven or training ground for them.

The United States can have no political relationship with any country or group whose citizens celebrate the death of innocent Americans. There is nothing to justify dancing in the streets and rejoicing over an American tragedy. This behavior tells us who our friends are, and who wishes our mortal enemies well.

A long investigation to prove Osama Bin Laden's guilt with prosecutorial certainty is entirely unnecessary. He is guilty in word and deed. His history is the source of his culpability. The same holds true for Saddam Hussein. Our actions in the past certainly were not forceful enough, and now we must seize the opportunity to alter this pattern of passivity.

In response to the attack on September 11, 2001 JINSA calls on the United States to:

   • Halt all US purchases of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil for Food Program and to provide all necessary support to the Iraq National Congress, including direct American military support, to effect a regime change in Iraq.

   • Bomb identified terrorist training camps and facilities in any country harboring terrorists. Interdict the supply lines to terrorist organizations, including but not limited to those between Damascus and Beirut that permit Iran to use Lebanon as a terrorist base.

   • Revoke the Presidential Order banning assassinations.

   • Overturn the 1995 CIA Directive limiting whom the U.S. can recruit to aid counter-terrorism in an effort to boost our human intelligence.

   • Freeze the bank accounts of organizations in the US that have links to terrorism-supporting groups and their political wings. Ask other countries and financial institutions to do the same.

   • Demand that Egypt and Saudi Arabia sever all remaining ties with Osama Bin Laden, including ties with Saudi-sponsored nongovernmental organizations and groups abroad that raise money for Bin Laden and other terrorist organizations.

   • Suspend US Military Aid to Egypt while re-evaluating Egypt's support for American policy objectives, and re-evaluate America's security relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States unless both actually join in our war against terrorism.

   • Ensure that American technology, arms, technical support and personnel are not supplied to countries that do not fully support American objectives regarding terrorism, and through which terrorists might acquire American materiel. Ask our allies and other countries to undertake similar restrictions.

   • Reassess the visa process by which nationals from hostile nations are permitted to enter the United States. And tighten controls at the Canadian and Mexican borders to prevent access by people without appropriate documentation.

   • Strengthen American law enforcement efforts to identify and eliminate terrorist cells operating in the United States.

   • Take immediate steps to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.

The terrorists who struck on Tuesday changed the physical and political landscape of America. We in JINSA trust that our government and our people will make them regret that day.
Source: http://www.jinsa.org/articles/view.html?documentid=1262

A NATION CHALLENGED: SADDAM HUSSEIN;
Some Pentagon Officials and Advisers Seek to Oust Iraq's Leader in War's Next Phase
By Elaine Sciolino & Patrick Tyler
NY Times, October 12, 2001

A tight-knit group of Pentagon officials and defense experts outside government is working to mobilize support for a military operation to oust President Saddam Hussein of Iraq as the next phase of the war against terrorism, senior administration officials and defense experts said.

The group, which some in the State Department and on Capitol Hill refer to as the ''Wolfowitz cabal,'' after Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, is laying the groundwork for a strategy that envisions the use of air support and the occupation of southern Iraq with American ground troops to install a Iraqi opposition group based in London at the helm of a new government, the officials and experts said.

Under this notion, American troops would also seize the oil fields around Basra, in southeastern Iraq, and sell the oil to finance the Iraqi opposition in the south and the Kurds in the north, one senior official said.

''The takeover would not be dissimilar to the area we occupied in the gulf war,'' the official said.

The group is building its case despite President Bush's declaration that the war against Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda, must be fought first. The idea is to prepare for what its members see as the coming debate over the next phase of the war.

The group has largely excluded the State Department, where Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has adamantly argued that such an attack would destroy the international coalition that President Bush has assembled. Both Mr. Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney have said there is no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks.

''Our focus is on Afghanistan and the terrorist network hiding in Afghanistan right now,'' Mr. Bush said tonight at his news conference. But he called Mr. Hussein '' an evil man.''

''After all, he gassed his own people,'' Mr. Bush added. ''We know he's been developing weapons of mass destruction.'' He said the administration was watching Mr. Hussein ''very carefully.''

On Sept. 19 and 20, the Defense Policy Board, a prestigious bipartisan board of national security experts that advises the Pentagon, met for 19 hours to discuss the ramifications of the attacks of Sept. 11. The members of the group agreed on the need to turn to Iraq as soon as the initial phase of the war against Afghanistan and Mr. bin Laden and his organization is over, people familiar with the meetings said. Both Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz took part in the meetings for part of both days.

But while the group agreed on the goal of ousting Mr. Hussein, they presented a range of views, including a discussion of the many political and diplomatic obstacles to military action.

''If we don't use this as the moment to replace Saddam after we replace the Taliban, we are setting the stage for disaster,'' Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and a member of the group, said in an interview.

Richard Perle, who shares Mr. Wolfowitz's view that the Iraqi regime should be overthrown quickly with military force, said, ''This has never been a fringe issue.''

Neither Mr. Gingrich nor Mr. Perle discussed the substance of the meeting.

Other members of the group expressed concern that they might be pawns in what had become a bureaucratic battle. ''Both Pentagon and State are probably using us to continue to support their arguments,'' said one member of the group.

The 18-member board includes Harold Brown, President Jimmy Carter's defense secretary; former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger; R. James Woolsey, director of central intelligence in the Clinton administration; Adm. David E. Jeremiah, the former deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; former Vice President Dan Quayle; and James R. Schlesinger a former defense and energy secretary.

The State Department, including officials who work on Iraq policy, was not briefed on the two-day meeting.

There are other signs of bureaucratic disarray with regard to setting policy regarding the war on terrorism. The White House inserted a far-reaching sentence into a letter from Ambassador John D. Negroponte, the chief United States envoy to the United Nations, to the Security Council last Sunday, senior administration officials said.

''Powell was surprised to find out about it and he was quite distressed,'' a senior administration official said. ''Somebody should have called him.''

The State Department determined that Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, inserted the sentence, and that Mr. Negroponte and at least two senior officials in the State Department saw the final version of the letter but did not change it, officials said.

The letter put the Security Council on notice that the United States might be forced to retaliate against other state sponsors of terrorism if it turned up new evidence, stating, ''We may find that our self-defense requires further action with respect to other organizations and other states.''

In another development, the Knight Ridder newspaper group reported today that senior Pentagon officials authorized Mr. Woolsey to fly to London last month on a government plane, accompanied by Justice and Defense Department officials, on a mission to gather evidence linking Mr. Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The State Department was unaware of the trip but confirmed that it did take place, a senior State Department official said. Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's chief spokeswoman, said, ''We just don't have any information on it.'' Mr. Woolsey did not return phone calls seeking comment.

In a conversation on Wednesday, Mr. Woolsey suggested that he was building a legal case against Iraq.

''The first thing we have to do is develop some confidence that Iraq is involved in terrorist incidents against us, not meaning Sept. 11,'' he said.

Mr. Woolsey cited Iraq's alleged involvement in the assassination attempt against former President George Bush in the spring of 1993, together with its work to develop weapons of mass destruction as terrorist acts that made them ''a prime candidate for regime replacement.''

Mr. Woolsey added that eventually Mr. Hussein would fall if subjected to a military offensive that would give the United States control of the south, support from the Kurds in the north, defections of crucial Iraqis and well-supported insurgencies.

The United States must be ''willing to put up with criticism from European states and other governments,'' Mr. Woolsey said.

By CARLA ANNE ROBBINS and JEANNE CUMMINGS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, June 14, 2002

WASHINGTON -- In the chaotic days after Sept. 11, as several of his top advisers argued over whether to launch a strike on Iraq, President Bush sided with those urging restraint.

There was, after all, no real evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had anything to do with the terror attacks. And President Bush wanted to keep the focus on al Qaeda, the Afghanistan-based terrorist group that engineered the deadly hijackings.

But now, a showdown with Iraq appears nearly inevitable. What happened?
....
"It's not because you have some chain of evidence saying Iraq may have given a weapon to al Qaeda," Ms. Rice says, as she recounts the evolution of Mr. Bush's thinking.
....
This focus on Iraq was far from preordained. In his first nine months in office, in fact, Mr. Bush hadn't made Iraq a top priority, and an interagency review on the country was languishing on Sept. 11. Immediately after the terror strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Mr. Bush had actually overruled advisers who wanted to take on Iraq along with Afghanistan in the first wave of the new war on terrorism.

The picture is quite different from the common assumption that Mr. Bush's prime motivation is to settle an old score for his father, who drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait but failed to do away with Saddam Hussein. That bit of family business appears to have little to do with Mr. Bush's current attitude.

Even in the first weeks after Sept. 11, Iraq didn't figure prominently in Mr. Bush's thinking, particularly after Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet reported there was "no evidence" Iraq was involved. On Sept. 20, when the president made a now-famous speech to a joint session of Congress calling for a global war on terrorism, he pointedly made no mention of Iraq.
....
By the last few days of October, the White House was so persuaded about the danger that officials quietly informed local police in Washington and the Congressional intelligence committees of the dirty-bomb threat.

Mr. Tenet, the CIA director, testified in 1999 that Mr. bin Laden had declared it his religious duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. ... As part of his late October briefings, Mr. Tenet discussed which other countries had the capability and the malice to help al Qaeda acquire weapons of mass destruction. And for that, Iraq topped the list.

Visitors to the White House at the time reported privately that Mr. Bush seemed haunted by a nuclear threat. At one of his morning intelligence briefings he told his advisers, "We have to be thankful that on Sept. 11 they didn't have a weapon of mass destruction instead of an airplane," recalls one participant. And every day for at least two weeks he ended those meetings exhorting the group, "We have to make sure that this doesn't happen."

In early November, in a speech broadcast to a European antiterrorism summit, Mr. Bush made his first public mention of the danger, warning that al Qaeda is seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
...
All told, the environment was becoming more welcoming for key officials at the Pentagon, as well as members of Vice President Cheney's staff, who already were eager to target Iraq. With the Taliban suddenly crumbling in Afghanistan, the idea of waging a similar small war in Iraq "stopped looking unthinkable," says an official who is still skeptical.

Shortly after Sept. 11, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld hosted a meeting of his Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel that includes former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Speakers of the House Newt Gingrich and Tom Foley, and former CIA Director James Woolsey. [But not Colin Powell.]

For two days, the group debated an attack against Iraq. Ahmed Chalabi, who leads the Iraqi National Congress, the exile group with the most sway in Washington, was invited to speak and, when asked to leave the room during the private discussions, he toured the clean-up efforts in the burned-out wing of the Pentagon. At the end of the meeting, several members of the advisory committee were convinced an attack was warranted, according to three members of the group.

Perhaps more important, Mr. Cheney [a founding member of PNAC] became more convinced of the need to act on Iraq. The vice president, who was secretary of defense during the Gulf War, always seemed more concerned about the Iraq legacy than Mr. Bush. At a celebration dinner after the 2000 presidential campaign, he privately told a group of friends that the new White House team may have a rare historic opportunity to right a wrong committed during a previous term -- the mistake of leaving Saddam Hussein in place atop the Iraqi government. He also hired a staff filled with Iraq hawks.
....
Meanwhile, Iraqi opposition groups themselves began pressing harder to turn the administration. Mr. Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, brought defectors to Washington with reports of new Iraqi weapons programs and terrorist training camps. [All of which turned out to be fabrications. —zFacts WMD Report to Pres. The hawks at the Pentagon were particularly troubled by the presentation offered by Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haidari, a concrete contractor, who told U.S. authorities in December that he had helped build dozens of Mr. Hussein's latest weapons labs, and that they were scattered throughout Baghdad underneath homes and mosques. Mr. Saeed came out of Iraq with work orders to back up his claims. Other officials, however, said they found the defectors' presentations so well-rehearsed that they suspected they may have been embroidering the facts. Still, the stream of stories added to the gathering momentum.

'Axis of Evil'

Finally, soon after Christmas, Mr. Bush and his advisers started discussing ideas for the president's late-January State of the Union address. The president made clear early on that he wanted the speech to highlight the dangers of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction, as well as list the countries that might help them. The most memorable line from that speech was Mr. Bush's depiction of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil." Not only are these states seeking weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Bush warned, "they could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred."

Looking back, U.S. officials now say they may well have overestimated al Qaeda's access to weapons of mass destruction and the extent of the help provided by the Pakistani scientists. By late fall, American troops were on the ground in Afghanistan and sorting through al Qaeda labs, offices, houses and caves. What they found was less than originally feared, though still frightening. Designs for nuclear weapons were "rudimentary, the sort of thing you'd draw on a cocktail napkin," says one intelligence official. U.S. troops found no sign that al Qaeda had managed to acquire chemical or biological weapons or any nuclear material.

And, crucially, U.S. officials recently concluded, after an exhaustive review, that they have no hard evidence to confirm the report that Mr. Atta, the Sept. 11 hijacker, actually met an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague last year.

While Mr. Bush is adamant about a regime change in Iraq, aides say the administration is still far from deciding how to make that happen. "I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go. That's about all I'm willing to share with you," Mr. Bush said in an interview with British journalists in April.

Special Report: The Rush to Invade Iraq: The Ultimate Inside Account
by Bryan Burrough, Evgenia Peretz, David Rose, and David Wise
Vanity Fair, May 2004

....
Three days later, on Saturday, September 15, President Bush gathered his closest advisers at Camp David to discuss the shape of the coming war. Much of their discussion dealt with Afghanistan. But during a session that morning, according to Bob Woodward's 2002 book, Bush at War, Wolfowitz advocated an attack on Iraq, perhaps even before an attack on Afghanistan. There was a 10 to 50 percent chance that Iraq had been involved in 9/11, he argued, concluding that Saddam's "brittle, oppressive regime" might succumb easily to an American attack-in contrast to the difficulties involved in prosecuting war in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Sitting across the table, Colin Powell was appalled. To attack Iraq without clear evidence of Saddam's involvement in September 11 would drive America's allies away, he argued. Much better to go after bin Laden's obvious state sponsor, the Taliban. If that went well, it would only enhance America's ability to oust Saddam later. In front of his advisers at Camp David, and in later interviews, Bush indicated that he supported Powell's argument. During the lunch break, the president sent a message to Wolfowitz and the other neocons, indicating that he did not wish to hear any more about Iraq that day. But, according to Richard Perle, Wolfowitz had planted a seed. Bush told Perle at Camp David that once Afghanistan had been dealt with, it would be Iraq's turn.

By that Monday, Wolfowitz and his neocon colleagues were already busy studying ways to justify an eventual attack on Iraq. The next day, Tuesday, September 18, Perle convened a two-day meeting of the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises the Pentagon. (Perle has since resigned, first as chairman, amid charges of conflicts of interest because he was representing a company seeking Defense Department approval of a sale to two foreign companies, and then from the group altogether.) The board's meetings amount to a form of "organized brainstorming" with the defense secretary, his key lieutenants, and a group of well-informed outsiders, all of whom are cleared to have access to classified intelligence. The 30 members, appointed by the secretary of defense, have traditionally represented a broad spectrum of political beliefs. Under Rumsfeld, however, the board has taken a hard turn to the right, with several Democrats being ousted.

That morning the group gathered in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Washington. From there, one participant recalls, "we got into mini-buses and took off at about a zillion miles an hour. We had a full-blown police escort, motorcycle outriders, the works, and at the peak of the morning rush hour they had cleared the entire interstate across the 14th Street Bridge. It took almost no time at all to get to the Pentagon... When we got there, it was like a war zone. You could still smell the smoke."

They met in Rumsfeld's conference room. After a C.I.A. briefing on the 9/11 attacks, Perle introduced two guest speakers. The first was Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, a longtime associate of Cheney's and Wolfowitz's. Lewis told the meeting that America must respond to 9/11 with a show of strength: to do otherwise would be taken in the Islamic world as a sign of weakness-one it would be bound to exploit. At the same time, he said, America should support democratic reformers in the Middle East. "Such as," he said, turning to the second of Perle's guest speakers, "my friend here, Dr. Chalabi."

At the meeting Chalabi said that, although there was as yet no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11, failed states such as Saddam's were a breeding ground for terrorists, and Iraq, he told those at the meeting, possessed W.M.D.

Was it all just a mistake?

The WMDs were destroyed in 1991 and no programs to develop them were restarted. That is the conclusion of the Pentagon, the CIA and the President's Commission on WMD.

Congress relied on "dead wrong" WMD claims when it gave permission for the war. That's what the President's Commission concluded.

How could the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, dozens of brilliant neocons, and the President all make such a gigantic mistake for 18 months?

... thousands of tons of ... mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas ... growing fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles ... to disperse chemical or biological weapons ... exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. ... smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.  —President Bush, Cincinnati, Ohio Speech, Oct. 7, 2002.

"Dead wrong." —The President's Commission
The official explanation is "Oops, the CIA made a mistake." Or, in the words of the President's Commission: "What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein's programs was what they believed. They were simply wrong."

That's on page 1, but the next 600 pages tell us there were many in the CIA who did not believe what was being said and they put it in writing time and again. A lot of those disbeliefs made it into the White House, but not one made it out of the White House to the American public. Perhaps the clearest case is that of the 500 tons of uranium ore concentrate supposedly bought by Iraq from Niger.

This claim was based on documents so badly forged it took UN investigators only a few hours with the internet to figure it out. One obvious clue: the forgers got the President of Niger wrong. Our ambassador to Niger debunked this story in early 2002. Then the CIA, which did not believe it from the start, sent Wilson to check it out and he came back and debunked it, including a direct report to the State Dept. in March 2002. But, in January 2003, the President used this "fact" in his State of the Union address, and Powell used it indirectly in his February speech at the U.N..

Finally, in March 2003, Powell admitted there was a problem, "It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine."

But maybe our whole government is not really this stupid. Maybe Paul Wolfowitz was right. Maybe ... "for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but"

Now do you know what happend the instant he said that. Even before he could finish his sentence the government lawyer sitting beside him cuts him off with "-- hold on one second". The they go off mike and when they come back Wolfowitz can't say any more about it.

Wolfowitz was trying to explain that the real reasons had a lot more to do with moving our troops out of Saudi Arabia (to Iraq) and some other things. The reason the "U.S. government bureaucracy" could settle on WMD is because that would get people riled up. It was real easy to explain.

In fact our goverment is not as stupid as they would like us to believe, but they're not as smart as they think they are.

The final report on WMD requested by the President compares the Pre-War and Post-War conclusions of the CIA and Pentagon and finds the pre-war conclusions were "dead wrong." It agrees with the report of the 1400-member Iraq Survey Group report from the CIA/Pentagon, and explains the mistakes.   Findings:

• Biological weapons destroyed in 1991.  No bio-weapon program since.
• No nuclear weapons programs.  Capability to re-start degraded since 1991.
• Undeclared chemical weapons destroyed in 1991. None manufactured later.
• No intent to use unmanned aerial vehicles to deliver WMD.
• These findings prove the U.N. sanctions and inspections worked almost perfectly.

(March 31, 2005, www.wmd.gov/about.html)
 
From the letter of transmittal:

We conclude that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, the NIE assessed that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program and could assemble a device by the end of the decade; that Iraq had biological weapons and mobile facilities for producing biological warfare (BW) agent; that Iraq had both renewed production of chemical weapons, and probably had chemical weapons stockpiles of up to 500 metric tons; and that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) probably  intended to deliver BW agent.

These assessments were all wrong. (p.45)

The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991. ...it concluded that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute its program progressively decayed after 1991. (p.60)

Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW [biological warfare] weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent shortly after the Gulf War. ... This took place in either the late spring or summer of 1991. (p. 86)

The ISG “found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.” (p. 87)

The ISG concluded—contrary to the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments—that Iraq had actually unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile [of chemical weapons] in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of CW thereafter (p.119)

The ISG found no evidence suggesting that Iraq had, at the time of the war, any intent to use UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] as BW or CW delivery systems. (p.141)

Notes: Brackets, [  ], indicate zFacts' clarifications. Emphasis added.
NIE: the National Intelligence Estimate used by Congress to approve the war.
ISG: the "Iraq Survey Group" was a 1,400-member fact-finding mission organized by the Pentagon and CIA after the war to hunt for Saddam's suspected WMD.
  
  

The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
Report to the President of the United States