WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
The President's Real Goal in
Iraq
by
Jay Bookman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
29 September 2002
The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The
connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has
always seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart people
in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such flimsy evidence.
The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on; something was missing. In
recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into place. As it turns out,
this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism,
or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions. This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official
emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole
responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan
10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must
seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the 'American
imperialists' that our enemies always claimed we were.
Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does
the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is
toppled? Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will create
permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including
neighboring Iran. In an interview Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brushed aside
that suggestion, noting that the United States does not covet other nations' territory.
That may be true, but 57 years after World War II ended, we still have major bases in
Germany and Japan. We will do the same in Iraq. And why has the administration dismissed
the option of containing and deterring Iraq, as we had the Soviet Union for 45 years?
Because even if it worked, containment and deterrence would not allow the expansion of
American power. Besides, they are beneath us as an empire. Rome did not stoop to
containment; it conquered. And so should we.
Among the architects of this would-be American Empire are a group of brilliant and
powerful people who now hold key positions in the Bush administration: They envision the
creation and enforcement of what they call a worldwide 'Pax Americana,' or American peace.
But so far, the American people have not appreciated the true extent of that ambition.
Part of it's laid out in the National Security Strategy, a document in which each
administration outlines its approach to defending the country. The Bush administration
plan, released Sept. 20, marks a significant departure from previous approaches, a change
that it attributes largely to the attacks of Sept. 11. To address the terrorism threat,
the president's report lays out a newly aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing
pre-emptive attack against perceived enemies. It speaks in blunt terms of what it calls
'American internationalism,' of ignoring international opinion if that suits U.S.
interests. 'The best defense is a good offense,' the document asserts. It dismisses
deterrence as a Cold War relic and instead talks of 'convincing or compelling states to
accept their sovereign responsibilities.'
In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of
every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that
plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence.
'The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and
Northeast Asia,' the document warns, 'as well as temporary access arrangements for the
long-distance deployment of U.S. troops.' The report's repeated references to terrorism
are misleading, however, because the approach of the new National Security Strategy was
clearly not inspired by the events of Sept. 11. They can be found in much the same
language in a report issued in September 2000 by the Project for the New American Century,
a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the thought that the United States
might be forfeiting its chance at a global empire. 'At no time in history has the
international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals,' the
report stated two years ago. 'The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and
enhance this 'American peace.'
Overall, that 2000 report reads like a blueprint for current Bush defense policy.
Most of what it advocates, the Bush administration has tried to accomplish. For example,
the project report urged the repudiation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and a
commitment to a global missile defense system. The administration has taken that course.
It recommended that to project sufficient power worldwide to enforce Pax Americana, the
United States would have to increase defense spending from 3 percent of gross domestic
product to as much as 3.8 percent. For next year, the Bush administration has requested a
defense budget of $379 billion, almost exactly 3.8 percent of GDP. It advocates the
'transformation' of the U.S. military to meet its expanded obligations, including the
cancellation of such outmoded defense programs as the Crusader artillery system. That's
exactly the message being preached by Rumsfeld and others. It urges the development of
small nuclear warheads 'required in targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers
that are being built by many of our potential adversaries.' This year the GOP-led U.S.
House gave the Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon, called the Robust
Nuclear Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far balked.
That close tracking of recommendation with current policy is hardly surprising, given the
current positions of the people who contributed to the 2000 report.
Paul Wolfowitz is now deputy defense secretary. John Bolton is undersecretary of state.
Stephen Cambone is head of the Pentagon's Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation.
Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross are members of the Defense Policy Board, which advises
Rumsfeld. I. Lewis Libby is chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Dov Zakheim is
comptroller for the Defense Department.
Because they were still just private citizens in 2000, the authors of the project report
could be more frank and less diplomatic than they were in drafting the National Security
Strategy. Back in 2000, they clearly identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as primary
short-term targets, well before President Bush tagged them as the Axis of Evil. In their
report, they criticize the fact that in war planning against North Korea and Iraq, 'past
Pentagon wargames have given little or no consideration to the force requirements
necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power.' To
preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required to perform
'constabulary duties' - the United States acting as policeman of the world - and says that
such actions 'demand American political leadership rather than that of the United
Nations.'
To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to challenge the
United States, the report advocates a much larger military presence spread over more of
the globe, in addition to the roughly 130 nations in which U.S. troops are already
deployed. More specifically, they argue that we need permanent military bases in them
Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia, where no such
bases now exist. That helps to explain another of the mysteries of our post-Sept. 11
reaction, in which the Bush administration rushed to install U.S. troops in Georgia and
the Philippines, as well as our eagerness to send military advisers to assist in the civil
war in Colombia. The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier
document, drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. That document had also envisioned the
United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace
through military and economic power. When leaked in final draft form, however, the
proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first
President Bush.
The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document was drafted by Wolfowitz,
who at the time was defense undersecretary for policy.
The potential implications of a Pax Americana are immense. One is the effect on our
allies. Once we assert the unilateral right to act as the world's policeman, our allies
will quickly recede into the background. Eventually, we will be forced to spend American
wealth and American blood protecting the peace while other nations redirect their wealth
to such things as health care for their citizenry. Donald Kagan, a professor of classical
Greek history at Yale and an influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy - he
served as co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project - acknowledges that likelihood.
'If [our allies] want a free ride, and they probably will, we can't stop that,' he says.
But he also argues that the United States, given its unique position, has no choice but to
act anyway. 'You saw the movie 'High Noon'? he asks. 'We're Gary Cooper.'
Accepting the Cooper role would be an historic change in who we are as a nation,
and in how we operate in the international arena. Candidate Bush certainly did not
campaign on such a change. It is not something that he or others have dared to discuss
honestly with the American people. To the contrary, in his foreign policy debate with Al
Gore, Bush pointedly advocated a more humble foreign policy, a position calculated to
appeal to voters leery of military intervention. For the same reason, Kagan and others shy
away from terms such as empire, understanding its connotations. But they also argue that
it would be naive and dangerous to reject the role that history has thrust upon us. Kagan,
for example, willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish permanent
military bases in a post-war Iraq. 'I think that's highly possible,' he says. '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.'
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