William Rivers Pitt
BLOOD MONEY
Sun Oct 3, 2004 14:04
64.140.158.17
BLOOD MONEY
By William Rivers Pitt 2-27-04
http://www.truthout.com
"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial
Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and
will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our
liberties or democratic processes." - President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961.
George W. Bush gave a speech Wednesday night before the Godfather of
conservative Washington think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute. In his
speech, Bush quantified his coming war with Iraq as part of a larger struggle to
bring pro-western governments into power in the Middle East. Couched in
hopeful language describing peace and freedom for all, the speech was in fact the
closest articulation of the actual plan for Iraq that has yet been heard from
the administration. In a previous truthout article from February 21, the
ideological connections between an extremist right-wing Washington think tank and
the foreign policy aspirations of the Bush administration were detailed. The
Project for a New American Century, or PNAC, is a group founded in 1997 that has
been agitating since its inception for a war with Iraq.
PNAC was the driving force behind the drafting and passage of the Iraqi
Liberation Act, a bill that painted a veneer of legality over the ultimate designs
behind such a conflict. The names of every prominent PNAC member were on a
letter delivered to President Clinton in 1998 which castigated him for not
implementing the Act by driving troops into Baghdad. PNAC has funneled millions of
taxpayer dollars to a Hussein opposition group called the Iraqi National
Congress, and to Iraq's heir-apparent, Ahmed Chalabi, despite the fact that Chalabi
was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison on 31
counts of bank fraud. Chalabi and the INC have, over the years, gathered support
for their cause by promising oil contracts to anyone that would help to put
them in power in Iraq.
Most recently, PNAC created a new group called The Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq. Staffed entirely by PNAC members, The Committee has set out to
"educate" Americans via cable news connections about the need for war in Iraq.
This group met recently with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
regarding the ways and means of this education. Who is PNAC? Its members include:
* Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the PNAC founders, who served as
Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr.;
* I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's top national security assistant;
* Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, also a founding member, along with
four of his chief aides including;
* Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, arguably the ideological father
of the group;
* Eliot Abrams, prominent member of Bush's National Security Council, who was
pardoned by Bush Sr. in the Iran/Contra scandal;
* John Bolton, who serves as Undersecretary for Arms Control and
International Security in the Bush administration;
* Richard Perle, former Reagan administration official and present chairman
of the powerful Defense Policy Board;
* Randy Scheunemann, President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq,
who was Trent Lott's national security aide and who served as an advisor to
Rumsfeld on Iraq in 2001;
* Bruce Jackson, Chairman of PNAC, a position he took after serving for years
as vice president of weapons manufacturer Lockheed-Martin, and who also
headed the Republican Party Platform subcommittee for National Security and Foreign
Policy during the 2000 campaign. His section of the 2000 GOP Platform
explicitly called for the removal of Saddam Hussein;
* William Kristol, noted conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, a
magazine owned along with the Fox News Network by conservative media mogul Ruppert
Murdoch.
The Project for the New American Century seeks to establish what they
call 'Pax Americana' across the globe. Essentially, their goal is to transform
America, the sole remaining superpower, into a planetary empire by force of
arms. A report released by PNAC in September of 2000 entitled 'Rebuilding
America's Defenses' codifies this plan, which requires a massive increase in defense
spending and the fighting of several major theater wars in order to establish
American dominance. The first has been achieved in Bush's new budget plan,
which calls for the exact dollar amount to be spent on defense that was requested
by PNAC in 2000. Arrangements are underway for the fighting of the wars.
The men from PNAC are in a perfect position to see their foreign policy
schemes, hatched in 1997, brought into reality. They control the White House, the
Pentagon and Defense Department, by way of this the armed forces and
intelligence communities, and have at their feet a Republican-dominatedCongress that
will rubber-stamp virtually everything on their wish list. The first step
towards the establishment of this Pax Americana is, and has always been, the removal
of Saddam
Hussein and the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq. The
purpose of this is threefold:
(1) To acquire control of the oilheads so as to fund the entire enterprise;
(2) To fire a warning shot across the bows of every leader in the Middle East;
(3) To establish in Iraq a military staging area for the eventual invasion
and overthrow of several Middle Eastern regimes, including some that are allies
of the United States. Another PNAC signatory, author Norman Podhoretz,
quantified this aspect of the grand plan in the September 2002 issue of his journal,
'Commentary'. In it, Podhoretz notes that the regimes, "that richly deserve
to be overthrown and replaced, are not confined to the three singled-out
members of the axis of evil. At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria and
Lebanon and Libya, as well as 'friends' of America like the Saudi royal family and
Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority, whether headed by
Arafat or one of his henchmen."
At bottom, for Podhoretz, this action is about "the long-overdue internal
reform and modernization of Islam." This casts Bush's speech to AEI on
Wednesday in a completely different light. Weapons of mass destruction are a
smokescreen. Paeans to the idea of Iraqi liberation and democratization are cynical
in their inception. At the end of the day, this is not even about oil. The
drive behind this war is ideological in nature, a crusade to 'reform' the
religion of Islam as it exists in both government and society within the Middle
East. Once this is accomplished, the road to empire will be open, ten lanes wide
and steppin' out over the line. At the end of the day, however, ideology is
only good for bull sessions in the board room and the bar.
Something has to grease the skids, to make the whole thing worthwhile to
those involved, and entice those outside the loop to get into the game. Thus,
the payout. It is well known by now that Dick Cheney, before becoming Vice
President, served as chairman and chief executive of the Dallas-based petroleum
corporation Halliburton. During his tenure, according to oil industry executives
and United Nations records, Halliburton did a brisk $73 million in business
with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. While working face-to-face with Hussein, Cheney and
Halliburton were also moving into position to capitalize upon Hussein's
removal from power.
In October of 1995, the same month Cheney was made CEO of Halliburton,
that company announced a deal that would put it first in line should war break
out in Iraq. Their job: To take control of burning oil wells, put out the
fires, and prepare them for service. Another corporation that stands to do well by
a war in Iraq is Brown &Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Ostensibly, Brown &
Root is in the construction business, and thus has won a share of the $900
million government contract for the rebuilding of post-war Iraqi bridges, roads
and other basic infrastructure.
This is but the tip of the financial iceberg, as the oil wells will also
have to be repaired after parent-company Halliburton puts out the fires. More
ominously is Brown &Root's stock in trade: the building of permanent American
military bases. There are twelve permanent U.S. bases in Kosovo today, all built
and maintained by Brown &Root for a multi-billion dollar profit. If anyone
should wonder why the administration has not offered an exit strategy to the
Iraq war plans, the presence of Brown &Root should answer them succinctly. We do
not plan on exiting. In all likelihood, Brown & Root is in Iraq to build
permanent bases there, from which attacks upon other Middle Eastern nations can be
staged and managed. Again, this casts Bush's speech on Wednesday in a new
light.
Being at the center of the action is nothing new for Halliburton and Brown &
Root. The two companies have worked closely with governments in Algeria,
Angola, Bosnia, Burma, Croatia, Haiti, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Somalia during the
worst chapters in those nation's histories. Many environmental and human rights
groups claim that Cheney, Halliburton and Brown & Root were, in fact,
centrally involved in these fiascos. More recently, Brown & Root was contracted by the
Defense Department to build cells for detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The
bill for that one project came to $300 million.
Cheney became involved with PNAC officially in 1997, while still
profiting from deals between Halliburton and Hussein. One year later, Cheney and PNAC
began actively and publicly agitating for war on Iraq. They have not stopped
to this very day. Another company with a vested interest in both war on Iraq
and massively increased defense spending is the Carlyle Group. Carlyle, a
private global investment firm with more than $12.5 billion in capital under
management, was formed in 1987. Its interests are spread across 164 companies,
including telecommunications firms and defense contractors.
It is staffed at the highest levels by former members of the Reagan and Bush
Sr. administrations. Former President George H. W. Bush is himself employed
by Carlyle as a senior advisor, as is long-time Bush family advisor and former
Secretary of State James Baker III. One company acquired by Carlyle is United
Defense, a weapons manufacturer based in Arlington, VA. United Defense
provides the Defense Department with combat vehicle systems, fire support, combat
support vehicle systems, weapons delivery systems, amphibious assault vehicles,
combat support services and naval armaments.
Specifically, United Defense manufactures the Bradley Fighting Vehicle,
the M113 armored personnel carrier, the M88A2 Recovery Vehicle, the Grizzly,
the M9 ACE, the Composite Armored Vehicle, the M6 Linebacker, the M7 BFIST, the
Armored Gun System, the M4 Command and Control Vehicle, the Battle Command
Vehicle, the Paladin, the Crusader, and Electric Gun/Pulse Power weapons
technology. In other words, everything a growing Defense Department, a war in Iraq,
and a burgeoning American military empire needs. Ironically, one group that
won't profit from Carlyle's involvement in American military buildup is the
family of Osama bin Laden.
The bin Laden family fortune was amassed by Mohammed bin Laden, father of
Osama, who built a multi-billion dollar construction empire through contracts
with the Saudi government. The Saudi BinLaden Group, as this company is called,
was heavily invested in Carlyle for years. Specifically, they were invested in
Carlyle's Partners II Fund, which includes in that portfolio United Defense
and other weapons manufacturers. This relationship was described in a September
27, 2001 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled 'Bin Laden Family Could
Profit From Jump in Defense Spending Due toTies to US Bank.' The 'bank' in
question was the Carlyle Group. A follow-up article published by the Journal on
September 28 entitled ' Bin Laden Family Has Intricate Ties With Washington -
Saudi Clan Has Had Access To Influential Republicans ' further describes the
relationship. In October of 2001, Saudi BinLaden and Carlyle severed their
relationship by mutual agreement. The timing is auspicious.
There are a number of depths to be plumbed in all of this. The Bush
administration has claimed allalong that this war with Iraq is about Saddam Hussein's
connections to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, though through it all
they have roundly failed to establish any basis for either accusation. On
Wednesday, Bush went further to claim that the war is about liberating the Iraqi
people and bringing democracy to the Middle East. This ignores cultural
realities on the ground in Iraq and throughout the region that, salted with decades
of deep mistrust for American motives, make such a democracy movement brought
at the point of the sword utterly impossible to achieve. This movement,
cloaked in democracy, is in fact a PNAC-inspired push for an American global
empire. It behooves Americans to understand that there is a great difference between
being the citizen of a constitutional democracy and being a citizen of an
empire.
The establishment of an empire requires some significant sacrifices.
Essential social, medical, educational and retirement services will have to be
gutted so that those funds can be directed towards a necessary military
buildup.Actions taken abroad to establish the preeminence of American power, most
specifically in the Middle East, will bring a torrent of terrorist attacks to the
home front. Such attacks will bring about the final suspension of
constitutional rights and the rule of habeas corpus, as we will find ourselves under
martial law. In the end, however, this may be inevitable. An empire cannot function
with the slow, cumbersome machine of a constitutional democracy on its back.
Empires must be ruled with speed and ruthlessness, in a manner utterly
antithetical to the way in which America has been governed for 227 years.
And yes, of course, a great many people will die. It would be one thing if
all of this was based purely on the ideology of our leaders. It is another
thing altogether to consider the incredible profit motive behind it all. The
President, his father, the Vice President, a whole host of powerful government
officials, along with stockholders and executives from Halliburton and Carlyle,
stand to make a mint off this war. Long-time corporate sponsors from the
defense, construction and petroleum industries will likewise profit enormously.
Critics of the Bush administration like to bandy about the word "fascist" when
speaking of George. The image that word conjures is of Nazi stormtroopers
marching in unison towards Hitler's Final Solution.
This does not at all fit. It is better, in this matter, to view the Bush
administration through the eyes of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini, dubbed 'the father
of Fascism,' defined the word in a far more pertinent fashion. "Fascism,"
said Mussolini, "should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the
merger of state and corporate power." Boycott the French, the Germans, and the
other 114 nations who stand against this Iraq war all you wish. France and
Germany do not oppose Bush because they are cowards, or because they enjoy the
existence of Saddam Hussein. France and Germany stand against the Bush
administration because they intend to stop this Pax Americana in its tracks if they can.
They have seen militant fascism up close and personal before, and wish never
to see it again. Would that we Americans could be so wise.
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Randy Pullen, chairman of Yes on Proposition 200, said, "Thank you, God," for the bribe scandal at the Motor Vehicle Division. He says it helps make his case. ...
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