How Bush NeoCons Started a War

March 11, 2004

Bush and his staff started planning a war with Iraq right after the inauguration in January 2001. At that time, the Administration relationship with the intelligence community changed for the worst. Now, the basis for the relationship would be policy and action without through review of the facts.  

Simultaneously a team of neocons headed by the vice president operated to collect information only favorable to the goal of war with Iraq because it wouldn’t be prudent to allow facts to get in the way.

Nothing negative about the pending war was tolerated. Employees in the intelligence community who voiced or wrote contrary positions to the Bush Iraq War Mandate were removed or marginalized.

Instead of a coherent intelligence community, the opposite was true. Groups were divided and forced to work in isolation. Incompetent and ignorant managers were hired to continue the chaos. This divide and conquer tactic was effective.

The truth was rarely spoken before the Iraq war.

The Administration allied with people who were supportive of the war such as Ahmad Chalabi a favored Iraqi exile. He fed them lies and exaggerations about WMDs, nuclear weapons and al Qaeda links to Saddam Hussein. Worse, they knew they were lies and used them in public statements It served their purpose..

This pseudo intelligence was condensed into war justification talking points that even Bush could understand and speak about. The language was carefully crafted to be reasonable, persuasive and convincing. Never mind that many of those war  justifications were already debunked or were outright lies. Remember, war was the goal and not even the truth could stand in the way.

Accepting a lie as truth when you know it isn’t, makes you a liar. Bush was and is a liar.

The Bush neocons took the “show on the road”. They repeated the lies over and over hoping that along the way, the public would believe it and they did. They also selectively leaked information to conservative talk show hosts and columnists who then treated the information as Gospel.

Bush got his war.

Now, a year later we are suffering daily casualties with no end in sight and spending billions we don’t have. Though Iraq will eventually have a government, its stability must rely on U.S. military and our money. This will be the norm for decades and Bush and his neocons want it that way.

The real reason for the Iraq war was political and it was not motivated by actual or immediate security threats as describe by the Administration. The reason was and is to establish a permanent U.S. presence on the Middle East soil to:

Politically and militarily pressure Syria and Iran regarding nuclear and chemical weapons and their support for terrorists attacking Israel;

Provide political and military influence as regime leaders change in Saudi Arabia and Palestine;

Provide more effective support for Israel;

Control or influence OPEC and its oil by controlling Iraqi oil; and

Generally to impose a Manifest Destiny doctrine in the Middle East.

As the truth comes out and it surely will, there will be no consequences for those who started a preemptive war based on lies. The inner circle headed by Bush will be immune to punishment in this life but not the next.

Expect blame and stonewalling.

Expect their media supporters to help them avoid consequences and win elections by using “Us and them” terms such as, "Secular vs. Spiritual", and "Liberal vs. Conservative".

By doing this, the electorate is divided and politically conquered. This started in earnest about four years ago when the 2000 presidential election process began. It continues today.