CHENEY, RUMSFELD, WOLFOWITZ AND PERLE AT THE HEART OF THIS AGENDA

"Democratic presidential aspirant Dennis Kucinich is calling on Vice President Dick Cheney to explain his role in how the now-disavowed claim that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa ended up in President Bush's State of the Union address.... In a letter sent to the vice president, the Ohio congressman and two members of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations asked Cheney to explain his multiple visits to CIA headquarters.... Kucinich and Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., posed 10 questions that they want the vice president to answer, such as: 'Did you or a member of your staff at any time direct or encourage CIA analysts to disseminate unreliable intelligence?'..."
Kucinich Challenges Cheney in Iraq Flap
Associated Press, 22 July 2003

"Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war. He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear programme be included in George Bush's State of the Union address - overriding the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet...."
Cheney under pressure to quit over false war evidence
Independent, 16 July 2003

".... Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spooks, issued an open letter to President Bush yesterday reflecting the view of many in the intel community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Mr. Cheney's resignation."
16 Words, and Counting
      New York Times, 15 July 2003

"With demands for a full-scale investigation of the manipulation of intelligence by the administration of Pres. George W. Bush mounting steadily, it appears increasingly clear that key officials and their allies outside the administration intended to use the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a pretext for going to war against Iraq within hours of the attacks themselves. Within the administration, the principals appear to have included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, and his national security adviser, I. Lewis Libby, among others in key posts in the National Security Council and the State Department. Outside the administration, key figures included close friends of both Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, including Richard Perle, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief James Woolsey -- both members of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB); Frank Gaffney, head of the arms-industry-funded Center for Security Policy; and William Kristol, editor of Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), among others... A close examination of the public record indicates that all of these individuals -- both in and outside the administration -- were actively preparing the ground within days, even hours, after the 9/11 attacks, for an eventual attack on Iraq, whether or not it had any role in the attacks or any connection to al Qaeda. The challenge, in their view, was to persuade the public that such links either did indeed exist or were sufficiently likely to exist that a preventive strike against Iraq was warranted. Their success in that respect was stunning, although, in order to pull it off, they also had to distort and exaggerate the evidence being collected by U.S. intelligence agencies. Cheney, according to published accounts, had already confided to friends even before Sep. 11 that he hoped the Bush administration would remove Hussein from power. But the evidence about Rumsfeld is even more dramatic. According to an account by veteran CBS newsman David Martin last September, Rumsfeld was 'telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks' five hours after an American Airlines jet slammed into the Pentagon. Martin attributed his account in part to notes that had been taken at the time by a Rumsfeld aide. They quote the defense chief asking for the 'best info fast' to 'judge whether good enough to hit SH (Saddam Hussein) at the same time, not only UBL (Usama bin Laden). The administration should'go massive...sweep it all up, things related and not', the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. Wolfowitz shared those views, according to an account of the meeting Sep. 15-16 of the administration's war council at Camp David provided by the Washington Post's Bill Woodward and Dan Balz. In the ”I-was-there” style for which Woodward, whose access to powerful officials since his investigative role in the Watergate scandal almost 30 years ago is unmatched, is famous: 'Wolfowitz argued (at the meeting) that the real source of all the trouble and terrorism was probably Hussein. The terrorist attacks of Sept 11 created an opportunity to strike. Now, Rumsfeld asked again: 'Is this the time to attack Iraq?' "
Key Officials Used 9/11 As Pretext for Iraq War
Inter Press Service, 16 July 2003
Manilla Times, 18 July 2003

"According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.  The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight....In the days after September 11, Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully....The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House.... The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a 'product', a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy."
The spies who pushed for war
Guardian 17 July

"Among the most vocal proponents of publicizing the alleged Niger connection, two senior officials said, were Cheney and officials in the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The effort was led by Robert G. Joseph, the top National Security Council staff official on nuclear proliferation, the officials said. Cheney alleged in an Aug. 26, 2002, speech that Saddam 'has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,' and this March 16 he went much further, saying: 'We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'..."
White House was warned of dubious intelligence, official says
Miami Herald, 13 June 2003

"Where else did the U.S. stretch evidence to generate public support for the war? If so many doubted the uranium allegations, who inside the government kept putting those allegations on the table?... When it got to Washington, the Iraq-Niger uranium report caught the eye of someone important: Vice President Dick Cheney...."
A Question of Trust
TIME, 13 July 2003

"..'We know he has been absolutely trying to acquire nuclear weapons and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons,' [on 16 March Vice President] Cheney told NBC's 'Meet the Press.' U.S. intelligence officials said they have no evidence Iraq reconstituted its nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War as Cheney suggested..."
Questions surround WMD hunt
CNN 18 June, 2003

"If intelligence information was manipulated by the Bush administration in an apparent attempt to strengthen the argument for war, which members of the administration were involved in the manipulation? Wilson's statements suggest that a good place for the Senate to start looking for answers is in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney."
Was war based on a lie? Ask Cheney
Madison Capital Times 10 July 2003

"They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn't left in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney's office....Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson publicly revealed over the weekend that he was the mysterious envoy whom the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, sent to Niger to investigate a document - now known to be a crude forgery - that allegedly showed Iraq was trying to acquire enriched uranium that might be used to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson found no basis for the story, and nobody else has either... In order to believe that our president was not lying to us, we must believe that this information did not find its way through Cheney's office to the Oval Office."
A Diplomat's Undiplomatic Truth: They Lied
The Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2003

"Piecing the story together from two people directly involved and three others who were briefed on it, the tale begins at the end of 2001, when third-rate forged documents turned up in West Africa purporting to show the sale by Niger to Iraq of tons of 'yellowcake' uranium. Italy's intelligence service obtained the documents and shared them with British spooks, who passed them on to Washington. Mr. Cheney's office got wind of this and asked the C.I.A. to investigate.....Officials now claim that the C.I.A. inexplicably did not report back to the White House with this envoy's findings and reasoning, or with an assessment of its own that the information was false. I hear something different. My understanding is that while Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet may not have told Mr. Bush that the Niger documents were forged, lower C.I.A. officials did tell both the vice president's office and National Security Council staff members. "
White House in Denial
New York Times, 13 June 2003

"Now 'senior administration officials' are telling gullible reporters that Cheney was never informed of the outcome of the investigation he ordered. I'm not making this up."
Former CIA officer, Ray McGovern
Deceived into War
Counterpunch ,12 June 2003

"In recent weeks, administration officials have begun spreading the word that Cheney was never told the Iraq-Niger story was based on a forgery.  I asked a senior official who recently served at the National Security Council if he thought that was possible. He pointed out that rigorous NSC procedures call for a very specific response to all vice presidential questions and added that 'the fact that Cheney's office had originally asked that the Iraq-Niger report be checked out makes it inconceivable that his office would not have been informed of the results.' Did the president himself know that the information used to secure congressional approval for war was based on a forgery? We don't know. But which would be worse - that he knew or that he didn't?"
Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual
Hartford Courant, 27 June 2003

"A captured Al Qaida document reveals that US energy companies were secretly negotiating with the Taliban to build a pipeline. The document was obtained by the FBI but was not allowed to be shared with other agencies in order to protect Enron.  Multiple sources confirm that American law enforcement agencies were deliberately kept in the dark and systematically prevented from connecting the dots before 9/11 in order to aid Enron’s secret and immoral Taliban negotiations.... in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. [Former Federal Prosecutor John Loftus] has confirmed that it was O’Neil who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa... The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse. "
What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
John Loftus,  Press Release, 31 May 2002

Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron? -  'Fight Smart'  8 March 2002

"A federal appeals court dealt a setback to the Bush administration Tuesday, refusing to stop a lawsuit delving into Vice President Dick Cheney's contacts with the energy industry as his task force was drafting the White House's energy policy.In a 2-1 ruling, the court rejected the government's arguments that the lawsuit would be an unconstitutional intrusion on the operations of the executive office of the president.... The groups that are suing -- Sierra Club and the conservative Judicial Watch -- allege that participants from industry effectively became members of the task force in assembling the White House's energy policy. The administration says the makeup of the task force was limited to government officials."
Court Allows Suit on Cheney's Energy Panel
New York Times, 8 July 2003

"It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard....  We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts... We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. "
PNAC letter to President Clinton, 1998
Signed by Donald Rumsfeld and others associated with the subsequent Bush Administration

"The New York Times, recently buffeted by a news fabrication scandal and a management shake-up, has been particularly cautious about reporting the larger story of the politicization of intelligence and the role of Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld".
The press gives Bush a free ride on his lies
Boston Globe, 16 July 2003

"[Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty handed."
Time Magazine, Europe Edition, 13 May 2002

"Mr Rumsfeld, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that the US-led coalition 'did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass murder'. Rather, he said, the United States acted because the Administration saw 'existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on September 11'. "
Rumsfeld admits evidence for war was not new
London Times, 10 July 2003

So Instead They Had To Go For The Weapons Of Mass Destruction Line
Largely Based On Information Collected Over 10 Years Ago

"The Bush administration focused on alleged weapons of mass destruction as the primary justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force because it was politically convenient, a top-level official at the Pentagon has acknowledged.  The extraordinary admission comes in an interview with Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, in the July issue of the magazine Vanity Fair. ...'For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,' Mr Wolfowitz tells the magazine. The comments suggest that, even for the US administration, the logic that was presented for going to war may have been an empty shell. They come to light, moreover, just two days after Mr Wolfowitz's immediate boss, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, conceded for the first time that the arms might never be found.... The magazine article reveals that Mr Wolfowitz was even pushing Mr Bush to attack Iraq immediately after the 11 September attacks in the US, instead of invading Afghanistan. There have long been suspicions that Mr Wolfowitz has essentially been running a shadow administration out of his Pentagon office, ensuring that the right-wing views of himself and his followers find their way into the practice of American foreign policy. He is best known as the author of the policy of first-strike pre-emption in world affairs that was adopted by Mr Bush shortly after the al-Qa'ida attacks."
WMD Just a Convenient Excuse for War, Admits Wolfowitz
Independent, 30 May 2003

'Selective Intelligence' - Office of Special Plans - New Yorker, 5 May 2003

"According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.  The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight....In the days after September 11, Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully....The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House.... The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a 'product', a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy."
The spies who pushed for war
Guardian 17 July

"President Bush, asked about the Niger issue at a news conference during his visit to South Africa, did not answer directly but said that he was 'certain that Saddam Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction programme'. Like Mr Blair, he has dropped the assertion that Iraq actually had weapons. Both now say that it had a 'programme.' "
Did Iraq try to get African uranium?
BBC Online 9 July

"There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential people are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious....  even people who aren't partisan Republicans shy away from confronting the administration's dishonest case for war, because they don't want to face the implications."
Denial and Deception
New York Times, 24 June 2003

  NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@btinternet.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex