The Iraq war divided the Arabs, the Europeans, the America.docx

The Iraq war divided the Arabs, the Europeans, the Americans
and caused a structural damage to Iraq’s society, state, &
infrastructure
Aljazeera
*
1981: Israel bombs Baghdad [Osirak/Tammuz] nuclear reactor
BBC, June 7, 1981
Map of the Israeli Attack
Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the raid
Source: BBC, 5 June 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5020778.stm
*
Bill Kristol, Keeping Iraq in the Cross Hairs
“Moments after the [1991] Persian Gulf War was halted, Bill
Kristol got a call from columnist Charles Krauthammer, and

both were fuming over what they saw as unfinished business.”
Source: Washington Post, March 18, 2003; Page C01
*
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”
Prepared by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced
Strategic and Political Studies' Study Group on a New Israeli
Strategy Toward 2000A report prepared in 1996 by a
neoconservative study group led by Richard Perle for Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We read in the report:….
“removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq” is “an
important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.”
Participants in the Study Group on "A New Israeli Strategy
Toward 2000:"
Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group
Leader James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security
AffairsCharles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins
University/SAISDouglas Feith, Feith and Zell AssociatesRobert
Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and
Political StudiesJonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for
Near East PolicyDavid Wurmser, Institute for Advanced
Strategic and Political StudiesMeyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins
University
*

“A free Iraq will help secure Israel”
---U.S. President George W. Bush, September 2004 (NPR,
9/30/2004)
*
“I'm going to get it right for those soldiers because it's
important to Israel”
---U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate John Kerry,
September 2004 (NPR, 9/30/2004)
*
“If you believe that the State of Israel will be more secure if the
United States fails in Iraq, you and I have a disagreement.” ---
Republican presidential candidate John McCain (JTA,
10/30/2007)

Iraq was invaded 'to protect Israel' - US officialPhilip Zelikow,
a member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board (2001—03), executive director of the 9/11 Commission,
and counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (2005-
06), told a crowd at the University of Virginia on September 10,
2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing
the impact of September 11 and the future of the war on al-
Qaeda:
“Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against
us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat [is] and actually has
been since 1990 - it's the threat against Israel… And this is the
threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't
care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the
American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it
rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”
Emad Mekay, “Iraq was invaded 'to protect Israel' - US
official,” Asia Times Online, 31 March 2004,
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FC31Aa01.html
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S.
Foreign Policy, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux I, 2007,
page 31
*
“The war was about Israel’s security”
Group* Urges Pro-Israel Leaders' Silence on Iraq;
Memo Outlines Response If Hostilities Occur, Discourages

Lecturing of Americans on Middle East” The Washington Post,
November 27, 2002:“You do not want Americans to believe that
the war on Iraq is being waged to protect Israel rather than to
protect America.”
The memo coached: "(A)s an Israeli, most certainly don't talk
about why some Arab leaders and their people dislike the
United States. Americans don't want to be told by an Israeli why
we have problems in the Middle East or why people hate us."
*the Israel Project, a group funded by American Jewish
organizations and individual donors.
*
Israeli newspaper Haaretz
5 April 2003The U.S. war in Iraq was conceived “by a small
group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish.”
*
Moran steps down from leadership post
Lawmaker under fire for saying Jews push war with Iraq
CNN, March 14, 2003.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/moran.remarks/
index.html on the World Wide Web.
CNN, March 11, 2003,
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/moran.jews/ind

ex.html
Lawmaker under fire for saying Jews support Iraq war
Moran apologizes; White House blasts comments
The War Began March 19, 2003
*
“Jews,” “Israel,” and “America”Some times the words “Jews,”
“Israel,” and “America” are interchangeable in the minds of
many people in the Arab and Muslim worlds. For example,
amidst the bloody chaos and destruction in U.S.-occupied Iraq,
Scott Pelley of CBS News’s 60 Minutes was reported going
around and asking Iraqis on the streets wondering if they had
nicknames for Americans. He found that Iraqis “call American
soldiers ‘The Jews,’ as in, ‘Don’t go down that street, the Jews
set up a roadblock’”
Source: Thomas Friedman, 2004, “Jews, Israel and America,”
The New York Times, October 24.
*
“From Israel's perspective, the longstanding strategic threat of a
massive military attack from the east led by Iraq through Jordan
no longer exists because of the [Iraq] war.”
--- Jewish Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham
H. Foxman, August 2006 (ADL, 8/1/2006)

*
Israel’s 1957 secret plan to partition Iraq
Indian journalist Rustom Khurshedji Karanjia published the
book The dagger of Israel (Bombay, Blitz Publications, 1957).
(‫ر‬. ‫ك‬. ‫ايجنارك‬، ‫رجنخ‬ ‫ليئارسإ‬، ‫حرش‬ ‫قيلعتو‬ ‫ماسب‬ ‫يلسعلا‬، ‫راد‬
. (16 ‫ص‬ ،0891 ،‫ي‬ ‫األول‬ ‫عة‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ط‬ ‫ال‬ ،‫يروت‬ ‫ب‬ ،‫يرة‬ ‫س‬ ‫م‬ ‫ال‬
In the book, Karanjia published a secret Israeli plan involving,
among other things, the partition of Iraq
*
Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Israel’s leading
newspaper Ha'aretz,
wrote on 2 June 1982:The “best” that can happen for Israeli
interests in Iraq:
“The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and
the separation of the Kurdish part” (Ha'aretz 6/2/1982).
*

Oded Yinon's “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”
Oded Yinon's article which appeared in Kivunim (Directions),
the journal of the Department of Information of the World
Zionist Organization. Oded Yinon is an Israeli journalist and
was formerly attached to the Foreign Ministry of Israel.
This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM
(Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--
Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial
Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan
Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of
Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
Published by the Association of Arab-American University
Graduates, Inc. , Belmont, Massachusetts, 1982 , Special
Document No. 1, (ISBN 0-937694-56-8),
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%
20Plan%20for%20the%20Middle%20East.pdf“The plan operates
on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an
imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the
whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing
Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian
composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is
that sectarian-based states become Israel's satellites and,
ironically, its source of moral legitimation.”--Khalil Nakhleh
“All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and
riddled with inner conflict even more than those of the
Maghreb… Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces
serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt,
Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following
that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into
ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is
Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run,

while the dissolution of the military power of those states
serves as the primary short term target…. Iraq, rich in oil on
the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a
candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more
important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria.
In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest
threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and
cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a
struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab
confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the
way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into
denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division
into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during
Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist
around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and
Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and
Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi
confrontation will deepen this polarization.”--Oded Yinon
Israel sees opportunity in possible US strike on Iraq
Israel promised support and assistance this week for a US war
against Iraq“If the Americans do not do this now,” said Israeli
Deputy Defense Minister and Labor Party member Weizman
Shiry on Wednesday, “it will be harder to do it in the future. In
a year or two, Saddam Hussein will be further along in
developing weapons of mass destruction. It is a world interest,
but especially an American interest to attack Iraq.”“And as
deputy defense minister, I can tell you that the United States
will receive any assistance it needs from Israel,” he added.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 2002,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0830/p08s01-wome.htm

*
Gelb’s Idea of Partitioning Iraq
Leslie Gelb, former editor and columnist for The Times and
president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in
The New York Times of 11/25/2003:
The United States should “move in stages toward a three-state
solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in
the south.”
Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee and candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination, picked up the idea, while The New
York Times of 19 August 2007 dubbed it “The Biden-Gelb
plan.”
*
On 27 September, the Senate passed a resolution (75-23) urging
the Bush administration to support "a political settlement
among Iraq's major factions based upon the provisions of the
Constitution of Iraq that create a federal system of government
and allow for the creation of federal regions." CNN.com
9/30/07….
Heartland Eurasian Review of Geopolitics [originally created in
China and Italy!?] apparently made and posted this map on its
website, http://temi.repubblica.it/limes-heartland/iraqs-

partition/1106
*
When asked in January 2008 to clarify whether there was any
Israeli involvement in his decision to invade Iraq, President
Bush said: “No, not at all. None whatsoever.”
Source: The White House, 1/2/2008.When asked by Nahum
Barnea and Shimon Shiffer of the Israeli newspaper Yediot
Ahronot to clarify whether there was any Israeli involvement in
his decision to invade Iraq, President George W. Bush said “No,
not at all. None whatsoever.”[1] Elsewhere in the same
interview President Bush acknowledged that “one of the things
in politics that happens often is people sometimes won't tell you
really what's on their mind.”
[1] The White House, “Interview of the President by Nahum
Barnea and Shimon Shiffer of Yediot Ahronot,” Oval Office, 2
January 2008,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080104-
9.html
Tariq Aziz [was a member of the Revolutionary Command
Council, a leader of the Ba'ath party, deputy prime minister,
foreign minister]: 'Britain and the US killed Iraq. I wish I was
martyred':
.... "Bush and Blair lied intentionally. They were both pro-
Zionist. They wanted to destroy Iraq for the sake of Israel, not
for the sake of the US and Britain."....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/05/iraq-us-tariq-
aziz-iran

At a moment when almost all countries around the world were
offering sincere sympathy and support to the United States after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush addressed the world in
these terms:“Every nation, in every region, now has a decision
to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2001-09/a-2001-09-
21-14-Bush.cfm
Lloyd Gardner and Marilyn Young reported that President
George W. Bush said:
“I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me,
George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. An I did,
and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in
Iraq.”
Lloyd Gardner and Marilyn Young, “Introduction,” in Lloyd
Gardner and Marilyn Young, eds. Iraq and the Lessons of
Vietnam, Or How Not to Learn from the Past, New York: The
new Press, 2007, pp. 1-15, page 12.
March 19, 2008: President Bush spoke at the Pentagon to mark
the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom:
“The battle in Iraq is noble, necessary, and just.”
The White House, 3/19/2008
March 19, 2008: President Bush spoke at the Pentagon to mark

the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom:
“The battle in Iraq is noble, necessary, and just.”
“Defeating the enemy in Iraq will make it less likely we will
face this enemy here at home.”
“Because we acted against Saddam Hussein, the world is better
and America is safer.”
“The ‘Surge’ Strategy Has Produced Dramatic Results In Iraq”
“The Stakes In Iraq Are Great”
“Political Progress Is Taking Place In Iraq” [10/2005: new
constitution; 12/2005: election under new constitution]
The White House, 3/19/2008
President George W. Bush speaks to members of the Regimental
Combat Team-2, Marine Wing Support Combat Patrol at Al
Asad Airbase, Al Anbar Province, Iraq, Monday, September 3,
2007. White House photo by Eric Draper, The White House,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/images/2007
0903-1_d-0318-4-515h.html
Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy
and Public Affairs , said she was tired of seeing the president
presented as a “caricature.”
The New York Times, 10/31/2007
President Bush told the AEI neoconservatives: “You are some
of the best brains in our country and my government employs
about 20 of you.” …"Employs" is too weak a verb,” wrote
James Atlas.
The New York Times, May 4, 2003
Israel
USA
Al-Majalla , 4/21/2001, http://www.al-majalla.com/ar/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations

*
America
Palestine
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Libya
Lebanon
Syria
Sudan
Iran
Islam
Etcetera
Etcetera
Israel
Adapted from Work by Ian Antonio, http://www.creative-
holidays-spain.com/painting.html
Bullfighting toreador
“I know what America is.. America is a thing you can move
very easily, move it in the right direction.”--Benjamin
Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present,
“Fibi Netanyahu, In 2001, PM boasted of manipulating Oslo
accords,” Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life,
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/39692/fibi-netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-
present, when asked what 9/11 would mean for American-Israeli
relations, responded: "It's very good." Realizing his maladroit
gaffe, he then added: "Well, it's not good, but it will generate
immediate sympathy" for Israel from the United States:

http://www.counterpunch.org/sugg10252005.html
“The U.S. can no longer afford $725 billion each year for
defense, much of it borrowed. Given the poor return on our
investment, it’s clear we need another strategy, one free of
Zionist goals that advance behind serial conflicts and the debt
incurred to fund them. We know what to do. What’s required is
the leadership to do it.” Jeff Gates, 12/29/2010,
http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/a-commonsense-solar-defense/
“Israel has f----- up United States foreign policy for years"---
filmmaker Oliver Stone, The Jewish Chronicle,
http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/36169/oliver-stone-
jews-dominate-media
It’s the case of
‘a minnow swallowing a whale’
‘the tail wagging the dog’
"only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or
maintained"--US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, 1943
*
Islamic world
Israel
USA
alabonline, http://www.alarab.co.uk/
President Bush Middle East Tour
The Israelis
The Americans

The Arabs
Millions Worldwide Protest Iraq War
LONDON, Feb.15 -- Several million demonstrators took to the
streets of Europe and the rest of the world today in a vast wave
of protest against the prospect of a U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Washington Post
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Madrid, Spain
Berlin, Germany
Istanbul, Turkey
Prague, Czech Rep.
Sydney, Australia

Seoul, South Korea
London, United Kingdom
Rome, Italy
New York, USA
Population: 28.9 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Arab 75%-80%, Kurdish 15%-20%, Turkoman,
Assyrian, or other 5%
Religions: Muslim 97% (Shi'a 60%-65%, Sunni 32%-37%),
Christian or other 3%
Languages: Arabic, Kurdish (official in Kurdish regions),
Turkoman (a Turkish dialect), Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic),
Armenian
Iraq's oil sector provides over 90% of government revenue and
foreign exchange earnings
GDP per capita (PPP): $3,600 (US GDP per capita: $46,400
(2009 est.)

Border countries: Iran 1,458 km, Jordan 181 km, Kuwait 240
km, Saudi Arabia 814 km, Syria 605 km, Turkey 352 km
Source: CIA
Geography
of Iraq
*
John E. Peters and Howard Deshong, Out of Area or Out of
Reach: European Military Support for Operations in Southwest
Asia, National Defense Research Institute, Prepared for the
Office of the Secretary of Defense, RAND, 1995, pages 23-24,
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR629.pdf
U.S.-Led Coalition Air and Ground Forces Deployed Against
Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War
In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003
Iraq did not even control its airspace, shorelines, or a third of
its territory.
Iraq was still recovering from:
The Iran-Iraq war 1980-88
The Gulf war of 1991
The no-fly zone war 1991-03
CIA Covert Operations 1995-96
UN/US Sanctions 1990-2003 (Sanctions killed some 1.7 million
Iraqis between 1990-2000, WRMA 12/31/00)
Depleted uranium 1991– presentSome have said that the DU
used in Iraq makes the Agent Orange used in Vietnam look like
“orange juice.”

DoD, http://www.defendamerica.mil/iraq/iraq_nofly.html
Professor Doug Rokke, the US army physicist in charge of
cleaning up depleted uranium in Kuwait told film maker John
Pilger (The Secret War on Iraq, 12/20/2002):
“I am like most people in southern Iraq. I have 5,000 times the
recommended level of radiation in my body.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-8PlJVhogs
*
Basic geography of Iraq
The “what” of the war
The “why” of the war
What shall be done?
Source: CIA
Geography of the Iraq War
*
“The conventional wisdom about Nixon-Kissinger relationship
was that they worked as equals, or even that Kissinger was the
teacher and Nixon the student” p. 135
“When I returned to government service in 2001, I invited
Henry [Kissinger] to join the Defense Policy Board. He was
routinely involved in advising me on national security issues. I
also arranged for him to be able to meet regularly and privately
with President Bush” p. 206
“Fifteen days after 9/11, the President asked me to join him in
the Oval Office alone… He asked that I take a look at the shape

of our military plans on Iraq… ‘Dick told me about your son’,
he [Bush] said… What happened to [my son] Nick [who suffers
from drug addiction]—coupled with the [9/11] wounds to our
country and the Pentagon—all started to hit me. At that
moment, I couldn’t speak… I had not imagined I might choke
up in a meeting with the President of the United States” p. 425-
426
"I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down as one of the worst
secretaries of defence in history”—Senator John McCain,
Sentinel, 2011
In the book My Year in Iraq (Simon & Schuster, 2006),
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III wrote, “Among my own
assignments during almost three decades and as an American
diplomat, I’d been Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s chief of
staff and ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism under
President Ronald Reagan, jobs that had taken me to almost
every capital in the region. Every one but Baghdad.” Page 4
2006
As the senior American in Baghdad, I would be President
George W. Bush’s personal envoy. My chain of command ran
through Secretary of of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and straight
to the president. I would be the only paramount authority
figure—other than dictator Saddam--Iraqis had ever known.
Page 4
2006

Like Adolf Hitler, Saddam was convinced destiny had chosen
him for greatness… On May 9 [2003], my last day of
preparation at the Pentagon, Don Rumsfeld had given me my
marching orders in a memo… Undersecretary Douglas Feith had
shown me a draft order for the ‘De-Baathification of Iraqi
Society.’ He had underscored the political importance of the
decree. ‘We’ve got to show all the Iraqis that we’re serious
about building a New Iraq. Page 39
2006
In early May [2003], before we left for Iraq, [Senior Advisor for
defense and security affairs, Walt] Slocombe had began
discussions with top Pentagon officials, including Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, about the policy
implications of Saddam’s army having melted away. Page 54
2006
On May 9, 2003, the day before our departure, I sent a memo to
Secretary Rumsfeld, copied to Wolfowitz, DOD’s policy office
and the General Counsel, summarizing these discussions and the
tentative conclusion that we should formally dissolve Saddam’s
army as well the security and intelligence services as a prelude
to establishing Iraq’s new security services … and because we
have to take into account the ethnic make-up and the history of
the country, assembling a New Iraqi Army (NIA) would not be
easy. Page 54
2006
The “exiles” comprised the small Iraqi Leadership Council
(ILC) who had been selected during a conference of several

hundred Iraqis in London in December 2002, which in turn had
been a product of the Iraqi Liberation Act that President Bill
Clinton had signed into law in 1998. This law made it U.S.
policy to support efforts to “… remove the regime headed by
Saddam Hussein.” Page 42….
On Friday [May 16, 2003] afternoon, we were expecting seven
Iraqi representatives to meet us in the palace conference room
where I held staff meeting. The group, whom we had come to
refer to as the G-7, included:
Ahmad Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress,a ShiiteAyad
Allawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord, also a secular
Shiite, was Chalabi’s chief rivalThe two Kurds were Massoud
Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, and his
sometime ally and sometime rival, Jalal Talabani of the
Patriotic Union of KurdistanThe ILC also included Naseer
Chaderchi, a respected seventy-year-old Sunni lawyer, who led
the small, secular National PartyThe other Shiite Islamist party,
the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI),
was represented by Dr. Adel Mahdi and Hamid al-Bayati,
reportedly because the party’s most senior leader in Baghdad,
Abdul Aziz Hakim, was ill. I suspected Hakim’s illness might
be “diplomatic,” since he was known to be distrustful of the
Coalition’s motives. Page 46
2006
On May 19, I sent a memo to Secretary Rumsfeld detailing our
recommendations for the dissolution of the Iraqi Defense
Ministry and its ‘related entities.’… At the Pentagon on May 22
[2003], Feith carefully reviewed our draft order, which would
formally abolish Saddam’s security and intelligence services.
He asked us to clarify some of the wording, which we did to his
full satisfaction…. Later that day, when Rumsfeld authorized
me to proceed, I informed the president of the plan in a video

teleconference. On Friday, May 23, 2003, I signed CPA Order
No. 2, “Dissolution of Entities” Page 57
2006
It was after 11:00 P.M. when Brian McCormack and I got into
my armored SUV for the run back to the Green Zone. Our
convoy, as usual, consisted of two “up-armored” Humvees
sheathed in tan slabs of hardened steel, a lead-armored
Suburban, our Suburban, another armored Suburban following,
and two more Humvees. Overhead, we had a pair of buzzing
Bell helicopters with two Blackwater snipers each. Page 245
Simon & Schuster, 2006
For the last time, and again in the sweltering heat of Baghdad
summer, I took off from the Green Zone for the twenty-minute
flight to Baghdad Airport. The Chinooks landed behind several
camouflaged C-130s, one of which was designated to fly me out
of Iraq….After a ninety-minute flight, we landed at the military
airport in Amman, Jordan. I called Francie, who by now had
seen news reports of the early transfer of sovereignty. “I’m safe
and free,” I said. “And I’m coming home.” Pages 394 and 396
I suppose the best place is to begin at the beginning and to
thank my wonderful agent, Marvin Josephson. It was he, on a
visit to Baghdad, who first suggested that I write this book. So
readers disappointed that I have followed his advice should take
their grievance to Marvin. To me, however, Marvin was gift. I
thank him for his help identifying a publisher and willingness to
give sound advice on the book as the writing proceeded. And I

am further indebted to him for suggesting that I engage
Malcolm McConnell as my collaborator on the project. Page 399
Some media treat March 19, 2003 as the beginning of the war,
but the conflict for ordinary Iraqis never ended in March 1991
following Iraq's defeat and exit from Kuwait. They [the Iraqis]
would endure 12 years of punitive sanctions which the UN
estimates killed nearly 1.7 million Iraqis.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C83F02-A0D6-4624-
8BD2-106439605C04.htm
Smoke rises from explosions during the first few minutes of a
massive air attack on March 20, 2003 in Baghdad [GETTY]
“War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend,
providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous
heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public. The
Pentagon recognises the power of these celluloid dreams and
encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history
to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a
steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars....'Give a
nineteen-year-old kid an automatic weapon, and it takes him
four days to become God’” -- Watch “Hollywood and the war
machine” at
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/empire/2010/12/201012
1681345363793.html
US Human Cost of the Iraq War
Over 4,398 dead and over 31,762 wounded in Iraq
93 dead and 722 wounded from Indiana
US dead and wounded in Iraq by state, 3/2003-3/2010
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties

http://icasualties.org/Iraq/USCasualtiesByState.aspx
No available estimates of Iraqi wounded
At the end of 12/2007, the number of Iraqi “detainees” stood at
51,133--- UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, December 2007,
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Press/UNAMIJuly-
December2007EN.pdf
Iraq’s cultural heritage (National Library and Archives,
National Museum, and other significant cultural heritage sites)
was looted
“Over 1000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the
conflict which started in 2003” ---The British Opinion Research
Business, January 2008,
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=120
See also the impact of sanctions:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C83F02-A0D6-4624-
8BD2-106439605C04.htm
4.7 million Iraqis were made refugees within the country or
across the borders---United Nations News Centre, October
2007,
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24378&Cr=Ira
q&Cr1=
Iraqi Human Cost of the War
*
Source: Iraq Body Count,
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/ and
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/individuals/page1

Documented civilian deaths from violence
95,755 – 104,460
Confusion about the numbers produced by the project can be
avoided by bearing in mind that: (1) IBC’s figures are not
‘estimates’ but a record of actual, documented deaths.; (2) IBC
records solely violent deaths; (3) IBC records solely civilian
(strictly, ‘non-combatant’) deaths.; (4) IBC’s figures are
constantly updated and revised as new data comes in, and
frequent consultation is advised.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/about/
Falluja doctors report rise in birth defects:
Doctors in the Iraqi city of Falluja are reporting a high level of
birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after
the Iraq invasion. BBC, 3/4/2010,
Financial Cost
“The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More
As we head toward November [2008], opinion polls say that
voters' main worry is now the economy, not the war. But there's
no way to disentangle the two. The United States will be paying
the price of Iraq for decades to come. The price tag will be all
the greater because we tried to ignore the laws of economics --
and the cost will grow the longer we remain”
Linda J. Bilmes, a former chief financial officer at the
Commerce Department, teaches at Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor
at Columbia University, served as chairman of the Council of
Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton. They are co-
authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the
Iraq Conflict. The Washington Post, 3/9/2008,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846_2.html
Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study
(Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an
additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans,
expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next
four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday
said. Reuter, 3/14/2013,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-
anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314
“Three trillion dollars is a lot of money. In fact, for one sixth of
that money, the US could put its entire social security system on
a sound financial basis for the next 75 years.” BBC, 2/26/2008
US House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security
Hearing on Wartime Contracting
There 280,000 contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan (80 percent
of the foreign nationals)—a ratio of 1 contractor per soldier
deployed (C-Span, 8/21/2009)
“the State Department continues to award the company,
formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in
contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in
Afghanistan, and train security forces in antiterrorism tactics at
its remote camp in North Carolina” (The New York Times,
8/21/2009)
An American flag flies in front of the United States Embassy in
Baghdad.
By TIM ARANGO, New York Times, February 7, 2012
U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by as Much as Half
“BAGHDAD — Less than two months after American troops
left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as

half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a
sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.
Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador
James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials
were reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the
staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors.
The expansive diplomatic operation and the $750 million
embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were
billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to
democracy and establish normal relations between two countries
linked by blood and mutual suspicion. But the Americans have
been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are
now largely confined to the embassy because of security
concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to
justify the $6 billion annual price tag.” New York Times,
2/7/2012
SYNOPSIS: These extraordinary times--unprecedented in
modern history--are marked by a worldwide depression and
regional wars involving all the major imperial powers. This
book exposes the roots of the crisis in the unsustainability of
the United States' military-driven empire building based on a
volatile speculative economy, and influenced by Zionist policy
makers committed to the colonialist state of Israel. It offers a
critical study of the collapse of the empire and a profound
indictment of the respectable and prestigious personalities
either responsible for the debacle, or for its continuance. Petras
provides clear insight into how the ramifications of the world
depression and regional wars that originated in Washington and
on Wall Street are extending throughout the world, provoking
popular challenges especially in Latin America, while
reinforcing the belligerency and increasingly fascistic nature of

the state of Israel. He demonstrates how unending wars and a
deepening capitalist depression have demolished the ideology of
free market neo-liberalism and forced to the forefront the need
for structural changes. He points out how the collapse of the
capitalist free market and the need for large-scale, long-term
interventions by the state have once again raised the question of
whose interests states are presently promoting, and whose
interests in actuality they should serve. Both in the United
States and Latin America, center-left regimes are proposing
economic reforms to try to save the capitalist system. However
the deepening crisis is raising the prospect of mass support for
21st Century socialism, which focuses on public investment,
ownership and control.
THE AUTHOR: James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of
Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the
author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560
articles in professional journals, including the American
Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social
Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant
Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional
journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation,
Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review,
Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and
his commentary is widely carried on the internet.
Source: The James Petras Website, 8/21/2009,
http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1785&more=1&c=1
U.S. debt overpowers National Debt ClockNEW YORK (AP) --
The National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits
to record the growing figure. As a short-term fix, the digital
dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has
been switched to a figure -- the "1" in $10 trillion. It's marking
the federal government's current debt at about $10.2 trillion.

The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next
year by adding two digits. That will make it capable of tracking
debt up to a quadrillion dollars. The late Manhattan real estate
developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989 to call
attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt. CNN, October
30, 2008,
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/09/national.debt.clock.ap/#cnn
STCText
U.S. national debt clock in Times Square, New York.
U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison
near Baghdad
U.N. expert says torture in Iraq worse than under Saddam, USA
Today, 9/21/2006
On February 7, 2002, President Bush signs an executive order
that says Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not
apply to Qaeda and Taliban captives. NYT, 12/8/07
Moral Cost
Top interrogators attended an "anti-terror" training camp in
Israel and their boss received an award from Israeli Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz—Robert Fisk, The Independent, 5/26/
2004
AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION &
RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5966/p/dia/action/public/?a
ction_KEY=2724
*
“Bush Makes Final [Sneak] Visit to Iraq

A man, apparently a journalist, threw two shoes at President
Bush during a news conference in Baghdad”---The New York
Times, December 14, 2008--
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/12/14/multimedia/1194835
546483/bush-makes-final-visit-to-iraq.html
“Hitting someone with a shoe is a strong insult in Iraq. It means
the person is as low as the dirt underneath the sole of a shoe,
and the actions of Muntader al-Zaidi, a correspondent for an
independent Iraqi television station, were condemned by Prime
Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi government and other
reporters at the news conference. Mr. Bush was unhurt and
made a joke afterward, but the shoes have overshadowed other
news coverage of the trip, including an attempt to showcase the
new security agreement.” NYT, 12/15/2008
Video: Bush Dodges Shoes on Visit to Iraq:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2008/12/14/multimedia/1194835
546483/bush-makes-final-visit-to-iraq.html
Iraqi reporter shouting: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi
people, you dog."
http://www.alarab.co.uk/index.asp?fname=20081212-
16970c1.htm&dismode=x&ts=16/12/2008%2008:07:36%20‫ص‬
No diplomacy
Biden: That SOB Saddam is rolling over in his grave Vice
President Joe Biden celebrated the 2009 Independence Day with
US troops, including his soldier son Beau, at their base near
Baghdad, giving a speech that mocked Saddam Hussein…. “We
did it in Saddam's palace and I can think of nothing better…
That SOB is rolling over in his grave right now.”
Alarabiya, 7/4/2009,
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/07/04/77806.html

Haaretz, 7/4/2009,
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097692.html
The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC)The
United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) was created
in 1991 as a subsidiary organ of the UN Security Council. Its
mandate is to process claims and pay compensation for losses
and damage suffered as a direct result of Iraq's unlawful
invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
UNCC received approximately 2.7 million claims seeking
approximately US$352.5 billion So far UNCC awarded
approximately US$52.4 billion in respect of approximately 1.55
million of these claims. So far UNCC paid a total of US$26
billion to individuals, corporations, governments and
international organizations.
http://www2.unog.ch/uncc/ataglance.htm
“Iraqi parliamentarians are demanding Israel pay billions of
dollars in reparations for a 1981 Israeli attack on an Iraqi
nuclear reactor, Baghdad's daily al-Sabbah reported Thursday
[2/12/2009]. “Iraq MPs seek reparation for 1981 Israeli attack
on nuclear reactor,” Haaretz, 2/12/2009,
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1063718.html
U.S. Occupation and Iraqi Resistance
“Marines Cast as 'Mongols' in Baghdad.”
Time,4/19/2003
Corporal Edward Chin, an ethnic Chinese from Burma, told
CNN's Paula Zahn (4/10/2003): "They wanted a flag on his
head, the American flag."
Aljazeera
Iraq ranked at the bottom of the 149 countries on the Global
Peace Index 2010, http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-

data/#/2010/iraq/IQ
Baghdad ranked at the bottom of the 221 cities of the world's
best quality of living cities in 2010,
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/food/Vancouver+Canucks+fi
gure+they+need+momentum+Game+tonight/2944199/Vienna+w
orld+best+city+live+Study/3073294/story.html?id=3073294#ixz
z0qUeKeRCl
*
98.8 percent of the inmates in American detention centers in
Iraq are Iraqis. The New York Times, 11/22/07
92.7 percent of coalition casualties in Iraq are Americans, CNN,
11/22/07
“Agreement Between the United States of America and the
Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces
from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their
Temporary Presence in Iraq”
“Signed in duplicate in Baghdad on this 17th day of November,
2008, in the English and Arabic languages, each text being
equally authentic”
“Article 4: Missions: “The Government of Iraq requests the
temporary assistance of the United States Forces for the
purposes of supporting Iraq in its efforts to maintain security
and stability in Iraq, including cooperation in the conduct of
operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, outlaw

groups, and remnants of the former regime.”
Article 12: Jurisdiction: “The United States shall have the
primary right to exercise jurisdiction over members of the
United States Forces and of the civilian component for matters
arising inside agreed facilities and areas; during duty status
outside agreed facilities and areas; and in circumstances not
covered by paragraph 1.”
Article 21: Claims: “With the exception of claims arising from
contracts, each Party shall waive the right to claim
compensation against the other Party for any damage, loss, or
destruction of property, or compensation for injuries or deaths
that could happen to members of the force or civilian
component of either Party arising out of the performance of
their official duties in Iraq.”
Article 24: Withdrawal of the United States Forces from Iraq:
“All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi
territory no later than December 31, 2011”
Article 26 Iraqi Assets: “the United States shall ensure
maximum efforts to: a. Support Iraq to obtain forgiveness of
international debt resulting from the policies of the former
regime. b. Support Iraq to achieve a comprehensive and final
resolution of outstanding reparation claims inherited from the
previous regime, including compensation requirements imposed
by the UN Security Council on Iraq.”
Article 27: Deterrence of Security Threats: (1) “In the event of
any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq that
would violate its sovereignty, political independence, or
territorial integrity, waters, airspace, its democratic system or
its elected institutions, and upon request by the Government of
Iraq, the Parties shall immediately initiate strategic
deliberations and, as may be mutually agreed, the United States
shall take appropriate measures, including diplomatic,
economic, or military measures, or any other measure, to deter
such a threat… Iraqi land, sea, and air shall not be used as a
launching or transit point for attacks against other countries.”

Source: The New York Times, 11/19/2008,
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20081119_SO
FA_FINAL_AGREED_TEXT.pdf
Dr. Dhari: Forthcoming Election is FormalityDr. Sheikh Harith
al-Dhari Secretary General of the Association of Muslim
Scholars in Iraq (HEYET) stated his suspicion over the
transparency and fairness of the elections scheduled for Iraq in
the seventh of March. Sheikh al-Dari in an interview with the
agency of Quds Press told that the results of these elections
were pre-prepared by the U.S. administration and distributed to
political allies in Iraq... He stressed that the Association of
Muslim Scholars in Iraq (HEYET) will not be part of the
forthcoming legislative elections, nor of the political process
which is under brutal occupation. Prof. Dr. Harith al-Dari
described the current political process as a way to legalize the
occupation and the confirmation of American hegemony over
Iraq saying: "We will not be a party in the electoral process and
in the political process as long as the occupation exists in Iraq.
It is a principle we abide by it and we will be at the same
position till the withdrawal of the occupation. Because realities
on the ground proved that the political process is not the right
path to the security of Iraq and its liberation. But it has been
and still the U.S. project to achieve the wishes of America and
its allies. " Sheikh Dari drew attention to the current political
process saying: “It is fully built on the quota system and the
constitution is biased and far from many communities in Iraq.
Then the so-called security pact came to mortgage Iraq to
decades and even centuries. Secretary General clarified that the
U.S. administration does not comply with provisions of the
humiliated Agreement signed by the current government at end
of 2008, as America will not withdraw from Iraqi cities during
2009 and will not withdraw from Iraq in 2011. It has also not
committed to defending Iraq's borders and sovereignty... He

pointed out that Iran is now roaming in Iraq in full view and
eyes of the world, even it occupied al Fakka oil well that is
Iraqi oil without doubt. When it is asked about America, she
said that it is an internal matter, as if Iran and Iraq are one
thing!! . . Prof. Dr. Harith al-Dari concluded his statement
saying that the "next election will be a formality and seats will
be deployed by U.S. forces to allied forces, which would extend
the security agreement. So do not count on anyone to these
elections and should not pay attention to the media in the Arab
world." AMSI, 3/6/2010,
http://www.heyetnet.org/eng/amsinews/5311-dhari-forthcoming-
election-is-formality.html
Guide to groups competing in Iraqi polls STATE OF LAW
COALITION--This alliance is led by Prime Minister Nouri
Maliki and purportedly cuts across religious and tribal lines.
IRAQI NATIONAL ALLIANCE (INA)--This mainly Shia
alliance is seen as one of the biggest rivals to the prime
minister's coalition. KURDISTAN ALL--The Kurdish coalition
is dominated by the two parties administering Iraq's northern,
semi-autonomous Kurdish region.AL-IRAQIYYA (IRAQI
NATIONAL MOVEMENT)--This alliance includes national
Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, former prime
minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia, and senior Sunni politician
Saleh al-Mutlaq. They ran on a nationalist platform. UNITY OF
IRAQ COALITION--This group brings together a range of
significant political figures, including Interior Minister Jawad
Bolani and a leader of the Sunni anti-al-Qaeda militia in al-
Anbar province, Ahmad Abu-Risha. IRAQI ACCORD
FRONT/AL-TAWAFUQ FRONT--The Iraqi Accord Front, an
alliance of parties led by Sunni politicians, participated in the
December 2005 elections but has since been weakened by splits
and defections. It includes the Speaker of parliament Ayad al-
Samarrai. TRIBAL LEADERS--Tribal leaders were courted by

major parties as it was thought they would play an important
role in the election. Some of Iraq's Sunni tribal leaders sprang
to prominence when US forces began backing local sheikhs
against al Qaeda in 2006. MINORITIES--Smaller minorities,
including Turkmen, Christians, Yazidis, Sabeans, Shabak and
others, were thought likely to ally with bigger electoral lists in
areas where they were not dominant.
BBC, 3/8/2010,
Iraq election turnout 62%, officials say Voting to elect 325-
member parliament.About 19 million eligible voters out of 28
millionAround 6,200 candidates from 86 factions
competing200,000 security personnel on duty in BaghdadKey
issues: Security, services and disqualification of alleged
Baathists
Previous votes: Jan 2005 (transitional national assembly), Oct
2005 (constitution), Dec 2005 first post-invasion parliament,
Feb 2009 (local elections)
BBC, 3/9/2010,
Iraq coalition talks 'open to all' - Iyad AllawiThe leader of the
secular alliance that narrowly won Iraq's parliamentary election
has offered to work with all parties to form a coalition
government. Iyad Allawi said his Iraqiya bloc would start by
talking with the rival State of Law alliance of Prime Minister
Nouri Maliki, which it beat by two seats. Mr Maliki has refused

to accept the result and said he would challenge the count
through the courts. Both the UN and US envoys to Iraq have
said the 7 March poll was credible. There is concern that a
challenge to the result could be lengthy and divisive,
endangering progress towards greater stability. Sectarian
violence erupted in Iraq as politicians took months to form a
government after the last parliamentary election in 2005. Police
on Saturday raised the death toll to at least 52 from twin
bombings a day earlier near a restaurant in the town of Khalis,
80km (50 miles) north of Baghdad. More than 70 people were
injured in the blasts. BBC, 3/27/2010,
Iyad Allawi has appointed a member of his bloc to begin
coalition talks
Talabani, Hill discuss political moves and talks among winning
blocsBaghdad (NINA) – President Jalal Talabani discussed on
Thursday evening, Apr. 1, with American Ambassador to Iraq,
Christopher Hill, the on going political moves and talks among
political blocs that won the election.
In the meeting, Talabani stressed, “The necessity to provide
suitable ground for joint work and constructive cooperation

toward entrenching genuine partnership in the coming
government.”
He pointed out to the efforts being exerted to activate and
expand dialogue among political forces toward consolidating
national unity.
They also discussed the Iraq-American relations on all levels.
For his part, Ambassador Hill asserted his country’s resolve to
go ahead in supporting Iraq’s political and democratic process. /
End
NINA, 4/1/2010,
http://www.ninanews.com/English/News_Details.asp?ar95_VQ=
ELLGEF
Video: The secret files:
Washington, Israel and the Gulf/ WETA, Washington. 1
videocassette (VHS) (60 min.), DS63.2.U5 S34 1992, Scheduled
to be shownDiscusses how secret agreements and documents,
since declassified, helped to shape U.S. foreign policy which
led to our involvement in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.The
video reveals that in a 1943 secret memo to President Franklin
D. Roosevelt, special envoy to the Middle East US Army Lt.
Col. Harold Hoskins, warned against the creation of a Jewish
state in Palestine: “… Not only you as President but the
American people as a whole should realize that, if the American
government decides to support the establishment of a Jewish
state in Palestine… they are committing the American people to

the use of force in that area, since only by force can a Jewish
state in Palestine be established or maintained.”
Video: Unfinished Business
An expose on the U.S. government’s overt and covert attempts
to oust Sadam Hussein from power in Iraq
By Peter Jennings, ABC News, 1997The Anti-Saddam Comic
Book: PETER JENNINGS (VO) “According to the Rendon
group's own records, which we have obtained, Rendon spent
more than $23 million in the first year of its contract alone.
Rendon organized a traveling photo exhibit of Iraqi atrocities.
He produced videos and radio skits that ridiculed Saddam
Hussein, even an anti-Saddam comic book. The mission to
eliminate the Iraqi dictator began as a covert public relations
campaign.”
The CIA considered even depicting Saddam as gay
“According to the Washington Post's security blog, some of
America's spooks believed that shooting a fake video of Saddam
cavorting with a teenage boy might destabilise his regime in the
runup to the US-led invasion in 2003. "It would look like it was
taken by a hidden camera. Very grainy, like it was a secret
videotaping of a sex session," the Washington Post quoted one
former CIA official as saying.
Nor was the Saddam sex tape the only idea floating around the
more bizarre corners of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group. Other
ploys involved interrupting Iraqi television with a false
newsflash that would announce Saddam was handing over power
to his hated and feared son Uday. The presumed idea was to
shock the Iraqi people into rising up against their leaders and
thus make the invasion a lot easier.
Perhaps thankfully, the tape and fake news broadcast were never

made and the Post reported that top CIA brass repeatedly
rejected the ideas.” The Guardian, 5/26/2010,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/26/cia-saddam-
hussein-gay-sex-smear-plot
*
Video: Paying the Price: John Pilger exposes the devastating
effect that UN sanctions have had on the children of Iraq.
2000In a hard-hitting special report, award-winning journalist
and filmmaker John Pilger investigates the effects of sanctions
on the people of Iraq and finds that ten years of extraordinary
isolation, imposed by the UN and enforced by the US and
Britain, have killed more people than the two atomic bombs
dropped on Japan.
The UN Security Council imposed the sanctions and demanded
the destruction of Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological
weapons under the supervision of a UN Special Commission
(UNSCOM). Iraq is permitted to sell a limited amount of oil in
exchange for some food and medicine.
Pilger takes the former Assistant Secretary-General of the
United Nations, Denis Halliday, back to the crippled country for
the first time since he resigned in protest over the sanctions
back in September 1998. Together, they reveal an extraordinary
portrait of life in a country with a decaying infrastructure and a
population that Pilger says is being held hostage to the
compliance of Saddam Hussein.
Pilger has brought back disturbing evidence that the "holds" on
humanitarian supplies have paralyzed the country and
devastated millions of people, many dying from curable
diseases because life saving drugs are only available
intermittently. He also finds that the breakdown of the clean

water system and health facilities are having a tragic effect on
young children, contributing to an alarming rise in their
mortality rate.
Pilger also exposes the suffering caused to the civilian
population by the illegal bombing campaign being conducted by
US and Britain in the "no-fly zones" in northern and southern
Iraq.
*
Video: Hijacking catastrophe: 9/11, fear, & the selling of
American empireThis film discusses how the events of
September 11, 2001 have influenced United States politics, from
advancing a pre-existing military agenda to curtailing civil
liberties and social programs. Places the Bush administration’s
justifications for the war in the context of the struggle by neo-
conservatives to increase American power globally by means of
force. Contends that the administration has deliberately
manipulated intelligence, political imagery, and fear to garner
support for American military intervention.
Written & directed by Jeremy Earp & Sut Jhally; Produced by
Jeremy Earp; Edited by Kenyon King; Includes the full 64 min.
version, an abridged 34 min. version, and 161 min. of additional
footage, 2004.
*
Video:

Iraqi Exodus: The Iraq War and the Middle East’s Refugee
CrisisThis Wide Angle report travels to the front lines of the
staggering refugee crisis that continues to unfold in the Middle
East as Iraqis flee their war-torn hometowns to live either as
exiles in neighboring countries or dislocated within Iraq’s
borders. The situation in Syria and Jordan, where refugees cope
with their new surroundings amidst government pressure and
rising resentment from the local population, are spotlighted. In
addition, Aaron Brown speaks with regional leaders about how
the catastrophe is impacting the Middle East—and these
millions of homeless Iraqis whose hope of return grows dimmer
with each passing year. HV 640.5 .I75 I73 2008 (57
mn).http://video.pbs.org/video/1163078349/search/Iraqi%20Exo
dus/tag/Iraqi%20Exodus
Think TanksIn political strategy, a think tank is a group or an
institution or a committee of experts organized to undertake
intensive research and to give advice, especially to a
government . Because they often receive funding from private
donors, think tanks escape academic and government scrutiny
and accountability.
*
Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard
Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John Bolton,
Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, Michael Ledeen, William
Kristol, Frank Gaffney Jr. Source: The Christian Science
Monitor, June 2005“If there is an intellectual movement in
America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim,

neoconservatism is it.”Source: Forward (Volume 109,
Issue 31,583), January 6, 2006, page 12.
Key neoconservative figures
Compare/contrast the views of the neoconservatives (who
support Israel) and the conservatives (who oppose Israel)
Pat Buchanan: Hitler wasn't a threat to U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srwk5WwroXY&feature=rela
ted
CNN - David Duke vs. Blitzer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpTKbrgUz-
s&feature=related
The Neoconservative Branch of the Israel Lobby
*
The Power of Nightmares In the past our politicians offered us
dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from
nightmares.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
*
Leo Strauss Fathered the NeoconservativesEdward Rothstein
wrote:
“Could any tyrant have plotted a more patient, thorough and

ruthless path to power? Leo Strauss, the political philosopher
who died in 1973, might have seemed just a harmless German-
Jewish emigre, teaching Plato and Machiavelli at the University
of Chicago.
But according to recent critics, he was actually preparing an
intellectual putsch, which would take place 30 years after his
death and culminate in the war in Iraq. His students and
followers, these critics say, learned their lessons well and like
good soldiers began a long march through a variety of
institutions, seeking control. They maneuvered into foundations,
institutes and departments of state and war. Then they began
their shadow rule, leading the nation into foolhardy war.” …
Leo Strauss was “a believer in the use of ''noble lies'' to
manipulate the masses.” Strauss has been linked to “Paul
Wolfowitz, the former deputy secretary of defense; and Richard
Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board” [emphasis
added]…..The New York Times, 10 July 2006.
Leo Strauss: the intellectual father of the Neo-Cons/Leo-
Cons..The child of middle-class Orthodox Jews, Strauss
converted to Zionism while still in his teens... He advocated
Zionism as a kind of “honest atheism.”
The neoconservatives “carry around literary or political
magazines, not the Bible; they wear tweed jackets, not the
petrol blue suits of Southern televangelists. Most of the time,
they profess liberal ideas on social and moral questions. They
are trying neither to ban abortion nor to impose school prayer.
Their ambition lies elsewhere." By "elsewhere" is meant the
world of Washington politics and power…” President Bush told
them: “You are some of the best brains in our country and my
government employs about 20 of you.” …"Employs" is too weak
a verb,” wrote James Atlas.

Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss: The Early Writings, 1921-1932,
translated and edited by Michael Zank, State University of New
York Press, 2002, page 64.
The New York Times, May 4, 2003
“I wish to say that the founder of Zionism, Herzl, was
fundamentally a conservative man, guided in his Zionism by
conservative considerations. The moral spine of the Jews was in
danger of being broken by the so-called emancipation which in
many cases has alienated them from their heritage, and yet not
given them anything more than merely formal equality; it had
brought about a condition which has been called “external
freedom and inner servitude”… Political Zionism is problematic
for obvious reasons. But I can never forget what it achieved as a
moral force in an era of complete dissolution. It helped to stem
the tide of “progressive” leveling of venerable, ancestral
differences; it fulfilled a conservative function.” Leo Strauss’
Letter to the Editor of National Review, January 5, 1956,
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/005967.html
Neoconservative Political StrategyIn his book Breaking Ranks,
Norman Podhoretz pinpoints the focus of the neoconservative
branch of the Israel lobby: (1) “The inextricable connection
between the survival of Israel and American military strength”
(page 351), and (2) therefore supporting Israel means
supporting “the [U.S.] defense appropriations out of which aid
to Israel had to come” (page 357).
The neoconservatives reinforce the belief that America is “the
only force for good”The neoconservatives praise Theodore
Roosevelt’s "big stick" and some of Woodrow Wilson's
idealsThe neoconservatives assert inspiring myths (true or not)
that everyone could believeThe neoconservatives preach the

myths in public without necessarily having to believe it in
privateThe neoconservatives talk about universalism to cover up
their particularism
Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A political Memoir (New
York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979), pages 357 and 351. See
also Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the
Politics of Fear, A 2005 BBC film,
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
The Project for the New American Century Think
Tank“Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New
American Century is a non-profit, educational organization
whose goal is to promote American global leadership. The
Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project (501c3);
the New Citizenship Project's chairman is William Kristol and
its president is Gary Schmitt.”
Source: http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm
*
Signatories of the Letter Calling for the removal of Saddam
Hussein’s regime from power in Iraq Elliott AbramsRichard L.
Armitage William J. BennettJeffrey BergnerJohn BoltonPaula
DobrianskyFrancis FukuyamaRobert Kagan Zalmay
KhalilzadWilliam KristolRichard PerlePeter W. RodmanDonald
RumsfeldWilliam Schneider, Jr. Vin WeberPaul WolfowitzR.
James WoolseyRobert B. Zoellick

*
Neocons’ Letter to President Clinton (January 26, 1998)“We
urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new
strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our
friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim,
above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from
power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult
but necessary endeavor.”
*
Neocons’ Letter to Newt Gingrich,
Speaker of the House, and Trent Lott
Senate Majority Leader
May 29, 1998We recommended [to Clinton] a substantial
change in the direction of U.S. policy: Instead of further, futile
efforts to "contain" Saddam, we argued that the only way to
protect the United States and its allies from the threat of
weapons of mass destruction was to put in place policies that
would lead to the removal of Saddam and his regime from
power. http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm
*

President Clinton Signed The Iraq Liberation Act of October 31,
1998“This is in our interest and that of our allies within the
region” -----President Clinton
*
Neocons’ Proposal of Rebuilding America’s Defenses
September 2000The Neocons indicated that to speed up the
process of transformation they had in mind they need:
“some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl
Harbor.”
[One year later, 9/11 provided the ‘catalyzing event’ used by
the neoconservatives to ‘justify’ the Iraq war]
*
Neocons’ Letter to President Bush (September 20, 2001)….
"But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11]
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"

*
Vice President Cheney Kicked off the campaign for Iraq war on
8/26/2002
6.8/26/2002: “The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk
of action,” Cheney told a meeting of the Veterans of Foreign
Wars.
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/08/26/cheney.iraq/i
ndex.html
5. 8/16/2002: CBSNews.com reported: “Israel To U.S.: Don't
Delay Iraq Attack”
4. 8/13/2002: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon told the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the Knesset that Iraq “is the greatest
danger facing Israel.”
3. 6/8/2002, former Israeli Prime Minister Barak wrote in the
Washington Post: Bush “should, first of all, focus on Iraq and
the removal of Saddam Hussein.”
2. 5/12/2002: Israeli Foreign Minister Peres appeared on CNN
to say that “Saddam Hussein is as dangerous as bin Laden”
1. 4/14/2002: former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu came to
Washington to brief U.S Senators and the editor of the
Washington Post on the removal of Saddam. Mearsheimer &
Walt, p 234
*

Bernard Lewis:
Dick Cheney’s intellectual and political mentor on the Middle
East US Vice President Dick Cheney considers Bernard Lewis
his intellectual and political mentor on the Middle East when he
said “You simply cannot find a greater authority on Middle
Eastern history -- from classical Islamic civilization, to the
Ottoman Empire, to the modern period -- than this man [Lewis
Bernard] and his works.”… After listening to Bernard Lewis’
advice on “the history and the way forward in the Middle East”
following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney said “I decided that day that this was a
man I wanted to keep in touch with, and whose work I should
follow carefully in the years ahead. Since then we have met
often, particularly during the last four-and-a-half years, and
Bernard has always had some very good meetings with
President Bush… More than three decades ago, at the height of
a secular era, he wrote a prescient article titled The Return of
Islam. In the 1970s he studied the writings of an obscure cleric
named Khomeini, and saw the seeds of a movement that would
deliver theocratic despotism. In 1990, he wrote The Roots of
Muslim Rage, which anticipated the terrorism of that decade.
And in this new century, his wisdom is sought daily by
policymakers, diplomats, fellow academics, and the news
media.”[1]
[1] Dick Cheney, “Vice President's Remarks at the World
Affairs Council of Philadelphia Luncheon Honoring Professor
Bernard Lewis,” Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1 May 2006,The White House,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060501-
3.html

*
Bernard Lewis and the Iraq War
“When Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait in 1990,
… Almost every Middle expert in the country was invited to
Washington and was asked his comments on the situation. That
was my first meeting with high-level official Washington, and
more important, my first meeting with Dick Cheney, at that time
Secretary of Defense. We met on subsequent occasions over the
years… The general feeling was that this …could be ‘another
Vietnam’… I told them that I thought that the war, when it
came, would be ‘quick, cheap and easy.’… The prompt and
effective American response not only saved Kuwait but also
Saudi Arabia, which was threatened and whose rulers relied
entirely on American action to save them. Indeed, a quip at the
time was that the marching song of the Saudi Arabian armed
forces was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’ … I was invited to
Cheney’s home twice after 9/11 to dine with him and a small
group of staff. My task was to talk about the Middle East and
Islam and I found them a receptive audience asking excellent
questions… I was invited to meet President George W. Bush on
three occasions’—Source: Notes on a Century: Reflections of a
Middle East Historian, Bernard Lewis with Buntzie Ellis
Churchill, Viking, New York, 2012, pages 324, 326, 330, 331 .
Jacob Weisberg regards Bernard Lewis, who received the
National Humanities Medal from President Bush in 2006 and
the Irving Kristol Award from his disciples at the American
Enterprise Institute in 2007, as “the most significant intellectual
influence behind the invasion of Iraq.”[1]
[1] Jacob Weisberg, “Party of Defeat: AEI’s Weird
Celebration,” Slate, 14 March 2007, accessed 30 June 2007,

http://www.slate.com/id/2161800
*
The Iraq war is one of the noblest things this country has ever
attempted abroadThomas L. Friedman wrote in an “Editorial
Desk” of The New York Times (November 30, 2003): “this
[Iraq] war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S.
democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan… it is one
of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad and
it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our best
shot.”
Paul Wolfowitz:
“Jerusalem Post’s Man of the Year”
2003Paul Wolfowitz is “the principal author of the doctrine of
preemption, which framed the war in Iraq” [and which became
Bush Doctrine]….. he was declared the Jerusalem Post’s Man of
the Year (the Jerusalem Post emphasized that “of course the
year we are speaking of is the Jewish year”) in 2003 after U.S.
forces invaded and occupied Iraq as he advised Bush to do so at
a meeting in Camp David on September 15, 2001.
The Jerusalem Post, September 26, 2003.
*

Shadia Drury documents [father of neoconservatives] German-
Jewish émigré Leo Strauss’s understanding of the three types of
men: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar:
The wise are the lovers of the harsh unadulterated truth. They
are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and
trembling; for they recognize neither God nor moral
imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own
pursuit of the ‘higher’ pleasures, which amount to consorting
with their ‘puppies’ or young initiates.
The second type is the gentlemen, who are lovers of honour and
glory. They are the biggest dupes for the conventions of their
society, or the ‘illusions of the cave’, in Straussian lingo.
Gentlemen are the true believer in God, honour, and moral
imperatives; as a result, they are ready and willing to embark on
acts of great courage and self-sacrifice on a moment’s notice.
The third type is the vulgar many who are lovers of wealth and
pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be
inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of
impending death or catastrophe.
The covert rule of the philosophers is facilitated by the
overwhelming credulity of the gentlemen. For all his nobility,
the gentleman is gullible and unworldly. And the more gullible
and unperceptive he is, the easier it is for the wise to control
and manipulate him. The philosopher must impart to him the
harsh truths about the word and about his inferiors without
destroying his ideals. The message is this. You are noble and
honest; and the world is bound to be a better place if noble men
such as yourself reign supreme. But virtue is bound to be
defeated if she is naïve enough to play by the rules. If you want
political power and success, you have to rely on deception,
guile, and fraud. Besides, you know what the ordinary masses
are like; they are content to live and die like beasts—eating,
drinking, gambling, and fornicating. If you wish to move them

to acts or courage and self-sacrifice, you must make them
believe that their very existence is under threat. Anyone who
thinks that politics is possible without guile and fraud is a fool.
In this way, the wise provides the gentlemen with a brutalizing
education. George W. Bush may well have been the perfect
gentleman.”
Shadia B. Drury, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, Updated
Edition with a New Introduction by the Author, New York:
Palgrave Macmilla, 2005, pages xv-xvi.
President Bush’s academic credentialsPresident Bush received a
bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1968 and a
Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business
School in 1975. He began a career in the energy business.
Source: The White House, “Biography of President George W.
Bush,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html
“This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.” --
-President BushImmediately after the terrorist attacks of Sep 11,
2001, US Pres George W. Bush referred to America's war on
terrorism as a “crusade.”
Vern L Bullough, “Set a place for Islam,” Free Inquiry, Buffalo:
Spring 2002, Vol. 22, Iss. 2; pg. 20, 2 pgs
Anonymous, “Crusade in Iraq?” The Christian Century,
Chicago: April 5, 2005, Vol. 122, Iss. 7; pg. 60, 2 pgs
Gary Leupp, “Is the war on terrorism really a Crusade?” The
Arab American News, Dearborn, Mich.: June 4-June 10, 2005,
Vol. 21, Iss. 1008; pg. 13

“The war was about weapons of mass destruction”No weapons
of mass destruction were found in IraqNo ties between Iraq and
AlQaeda existedNo threats to US security existed in Iraq
How Zionists Corrupt Knowledge
Those who induced the U.S. to war in the Middle East deployed
knowledge like a weapon. With lengthy pre-staging, a narrative
emerged that made it appear plausible—even desirable—to
invade Iraq in response to the provocation of 911.
In retrospect, we now know that the knowledge on which the
U.S. relied was false. All of it.
Iraqi WMD. Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda. Iraqi meetings in Prague
with Al Qaeda. Iraqi yellowcake uranium from Niger. Iraqi
mobile biological laboratories. All false, all traceable to pro-
Israelis and all portrayed as true by media outlets dominated by
pro-Israelis.
http://criminalstate.com/2011/01/the-seduction-of-the-
knowledge-based-society/
http://criminalstate.com/2010/01/criminal-state-documentary/
*
“The war was about spreading democracy”
US closest friends and allies in the Middle East are eight Arab
monarchies (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) and one Jewish ethnocracy
(The State of Israel).
The Iraqi resistance movements question the legitimacy of the
Iraqi Constitution because it was written under foreign
occupation. The same could be said about the Iraqi elections.

The democratically elected Palestinian government (2006) was
greeted by sanctions and blockade because it was led by Hamas
(Arabic acronym of Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or
Islamic Resistance Movement), which does not recognize Israel
very much as Israel does not recognize Hamas.
*
“The war was about oil”
There is no public record of the big oil companies supporting
the war in Iraq or the current confrontation with Iran. ---James
Petras, Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton
University, New York
President Bush repeatedly promised to replace more than 75%
of US oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.
Third, President Obama’s ENERGY POLICY states explicitly
that its central goal is to “end our addiction to foreign oil” and
eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and
Venezuela within 10 Years.”
The American Jewish Committee’s top ENERGY POLICY is
focused on ending US oil imports from the Middle East as a
strategy to weaken Arab dominated OPEC
NB: oil prices increased from around $22 a barrel in 2002
(before the Iraq war) to $147 in July 2008
*

The Iraq Study Group Report concludes that the United States
“will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless
the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
p. 39.
http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/ir
aq_study_group_report.pdf
Population: 33.6 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%,
Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%
Religions: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%
Languages: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto
(official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and
Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and
Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
GDP per capita (OER): $390 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: China 76 km, Iran 936 km, Pakistan 2,430 km,
Tajikistan 1,206 km, Turkmenistan 744 km, Uzbekistan 137 km
Geography of Afghanistan
The Khyber Pass links Afghanistan and Pakistan
Afghanistan’s distinctive relief and ethnic makeup

*
The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89When Soviet troops invaded
Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA (under President Carter and his
NSA Brzezinski, and under Reagan and Bush administrations)
and its associates elsewhere in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Britain,
France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and China organized and trained a
mujahedeen army of Afghani, Arab, and Pakistani Muslims to
fight and defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan
*
The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-89The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-
1989) ended with the defeat of the Soviet Union and the
destruction of Afghanistan.
The war killed between 700,000 and 1.3 million Afghans and
threw another 4.5 million into refugee camps in Pakistan and
Iran, while about 15,000 Soviet troops were killed and 37,000
wounded in Afghanistan
*
Movements of CIA-trained guerillas and drugs outwards from
Afghanistan after the 1979-89 Afghanistan war. Cooley’s

Unholy Wars, page vii.
*
755.unknown
Defining Terrorism
“Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated
against noncombatant [including military personnel who at the
time of the incident are unarmed or not on duty] targets by
subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to
influence an audience”---Title 22 of the United States Code,
Section 2656f(d),
http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999report/intro.ht
ml
Does Terrorism Work?
Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Israel accepted to
negotiate with the Palestinians in 1993
Following Hezbollah’s attacks, Israel accepted to withdraw
from southern Lebanon in 2000
Following Al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks, the US accepted the
principle of a Palestinian state in 20002
Following Hamas’ suicide bombing campaigns, Israel accepted
to withdraw from Gaza in 2005
*
Senate study:

Bin Laden was within our reachWASHINGTON (AP) — Osama
bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the
mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made
the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader
with massive force, a Senate report says.The report asserts that
the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in
December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of
one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's
reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife
now endangering Pakistan, it says.Staff members for the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared
the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as
President Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in
Afghanistan.Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate,
has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get
the al-Qaeda leader and top deputies when they were holed up
in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only
three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.USA
Today, 11/29/2009,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-11-29-senate-
report-bin-laden_N.htm
Excerpts: Bin Laden video
BBC, 29 October, 2004,
“I will speak to you about the reasons behind these incidents
[9/11 attacks]. I will honestly tell you about the minutes in
which the decision was made so that you will consider. …The
events that influenced me directly trace back to 1982 and
subsequent events when the United States gave permission to
the Israelis to invade Lebanon, with the aid of the sixth US
fleet. ... While I was looking at those destroyed towers in

Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust one in a similar
manner by destroying towers in the United States so that it
would feel some of what we felt and to be deterred from killing
our children and women...”
“By his own account, KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the
principal architect of the 9/11 attacks]'s animus toward the
United States stemmed not from his experience there as a
student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S.
policy favoring Israel.” p. 147
Report claims CIA used 'torture'
BBC, 3/16/2009,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7945783.stm
'INTERROGATION METHODS' CIA interrogation techniques
used on al-Qaeda suspects "constituted torture", according to a
leaked report by the international Red Cross.
WaterboardingBeatingsSleep deprivationProlonged stress
standingProlonged nudityConfinement in a boxDenial of solid
foodSource: ICRC Report
“I was told that they would not allow me to die but that I would
be brought to the 'verge of death and back again”---Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed
CIA director: Tapes of interrogations destroyed
The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005, CIA
Director Michael Hayden said in a letter to CIA employees
obtained by CNN. CNN, 12/7/2007
President Bush: “I cannot describe the specific methods used

[against Abu Zubaida]” BBC News , 9/6/2006
David Rose, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, wrote:
I ask [F.B.I. director Robert] Mueller: So far as he is aware,
have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to
intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls
“enhanced techniques”?
“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses,
looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate:
“I don’t believe that has been the case.”
David Rose, “Tortured Reasoning,” Vanity Fair, December 16,
2008,
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812?pri
ntable=true&currentPage=all
After reports of Abu Zubaydah’s torture, F.B.I. director Robert
Mueller—pictured here before the Senate Intelligence
Committee in February 2008—agreed that the bureau should
play no part in future C.I.A. interrogations that use extreme
techniques. By Ken Cedeno/Bloomberg News/Landov.
Terre Haute soldier killed in Afghanistan
U.S. Army Sgt. Dale Griffin — a TH South graduate — killed
by roadside bomb
The Tribune Star, 10/28/2009

http://www.tribstar.com/news/local_story_301210400.html?key
word=topstoryBy Arthur E. Foulkes
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — A Terre Haute serviceman was among
several U.S. military service personnel killed Tuesday in
Afghanistan.
U.S. Army Sgt. Dale Russel Griffin, a 1999 Terre Haute South
Vigo High School graduate, died after the vehicle in which he
was traveling with several other soldiers was struck by a
roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan.
wGriffin, who was a part of Operation Enduring Freedom in
Afghanistan, joined the Army immediately after the 9/11
terrorist attacks, according to his mother, Dona Griffin, who
was interviewed by the Tribune-Star earlier this month. At the
time of that interview, Dona Griffin and husband Gene were
leading volunteers at the Terre Haute Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints making about 40 blankets for U.S. servicemen
and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While a senior at Terre Haute South, Dale Griffin was the state
runner-up in wrestling in the 189-pound weight class. The
following year, he won his weight class to help lead the
Virginia Military Institute to a fourth-place finish in the All-
Academy Wrestling Championship in 2000 at the U.S. Air Force
Academy. He was named that tournament’s Most Outstanding
Wrestler.
News reports from Afghanistan state that roadside bombs —
also known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs — claimed

the lives of eight American soldiers in southern Afghanistan on
Tuesday.
Seven military service members and an Afghan civilian were
killed in one attack hen an IED struck the vehicle in which they
were riding while on patrol. An eighth soldier was killed in a
separate attack, also by a roadside bomb blast.
According to an unnamed U.S. defense official quoted by the
Associated Press, at least one of Tuesday’s blasts was followed
by an intense exchange of gunfire with insurgents. A total of 55
U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month.
Funeral arrangements for Dale Griffin are pending.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or
[email protected]
Idea Exchange
U.S. Marines speak with elders during a meeting in Helmand
province, Afghanistan, Sept. 1, 2009. The Marines, assigned to
the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, are meeting with
residents to determine ways they can better serve one
another. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Christopher R. Rye---
US Department of Defense Official Website, 9/7/2009,
http://www.defenselink.mil/
91,000 secret U.S. military documents on Afghanistan
“Summary
25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST
WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War
Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports

covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers,
and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the
United States military, also include intelligence information,
reports of meetings with political figures, and related details.
The document collection is available on a dedicated webpage
[http://wardiary.wikileaks.org].
The reports cover most units from the US Army with the
exception of most US Special Forces' activities. The reports do
not generally cover top secret operations or European and other
ISAF Forces operations.
We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the
total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded
by our source. After further review, these reports will be
released, with occasional redactions, and eventually in full, as
the security situation in Afghanistan permits.” --
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010
Similarity between the two Afghan wars“On the twentieth
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall [1989], it is now the
US that is losing a war in Afghanistan, a war unlike the one that
indirectly contributed to the breakup of the USSR. Where
coalition forces today battle the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the
Soviets in the 1980s fought the mujahideen, a Muslim army of
volunteers that Moscow called terrorists. The anti-Soviet jihad,
a brutal war funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and the Saudis, became too costly for Moscow, almost
bankrupting the Soviet state. In a painful and humiliating
withdrawal, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February
1989, just a few months before the implosion of the Soviet
system… The similarities between the two Afghan wars are
countless. The Soviet generals kept requesting more men in
order to gain control of this vast land because its high-tech war
machinery did not work against such evasive enemies… Perhaps

the most remarkable similarity between the two wars resides in
their final objective: to transform Afghanistan into a friendly
country by turning its political status into a replica of the
invading superpower’s”
Loretta Napoleoni, Terrorism and the economy: how the war on
terror is bankrupting the world (Seven Stories Press, New York,
2009), page xvii
Population: 176 million (2009 est.)
Ethnic groups: Punjabi 44.68%, Pashtun (Pathan) 15.42%,
Sindhi 14.1%, Sariaki 8.38%, Muhagirs 7.57%, Balochi 3.57%,
other 6.28%
Religions: Muslim 95% (Sunni 75%, Shia 20%), other (includes
Christian and Hindu) 5%
Languages: Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Siraiki (a Punjabi
variant) 10%, Pashtu 8%, Urdu (official) 8%, Balochi 3%,
Hindko 2%, Brahui 1%, English (official; lingua franca of
Pakistani elite and most government ministries), Burushaski and
other 8%
GDP per capita (OER): $914 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: Afghanistan 2,430 km, China 523 km, India
2,912 km, Iran 909 km --CIA
Geography of Pakistan
Pakistan’s millions displaced
Camp life for over 2 million Pakistanis displaced by conflict in
the north-west region

United Nations Photo series
http://www.un.org/apps/news/photostories_detail.asp?PsID=44
“America wanted to be here [in Afghanistan] to denuclearize,
deislamise and delink Pakistan from China; a Zionist dream” --
Raja Mujtaba, Managing Editor of Opinion Maker,
http://www.opinion-maker.org/2010/07/the-last-hiccups-of-the-
falling-empire/
[Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi] Ashkenazi's
India trip marks strong ties
Jerusalem Post, 12/7/2009
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1259831476468&pa
gename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull“Amid a blossoming
of Indian-Israeli defense relations, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen.
Gabi Ashkenazi embarked on five-day visit to the Far East on
Sunday, touching down in the Indian capital of New Delhi,
where he will meet with his Indian counterpart, Gen. Deepak
Kapoor. The IDF Spokesman said the visit was part of the
deepening of relations between the two countries and their
armed forces. Kapoor was here for a working visit a month ago.
"In the past year, Israel has overtaken Russia as its main
defense equipment supplier, and about 30 percent of India's
defense imports come from Israel, and that number is growing,"
said Col. (Ret.) Behram A. Sahukar, a former fellow in India's
Terrorism and Security Studies at the Institute of Defense
Studies and Analyses….Israeli defense officials say India can
obtain solutions to the threat of terrorism from Israel that
cannot be obtained from other countries. "In the light of the
Mumbai attacks of November 2008 and the murder of all six
Jewish/Israeli hostages at the Chabad House, India-Israeli

multifaceted counter-terrorism cooperation has become even
more urgently needed," Sahukar said. At the same time, "the
Indian experience in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency
differs from Israel's in some ways, though the threat might be
similar," he added.”
Ethnic groups: Persian 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and
Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%,
Turkmen 2%, other 1%
Religions: Muslim 98% (Shia 89%, Sunni 9%), other (includes
Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i) 2%
Languages: Persian and Persian dialects 58%, Turkic and Turkic
dialects 26%, Kurdish 9%, Luri 2%, Balochi 1%, Arabic 1%,
Turkish 1%, other 2%
GDP per capita (OER): $5,800 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: Afghanistan 936 km, Armenia 35 km,
Azerbaijan-proper 432 km, Azerbaijan-Naxcivan exclave 179
km, Iraq 1,458 km, Pakistan 909 km, Turkey 499 km,
Turkmenistan 992 km
CIA
Geography of Iran
WikiLeaks, Iran, and the Peace Process
“WikiLeaks successfully removed peace talks from the news
and restored talk of war with Iran.”—Jeff Gates,
http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/why-is-jonathan-pollard-back-

in-the-news/
“There is no space between the United States and Israel when it
comes to Israel’s security, and for that reason and many others
addressing Iran’s nuclear program has been one of our
administration’s priorities” –Vice President Joseph Biden,
3/9/2010, JTA,
http://jta.org/news/article/2010/03/09/1010996/biden-no-space-
between-us-israel
Ethnic groups: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%
note: many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as
Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and
prefer to be called Phoenicians
Religions: Muslim 59.7% (Shia, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite,
Alawite or Nusayri), Christian 39% (Maronite Catholic, Greek
Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian
Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
Chaldean, Assyrian, Copt, Protestant), other 1.3%
note: 17 religious sects recognized
Languages: Arabic (official), French, English, Armenian
GDP per capita (OER): $7,000 (2008 est.) (US: $47,000)
Border countries: Israel 79 km, Syria 375 km

CIA
Geography of Lebanon
In Any Future War, Only Israelis Fleeing From Occupied
Palestine May Be Safe
Al-Manar TV, 5/25/2010,
http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=139
021&language=en“25/05/2010 Hezbollah marked the tenth
anniversary of the Resistance and Liberation Day Tuesday at the
Sayyed Al-Shouhada compound in Beirut’s southern suburb.
Official, religious, military, and popular figures attended the
ceremony in which Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan
Nasrallah delivered a speech for the occasion and tackled recent
developments in Lebanon and the region.
The Hezbollah chief set a new formula that will be adopted in
any new war with Israel saying that Hezbollah will attack
Israel-bound ships if the Zionist entity imposed a sea blockade
on Lebanon. "When the world will witness how these ships will
be destroyed in Palestine's regional water nobody will dare to
go there just as they will block (others) from coming to our
coasts," his eminence told thousands of supporters.
Sayyed Nasrallah's comments came amid a five-day drill in
Israel- dubbed "Turning Point 4"- which was launched on
Sunday to test the home front preparedness against possible
missile strikes in any future war…
Israeli vessels used to deploy in Lebanese waters and besiege
our shore; so today we add the sea to the terrain. I am not
announcing that we possess a new weapon, but in 2006 we
destroyed the Saar 5 vessel. What I am saying is that if you

besiege our shore and our ports in any coming war, all of your
military and commercial ships heading to Palestine will be
under the fire of the Islamic Resistance across the
Mediterranean. We are talking about the Mediterranean but we
have not mentioned the Red Sea yet. We are determined to enter
this new domain God willing. No one will dare sail to any port
in occupied Palestine. However, if a ship with Israelis on board
was leaving occupied Palestine, we might let it pass.”
Gulf Cooperation Council
External Security Challenges
“Iran—and Iraq under Saddam Hussein—opposes the inclination
of the GCC states to seek assistance from international powers
to balance the region’s security equation, arguing that Gulf
security affairs should be restricted to the states of the Gulf. We
might recall that the GCC countries have been at the forefront
of those calling for this, as was mentioned in the statement of
their first summit in 1981. However, Iran and Iraq did not
propose a viable alternative regional security vision, and their
words were contradicted by their actions. The actions of these
two countries over the past decades espoused the opposite of
what they had called for; this led to complications and to a
strengthening of the international component of Gulf security.”
HE Abdulrahman Al Attiyah, “Security in the Gulf Region,” in
Arabian Gulf Security: Internal and External Challenges, The
Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 2008, pp.
13-18.
Report of the National Commission on Terrorism (Submitted
June 7, 2000)

“An astute American foreign policy must take into account the
reasons people turn to terror and, where appropriate and
feasible, address them.”From the Forward by Ambassador L.
Paul Bremer III and Maurice Sonnenberg, Chairman and Vice
Chairman, respectively, of the National Commission on
Terrorism. The report was submitted to the President of the
United States, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, and the
Republican and Democratic parties leaders on June 7, 2000, that
is six months after the National Commission on Terrorism
began its Congressionally mandated evaluation of America's
laws, policies, and practices for preventing and punishing
terrorism directed at American citizens. The report was titled
“COUNTERING THE CHANGING THREAT OF
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM,” Report of the National
Commission on Terrorism. Pursuant to Public Law 277, 105th
Congress. http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html
*
U.S. announces new airport security measures
By the CNN Wires Staff, April 2, 2010 3:39 p.m. EDT,
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/04/02/airline.security/index
.html?hpt=T2Washington (CNN) -- All flights entering the
United States now will be subjected to increased levels of
security screening, the federal government announced Friday.
A senior administration official said racial or religious
characteristics could be used to identify passengers requiring a
more thorough review, though the official insisted the system
would not constitute racial profiling.
Race or religion could be part of "fragmentary information"
being used to select passengers but will be used "only when we

have reliable intelligence that suggests that someone with that
characteristic is a potential terrorist," the official said.
Among other things, passengers entering the U.S. from
international destinations "may notice enhanced security and
random screening measures throughout the passenger check-in
and boarding process, including the use of explosives trace
detection, advanced imaging technology, canine teams, or pat
downs, among other security measures," according to a
statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
The new security measures are the result of a review President
Obama ordered after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up
a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to
Detroit, Michigan, on December 25.
Andrew Gamble, The Spectre at the Feast, 2009, page 14
Osama bin Laden cost the U.S. “trillions”
CNN's Richard Quest says the estimated $2.5 trillion that
Osama bin Laden cost the U.S. economy is only the beginning.
CNN, 5/3/2011,
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/05/03/exp.are
na.bin.laden.costs.cnn
Since Bin Laden has attacked the United States because of its
support for the State of Israel, one can argue that the State of
Israel has cost the United States much more than $2.5 trillion
since 2001
Omar bin Laden had asked [his father Osama] why not attack
Israel before America, given that Israel was a “small country
near to us,” while America was a “huge country far away from

our shores.”
My father paused before explaining it this way. “Omar, try to
imagine a two-wheeled bicycle. One wheel is made of steel. The
other wheel is made of wood. Now, my son, if you wanted to
destroy the bicycle, would you destroy the wooded or the steel
wheel? “The wooded wheel of course,” I replied. “You are
correct my son. Remember this: America and Israel are one
bicycle with two wheels. The wooden wheel represents the
United States. The steel wheel represents Israel. Omar, Israel is
the stronger power of the two. Does a general attack the
strongest line when in battle? No, he concentrates on the
weakest part of the line. The Americans are weak. It is best to
attack the weakest point first. Once we take out the weak
wooden wheel, the steel wheel will automatically fail. Who can
ride a bicycle with only one wheel? He patted my knee with his
hand. “First we obliterate America. By that I don’t mean
militarily. We can destroy America from within by making it
economically weak, until its markets collapse. When that
happens, they will have no interest in supplying Israel with
arms, for they will not have extra funds to do so. At that time,
the steel wheel will corrode and be destroyed by lack of
attention.” Michael Scheuer, Osama Bin Laden, Oxford
University Press, 2011, p. 111-112. [Michael Scheuer was the
chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit]
Statement from President Obama on death of Osama bin Laden
CNN, May 2, 2011 6:44 a.m. EDT
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON OSAMA BIN LADEN
East Room, 11:35 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the
American people and to the world that the United States has
conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader
of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of

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