Iraq War Was about Israel, Bush Insider Suggests (9/11 Commission member Zelikow under attack)

Inter Press Service (IPS) ^ | Mar 29, 2004 | Emad Mekay

[rogueleader]

Zelikow is the 9/11 Commission's executive director

The allegation is that Zelikow, a former Bush advisor, has a conflict of interest

Calls for his resignation

[Brilliant]

That's strange. I thought it was about oil.

[Slings and Arrows]

A quick look at the the "Inter Press Service" who provided this article shows them to be leftist propagandists. SSDD.

[JmyBryan]

Yeah, its not really in the US interest to protect Israel from being nuked by Saddam. SHEESH.

[Stentor]

Do you think Iraq was all about the Joos?

[Uncle Miltie]

Emad Mekay

Emad Mekay is the IPS trade and finance correspondent, based in Washington, D.C. He joined IPS in October 2001, and has since broken several stories related to controversial activities of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He has also reported widely on the activities of the anti-globalisation movement, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

He was a winner of the 2003 Project Censored award from California's Sonoma State University for his 2002 story on the shady dealings of shamed multinationals Enron and Worldcom in the developing world.

[Faraday]

Another article by Emad Mekay can be found at antiwar.com, http://www.antiwar.com/ips/mekay.php?articleid=2111 . Do you think that paranoid, ultraleft conspiracy yarns are worthy of serious discussion?

[rogueleader]

No, I don't think it is worthy of serious discussion.

But the media does. Once this story breaks, we need a response.

[Faraday]

The insane leftists have an infinite supply of conspiracy tales to spin. The response is simple--the President's statement at the initiation of action, and Rumsfeld's initial statement on the war provide both the motivations and aims for the conflict. These statements hold-up today. BTW, note that opposing Saddam's links to terror is one of the factors involved. His funding of Palestinian suicide/homicide bombers certainly falls under that rubric. This is a big so-what.

[Asclepius]

But the media does. Once this story breaks, we need a response.

How about this one: Shut up, stupid.

Or this one: But I thought it was about oil or Bush's daddy or neo-con imperial-aspirations?

Or how about this one: What color is the sky in your world?

Or this one: Why is it always the Jooz, lame-brain? Can't you eternally-flaccid paranoiacs fixate on some other ethnic group and give the Jooz a break for once?

[vbmoneyspender]

I agree. After all, why would any rational personal consider someone like Hussein to be a threat given that he was having his people regularly fire missiles at our pilots. Or given that he was regularly issuing threats similar to the ones issued by bin Laden about attacking the United States. Indeed, we know from repeated dealings with nasty types like Hussein that they never follow through on their threats, particularly when you fail to respond to their repeated attempts to kill your fellow countrymen. In fact, people like Hussein respect that type of restrain in their adversaries and recognize that it shows real strength of character just like was shown by the western democracies in the leadup to 1939.

[rogueleader]

Whoa whoa whoa.

RTA.

Zelikow made his statements about "the unstated threat" during his tenure on a highly knowledgeable and well-connected body known as the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president.

He made the statement on September 10, 2002.

It's stupid to deny that Israel was not a factor in our decision to go to war. As a person who is an extremely hawkish Israel supporter, and a supporter of the Iraq war, and a person who is going to vote for GWB, I don't think it's wise to abandon history.

Remember that a key argument made for how Saddam supported terrorism was his $25,000 bounty to every suidicde bomber's family that successfully struck Israel.

Remember that the WMD debate referenced the missile strikes on Israel in 1991.

The response to the charge is this: yes, Israel was a factor in why we went to war. It was not, however, a determining factor. The determining factors were first, the threat to the US, including our no-fly zone pilots (thank you vbmoneyspender), but also our strategic plan for victory in the War on Terrorism. Ultimately, we could not have defeated terrorism if Saddam Hussein remained in power in Iraq. Since we are serious about defeating terrorism, we had to be serious about defeating Saddam. The sanctions and the no-fly zones were in effect a stalemate. We had a stalemate situation in Iraq, and now we have victory. Ergo, the victory over Saddam is key to winning the war and ergo key to long-term US national security.

[onedoug]

Once this story breaks, we need a response.

Here's one: So what?

[jedi]

Do you think Iraq was all about the Joos?

In terms of pronunciation, shouldn't it be Jooz?

[txhurl]

Needs a response... hmmmmm.....

[Alberta's Child]

This issue is certainly worthy of discussion, and this is precisely why people like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith should never have been allowed to work for the Bush administration in the first place.

The objectivity of these two men was compromised from the first day they set foot in the Bush administration, in light of their call for a regime change in Iraq in 1996. Calling for a regime change itself wasn't the problem. The real concern was that they did so in a paper they presented to the Netanyahu government in Israel, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Security the Realm." In case anyone still doesn't know this by now, the "realm" they were talking about was Israel, not the United States.

Perle's nebulous role as an "unpaid advisor" to the Bush administration on the Defense Policy Board has raised serious warning flags in my mind from the beginning, and I don't consider myself to be a raving lunatic of any kind, either. These concerns have been reinforced by the manner in which Perle quietly disappeared from the scene last year, once it became apparent that the President's silly show on the deck of the aircraft carrier last May wasn't the defining moment it was intended to be.

I certainly wasn't surprised to learn that Mr. Perle was working as a lobbyist for Global Crossing, lobbying on their behalf to get the U.S. government to approve the sale of some of the company's fiber-optic assets to a telecommunications giant in Red China.

Why the Bush administration insisted on having this bastard play any role whatsoever in this country's foreign policy decisions over the last few years is something I'll never understand.

[PolitBase]

This is absolutely true. Robbie George, a sometime Bush Advisor at Princeton University has stated this since mid-2002.

[Shermy]

This issue is certainly worthy of discussion, and this is precisely why people like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith should never have been allowed to work for the Bush administration in the first place.

And their views differ much from Clinton, Gore, the ILA, etc. etc. pushing for the liberation of Iraq and getting our troops out of Saudi how?

And all the papers written on behalf of the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Kurds, even Iraqis to get rid of Saddam - should we attribute conspiracy to them?