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George Bush and His Axis of Deceit Start To Sweat!by Jim Grichar (aka Exx-Gman)
George Bush – in a globe-trotting mode to convince the U.S. public and the rest of the world that he is a man of peace – and his Axis of Deceit are beginning to sweat as they try to cook and serve up a new justification for the immoral, unjust and costly U.S. war on Iraq. Bush and his Axis of Deceit are now putting out the word – through sympathetic Congressmen – that the war on Iraq was designed to change the situation in the Middle East to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace. This rationalization, which has been simmering in a pot on the back burner of Chef George’s foreign and military policy stove, has apparently replaced the lies that the war was fought to remove Iraq’s chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to bring democracy to Iraq. Much to George’s and the Axis’ chagrin, the press and some members of Congress are turning up the heat further, trying to find out what George and his Axis buddies really knew about Iraq’s WMD before the attack. Will Bush lose public support in a way similar to what is happening to Tony Blair in Britain, who is now facing a public uproar over the fact that no WMD have been found in Iraq? After all, Blair likely used the same intelligence reports used by the Bush Administration as the CIA and the Pentagon’s military intelligence apparatus have extensive links to British intelligence. Cooking the Intelligence Estimate According to the New York Times, last fall the CIA coordinated a top-secret government-wide national intelligence estimate of the Iraqi weapons situation that the Bush Administration used, in part, to justify the war on Iraq. According to the 2002 estimate, Iraq had WMD and could use them. Now, with no WMD having been found in Iraq, the estimate, which some charge was cooked up to justify the war on Iraq, has come into question. George Tenet, the CIA Director, claimed that the estimate was not cooked: "The integrity of the process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong." But according to the Times, several CIA officials did not defend the actions of a special Pentagon intelligence unit (created by Donald Rumsfeld to give intelligence the slant that Rummy and his neocon Axis colleagues want) that highlighted information from Iraqi exiles, information that CIA analysts discounted heavily. Some CIA analysts reported pressure from high-ups to make their reports conform to the Bush Administration line. As a result of Congressional criticism and intended hearings on "prewar intelligence," the CIA has set up an internal review team to look at all the raw intelligence – including documents from the Pentagon’s special intelligence unit – and to find out what role the Pentagon’s intelligence unit played in last fall’s estimate and in other intelligence assessments that supported a war on Iraq to root out WMD. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has come in for even rougher treatment, thus far, than the Bush Administration. Unlike an American President, who can duck questions from the press and have his appointees stonewall Congressional inquiries, the British Prime Minister must stand in Parliament frequently to answer questions from both supporting and opposition members of Parliament. Ian Duncan Smith, the leader of the opposition Tory Party, called for a public investigation to clear up the questions about Blair cooking up and modifying intelligence information to justify an attack on Iraq to remove WMD. Prime Minister Blair declined, saying that a special committee will look into it and will assure that a censored report – censored to preserve classified information from disclosure – would validate his claims! Thus, the two leaders of the so-called coalition of the willing – i.e., those willing to attack Iraq – find themselves in a bind over the veracity of intelligence reports on Iraqi possession of WMD. "Wag the Dog" Because neither the Bush Administration nor British Prime Minister Blair – nor their various intelligence minions – had any concrete proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and because American occupation of Iraq is going to last for many years – contrary to the nonsense put out by the Axis of Deceit, the public in both nations is starting to demand a truthful accounting of whether or not the various intelligence agencies provided a truthful analysis of Iraqi WMD or whether the estimates were cooked for political purposes. But rather than sit back and let his opposition sling mud at him, Bush and his Axis of Deceit appear to have devised a scheme – a modified version of what appeared in the recent movie, "Wag the Dog" – to draw the U.S. public’s attention away from the question of cooked intelligence analyses by taking a trip to the Middle East to mediate peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Hence the statement to the press by Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, who claimed that if getting rid of Saddam meant that a road map for a Middle East peace would work, then it was worth it, whether or not the Iraqis had WMD. While some sort of Middle East peace negotiations were likely, the real question is why would Bush risk his reputation and public standing by making a risky trip to the Middle East, risking his prestige on trying to do what has been virtually impossible for more than 50 years, that is, devise a lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Other U.S. presidents have avoided taking trips to the Middle East for this purpose, and have, at the maximum, brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Washington, but only after they have shown some willingness to compromise. In this case, Bush has stuck his neck out a mile, and given the way Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have gone in the past, he is really betting on a long shot. But then that leads rational observers to what is likely the real, core, reason for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, and that is the control of the massive Middle East oil reserves. While Bush and his Axis of Deceit, as well as their British minion Tony Blair, will continue to obfuscate on the question of cooked intelligence estimates on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and will try to focus the public’s attention on making peace in the Middle East – for which they will now claim that the war on Iraq was fought – they are starting to run out of explanations for the U.S. attack on Iraq. And this will be especially true if Bush fails to get a binding Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. If Bush, his Axis and Tony Blair are made to sweat much more, then they may have to reach into their bag of tricks and, guess what, start another war somewhere else to draw the public’s attention away from the hard facts.
June 5, 2003 Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com
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