Misplaced Trust

“…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” - Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution

A founding tradition in America is the belief that the purpose of  government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of citizens.[1]  Most today would have a difficult time explaining how our fraudulent US financial system protects the property of anyone but bankers and the well-connected.[2]  Yet despite a growing mistrust of the federal government, whenever Big Brother talks about threats to our safety, “free” people are still reduced to pet-like obedience: willingly submitting to virtual strip searches and TSA pat-downs to check their private parts, and supporting military invasions overseas.

Most Americans never question how their safety is protected by a US government that slaughters tens of thousands of foreign people who are no threat to the US.  Instead they trust the words of their leaders.  Nor do most Americans make the connection that a government that lies about money matters will also lie about safety. 

Memoirs

For example, former Bush administration Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld started hawking his recently published memoir, Known and Unknown, two months after former President George W. Bush made the rounds selling his own version of recent history: Decision Points.  Both books rationalize the preemptive US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 for possession of fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). 

Before the invasion, both men pretended that they knew Saddam Hussein had WMD and both told the world that Hussein was a danger because of his WMD.  Were they telling the truth? 

Rumsfeld’s memoir corroborates former Bush terrorism adviser Richard Clarke’s statements that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq before 9/11.[3][4]  In Rumsfeld’s memoir, he describes the Bush administration’s fixation on attacking Iraq:

• In July 2001, months before 9/11, Rumsfeld sent a memo to Cheney, Powell and Rice asking “that we hold a principals committee meeting to discuss Iraq.” Rumsfeld “argued that we would be better off developing a policy well ahead of events that could overtake us.”[5]
• “Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” wrote Rumsfeld, but Bush insisted on new military plans for Iraq. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’”[6]

Rumsfeld’s memoir also corroborates a 2002 CBS News story that despite Iraq playing no part in the events of 9/11, the Bush administration was targeting Iraq:

“…barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.”[7]

Selling the War

The Bush administration wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power.  They planned to invade Iraq, but they had to convince Americans that Iraq was dangerous enough to justify a preemptive invasion.[8]  They had to sell the war to the American public.

On 23 July 2002, the head of British MI6 wrote the Downing Street Memo (leaked in 2005 after the invasion) after his visit to Washington, D.C. for a US briefing on plans to invade Iraq.  The memo discussed Bush administration plans to sell an invasion of Iraq to the American public.[9]

“It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.” - Downing Street Memo, July 23, 2002

Mushroom Clouds and Mobile Labs

“The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” – Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, September 2002

For over a year before the invasion, the Bush administration made statements and leaked documents to the news media about the threat of Iraqi WMD.

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” – Then-Vice President Richard Cheney, Aug 26, 2002

In Sept 2002, Iraq was reported to be acquiring high strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium.  US experts didn’t believe the story.[10]

In 2002 the US government disseminated known forged documents stating that Iraq tried to procure Niger Yellowcake.  The CIA knew the information was false in March 2002.[11]

But George Bush publicly repeated both lies in his January 28, 2003 State of the Union speech.

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.” – Then-President George W. Bush in State of the Union speech January 28, 2003

Finally, on February 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lent his credibility to the fraud planned by the Bush administration since before 9/11—convincing Americans and the world that Iraq possessed WMD and that Hussein should be removed from power.  Powell’s UN speech was the final step in the plan to get public backing for a preemptive US invasion of Iraq.

“We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities.” – Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb 5, 2003

“One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.” – Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb 5, 2003

On March 20, 2003, the US government preemptively invaded Iraq claiming it was a threat to the US despite the following:

• The US had not been attacked by Iraq. 
• The US had been bombing Iraq since 1991 after the Gulf War. 
• The US under the auspices of the UN had embargoed Iraq since 1990.
• There was no evidence Iraq possessed WMD.

Rewriting History

After the 2003 invasion, with Hussein no longer in power, Bush’s mission was accomplished.  But the lie of WMD was still fresh in everyone’s minds.  The US-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was unable to find any WMD in Iraq.  Its September 2004 Duelfer report concluded that Iraq had no WMD. 

Then-President Bush established the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction to “investigate” what went wrong in the Intelligence community assessment of Iraqi WMD capabilities.  Unlikely to blame the President who created the commission, in its day-before-April Fools’ Day 2005 report, the Commission blamed the intelligence community.[12]

Today, “limited government” Tea Partiers and state worshippers alike both conveniently forget that US troops in Iraq are not fighting for “our freedoms,” but instead fight for a lie.  Eight years later:

• It’s forgotten that Iraq had no WMD and that the Bush administration lied to the American people to support its agenda of removing Hussein from power.
• The Iraq invasion is remembered as Operation Iraqi Freedom, and its purpose to liberate the Iraqi people.  We hear about elections in Iraq so people can believe the convenient fiction that the Iraq invasion was to bring democracy to Iraq.
• The Obama administration pretends that the war is over in Iraq by changing the mission name from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn.  Perhaps Americans will forget the US still has troops there.

Curveball

“The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died from exposure to biological agents…His eyewitness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.”- Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb 5, 2003 discussing Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi aka Curveball

On February 15, 2011, the Guardian published  an interview with Powell’s “eyewitness Iraqi chemical engineer.” Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, aka "Curveball" to US and German  intelligence services, admits that he lied about Iraqi WMD.[13]  Even Janabi’s nickname suggests intelligence agents knew he wasn’t a “straight shooter.”  Will Janabi’s admissions get the same media coverage that the Rumsfeld and Bush memoirs received?

Janabi says he has never met with a US official nor has he ever been interviewed by one.[14]  Janabi, the eyewitness whose testimony was used to justify an invasion, apparently wasn’t worth a face-to-face meeting with US officials to corroborate his testimony.  What would be the point?  The Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq, and Janabi supplied a reason. 

German intelligence didn’t consider him a reliable source, but that didn’t stop the Bush administration from using Janabi’s lies to justify invading Iraq.[15]  Janabi admits lying about Iraqi WMD capability, but claims his remarks were discredited by German intelligence well before Powell's February 5, 2003 speech to the UN.  Colin Powell doesn’t dispute this, demanding:

“…to know why it had not been made clear to him that Curveball was totally unreliable before false information was put into the key intelligence assessment, or NIE, put before Congress, into the president's state of the union address two months before the war, and into his own speech to the UN.”[16]

Betrayal of a Misplaced Trust

“And Iraq has a history of lying about everything. This is not a regime that can be trusted.” - Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in 2002

"For people to say Bush lied, Colin Powell lied and Condi Rice lied or Cheney lied or Rumsfeld lied -- it's just not true." - Rumsfeld to Fox News' Sean Hannity February 2011[17]

The US government preemptively invaded Iraq under false pretenses—lying to the American people by pretending that Iraq had WMD.  Whatever the real reason the Bush administration wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power, it was not because he had WMDs—there were none.

What is certain is hundreds of thousands have been killed or injured and  hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent: all on a massive fraud.  Fraud is a betrayal of trust to defraud someone out of something of value.  When it invaded Iraq, the US government betrayed the foolish trust of Americans who believe that the US government exists to protect their life, liberty, and property, and that it accomplishes this by slaughtering foreign people.  By invading Iraq, the US government defrauded the American people of their blood and treasure.

Tea Partiers Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are outraged by the dishonesty of Obamacare as a symptom of a corrupt federal government.  Where is their outrage over a government that lied to preemptively invade another country?[18]

Instead of outrage as widows and orphans mourn their loved ones: Rumsfeld and Bush pitch their memoirs, neo-conservative and would-be President Sarah Palin advocates expanding the conflict to Iran, Michelle Bachmann votes to extend provisions of the Patriot Act, Obama continues to move the war to Pakistan, and US troops continue to occupy Iraq—and continue to die there.

________________________________

[1] See also the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution.

[2] Fiat money is not honest money.  The massive creation of fiat money in the recent bailouts of failed institutions is a fraud that robs the purchasing power of all with savings:

• Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout of 2008
• Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) bailout of 2009
• Stimulus Act of 2009
• Fed Quantitative Easing 2 (QE2) announcement November 3, 2010 of plans to purchase $600 billion in US government bonds through June 2011 to stimulate the economy.[2a]

[2a] “Fed Fires $600 Billion Stimulus Shot,” Jon Hilsenrath, WSJ, Nov 4, 2010, (Accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703506904575592471354774194.html on Feb 24, 2011).

“In essence, the Fed now will print money to buy as much as $900 billion in U.S. government bonds through June—an amount roughly equal to the government's total projected borrowing needs over that period.”

[3] “Clarke's Take On Terror,” Rebecca Leung, CBSNews, Mar 21, 2004, (Accessed at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml on Feb 18, 2011).

From the article:

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'

About Bush administration bias against Iraq:

Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'
"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

[4] “Rumsfeld Files Reveal Pre-9/11 Focus on Iraq,” Sharon Weinberger, Feb 8, 2011, AOLNews, (Accessed at http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/08/donald-rumsfeld-files-reveal-pre-9-11-focus-on-iraq/ on Feb 18, 2011).

“Rumsfeld wrote in a memo to Condoleezza Rice dated July 27, 2001, just weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The same memo also suggested regime change might be a good option. ‘If Saddam's regime were ousted, we would have a much-improved position in the region and elsewhere,’ he wrote.”

[5] “Rumsfeld’s Defense of Known Decisions,” By MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times, Feb 3, 2011, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/books/04book.html?_r=1&ref=politics&pagewanted=all on Feb 19, 2011).

[6] “In Book, Rumsfeld Recalls Bush’s Early Iraq Focus,” By THOM SHANKER and CHARLIE SAVAGE, NY Times, Feb 2, 2011, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/us/politics/03rumsfeld.html?pagewanted=all on Feb 18, 2011).

[7] “Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11,” By Joel Roberts, Sept 4, 2002, CBS News, (Accessed at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml on Feb 18, 2011).

Rahm Emmanuel isn’t the only guy who doesn’t let a crisis go to waste:

“Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted ‘best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.’ – meaning Saddam Hussein – ‘at same time. Not only UBL’ – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.
“Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.
‘Go massive,’ the notes quote him as saying. ‘Sweep it all up. Things related and not.’”

[8] “An Ex-C.I.A. Chief on Iraq and the Slam Dunk That Wasn’t,” By MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times, Apr 28, 2007, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/books/28kaku.html?pagewanted=all on Feb 19, 2011).

“Mr. Tenet says he doubts that W.M.D.’s were the principal cause of the United States’ decision to go to war in Iraq in the first place, that it was just ‘he public face that was put on it.’ The real reason, he suggests, stemmed from ‘the administration’s largely unarticulated view that the democratic transformation of the Middle East through regime change in Iraq would be worth the price.’”

[9] “The Secret Downing Street Memo,” May 1, 2005, Times Online, (Accessed at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/elections/article387390.ece on Feb 20,2011).

“The two broad US options were:

“(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

“(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.”

“The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

“The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

“The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.”

[10] “The Man Who Knew,” Rebecca Leung, Feb 4, 2004, CBS News, (Accessed at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml on Feb 19, 2011).

“Experts at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the scientists who enriched uranium for American bombs, advised that the tubes were all wrong for a bomb program. At about the same time, Thielmann’s office was working on another explanation. It turned out the tubes' dimensions perfectly matched an Iraqi conventional rocket.
‘The aluminum was exactly, I think, what the Iraqis wanted for artillery,’ recalls Thielmann, who says he sent that word up to the Secretary of State months before.”

“Thielmann reported to Secretary Powell’s office that they were confident the tubes were not for a nuclear program. Then, about a year later, when the administration was building a case for war, the tubes were resurrected on the front page of The New York Times.”

[11] “White House 'warned over Iraq claim',” July 9, 2003, BBC News, (Accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3056626.stm on Mar 3, 2011).

[12] “Unclassified Version of the Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Mar 31, 2005, US GPO, (Accessed at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/wmd/index.html on Feb 27, 2011).

From the report:

“…the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.  This was a major intelligence failure. Its principal causes were the Intelligence Community's inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather, and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions, rather than good evidence.”

[13] “Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war,” Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd in Karlsruhe, guardian.co.uk, 15 Feb 2011, (Accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war on Feb 17, 2011).

[14] “Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam,” Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd in Karlsruhe, guardian.co.uk, 15 Feb 2011, (Accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam on Feb 19, 2011).

[15] “Curveball doubts were shared with CIA, says ex-German foreign minister,” Helen Pidd, guardian.co.uk, 17 Feb 2011, (Accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/17/curveball-doubts-cia-german-foreign on Feb 19, 2011).

[16] “Colin Powell demands answers over Curveball's WMD lies,” Ed Pilkington in New York, Helen Pidd in Berlin and Martin Chulov, guardian.co.uk, 16 Feb 2011, (Accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/16/colin-powell-cia-curveball on Feb 19, 2011).

[17] “Rumsfeld Defends Iraq War Handling, Guantanamo in Fox News Interview,” Feb 08, 2011, FoxNews.com, (Accessed at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/08/rumsfeld-defends-iraq-war-policy-guantanamo-fox-news-interview/ on Feb 18, 2011).

[18] In 2008, Tea Party Caucus leader Michele Bachmann voted against investigating George Bush for lying about Iraq.