Thinkpiece

Intelligence failure

Why the USA invaded Iraq

By Paul J. Balles*

First published on 3 February 2004

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Was the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the USA and its vassal, Britain, an "intelligence failure" or a "spectacular political success - the manoeuvring of a nation to war when no threat existed" - as some US academics contend, or was it done for another reason which no US or British academic or journalist has yet dared to utter? Dr Paul J. Balles finds the answer in the words of none other than Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser - the three main architects of the Anglo-American aggression.

Today, Tuesday 3 February 2004, I received the following from the Institute for Public Accuracy:

Intelligence Failure?
RAY McGOVERN, (202) 328-0072 ext. 1023, (703) 237-2333
rmcgovern@slschool.org
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/article.asp?id=538
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR031803.htm
McGovern worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Before the invasion of Iraq he co-authored the article "Cooking Intelligence for War" with other members of the steering group for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He said today: "The 'investigation' is slated to go past the election. Members will be picked by the president, and the scope is unconscionably wider than is necessary. They can investigate the space shuttle disaster in nine months; there's no reason why they need longer for this, especially since so much work has already been done."

McGovern doesn't bother to ask the key question: WHY?

WHY, as Ray McGovern suggests, has the administration been "Cooking Intelligence for War"? In the latest case, there was no war ("war" needs two or more combatants) but an invasion of Iraq. Is the time that it takes to investigate the cooked intelligence the major concern? In his article, McGovern only seems uneasy about the fact that the CIA did not provide the intelligence sought by the administration. He never asks why the administration wanted cooked intelligence.

The Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) announcement included the following:

JOHN QUIGLEY, (614) 292-1764, (614) 326-3674
quigley.2@osu.edu
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR021003.htm
Quigley is author of "The Ruses for War: American Intervention Since World War II" and a professor of international law at Ohio State University. On 10 February 2003 (shortly after Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council), Quigley was on an IPA news release titled "US Credibility Problems", noting a history of false US claims to justify attacking other countries. Today he noted that in 2002 the CIA was actually warning the administration of a lack of evidence of a threat from Iraq.

WHY, as Professor Quigley asserts, has the US made false "claims to justify attacking other countries" (most recently Iraq)? He doesn't ask. The IPA quotes Quigley as giving three instances where the US gave "information to the Security Council on war and peace issues that later turned out to be false". Nowhere in his quoted remarks does Professor Quigley ask why?

This duo from the University of Texas added:

RAHUL MAHAJAN, (512) 589-3435
rahul@empirenotes.org
http://www.empirenotes.org/intelligence.html
ROBERT JENSEN, (512) 471-1990, (512) 731-3723, rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of "Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity."

Rahul Mahajan is publisher of Empire Notes and author of the book Full Spectrum Dominance: US Power in Iraq and Beyond. They said today:

The Iraq war wasn't the result of an "intelligence failure". It was the result of a spectacular political success - the manoeuvring of a nation to war when no threat existed, over the objections of the world community... On 5 February 2003, Secretary [of State] Powell claimed that "most US experts" believed that Iraqi purchases of aluminium tubes were for centrifuges that would do uranium isotope separation - not for artillery, as Iraq had claimed. Actually, most experts said the opposite. George W. Bush said that Iraq had purchased uranium from "Africa", a claim based on forgeries so crude that IAEA analysts said a couple of hours on Google would suffice to expose them. On 7 October 2002, Bush said Iraq was planning to use its unmanned aerial vehicles to target the US, although their top range was about 400 miles. On 16 March 2003, [Defence Secretary] Dick Cheney said, "We believe he [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Neither the International Atomic Energy Agency nor anyone else had ever said anything of the kind; since nuclear weapons activities give off radiation, they are very easily detected, and inspectors had been doing on-site visits for four months at the time....

Professor Jensen and Rahul Mahajan have been good enough to point out that "The Iraq War wasn't the result of an 'intelligence failure'. It was the result of a spectacular political success - the manoeuvring of a nation to war when no threat existed, over the objections of the world community."

WHY? Why haven't these scholars even bothered to ask the question? It's understandable that they might not want to speculate. What's not readily comprehensible, or forgivable, is that they're not insisting on answers from those whose "reasons" determined their warmongering actions.

If scholars and journalists can't, or won't, deduce the reasons for the US invasion of Iraq from the existing information available to anyone, they hardly deserve to be referred to as reliable sources of information.

If the extent of their investigative reporting allows only for finger-pointing at false claims used to justify American warmongering (an unprovoked invasion, not war), their claims serve little or no practical purpose beyond personal horn-blowing.

Three scholars - all alluding to false justification for military action can't even be bothered to ask, much less attempt to answer, WHY? Why have more than 20,000 lives been sacrificed along with more than 166 billion dollars for a pre-emptive strike to satisfy Donald Rumsfeld and the dual loyalists Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Elliott Abrams?

Surely the scholars paraded and lauded by the Institute for Public Accuracy are familiar with this important bit of recent history:

In 1996, according to an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Perle, Feith and David Wurmser wrote a policy proposal for Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel's prime minister. Included in their proposal were tips on how to manipulate the American government and advice to drop the peace plan, drop the idea of land for peace and concentrate on toppling Saddam Hussein and eventually replacing other Middle Eastern governments in order to create a safe environment for Israel. (emphasis mine)

Are these Americans or Israelis? Do American members of the US Defence Department justify invading a country at the cost of 20,000 lives and over 166 billion dollars in order to create a safe environment for Israel? Is that the answer to the question "why"? According to Haaretz and these dual loyalists, it is.

Why do three scholars and journalists ignore the facts? Ignoring the facts because the question (WHY?) may produce some uncomfortable answers is no excuse for pretending to represent "public accuracy".

It's no damn wonder that a falsifying government can get away with murder (literally!). The political brains relied upon by the Institute for Public Accuracy lead nowhere except to a conclusion about how severely they are malfunctioning. WHY? Intelligence failure!

Also see:

*Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for 35 years. For more information, see http://www.writerfreelance.com and http://www.pballes.com

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