A rchive Date
[ 25-07-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/07/18/547035.html
The era of strategic deception
By Eric Margolis - Contributing Foreign Editor
Sun, July 18, 2004
HAVING PRESIDED over the two worst intelligence disasters since Pearl Harbor - 9/11 and the misbegotten invasion of Iraq - the Bush Administration and its apologists are now whining, "Okay, we were wrong about Iraq's weapons and supposed threat, but so was everybody else. Besides, it was all the CIA's fault."
No way. The Iraq weapons fiasco was absolutely not caused by an "intelligence failure," as the White House and the recent Senate whitewash claim. U.S. national security and CIA were corrupted and blinded by extremist ideology, cowardice, and careerism. Nor was everyone wrong about Iraq.
Scores of Mideast professionals, this writer included, insisted from Day 1 that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, posed no threat to the U.S., and had no link to al-Qaida. Meanwhile, in 2002, Vice-President Dick Cheney thundered that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons. A month later, Secretary of State Colin Powell proclaimed "no doubt he (Saddam) has chemical weapons."
Biological weapons
Shortly after, President George W. Bush assured the UN that Iraq had biological weapons. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned a "mushroom cloud" threatened America. Britain's glib prime minister, Tony Blair, made similar ludicrous claims.
Many veteran CIA officers dismissed these alarms as politically-motivated propaganda. The U.S. state department, air force, and French intelligence challenged claims Iraq had threatening offensive weapons systems. Many senior Pentagon military officers opposed invading Iraq.
But the word went out: Now hear this. If you value your job and pension, do not, repeat, do not contradict the boss. The president is hell-bent on invading Iraq. Make it so. Cheney repeatedly demanded evidence be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida. Oblivious to all facts, he keeps warning Iraq still threatens the U.S. He is increasingly out of touch with reality and may need professional calming.
Former CIA director George Tenet, a political aparatchik, not an intelligence professional, undermined his agency by pandering to all of Bush and Cheney's prejudices.
Careerism and hand-licking took precedence over professionalism. Those with dissenting views were ignored or shunted aside. This column has long reported smouldering anger among veteran CIA officers over Bush's deeply flawed policies towards Iraq and the Muslim world.
In late 2001, I was shocked and horrified to hear a distinguished member of the CIA's founding families actually claim a "fifth column" had taken control of Iraq policy and was driving the U.S. to war. But even the compliant CIA failed to satisfy Bush and Cheney's growing demands for more damning "evidence".
Cheney and Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld created two independent intelligence units, Office for Special Plans, and "Team B." Their mission: Find the smoking guns to justify immediate war against Iraq. These two units became the main conduits for disinformation about Iraq, promoting every rumour the White House and media wanted to believe, no matter how absurd. Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi - created, financed, and managed by Pentagon neocons - was a major source of information.
Tales trumpeted
His tales were trumpeted by the White House and media.
This was no intelligence failure. This was strategic deception, a combination the Soviet KGB called "disinformatzia" and "maskirovka." This was facilitated by an ideologically and religiously extreme president; a Dr. Strangelovian vice-president lusting for war and oil; neocon ideologues and a cowardly Congress that violated its most basic responsibility to the nation. All that, plus a national security establishment that lacked the cojones to tell superiors or Americans the truth.
Purging the CIA is not the answer. If anyone should be purged, it is the politicians and neocons in the Pentagon and media, who misled the U.S. into a catastrophic war that has so far cost the lives of more than 880 Americans, 13,000 Iraqi civilians, $200 billion US, and ruined the good name of the United States around the world.
They and Britain's Tony Blair must not be allowed to escape full blame and retribution by hiding behind the sophistry that everyone - and thus no one - was responsible.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at: margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com Letters to the editor should be sent to: editor@tor.sunpub.com Home Page
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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