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We
got them! Didn’t Iraq’s former U.S. administrator, Paul Bremmer,
use the exact same phraseology to announce the capture of Saddam Hussein?
Well, most certainly it applies now, thanks to our Secretary of State,
Dr. Condoleezza Rice. And finally, we have the truth as to why and how
we got into a costly and wasteful war in that country.
I quote Rice’s statement to news anchor
and moderator, Tim Russsert, on “Meet the Press” as it was
televised on October 17, 2005:
“…but
the fact of the matter is, that when we were attacked on September 11,
we had a [choice] to make. We could decide the proximate cause was Al
Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore,
we could go after Al Qaeda and perhaps the Taliban and then our work would
be done, and we could try to defend ourselves. Or we could take a bolder
approach and that meant a different kind of Middle East.”
“Which
was to say we had to go after the root causes of the kind of terrorism
produced there, and that meant a different kind of Middle East. And no
one could imagine a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein
still in power.”
From that very concise statement I think
it should be clear to everyone (including the hardcore supporters of President
George W. Bush) that his administration, indeed, “lied” to
us, the American people.
As our esteemed Secretary of State stated,
“…we [the administration] had a choice to make” - and
they made it. They chose to go to war in Iraq!
Under the guise of searching for ‘Weapons
of Mass Destruction’, they hijacked our support to invade a sovereign
nation that had not attacked us, and sunk our country into a war we are
highly unlikely to win decisively.
President George W. Bush, in defiance of
his own pre election promises not to do so, entered boldly into an adventure
of ‘nation building’. And they have been lying to us ever
since as a way of day-to-day political life.
Of what we have to date learned of the investigation
of the Valerie Plame case, there was a flagrant attempt by the Bush White
House to discredit former ambassador, Joe Wilson, by ‘outing’
his wife, covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Now, this White House may soon
be engulfed in an affair of ‘Watergate’ proportions over this
incident, one that may lead right into the office of the Vice President.
During Watergate we were involved in the
Vietnam War, which had come through two previous administrations. This
time, however, we are in a war that was from all available evidence, started
by the Bush administration based upon false assertions and falsified evidence.
In other words, they lied to the American people.
We are about to experience the 2000th American
combat death in this ‘mission accomplished’ war without end.
And in this same time frame, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may
bring indictments of top White House staff, possibly including the guru
of President Bush’s political success, Karl Rove.
So it is fitting that we look back at how
we, as a nation, were drawn into this tragic mess that is the all-encompassing
Iraq debacle. Please follow the bouncing ball:
(1)
Our intelligence services are caught with their pants down by the brazen
September 11, 2001 attacks, carried out by 19 Saudi nationals –
but no Iraqis. After which, our then Chief of National Security, Condoleezza
Rice, makes the incredible statement, “Who would have expected
someone to use an airliner as a weapon and fly it into a building?”
(2) The President orders the military to strike at Afghanistan and its
Taliban led government, who headquartered the Al Qaeda terror organization
that sponsored the attack.
(3) The US initiates Operation Enduring Freedom, deploying 18,000 troops
to work in close consort with the Afghan Northern Alliance Movement
in the opening days of the invasion. After weeks of fierce fighting,
the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s followers are driven from the
capital, Kabul, and into the mountains.
(4) At this time when we appear to have them bottled up in Tora Bora
during the siege of December of 2002 (and from all indications, including
Bin Laden), rather than committing the ground forces necessary to destroy
them, we instead assign their routing to the opium-growing warlords
of the region.
(5) The Taliban melt into the hills of Afghanistan, and bin Laden and
his followers do the same in neighboring Pakistan; both factions begin
to reconstitute their organizations.
(6) Bush and Cheney now look to Iraq. They claim Saddam Hussein has
refused to adequately prove to the U.N. that he has completely destroyed
his WMD, and is actively engaged in reconstituting his nuclear weapons
program. At the same time, contrary to all accepted intelligence data,
Cheney insists that there were credible links between the Al Qaeda,
Saddam Hussein and the 9-11 attacks.
(7) In early February of 2002, Vice President requests CIA investigation
of a claim that in the late 1990’s, Iraq had sought to obtain
lightly processed Uranium ore (yellowcake) from the African nation of
Niger.
(8) In late February of 2002, former ambassador to Gabon (in the Bush
Sr. administration), Joseph Wilson, is recommended to the CIA by his
wife, covert agent, Valerie Plame, as the best person to travel to Niger
to investigate this claim. Upon intensive investigation Wilson could
uncover no credibility to the claim, and stated so in his report to
the agency.
(9) October 6, 2002 - President Bush makes a speech to the nation, calling
upon Saddam Hussein to disarm under threat of military action. He also
claims that Al Qaeda and Iraq have held high-level contacts that go
back a decade or more which links them to the 9-11 attack (this has
since been proven false).
(10) January of 2003 - President Bush makes his now famous ‘smoking
gun’ speech, quoting a British intelligence dossier of an Italian
source (documents now considered to be forgeries) that makes the ‘yellowcake’
claim, and presents the specter of a ‘mushroom’ cloud if
Saddam Hussein is not dealt with quickly.
(11) U.N. inspectors on the ground in Iraq beg for more time to complete
their work, but the Bush administration refuses their requests, and
instead assembles a strike force on Iraq’s borders.
(12) The force is set at approximately 156,000 US combat troops plus
50,000 “Coalition of the willing” troops. Later it will
be tragically revealed that U.S. combat forces were not only under equipped,
but ill equipped as well. This low level of combat personnel was decided
upon, even though respected career soldier, General Eric Shinseki, stated
(in an armed services meeting three weeks before the start of the Iraq
war), that occupying such a vast territory would require a ‘minimum’
of 350, 000 troops.
(13) The Bush administration ignores General Shinseki’s expertise
and forcefully retires him. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and
Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, predict the US would be
welcomed as liberators, negating the need for a larger force. The US
invades Iraq on March 19, 2003.
(14)
May 2, 2003 - President Bush lands triumphantly on the aircraft carrier,
USS Abraham Lincoln, with a banner in the background stating “Mission
Accomplished”.
(15) July 6, 2003 - Former ambassador Joe Wilson publishes an Op Ed
piece in the New York Times, detailing his investigative trip to Niger.
He accuses the administration of ‘exaggerating the Iraqi threat’
to justify going to war. The Bush White House goes into overdrive to
discredit Wilson.
(16) July 7, 2003 – Bush departs for Africa on Air Force One with
a contingent of close staff members, which includes Colin Powell, Karl
Rove, Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Lewis “Scooter”
Libby, and a memo marked ‘classified’, in which the identity
of CIA agent Valerie Plame is listed.
(17) Starting about mid July of 2003 and increasing daily, an insurgency
has formed in Iraq. It is determined by many experts in the military
field (both for and against the war), that we don’t have enough
‘boots on the ground’ to contain them. The estimated shortfall
mirror the Shenski estimates.
(18) July 14, 2003 - Right wing columnist Robert Novak publishes an
article in which he ’outs’ Ambassador Wilson’s wife
as a CIA covert operative. The big question being, who revealed her
classified identity to him?
(19) By mid 2004, attacks on US and coalition forces have increased
to a level of 50 to 60 a day. The military claims to have killed nearly
60, 000 insurgents, and the November 2003 estimate of the Head of US
Central Command, General John Abizaid, places insurgent strength at
no more than 5000. However, the most recent estimate by the same office
is 30, 000 plus – and growing.
(20) To date, no Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) have been uncovered.
And the leaked Downing Street Memos give clear indication that the Bush
administration had every intention to invade Iraq, regardless of any
WMD that may or may not have been there.
As Secretary of State, Dr.Condoleezza Rice
stated: ”…we [the Bush administration] had a choice to make.”
And that is how we got from there to here.
Due to the ill advised actions of this President
and his rogue administration, Iraq has become a center for terrorists,
as well as a terrorist training ground; something that it wasn’t
under Saddam Hussein.
To date, we have uselessly expended the
lives of 2000 American soldiers, and rendered an estimated 17,000 terribly
disabled or disfigured.
In the spring of 2006, we will face a critical
troop shortage in Iraq, as most divisions are on their second tours of
duty, and many Marine contingents are entering their third.
We now spend an estimated 5 billion dollars
a month in this theater of war (not counting the Afghanistan effort),
and our national debt is rapidly climbing into the trillions.
Energy corporations now reap ‘windfall’
profits, while most Americans have trouble filling their automobile or
home fuel oil tanks, and few can afford medical care. New bankruptcy laws
allow large companies to dump their pension plans, while preventing Middle
and Lower income Americans from seeking debt relief. Meanwhile, as our
schools, bridges and roads are falling apart, and jobs are being exported:
Halliburton and Wal Mart earn record profits.
I ask you, America, was this outcome
also the result of a choice made by the Bush administration?
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