Bush Gang Swore Saddam Was Behind 9/11 In Lawsuit By Evelyn Pringle [ November 16, 2005 Information Clearing House ] and Armchair Provocateur Laurie Mylroie: The Neocons’ favorite conspiracy theorist, By Peter Bergen [ December 2003 The Washington Monthly ] attest to Mylroie’s obsession with Saddam, her years of toiling in the lie factory that promoted the invasion of Iraq, and the fantastical nature of her many claims. But even these critics agree with a main tenet of Mylroie’s rantings. In Letting Saddam Be A pre-and post-September 11 danger, By Laurie Mylroie [ May 29, 2002 National Review ] she may put her personal touch to it, charging the danger was real and Clinton was diabolically remiss in his refusal to recognise it and take action, but essentially they all agree. Clinton did not believe Saddam was an imminent threat.
Pringle says as much when she writes “the original Iraq war obsession originated at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think-tank that served as a home base for the many neocons who were rendered powerless during the Clinton years such as Richard Perle, who became chairman of the Defense Policy Board under Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz, who moved into the number-2 position at the Pentagon, and Newt Gingrich and John Bolton, to name just a few.”
Bergen put forth, “Still, none of the thinker/operatives at AEI, or indeed any of the other neocon hawks such as Paul Wolfowitz, were in any real way experts on Iraq or had served in the region. Moreover, the majority of those in and out of government who were Middle East experts had grave concerns about the wisdom of invading Iraq and serious doubts about claims that Saddam’s regime posed an urgent threat to American security.”
Mylroie wrote, “Washington’s experts on Iraq — in and out of government — also accommodated Clinton’s desire not to hear Saddam Hussein was a serious problem. They downplayed the danger posed by Iraq’s unconventional weapons and denigrated the strategy promoted by the U.S. Congress for removing Saddam: Arm and train the opposition Iraqi National Congress. In their overwhelming majority, the Iraq experts maintained there was no pressing danger, and even if Saddam’s ouster was desirable, little could be done, as the INC was not competent. (Three such experts wrote a screed to that effect in Foreign Affairs, entitled *”The Rollback Fantasy.” The senior author was rewarded with an appointment to the Clinton White House).”
As for the origins of the U.S. gov’t’s obsession with controlling the Middle East’s oil supply, the official debate seems to have gone public in 1975. If this objective isn’t fueling “stay the course” policies in Iraq today, what is?
War for Oil?
By I. F. Stone
Volume 22, Number 1 · February 6, 1975
The New York Review of Books
Oil War and Oil Imperialism
The Libertarian Forum (pdf)
Vol. VII, No. 2 February 1975
Murray N. Rothbard, Editor
Oil: The Issue of American Intervention
By Robert W. Tucker
January 1975, Commentary
*I inserted the hyperlink.