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NYT reviewer: Small group of Bush advisers will take real reason for Iraq war to their (restless) graves

By Philip Weiss on October 4, 2011

These are the first and last paragraphs of the New York Times review (by Thomas Powers) of former spook Paul Pillar’s new book. Pillar worked for 28 years at the CIA and the National Intelligence Council, often on Middle East issues.

Every attentive reader of “Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Paul R. Pillar’s long-needed examination of just what the Central Intelligence Agency got right or wrong before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, will find one observation or another that seems more disquieting than the rest. I haven’t quite decided which of two deserves pride of place on my own list: The fact that the Bush administration never formally debated whether it was “a good idea” to invade Iraq? Or that Pillar, who ran the National Intelligence Council’s shop for the Middle East during both events, cannot tell us “the true reasons the Bush administration invaded”?

…This brings us back to the troubling remarks Pillar makes early in this rich, useful and important book. First is the fact that the administration never formally debated “whether the war was a good idea.” The implication is clear: a small group of officials made the decision on their own, without leaving any record. “It was never on any meeting’s agenda,” Pillar notes. What, then, was the purpose of the war? What did President Bush and his advisers hope to achieve? Who did they think would benefit? I would say that I am about as interested in this question as anyone, but any answer I offered would be only a guess. Bush and his friends have never really been clear about their reasons, and the magnitude of their failure suggests they will carry the secret to their graves.

This is shocking, of course. It recalls Thomas Friedman’s commentary to Avi Shavit in Haaretz that if you had abducted 25 neocons to a desert island before the Iraq war it would never have happened. It recalls Colin Powell’s reported belief, in Karen DeYoung’s biography, that a “gang” from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs pushed the Iraq war as a means of guaranteeing Israel’s security. It recalls Jacob Heilbrunn’s use of the word “cabal” in his book on the neocons, They Knew They Were Right. It recalls Joe Klein’s statement, in a Time blog a couple years ago, that the neocons pushed the Iraq war to set off a “benign domino theory” across the Middle East to make Israel safe. It recalls George Packer’s keen report, in Assassin’s Gate, that the neocons harbored a “move over one” theory of the Iraq war: that Jordan would get Iraq, the Palestinians would get Jordan, and Israel would get greater Israel, that my father bought for two zuzim.

October 4, 2011 - Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel

3 Comments »

  1. maybe we can help them out a bit with that ‘graves’ thing and get it rolling.

    a reminder that there is truly retribution for murdering innocent people for no other reason than greed and avarice.

    LET’S ROLL, as imaginary Todd Beamer would say if he were a real person…which he is not, just another neocon excuse and LIE about 9/11.

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    LET'S ROLL!!!!'s avatar Comment by LET'S ROLL!!!! | October 4, 2011 | Reply

  2. I don’t know what people find so hard to understand about Bush’ motives for Iraq war. Barely a week into the office in January of 2001, Bush asked the question at his first cabinet meeting: “What are we going to do about Saddam?”. This was EIGHT months before September 11!
    Bush had just recently kissed Ariel Sharon’s behind (and may have performed fellatio on him, for all we know). It was well known that Saddam was proffering $10K to the families of the Palestinian suicide bombers (who, in his eyes, were martyrs in Palestinian struggle) to ease their pain and difficulties, not in order to encourage others to emulate the former as claimed by Sharon and his neocon allies. That, in Bush’s opinion, was a grave crime which called for trashing not just Saddam but his whole country. And so a ‘regime change’ in Iraq was a given. He needed some excuse to sell the war to the public, not that Americans ever saw a war they didn’t like. WTC and other attacks on 9/11/2011 provided the pretext. It is for this reason that I give weight to the theory that 9/11 may have been an inside job. Was a second Pearl Harbor not foreseen (nay, ordained) by the neocon cabal who wanted to secure the ‘realm’ in the Project for New American Century? Now that same cabal was in the driver’s seat.
    It may turn out to be the greatest irony of history (much as Churchill’s obsession with dismantling the Ottoman Turkish Empire that propelled the world to the Great Wars of the first half of the 20th century culminating in the disintegration of four mighty empires – British, French, Austro-Hungarian and Russian) if America’s desire to secure divine blessing by giving Israel whatever she wants (and more) may culminate in disintegration of this great country and society. Reverend Hagee, take note.
    This thesis nicely dovetails with the Zionist delusion that the end result of the ‘benign’ dominoes (that caused merely a million deaths) falling with the regime change and more in Iraq will give Iraq to Jordan, Jordan to the Palestinians and Palestine to Eretz Israel! What we may get instead will be a unified state of Israel-Palestine where the state does not ask if you a Jew or a gentile, an Iraq that is a vassal of Iran (as it has been throughout much of history) and a greatly weakened and bankrupt America. Chinese ascendancy may only occur by default.

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    Inayat Lalani's avatar Comment by Inayat Lalani | October 5, 2011 | Reply

  3. […] NYT reviewer: Small group of Bush advis­ers will take real rea­son for Iraq war to their (rest­le… (alethonews.wordpress.com) […]

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    Pingback by Author Q&A with Stephen England | Man of la Book | September 27, 2014 | Reply


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