This is an old op-ed, but worthy of wider distribution
Richard Clarke's recent testimony that the Bush administration ignored the threat of terrorists in favor of a focus on Iraq has the administration up in arms, and rightfully so. If Clarke thought the White House were going to nod and acquiesce and mumble, "Yep, you got us," during an election year, then he's truly off his rocker.
But does that mean he's wrong?
January 1996, the Project for the New American Century sends a letter to President Bill Clinton, advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, using much of the same argument put forth by President Bush, the Second. The signatories of the letter to President Clinton? Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Armitage among others.
February 1998, Wolfowitz testifies before Congress that the US ought to support Iraqi insurgents in removing Saddam Hussein. Some pundits believe that this testimony was the origin of the deliberately ambiguous phrase 'regime change.'
September 2000, the Project for the New American Century resurfaces with a document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, which states, "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." Project participants? Among others, Wolfowitz, and Lewis Libby, Cheney's current chief of staff.
Perhaps most damning? A report from the Army Corps of Engineers, entitled
DoD Mission for Repair and Continuity of Operations Of the Iraqi Oil Infrastructure states that "Prior to the commencement of hostilities in March 2003, the Department of Defense had planned for the repair and continuity of operations of the Iraqi oil infrastructure." That's a perfectly reasonable assumption, and an example of forward-thinking planning that seemed almost scarce in light of the looting spree that accompanied the collapse of Iraqi political authority.
Keep digging, though, and you find this nugget: "The current LOGCAP contract was awarded to BRS on December 14, 2001, after a competitive source selection process."
That's right. The Army Corps of Engineers had a contract in place to rebuild the Iraqi oil infrastructure with an effective date of December, 2001. Prior to the Brown & Root contract, DynCorp had the job from 1997-2002. Does that put Bill Clinton on the hook? Hardly. DynCorp's predecessor was Brown & Root, who held the contract from 1992-1996. On whose watch would such a contract have been cut in 1992? George Bush, the First. Where did (then Secretary of Defense) Dick Cheney land after the Bush defeat of 1992? Haliburton, whose subsidiaries include Brown & Root.
This isn't to say that the world isn't a better place without Saddam Hussein, but the Bush administration(s) have been planning from the beginning to knock off Iraq. To suggest otherwise is (a) disingenuous, (b) wrong, and perhaps worst of all (c) lying to the American public.
Admitting that terrorism was not a priority before 9-11 would be political suicide. But the deliberate obfuscation of the administration's obsession with Iraq should be just as bad.
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postscript to this article: The US Army Corps of Engineers has since pulled this webpage from their site, but it is still archived at web.archive.org (a fabulous site):
http://web.archive.org/web/20031203095644/http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/iraq/factsheet.htm
By: Brant
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