De Pro-Israel Lobby 28

Israel and the Iraq War

Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the U.S.
decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was a critical element. Some
Americans believe that this was a “war for oil,” but there is hardly any
direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in
good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip
Zelikow, a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
(2001?2003), executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now Counselor
to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the “real threat” from Iraq was not
a threat to the United States.139 The “unstated threat” was the “threat
against Israel,” Zelikow told a University of Virginia audience in
September 2002, noting further that “the American government doesn’t want
to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”
On August 16, 2002, eleven days before Vice President Cheney kicked off the
campaign for war with a hard?line speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars,
the Washington Post reported that “Israel is urging U.S. officials not to
delay a military strike against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.”140 By this point,
according to Sharon, strategic coordination between Israel and the U.S. had
reached “unprecedented dimensions,” and Israeli intelligence officials had
given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD
programs.141 As one retired Israeli general later put it, “Israeli
intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and
British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non? conventional capabilities.”142

Israeli leaders were deeply distressed when President Bush decided to seek
U.N. Security Council authorization for war in September, and even more
worried when Saddam agreed to let U.N. inspectors back into Iraq, because
these developments seemed to reduce the likelihood of war. Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres told reporters in September 2002 that “the campaign
against Saddam Hussein is a must. Inspections and inspectors are good for
decent people, but dishonest people can overcome easily inspections and
inspectors.”143

At the same time, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote a New York Times
op? ed warning that “the greatest risk now lies in inaction.”144 His
predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, published a similar piece in the Wall
Street Journal entitled “The Case for Toppling Saddam.”145 Netanyahu
declared, “Today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do,” adding
that “I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of Israelis in
supporting a pre?emptive strike against Saddam’s regime.” Or as Ha’aretz
reported in February 2003: “The [Israeli] military and political leadership
yearns for war in Iraq.”146

But as Netanyahu suggests, the desire for war was not confined to Israel’s
leaders. Apart from Kuwait, which Saddam conquered in 1990, Israel was the
only country in the world where both the politicians and the public
enthusiastically favored war.147 As journalist Gideon Levy observed at the
time, “Israel is the only country in the West whose leaders support the war
unreservedly and where no alternative opinion is voiced.” 148 In fact,
Israelis were so gung?ho for war that their allies in America told them to
damp down their hawkish rhetoric, lest it look like the war was for
Israel.149

The Lobby and the Iraq War

Within the United States, the main driving force behind the Iraq war was a
small band of neoconservatives, many with close ties to Israel’s Likud
Party.150 In addition, key leaders of the Lobby’s major organizations lent
their voices to the campaign for war.151 According to the Forward, “As
President Bush attempted to sell the . . . war in Iraq, America’s most
important Jewish organizations rallied as one to his defense. In statement
after statement community leaders stressed the need to rid the world of
Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.”152 The editorial goes
on to say that “concern for Israel’s safety rightfully factored into the
deliberations of the main Jewish groups.”

Although neoconservatives and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq,
the broader American Jewish community was not.153 In fact, Samuel Freedman
reported just after the war started that “a compilation of nationwide
opinion polls by the Pew Research Center shows that Jews are less
supportive of the Iraq war than the population at large, 52% to 62%.”154
Thus, it would be wrong to blame the war in Iraq on “Jewish influence.”
Rather, the war was due in large part to the Lobby’s influence, especially
the neoconservatives within it. The neoconservatives were already
determined to topple Saddam before Bush became President.155 They caused a
stir in early 1998 by publishing two open letters to President Clinton
calling for Saddam’s removal from power.156 The signatories, many of whom
had close ties to pro?Israel groups like JINSA or WINEP, and whose ranks
included Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, William Kristol,
Bernard Lewis, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had little
trouble convincing the Clinton Administration to adopt the general goal of
ousting Saddam.157 But the neoconservatives were unable to sell a war to
achieve that objective. Nor were they able to generate much enthusiasm for
invading Iraq in the early months of the Bush Administration.158 As
important as the neoconservatives were for making the Iraq war happen, they
needed help to achieve their aim.

That help arrived with 9/11. Specifically, the events of that fateful day
led Bush and Cheney to reverse course and become strong proponents of a
preventive war to topple Saddam. Neoconservatives in the Lobby—most
notably Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Princeton historian Bernard
Lewis—played especially critical roles in persuading the President and
Vice?President to favor war.

For the neoconservatives, 9/11 was a golden opportunity to make the case for
war with Iraq. At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David on September 15,
Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan, even though there was
no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the United States
and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan.159 Bush rejected this advice
and chose to go after Afghanistan instead, but war with Iraq was now
regarded as a serious possibility and the President tasked U.S. military
planners on November 21, 2001 with developing concrete plans for an
invasion.160 Meanwhile, other neoconservatives were at work within the
corridors of power.

We do not have the full story yet, but scholars like Lewis and Fouad Ajami
of John Hopkins University reportedly played key roles in convincing Vice
President Cheney to favor the war.161 Cheney’s views were also heavily
influenced by the neoconservatives on his staff, especially Eric Edelman,
John Hannah, and chief of staff Libby, one of the most powerful individuals
in the Administration. The Vice President’s influence helped convince
President Bush by early 2002.162 With Bush and Cheney on board, the die for
war was cast.

Outside the administration, neoconservative pundits lost no time making the
case that invading Iraq was essential to winning the war on terrorism.
Their efforts were partly aimed at keeping pressure on Bush and partly
intended to overcome opposition to the war inside and outside of the
government. On September 20, a group of prominent neoconservatives and
their allies published another open letter, telling the President that
“even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [9/11] attack, any
strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must
include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq.”163 The letter also reminded Bush that, “Israel has been and remains
America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism.” In the October
1 issue of the Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol called for
regime change in Iraq immediately after the Taliban was defeated. That same
day, Charles Krauthammer argued in the Washington Post that after we were
done with Afghanistan, Syria should be next, followed by Iran and Iraq. “The
war on terrorism,” he argued, “will conclude in Baghdad,” when we finish off
“the most dangerous terrorist regime in the world.”164

These salvoes were the beginning of an unrelenting public relations campaign
to win support for invading Iraq.165 A key part of this campaign was the
manipulation of intelligence information, so as to make Saddam look like an
imminent threat. For example, Libby visited the CIA several times to
pressure analysts to find evidence that would make the case for war, and he
helped prepare a detailed briefing on the Iraq threat in early 2003 that
was pushed on Colin Powell, then preparing his infamous briefing to the
U.N. Security Council on the Iraqi threat.166 According to Bob Woodward,
Powell “was appalled at what he considered overreaching and hyperbole.
Libby was drawing only the worst conclusions from fragments and silky
threads.”167 Although Powell discarded Libby’s most outrageous claims, his
U.N. presentation was still riddled with errors, as Powell now
acknowledges. The campaign to manipulate intelligence also involved two
organizations that were created after 9/11 and reported directly to
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.168 The Policy Counterterrorism
Evaluation Group was tasked to find links between al Qaeda and Iraq that
the intelligence community supposedly missed. Its two key members were
Wurmser, a hard core neoconservative, and Michael Maloof, a
Lebanese?American who had close ties with Perle. The Office of Special
Plans was tasked with finding evidence that could be used to sell war with
Iraq. It was headed by Abram Shulsky, a neoconservative with longstanding
ties to Wolfowitz, and its ranks included recruits from pro?Israel think
tanks.169

Like virtually all the neoconservatives, Feith is deeply committed to
Israel. He also has long?standing ties to the Likud Party. He wrote
articles in the 1990s supporting the settlements and arguing that Israel
should retain the occupied territories.170 More importantly, along with
Perle and Wurmser, he wrote the famous “Clean Break” report in June 1996
for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.171 Among other
things, it recommended that Netanyahu “focus on removing Saddam Hussein
from power in Iraq ?? an important Israeli strategic objective in its own
right.” It also called for Israel to take steps to reorder the entire
Middle East. Netanyahu did not implement their advice, but Feith, Perle
and Wurmser were soon advocating that the Bush Administration pursue those
same goals. This situation prompted Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar to warn
that Feith and Perle “are walking a fine line between their loyalty to
American governments ... and Israeli interests.”172

Wolfowitz is equally committed to Israel. The Forward once described him as
“the most hawkishly pro?Israel voice in the Administration,” and selected
him in 2002 as the first among fifty notables who “have consciously pursued
Jewish activism.”173 At about the same time, JINSA gave Wolfowitz its
Henry M. Jackson Distinguished Service Award for promoting a strong
partnership between Israel and the United States, and the Jerusalem Post,
describing him as “devoutly pro?Israel,” named him “Man of the Year” in
2003.174 Finally, a brief word is in order about the neoconservatives’
prewar support of Ahmed Chalabi, the unscrupulous Iraqi exile who headed
the Iraqi National Congress (INC). They embraced Chalabi because he had
worked to establish close ties with Jewish?American groups and had pledged
to foster good relations with Israel once he gained power.175 This was
precisely what pro?Israel proponents of regime change wanted to hear, so
they backed Chalabi in return.

Journalist Matthew Berger laid out the essence of the bargain in the Jewish
Journal: “The INC saw improved relations as a way to tap Jewish influence in
Washington and Jerusalem and to drum up increased support for its cause.
For their part, the Jewish groups saw an opportunity to pave the way for
better relations between Israel and Iraq, if and when the INC is involved
in replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime.”176

Given the neoconservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq,
and their influence in the Bush Administration, it is not surprising that
many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli
interests. For example, Barry Jacobs of the American Jewish Committee
acknowledged in March 2005 that the belief that Israel and the
neoconservatives conspired to get the United States into a war in Iraq was
“pervasive” in the U.S. intelligence community.177 Yet few people would
say so publicly, and most that did ?? including Senator Ernest Hollings
(D?SC) and Representative James Moran (D? VA) ?? were condemned for raising
the issue.178 Michael Kinsley put the point well in late 2002, when he
wrote that “the lack of public discussion about the role of Israel ... is
the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions
it.”179 The reason for this reluctance, he observed, was fear of being
labeled an anti?Semite. Even so, there is little doubt that Israel and the
Lobby were key factors in shaping the decision for war. Without the
Lobby’s efforts, the United States would have been far less likely to have
gone to war in March 2003.

Dreams of Regional Transformation

The Iraq war was not supposed to be a costly quagmire. Rather, it was
intended as the first step in a larger plan to reorder the Middle East.
This ambitious strategy was a dramatic departure from previous U.S. policy,
and the Lobby and Israel were critical driving forces behind this shift.
This point was made clearly after the Iraq war began in a front?page story
in the Wall Street Journal. The headline says it all: “President’s Dream:
Changing Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro?U.S., Democratic Area is a
Goal that Has Israeli and Neo Conservative Roots.”180

Pro?Israel forces have long been interested in getting the U.S. military
more directly involved in the Middle East, so it could help protect
Israel.181 But they had limited success on this front during the Cold War,
because America acted as an “off?shore balancer” in the region. Most U.S.
forces designated for the Middle East, like the Rapid Deployment Force,
were kept “over the horizon” and out of harm’s way. Washington maintained
a favorable balance of power by playing local powers off against each
other, which is why the Reagan Administration supported Saddam against
revolutionary Iran during the Iran?Iraq war (1980?88).

This policy changed after the first Gulf War, when the Clinton
Administration adopted a strategy of “dual containment.” It called for
stationing substantial U.S. forces in the region to contain both Iran and
Iraq, instead of using one to check the other. The father of dual
containment was none other than Martin Indyk, who first articulated the
strategy in May 1993 at the pro?Israel think tank WINEP and then
implemented it as Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the
National Security Council.182
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Footnotes to this section of M&W analysis

139 Emad Mekay, “Iraq Was Invaded ‘to Protect Israel’ – US Official,” Asia
Times Online, March 31, 2004. Zelikow also served with Rice on the
National Security Council when George H. W. Bush was President, and
co?authored a book with her on German reunification. He was also one of
the principal authors of the second Bush Administration’s 2002 National
Security Strategy, which is the most comprehensive official presentation of
the so?called Bush Doctrine.
140 Jason Keyser, “Israel Urges U.S. to Attack,” Washington Post, August 16,
2002. Also see Aluf Benn, “PM Urging U.S. Not to Delay Strike against
Iraq,” Ha’aretz, August 16, 2002; Idem, “PM Aide: Delay in U.S. Attack Lets
Iraq Speed Up Arms Program,” Ha’aretz, August 16, 2002; Reuven Pedhatzur,
“Israel’s Interest in the War on Saddam,” Ha’aretz, August 4, 2002; Ze’ev
Schiff, “Into the Rough,” Ha’aretz, August 16, 2002.
141 Gideon Alon, “Sharon to Panel: Iraq is Our Biggest Danger,” Ha’aretz,
August 13, 2002. At a White House press conference with President Bush on
October 16, 2002, Sharon said: “I would like to thank you, Mr. President,
for the friendship and cooperation. And as far as I remember, as we look
back towards many years now, I think that we never had such relations with
any President of the United States as we have with you, and we never had
such cooperation in everything as we have with the current administration.”
For a transcript of the press conference, see “President Bush Welcomes
Prime Minister Sharon to White House; Question and Answer Session with the
Press,” U.S. Department of State, October 16, 2002. Also see Kaiser, “Bush
and Sharon Nearly Identical on Mideast Policy.”
142 Shlomo Brom, “An Intelligence Failure,” Strategic Assessment (Jaffee
Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University), Vol. 6, No. 3 (November
2003), p. 9. Also see “Intelligence Assessment: Selections from the Media,
1998?2003,” in ibid., pp. 17?19; Gideon Alon, “Report Slams Assessment of
Dangers Posed by Libya, Iraq,” Ha’aretz, March 28, 2004; Dan Baron,
“Israeli Report Blasts Intelligence for Exaggerating the Iraqi Threat,”
JTA, March 28, 2004; Greg Myre, “Israeli Report Faults Intelligence on
Iraq,” New York Times, March 28, 2004; James Risen, State of War: The
Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2006), pp. 72?73.
143 Marc Perelman, “Iraqi Move Puts Israel in Lonely U.S. Corner,” Forward,
September 20, 2002. This article begins, “Saddam Hussein’s surprise
acceptance of ‘unconditional’ United Nations weapons inspections put Israel
on the hot seat this week, forcing it into the open as the only nation
actively supporting the Bush administration’s goal of Iraqi regime change.”
Peres became so frustrated with the UN process in the following months
that in mid?February 2003 he lashed out at the French by questioning
France’s status as a permanent member of the Security Council. “Peres
Questions France Permanent Status on Security Council,” Ha’aretz, February
20, 2003. On a visit to Moscow in late September 2002, Sharon made it
clear to Russian President Putin, who was leading the charge for new
inspections, “that the time when these inspectors could have been effective
has passed.” Herb Keinon, “Sharon to Putin: Too Late for Iraq Arms
Inspection,” Jerusalem Post, October 1, 2002.
144 Ehud Barak, “Taking Apart Iraq’s Nuclear Threat,” New York Times,
September 4, 2002.
145 Benjamin Netanyahu, “The Case for Toppling Saddam,” Wall Street Journal,
September 20, 2002. The Jerusalem Post was particularly hawkish on Iraq,
frequently running editorials and op?eds promoting the war, and hardly ever
running pieces against it. Representative editorials include “Next Stop
Baghdad,” Jerusalem Post, November 15, 2001; “Don’t Wait for Saddam,”
Jerusalem Post, August 18, 2002; “Making the Case for War,” Jerusalem Post,
September 9, 2002. For some representative op?eds, see Ron Dermer, “The
March to Baghdad,” Jerusalem Post, December 21, 2001; Efraim Inbar, “Ousting
Saddam, Instilling Stability,” Jerusalem Post, October 8, 2002; Gerald M.
Steinberg, “Imagining the Liberation of Iraq,” Jerusalem Post, November 18,
2001.
146 Aluf Benn, “Background: Enthusiastic IDF Awaits War in Iraq,” Ha’aretz,
February 17, 2002. Also see James Bennet, “Israel Says War on Iraq Would
Benefit the Region,” New York Times, February 27, 2003; Chemi Shalev,
“Jerusalem Frets As U.S. Battles Iraq War Delays,” Forward, March 7, 2003. 147 Indeed, a February 2003 poll reported that 77.5 percent of Israeli Jews
wanted the United States to attack Iraq. Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann,
“Peace Index: Most Israelis Support the Attack on Iraq,” Ha’aretz, March 6,
2003. Regarding Kuwait, a public opinion poll released in March 2003 found
that 89.6 percent of Kuwaitis favored the impending war against Iraq. James
Morrison, “Kuwaitis Support War,” Washington Times, March 18, 2003. 148 Gideon Levy, “A Deafening Silence,” Ha’aretz, October 6, 2002. 149 See Dan Izenberg, “Foreign Ministry Warns Israeli War Talk Fuels US
Anti? Semitism,” Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2003, which makes clear that “the
Foreign Ministry has received reports from the US” telling Israelis to cool
their jets because “the US media” is portraying Israel as “trying to goad
the administration into war.” There is also evidence that Israel itself was
concerned about being seen as driving American policy toward Iraq. See
Benn, “PM Urging U.S. Not to Delay Strike”; Perelman, “Iraq Move Puts
Israel in Lonely U.S. Corner.” Finally, in late September 2002, a group of
political consultants known as the “Israel Project” told pro?Israel leaders
in the United States “to keep quiet while the Bush administration purses a
possible war with Iraq.” Dana Milbank, “Group Urges Pro?Israel Leaders
Silence on Iraq,” Washington Post, November 27, 2002.
150 The influence of the neoconservatives and their allies is clearly
reflected in the following articles: See Joel Beinin, “Pro?Israel Hawks and
the Second Gulf War,” Middle East Report Online, April 6, 2003; Elisabeth
Bumiller and Eric Schmitt, “On the Job and at Home, Influential Hawks’
30?Year Friendship Evolves,” New York Times, September 11, 2002; Kathleen
and William Christison, “A Rose by Another Name: The Bush Administration’s
Dual Loyalties,” CounterPunch, December 13, 2002; Robert Dreyfuss, “The
Pentagon Muzzles the CIA,” The American Prospect, December 16, 2002; Michael
Elliott and James Carney, “First Stop, Iraq,” Time, March 31, 2003;
Seymour Hersh, “The Iraq Hawks,” New Yorker, Vol. 77, issue 41 (December
24?31, 2001), pp. 58?63; Glenn Kessler, “U.S. Decision on Iraq Has Puzzling
Past,” Washington Post, January 12, 2003; Joshua M. Marshall, “Bomb
Saddam?” Washington Monthly, June 2002; Dana Milbank, “White House Push for
Iraqi Strike Is on Hold,” Washington Post, August 18, 2002; Susan Page,
“Showdown with Saddam: The Decision to Act,” USA Today, September 11, 2002;
Sam Tanenhaus, “Bush’s Brain Trust,” Vanity Fair, July 2003. Note that all
these articles are from before the war started.
151 See Mortimer B. Zuckerman, “No Time for Equivocation,” U.S. News & World
Report, August 26/September 2, 2002; Idem, “Clear and Compelling Proof,”
U.S. News & World Report, February 10, 2003; Idem, “The High Price of
Waiting,” U.S. News & World Report, March 10, 2003.
152 “An Unseemly Silence,” Forward, May 7, 2004. Also see Gary Rosenblatt,
“Hussein Asylum,” Jewish Week, August 23, 2002; Idem, “The Case for War
against Saddam,” Jewish Week, December 13, 2002.
153 Just before the U.S. military invaded Iraq, Congressman James P. Moran
(D?Va) created a stir when he said, “If it were not for the strong support
of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing
this.” Spencer S. Hsu, “Moran Said Jews Are Pushing War,” Washington Post,
March 11, 2003. However, Moran misspoke, because there was not widespread
support for the war in the Jewish community. He should have said, “If it
were not for the strong support of the neoconservatives and the leadership
of the Israel Lobby for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.” 154 Samuel G. Freedman, “Don’t Blame Jews for This War,” USA Today, April 2,
2003. Also see Ori Nir, “Poll Finds Jewish Political Gap,” Forward,
February 4, 2005.
155 It is no exaggeration to say that in the wake of 9/11, the
neoconservatives were not just determined, but were obsessed with removing
Saddam from power. As one senior Administration figure put it in January,
2003, “I do believe certain people have grown theological about this. It’s
almost a religion – that it will be the end of our society if we don’t take
action now.” Kessler, “U.S. Decision on Iraq Has Puzzling Past.” Kessler
also describes Colin Powell returning from White House meetings on Iraq,
“rolling his eyes” and saying, “Jeez, what a fixation about Iraq.” Bob
Woodward reports in Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), p.
410, that Kenneth Adelman “said he had worried to death as time went on and
support seemed to wane that there would be no war.” Also see ibid., pp.
164?165.
156 The first letter (January 26, 1998) was written under the auspices of
the Project for the New American Century and can be found on its website.
The second letter (February 19, 1998) was written under the auspices of the
Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf and can be found on the Iraq
Watch website. Also see the May 29, 1998 letter to Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott written under the
auspices of the Project for the New American Century and found on its
website. The neoconservatives, it should be emphasized, advocated invading
Iraq to topple Saddam. See “The End of Containment,” Weekly Standard,
December 1, 1997, pp. 13?14; Zalmay M. Khalizad and Paul Wolfowitz,
“Overthrow Him,” in ibid., pp. 14?15; Frederick W. Kagan, “Not by Air
Alone,” in ibid., pp. 15?16.
157 See Clinton’s comments after he signed the “Iraq Liberation Act of
1998.” Statement by the President, White House Press Office, October 31,
1998.
158 One might think from the publicity and the controversy surrounding two
books published in 2004—Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies: Inside
America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004) and Ron Suskind, The
Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of
Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004)— that Bush and Cheney were
bent on invading Iraq when they assumed office in late January 2001.
However, this interpretation is wrong. They were deeply interested in
toppling Saddam, just as Bill Clinton and Al Gore had been. But there is no
evidence in the public record showing that Bush and Cheney were seriously
contemplating war against Iraq before 9/11. In fact, Bush made it clear to
Bob Woodward that he was not thinking about going to war against Saddam
before 9/11. See Plan of Attack, p. 12. Also see Nicholas Lehmann, “The Iraq
Factor,” New Yorker, Vol. 76, issue 43 (January 22, 2001), pp. 34?48; Eric
Schmitt and Steven Lee Meyers, “Bush Administration Warns Iraq on Weapons
Programs,” New York Times, January 23, 2001. And Cheney had defended the
decision not to go to Baghdad throughout the 1990s and during the 2000
campaign. See Timothy Noah, “Dick Cheney, Dove,” Slate, October 16, 2002;
“Calm after Desert Storm,” An Interview with Dick Cheney, Policy Review,
No. 65 (Summer 1993). In short, even though the neoconservatives held
important positions in the Bush Administration, they were unable to
generate much enthusiasm for attacking Iraq before 9/11. Thus, the New York
Times reported in March 2001 that “some Republicans” were complaining that
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz “are failing to live up to their pre?election
advocacy of stepping up efforts to overthrow President Hussein.” At the
same time, a Washington Times editorial asked, “Have Hawks Become Doves?”
See Jane Perlez, “Capitol Hawks Seek Tougher Line on Iraq,” New York Times,
March 7, 2001; “Have Hawks Become Doves?” Washington Times, March 8, 2001. 159 Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 25?26. Wolfowitz was so insistent on
conquering Iraq that five days later Cheney had to tell him to “stop
agitating for targeting Saddam.” Page, “Showdown with Saddam.” According
to one Republican lawmaker, he “was like a parrot bringing [Iraq] up all
the time. It was getting on the President’s nerves.” Elliot and Carney,
“First Stop, Iraq.” Woodward describes Wolfowitz as “like a drum that would
not stop.” Plan of Attack, p. 22.
160 Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 1?44.
161 Regarding the neoconservatives’ influence on Cheney, see Elliott and
Carney, “First Stop, Iraq”; Page, “Showdown with Saddam”; Michael Hirsh,
“Bernard Lewis Revisited,” Washington Monthly, November 2004, pp.13?19;
Frederick Kempe, “Lewis’s ‘Liberation’ Doctrine for Mideast Faces New
Tests,” Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2005; Carla Anne Robbins and
Jeanne Cummings, “How Bush Decided that Hussein Must Be Ousted from Atop
Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2002. On Cheney’s critical role in
the decision?making process, see Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin, “Cheney is
Fulcrum of Foreign Policy,” Washington Post, October 13, 2002; Barbara
Slavin and Susan Page, “Cheney Rewrites Roles in Foreign Policy,” USA
Today, July 29, 2002.
162 The New York Times reported shortly after 9/11 that, “Some senior
administration officials, led by Paul D. Wolfowitz ... and I. Lewis Libby
... are pressing for the earliest and broadest military campaign against
not only the Osama bin Laden network in Afghanistan, but also against other
suspected terrorist bases in Iraq and in Lebanon’s Bekka region.” Patrick
E. Tyler and Elaine Sciolino, “Bush Advisers Split on Scope of
Retaliation,” New York Times, September 20, 2001. Also see William Safire,
“Phony War II,” New York Times, November 28, 2002. Woodward succinctly
describes Libby’s influence in Plan of Attack (pp. 48?49): “Libby had three
formal titles. He was chief of staff to Vice President Cheney; he was also
national security adviser to the vice president; and he was finally an
assistant to President Bush. It was a trifecta of positions probably never
held before by a single person. Scooter was a power center unto himself
.... Libby was one of only two people who were not principals to attend the
National Security Council meetings with the president and the separate
principals meetings chaired by Rice.” Also see ibid., pp 50?51, 288?292,
300?301, 409?410; Bumiller and Schmitt, “On the Job and at Home”; Karen
Kwiatkowski, “The New Pentagon Papers,” Salon.com, March 10, 2004; Patrick
E. Tyler and Elaine Sciolino, “Bush Advisers Split on Scope of
Retaliation,” New York Times, September 20, 2001. On Libby’s relationship to
Israel, an article in the Forward reports that “Israeli officials liked
Libby. They described him as an important contact who was accessible,
genuinely interested in Israel?related issues and very sympathetic to their
cause.” Ori Nir, “Libby Played Leading Role on Foreign Policy Decisions,”
Forward, November 4, 2005. 163 This letter was published in the Weekly
Standard, October 1, 2001.
164 Robert Kagan and William Kristol, “The Right War,” Weekly Standard,
October 1, 2001; Charles Krauthammer, “Our First Move: Take Out the
Taliban,” Washington Post, October 1, 2001. Also see “War Aims,” Wall
Street Journal, September 20, 2001.
165 Even before the dust had settled at the World Trade Center, pro?Israel
forces were making the case that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. See
Michael Barone, “War by Ultimatum,” U.S. News and World Report, October 1,
2001; Bill Gertz, “Iraq Suspected of Sponsoring Terrorist Attacks,”
Washington Times, September 21, 2001; “Drain the Pond of Terror,” Jerusalem
Post editorial, September 25, 2001; William Safire, “The Ultimate Enemy,”
New York Times, September 24, 2001.
166 See James Bamford, A Pretext to War (New York: Doubleday, 2004); chaps.
13?14; Woodward, Plan of Attack, pp. 288?292, 297?306. Also see ibid., pp.
72, 163, 300?301.
167 Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 290.
168 See Bamford, Pretext to War, pp. 287?291, 307?331; David S. Cloud,
“Prewar Intelligence Inquiry Zeroes In On Pentagon,” Wall Street Journal,
March 11, 2004; Seymour M. Hersh, “Selective Intelligence,” New Yorker,
Vol. 79, issue 11 (May 12, 2003), pp. 44?50; Kwiatkowski, “New Pentagon
Papers”; Jim Lobe, “Pentagon Office Home to Neo?Con Network,” Inter Press
Service News Agency, August 7, 2003; Greg Miller, “Spy Unit Skirted CIA on
Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2004; Paul R. Pillar, “Intelligence,
Policy, and the War in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 2 (March?April
2006), pp. 15?27; James Risen, “How Pair’s Finding on Terror Led to Clash
on Shaping Intelligence,” New York Times, April 28, 2004; Eric Schmitt and
Thom Shanker, “Threats and Responses: A C.I.A. Rival; Pentagon Sets Up
Intelligence Unit.” New York Times October 24, 2002.
169 The Office of Special Plans relied heavily on information from Ahmed
Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles and it had close links with various Israeli
sources. Indeed, the Guardian reports that it “forged close ties to a
parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in
Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration
with more alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq than Mossad was prepared to
authorize.” Julian Borger, “The Spies Who Pushed for War,” Guardian, July
17, 2003.
170 See, for example, Douglas J. Feith, “The Inner Logic of Israel’s
Negotiations: Withdrawal Process, Not Peace Process,” Middle East
Quarterly, March 1996. For useful discussions of Feith’s views, see
Jeffrey Goldberg, “A Little Learning: What Douglas Feith Knew and When He
Knew It,” New Yorker, Vol. 81, issue 12 (May 9, 2005), pp. 36? 41; Jim Lobe,
“Losing Feith, or is the Bush Team Shedding Its Sharper Edges?” The Daily
Star, January 31, 2005; James J. Zogby, “A Dangerous Appointment: Profile of
Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under Bush,” Middle East
Information Center, April 18, 2001; “Israeli Settlements: Legitimate,
Democratically Mandated, Vital to Israel’s Security and, Therefore, in U.S.
Interest,” The Center for Security Policy, Transition Brief No. 96?T 130,
December 17, 1996. Note that the title of the latter piece, which was
published by an organization in the Lobby, says that what is in Israel’s
interest is therefore in America’s national interest. In “Losing Feith,”
Lobe writes: “In 2003, when Feith, who was standing in for Rumsfeld at an
interagency ‘Principals’ Meeting’ on the Middle East, concluded his
remarks on behalf of the Pentagon, according to the Washington insider
newsletter, The Nelson Report, [National Security Advisor Condoleezza] Rice
said, ‘Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we’ll invite the
ambassador’.”
171 The “Clean Break” study was prepared for The Institute for Advanced
Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem and published in June 1996.A
copy can be found on the Institute’s web site.
172 Akiva Eldar, “Perles of Wisdom for the Feithful,” Ha’aretz, October 1,
2002.
173 “Rally Unites Anguished Factions under Flag of ‘Stand with Israel’,”
Forward, April 19, 2002; “Forward 50,” Forward, November 15, 2002. 174 John McCaslin, “Israeli?Trained Cops,” Washington Times, November 5,
2002; Bret Stephens, “Man of the Year,” Jerusalem Post (Rosh Hashana
Supplement), September 26, 2003; Janine Zacharia, “Invasive Treatment,” in
ibid. Other useful pieces on Wolfowitz include Michael Dobbs, “For
Wolfowitz, A Vision May Be Realized,” Washington Post, April 7, 2003; James
Fallows, “The Unilateralist,” Atlantic Monthly, March 2002, pp. 26? 29; Bill
Keller, “The Sunshine Warrior,” New York Times Magazine, September 22, 2002;
“Paul Wolfowitz, Velociraptor,” Economist, February 9?15, 2002. 175 According to Feith’s former law partner, L. Marc Zell, Chalabi also
promised to re? build the pipeline that once ran from Haifa in Israel to
Mosul in Iraq. See John Dizard, “How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons,”
Salon.com, May 4, 2004. In mid?June 2003, Benjamin Netanyahu announced
that, “It won’t be long before you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa.”
Reuters, “Netanyahu Says Iraq?Israel Oil Line Not Pipe?Dream,” Ha’aretz,
June 20, 2003. Of course, this did not happen and it is unlikely to happen
in the foreseeable future.
176 Matthew E. Berger, “New Chances to Build Israel?Iraq Ties,” Jewish
Journal, April 28, 2003. Also see Bamford, Pretext to War, p. 293; Ed
Blanche, “Securing Iraqi Oil for Israel: The Plot Thickens,”
Lebanonwire.com, April 25, 2003. Nathan Guttman reports that “the American
Jewish community and the Iraqi opposition” had for years “taken pains to
conceal” the links between them. “Mutual Wariness: AIPAC and the Iraqi
Opposition,” Ha’aretz, April 8, 2003.
177 Nir, “FBI Probe.” On the eve of the war, Bill Keller, who is now the
executive editor of the New York Times, wrote: “The idea that this war is
about Israel is persistent and more widely held than you think.” Keller,
“Is It Good for the Jews?” New York Times, March 8, 2003.
178 In an op?ed written in mid?2004, Hollings asked why the Bush
Administration invaded Iraq when it was not a direct threat to the United
States. “The answer,” which he says “everyone knows,” is “because we want to
secure our friend Israel.” Senator Ernest F. Hollings, “Bush’s Failed
Mideast Policy Is Creating More Terrorism,” Charleston Post and Courier,
May 6, 2004; “Sen. Hollings Floor Statement.” Not surprisingly, Hollings
was called an anti?Semite, a charge he furiously rejected. Matthew E.
Berger, “Not So Gentle Rhetoric from the Gentleman from South Carolina,”
JTA, May 23, 2004; “Sen. Hollings Floor Statement”; “Senator Lautenberg’s
Floor Statement in Support of Senator Hollings,” June 3, 2004, a copy of
which can be found on Hollings’ web site. On Moran, see note 151. A handful
of other public figures like Patrick Buchanan, Maureen Dowd, Georgie Anne
Geyer, Gary Hart, Chris Matthews, and General Anthony Zinni, have either
said or strongly hinted that pro?Israel forces in the United States were
the principle movers behind the Iraq war. See Aluf Benn, “Scapegoat for
Israel,” Ha’aretz, May 13, 2004; Matthew Berger, “Will Some Jews’ Backing
for War in Iraq Have Repercussions for All?” JTA, June 10, 2004; Patrick J.
Buchanan, “Whose War?” American Conservative, March 24, 2003; Ami Eden,
“Israel’s Role: The ‘Elephant’ They’re Talking About,” Forward, February
28, 2003; “The Ground Shifts,” Forward, May 28, 2004; Nathan Guttman,
“Prominent U.S. Jews, Israel Blamed for Start of Iraq War,” Ha’aretz, May
31, 2004; Lawrence F. Kaplan, “Toxic Talk on War,” Washington Post,
February 18, 2003; E.J. Kessler, “Gary Hart Says ‘Dual Loyalty’ Barb Was Not
Aimed at Jews,” Forward, February 21, 2003; Ori Nir and Ami Eden,
“Ex?Mideast Envoy Zinni Charges Neocons Pushed Iraq War to Benefit Israel,”
Forward, May 28, 2004.
179 Michael Kinsley, “What Bush Isn’t Saying about Iraq,” Slate, October 24,
2002. Also see idem, “J’Accuse.”
180 Robert S. Greenberger and Karby Leggett, “President’s Dream: Changing
Not Just Regime but a Region: A Pro?U.S., Democratic Area is a Goal that
Has Israeli and Neo Conservative Roots,” Wall Street Journal, March 21,
2003. Also see George Packer, “Dreaming of Democracy,” New York Times
Magazine, March 2, 2003. Although not all neoconservatives are Jewish,
most of the founders were and virtually all were strong supporters of
Israel. According to Gal Beckerman in the Forward, “If there is an
intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim,
neoconservatism is it.” See “The Neoconservative Persuasion,” Forward,
January 6, 2006.
181 See, for example, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and
Resources for a New Century, A Report for the New American Century,
September 2000, p. 14.
182 Martin Indyk, “The Clinton Administration’s Approach to the Middle
East,” Speech to Soref Symposium, Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, May 18, 1993. Also see Anthony Lake, “Confronting Backlash
States,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73. No. 2 (March/April 1994), pp. 45?53.
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