Hypothesis: No one in the junta cared about the truth

[Jack Rabbit]

The White House has began firing back at its accusers in the public relations war concerning the the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq.

The controversy surrounds the infamous Niger document, known to be a crude forgery. Dispite that it was a crude forgery, Mr. Bush made an accusation that Saddam Hussein was attempting to obtain material for constructing nuclear weapons in his State of the Union message that was supported by information in the Niger document. The question becomes: Did Mr. Bush know the document was a forgery?

Last night, CBS news reported that parties in the CIA made known their misgivings about the Niger document to parties in the White House. However, this morning, Dr. Rice stated that no one passed these concerns on to Mr. Bush.

Perhaps that's not as implausible as it sounds.

For some time, many on the Left has been using a working hypotesis about the invasion of Iraq. This morning's accusations and denials by Dr. Rice present no reason to abandon it.

The hypothesis is elaborate, and may be stated as follows:

• The was colonial.
  • The purpose of the war was:
    • to take control of Iraq natural resources and place them in the hands of multinational corporations based in the US which paid the bills for Mr. Bush's political career;
    • To assure that the business of reconstructing the infrastruture of a post-Saddam Iraq would go to multinational corporations based in the US which paid the bills for Mr. Bush's political career;
    • To impose the neoliberal econonic paradigm on Iraq in order to open markets for multinational corporations based in the US which paid the bills for Mr. Bush's political career and with which native Iraqi businesses cannot compete.
  • The war had nothing to with fighting terrorism, disarming a rogue state of weapons of mass destruction, enforcing UN resolutions or liberating anyone from a brutal dictator.
• Everyone in the Bush junta knew very well they could not sell the war to the American people or to the world for the real reasons.
  • In order to sell the war, they alternately claimed the war to be about fighting terrorism, disarming a rogue state of weapons of mass destruction, enforcing UN resolutions and liberating the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator;
  • Since those weren't the real reasons for the war, but merely pretexts for public relations purposes, the veracity of facts used to support them were not as important as the impact they had on the public.

As this pertains to the Niger document, the hypothesis would continue that nobody was concerned about it being a forgery because nobody was really concerned whether Saddam was trying to obtain material for nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush may have known that the Niger document was a forgery. Even if he did, the information was seen as something on which to sell the war, not as anything that was an actual concern. Consequently, it would be used for public relations.

The fight against terrorism, the actual existence of Saddam's unconventional weapons, the sanctity of the UN charter and Secuity Council resolutions and Saddam's brutal tyranny are all red herrings. They were used as pretexts and nothing else. The members of the junta, including Mr. Bush, didn't care whether these reasons were true or not as long as people could be made to believe they were. As long as they didn't care about the veracity of the claims, why should they have been concerned about the authenticity of material used to support those claims?

Perhaps no one bothered to tell Mr. Bush that the document was a forgery. No one cared that it was a forgery, and every one knew Bush didn't care, either.

[Homer12]

1. They fired back...

...a little to late and made a bad calculation on how to deal witht he mess they got themselves into by using known forged docuiments as part of justification for war.

"Perhaps no one bothered to tell Mr. Bush that the document was a
forgery. No one cared that it was a forgery, and every one knew
Bush didn't care, either."

Your statement pretty much sums it up, and reveals two things about the neo-conservative inner cirlce and Bush 1) They really have alterior motives 2)Reality for them is the "ends-justify-the-means" and it's really not incompatence.

These two answers can be derived from thier actions.

[EOTE]

2. Hypothesis?

I think in scientific terms, considering the amount of evidence to back your assertion up, it would move to the point of theory. Perhaps even law or scientific fact.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Well, I agree, there's a lot to back it up

However, what is being said here is that perhaps no one told Bush that the document was a forgery because the veracity of facts used to jusifiy the war simply weren't important to anyone in the junta.

We can't call this plausible deniability. Lying about -- or at least not being concerned about the truth of -- the reasons presented to the public in justification for the war was a matter of policy.

[sandnsea]

11. Winston Churchill "I should have asked"

In an Australian editorial today:

"After the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II, prime minister Winston Churchill confessed his ignorance of the weakness of Singapore's defences, saying: I did not know. I was not told. I should have asked... The last thing they wanted to do was ask, because then they might have been told."

[hedda_foil]

5. Damn, EOTE ... Ya beat me to it!

[WHAT]

4. I have to thank you.. .

for your lucidity. I just found-out about the rating feature and rated you a 5. I wonder if this will jump to the first page, now?...as it should.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Thank you

!!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. Of course you are correct. We don't have access to DU 1 and

I am loathe to go pull all the links I have on this but you are missing a couple pieces. Another goal of their's was to drain federal coffers of cash available for social programs (Nordquist's sink the fed budget to where it will drown in a bath tub) and pour that wealth into the hands of Bush contributors.

They hadn't sucked enough money out with star wars and this gave them a more palletable approach for the many who had doubts about star wars. WE are now spending over 3 billion a month in Iraq just for military purposes( not reconstruction.)

They also wanted to stretch our armed forces as a pretext for using more PMI's in other conflicts ( PRIVATE MILITARY INSTITUTIONS) in order to shift more money earmearked for national defense to private corporations (i.e. Bush's sponsors).

A few more pieces of info to support myself:

In 1998 Cheney gave a speech to an interest group declaring that the Iraq sanctions program punished American Corporations. They wanted to lift the sanction without making Iraq more independent.


Wolfowitz's comment a couple months back that WMD's was the "bureaucratic" reason on which they could all concur.

A speech Rummy gave to the DOD on SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 comparing Pentagon bureaucracy with the old Soviet Union (i.e. he had a hard time getting rubber stamped.

The fact that 9 of the 17 members on the Defense Policy Board including Perle et al came from high level defense contractor corps and will undoubtedly return to them once their "public service" term is up (DPB is a LOBBYING agency anyway) These same corps who vetted the policy for this war reaped the profits in uncontested contracts behind closed doors in Washington.

[bpilgrim]

8. more evidence of this admins arrogance...

but i often wonder if they have been SET UP by the CIA.

if it is, it is BRILLIANT!

set them up with something they DESPERATELY WANT, works with greedy arrogant men all the time :evilgrin:

thanks JR, very concise and on the mark :toast:
(however, you did leave out a few 'tinfoil' therories i noticed ;->

peace

[grasswire]

9. they had to establish the toe-hold

...and were willing to risk it all.

And here's why it doesn't matter too much to them how they did it.

The Bush family and clique have already made their billions off the war and stand to make billions more off the reconstruction. Even if this is the end of W's presidency, they've made fortunes.

I suspect the strategy is to try to ride this out, call in as many chits as possible to keep * on the ballot for 2004, and rig the election.

[bpilgrim]

10. yeah, i hate thinking about that part...

that's why i'm supporting DK, i want some REAL CHANGE in DC :bounce:

i just hope and pray shrub isn't off his leash...

it seamed like it, almost last summer when poppies boyz came out and gave the chimp his foreign policy marching orders on iraq via the editorial pages of the nytimes :wow:

i was getting pretty nervous back then, till he started following them, i am starting to get nervous again waiting for the chimps next public *slap* down

:hi:

peace

[Merlin]

12. Hubris. Neocon hubris.

The missing part of this equation is the way in which the opportunity for this Iraqi escapade played into the neocon Strategic vision.

There's no doubt in my mind that the hubris required to advance such a brash departure from all that is rational and sane derives from the intellectual certainty of the Straussians, their targeting of Iraq since 1992 as a key stronghold of oil power and an opportunity to project US military power into the heart of the Muslim world in playing out their plans for this New American Century.

Hubris. May it be their everlasting undoing.

[ulysses]

13. kick

:thumbsup: