A Prophetic Book

On page 180-81, the author of "The New American Empire" wrote:
--" In the spring of 2002, George W. Bush had already decided to "invade Iraq no matter what". Indeed, it was revealed by Richard Haass, the director of the policy-planning staff at the State Department, that George W. Bush had made the decision to invade Iraq well before July 2002. He was told by Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor, during the first week of July 2002, "not to waste his breath... the decision has been made." New information makes it more likely that the decision to attack Iraq was made within days after the September 11th suicide hijackings of 2001, eighteen months before the event.-

Well, this is precisely what highly classified British documents, published last May 1st (2005), have revealed. Half a dozen official memos and option papers, written by top aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have indeed provided the definitive proof that President George W. Bush and his neocon advisors had decided to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein, whatever the circumstances and whatever the costs, as early as the fall of 2001, and even before. That's the reason the author could say that the entire diplomatic exercise of going to the United Nations during the fall of 2002 and in early 2003, supposedly to avoid a war, was truly a charade and a deception.

As a matter of fact, the Bush administration and Bush himself were lying openly when they repeated ad nauseam that war was their choice of "last resort". We now know that war against Iraq was rather their first choice. Sir Richard Dearlove, the Head of the British CIA (called the MI-6 spy service) confirmed, after a visit to Washington, that the Bush administration was fixing "the intelligence and facts ... around the policy", which was to invade Iraq, whatever the legality or the morality of such a policy. They [the Bush administration] were "scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al (Qaida)" and that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, knowing full well that this was false. But that's what they told Congress and the American people. Bush and his Neocons knew from the start that they were going to have to manufacture excuses to justify a war against Iraq.

What now? A lying President? a duped Congress? a misinformed American electorate? an illegal and immoral war?

"The New American Empire" is an eye-opener. Its author succeeds admirably in placing everything in the proper context, so the reader has a complete picture of the real motives behind a war which has already killed 1,741 American soldiers (more than 13,000 wounded) and brought death to as many as 100,000 Iraqis, directly or indirectly. I encourage you to read this book.
M. Jennessy (New York, NY, USA)