It Is Hot; It Is New; It Happened Last in 1976

October 22, 2003

Max Fraad Wolff

Shockwaves are washing-over supporters of the War on Iraq, from Downing Street to Pennsylvania Avenue. Did Blair and Bush mislead? Spotty intelligence, cited by Messrs. Bush and Blair along the march to war, has been revealed. It appears that cocked and ready weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and attempted purchase of tons of uranium from Niger were falsehoods. Exaggerated threats supported the extraction of UN weapon inspectors and the globe-destabilizing invasion. Hundreds of billions of US dollars and countless thousands of lives later, we are made aware of greater uncertainties.

But, you know all that. What you may not know is that you are watching a second rate re-run, staffed by the aging heroes of a thirty year old Cold War classic. Much good work has been done to document the original. Particularly valuable is the March 2003 Le Monde Diplomatic, “Global Crises Over Iraq,” by Philip Golub. Finer minds are at work analyzing the re-run. Let's try to put these two stories together.

1976 found our Neo-conservative lead actors staffing a George H. W. Bush - then Director of Central Intelligence- approved intelligence Team B. The Team was made possible by Neo-con leading light and Rand Corporation heavyweight Albert Wohlstetter. Staffers included Wohlstetter's son-in-law Richard Perle and associate Paul Wolfowitz. Team B was headed by Neo-con media maven Daniel Pipes' father, Richard. The President was Gerald Ford, high in his administration were Richard Cheney, who reportedly helped Bush Senior secure the CIA job, and Donald Rumsfeld. This early Neo-Con venture challenged and hoped to undermine nuclear détente with the USSR. CIA and State Department analysis were not well suited to this goal. Traditional and professional assessments were not panic inducing, questions and opposition remained credible- even reasonable. Opponents of containment needed another understanding to dominate. "Intelligence" from Team B offered a possible solution. The Team set out to develop its own assessments of Soviet Military might.

You will be shocked to learn that they "discovered" that traditional estimates of Soviet strength, by the CIA and State Department, were far to low. In reality, scary and overwhelming threats existed. A frightened public and Congress were urged to support bold action. Ironically, support for undemocratic regimes in the Middle East- including the precursors to the Taliban- were, in part, made possible by the perceived severity of Soviet threat. A semi-private group generated its own assessments of the threat level.

Four years later Ronald Reagan would use their assessments and personnel to build his administrations. The work of Team B helped to undermine détente, justify massive increases in the US defense budget and the election and re-election of Ronald Reagan. "The Evil Empire" and Reagan's tough stance became central to three Republican Presidential victories, 1980, 1984 and 1988.

Since the fall of the USSR it has become clear that the CIA and State Department were correct. Team B grossly exaggerated Soviet military power and spending. It would seem quasi-private intelligence, gathered by Neo-Cons and their allies, seriously overstated threats to the Western World. Spotty intelligence crept into state action and pronouncement. These cultivated understandings- misunderstandings- have shaped history. A frightened world reacts out of fear. The course of history was, in some small way, shaped by the Team. It was shaped through deception and against containment and détente.

Let's review the road to Iraq. The 2000 election of George W. Bush reassembled Team B. Only now, the team was expanded, media power had risen and Neo-Con think tanks became State and Defense Department staffs (see Red Pepper, June 2003, “Neo-Conservatism and the Politics of Paranoia”). Following the horrific September 11, 2001 terror attacks, calls came hard and fast to link Iraq to Al Qaeda. Containment of Saddam Hussein was rejected as soft policy, managing his threats had to end. CIA, State Department and British Intelligence officials were unable to provide sufficiently damning "evidence." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established a new Team B, renamed "The Office of Special Plans" (OSP). The OSP was staffed and overseen by handpicked associates of Messrs. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Feith and Libby. Douglas J. Feith is the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, and one time legal council to defense contractors. I. Lewis Libby signed Project for the New American Century documents, worked for Richard Perle in the Reagan Administration, was a Rand consultant and is Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, allegedly acted with Vice President Cheney to move private unsupervised intelligence to Bush. Major media and pundits received and disseminated leaked information. It is widely believed that tainted intelligence assessments changed hands between the US and UK during the build-up to invasion.

The OSP, like its Team B predecessor, made its own controversial assessments. Threats included a nuclear program dismissed by the UN and questioned by the CIA, and huge stockpiles of WMD deployable in under an hour. A semi-private, inadequately supervised and clandestine, Neo-Con infected intelligence agency seems increasingly to be implicated in claims of imminent massive and nuclear threat. Once again, threats were - at least- exaggerated. As this becomes increasingly clear, various explanations surface. They include the decidedly Neo-Con and downright Struassian idea, shared by Prime Minister Blair on July 17, 2003 in Washington DC, that even if the WMDs don't materialize, right was done. Containment of Iraq needed to be replaced with an aggressive policy. The intelligence offered facilitated this. The exact accuracy of any statement is of little import. Leo Strauss, the philosopher king of Neo-conservatism, believed that the people are Lilliputians, to be led by Gulliver toward righteous action. Commoners don't and won't understand; they must be pushed and their opinions shaped by the powerful and visionary.

Those who excuse mis-statements as aberrations allowed by a few bad apples seeking to bend intelligence and leadership to their needs, ignore the above-sketched history. Why would quasi-private, unaccountable security services be set up and allowed to operate? What is likely to follow when ideologues are allowed to create and disseminate their own intelligence? After all, suspect and politically expedient conclusions defined their last undertaking. What happened to an inquisitive press? Nowhere is the abdication of the duty of a free press more painfully clear than here in the US. The Guardian and the Independent made some preliminary efforts on this subject. The English language mainstream media largely failed its duties. Only alternative outlets were willing to approach the difficult task of asking more fundamental questions. We know what happened thirty years ago. We are beginning to learn what happened over the last two years. Still surprised?

Max Fraad Wolff is a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Massachusetts, MFWolff@aol.com