Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil

[186k\sec]

Wednesday June 4, 2003

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.
The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

>>Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

Mr Wolfowitz went on to tell journalists at the conference that the US was set on a path of negotiation to help defuse tensions between North Korea and its neighbours - in contrast to the more belligerent attitude the Bush administration displayed in its dealings with Iraq.

His latest comments follow his widely reported statement from an interview in Vanity Fair last month, in which he said that "for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction."

Prior to that, his boss, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had already undermined the British government's position by saying Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his banned weapons before the war.

Mr Wolfowitz's frank assessment of the importance of oil could not come at a worse time for the US and UK governments, which are both facing fierce criticism at home and abroad over allegations that they exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to justify the war.

Amid growing calls from all parties for a public inquiry, the foreign affairs select committee announced last night it would investigate claims that the UK government misled the country over its evidence of Iraq's WMD.

The move is a major setback for Tony Blair, who had hoped to contain any inquiry within the intelligence and security committee, which meets in secret and reports to the prime minister.

In the US, the failure to find solid proof of chemical, biological and nuclear arms in Iraq has raised similar concerns over Mr Bush's justification for the war and prompted calls for congressional investigations.

Mr Wolfowitz is viewed as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration. The 57-year old expert in international relations was a strong advocate of military action against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Following the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Mr Wolfowitz pledged that the US would pursue terrorists and "end" states' harbouring or sponsoring of militants.

Prior to his appointment to the Bush cabinet in February 2001, Mr Wolfowitz was dean and professor of international relations at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), of the Johns Hopkins University.
-----------------------------------
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,970331,00.html



>
>>
>>>
>>>> so there ya have it.. pretty much sums it up:
they greatly exagerated & partially invented the immediate threat of Iraqi WMD, so they could attack, & occupy Iraq for its Oil.

[Boyd Main]

So how long before Wolfowitz gets the chop? His mouth is certainly becoming quite a liability for Bush Inc.

[Mike S]

Read..

Its a total distortion by the gaurdian.. the distortion is illustrated quite well in this blog..

http://www.belgraviadispatch.blogspot.com/


You can quit foaming at the mouth now liberals.

MS

[Hookups]

Welcome to damage control, Bush fans.

This stuff was inevitable. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but eventually people are going to figure out you're full of shit.

I love it. Personally, I can't wait for the next Michael Moore movie to become #1 at the box office a month before the election.

[bungle bliss]

And dancing.

Or in this case, oil and PNAC.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Bye bye Bushie. :D

Shit, even if we get another Repuke as president, Id be happier with that than I am with Bush, the fucking empty-headed puppet for neocons.

[Mike S]

On the vanity fair distortion.

THE WORLD
Bureaucratic Screw Up
by Robert Lane Greene



"Bureaucratic": To modern ears it ranks up there with four-letter swear words. So when Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair that the administration had focused on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when making its case for war "for bureaucratic reasons," some cynics cheered: Here, finally, was proof that America and Britain had gone to war on fraudulent grounds. Germany's conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sneered that "the charge of deception is inescapable;" Britain's Daily Express chose slightly less bureaucratic language for its headline: "JUST COMPLETE AND UTTER LIES."

But for this to be true, the definition of the word "bureaucratic" would have to be "dishonest." It isn't. Even taking Wolfowitz's comments out of context, it's clear that the antiwar set is grasping for straws. Wolfowitz said that the focus on WMD came about because it was the only issue that members of the administration could all support as a casus belli. Far from being sinister, that's actually quite reassuring. If, as Wolfowitz suggests, the only thing the various squabbling members of the American foreign policy establishment could agree on about Iraq was that it possessed WMD, then the evidence they saw must have been pretty compelling. The State and Defense Departments, it is widely known, are locked in a fairly constant struggle with one another. Yet according to Wolfowitz, they were both ready to concede the fact that Iraq's WMD programs posed a threat large enough to justify war.

As Iraqi WMD remain conspicuously absent some six weeks after the war's end, it is growing increasingly plausible that Americans were misled into thinking the WMD threat was more imminent than it was. It goes without saying that it would be devastating to the credibility of our intelligence apparatus if it turned out that certain intelligence officials played up the WMD risk to tell George W. Bush and the Pentagon what they wanted to hear. It would likewise be devastating to the administration's credibility if it turns out that political hands exaggerated the claims intelligence officials were making.

But let's assume--as even opponents of the war did--that it was reasonable to believe Saddam was actively pursuing WMD. Then, even if we never find any weapons, would the war's legitimacy be undermined? The discovery of mass graves, hundreds of millions of dollars plundered by government officials, testimony of torture victims, and much more has revealed that, if anything, Saddam Hussein was more of a monster than any of us gave him credit for. And even if he didn't have WMD (and that is still a big if), he certainly wasn't a run-of-the-mill, relatively harmless thug who could simply be contained. With apologies to the wretched Zimbabweans, Saddam wasn't even Robert Mugabe, who, despite his tyranny, hasn't been known to gas his people, invade his neighbors, and sponsor suicide bombers.

So, having knocked Saddam from power, it turns out that America may have done so for the wrong reasons. But imagine this, a scenario a thoughtful antiwar friend posed to me before the war: Your neighbor, you have good reason to believe but cannot definitively prove, has purchased weapons that could be used against your family. You further believe, based on his history of violence, that he's prone to using them. (He's been arrested on a few aggravated assault charges over the years.) Would your going over and killing him be immoral, given your thin evidence? Possibly. But what if, upon having dispatched him, you find in his home grotesque evidence that he was a serial murderer, and that his victims had included his own family--meaning his capacity for violence is much deeper than even you suspected. You may initially feel guilt for having attacked him for the wrong reasons. But in the end, you have killed a vile murderer who would otherwise have escaped justice, perhaps to kill again. Are you a dangerous vigilante, or a hero?

This question isn't easy. Western ideas of justice are based on the presumption of innocence, so it must not be suggested lightly that governments be overthrown because we merely suspect them of wrongdoing. Still, whatever you think the answer to this question is, adding a Wolfowitzian twist to the analogy only strengthens the case for action. Suppose that for a long time you were the only one worried about your neighbor, but now the bleeding heart across the street (let's call him Bolin Bowell) and your sensible downstairs tenant (Cony Clair) say they too think they've seen the neighbor tooling around in his shed with what look like dangerous weapons. With your suspicions supported by others--moreover, by people inclined to give the ex-con a break--it becomes even harder not to act.

In the end, then, what's truly striking about Wolfowitz's Vanity Fair comments was not what they revealed about policy-making, but about Paul Wolfowitz's tin ear. Wolfowitz allowed that the administration had chosen WMD as the focus of the case against Iraq (not the sole basis, just the focus) because it had the broadest currency within the government. We can safely assume that this means it was expected to have the broadest currency outside the government as well: the State Department likely argued that WMD was the only justification that could be sold to allies and the United Nations; domestic political operatives probably argued that they could only sell an attack on Iraq if Saddam was depicted as a threat to America.

That the government thinks this way is hardly a shock; but it rarely gets said aloud. And when it does it reveals a level of cynicism which most Americans prefer to pretend doesn't exist--even if they're vaguely aware that it does. With much of the world is still smarting over the divisions of the Iraq war, and with Bush headed to the Middle East to talk peace with Israelis and Palestinians, Wolfowitz's timing could not have been worse.

[Mirko]

Originally posted by Boyd Main
So how long before Wolfowitz gets the chop? His mouth is certainly becoming quite a liability for Bush Inc.
I don't think they'll axe Wolfowitz. He's been deep in the system for too long; remember the whole "preemption" "strategy" that's being employed was his idea. They'll just go to war with another "rogue nation" right before the 2004 election and say shit like, "it would be foolish to switch presidents mid-war."

[ZupanGOD]

[Shakes head]

I'm just amazed how desperate the left is reaching here.

Pathetic..

-Jason

[186k\sec]

I'm just amazed how desperate the left is reaching here.

Pathetic..

the only thing amazing & pathetic is your continued denial, and automatic refusal to acknowledge the validity & justifications for the war were coerced, misleading, and trumped up. . .

[Ram]

From reading the article, it seems quite clear that Wolfowitz is referring to the fact that he thinks Hussein having control of the oil was why he couldn't be coerced in other ways. I think this is still a stupid excuse, but I don't think he was saying he advocated war to gain control of the oil.

But so many people on this board do the same thing on all sides (intentionally distort and take things out of context). And politics is all about that. What's the surprise?

--Ram

[Mike S]

Originally posted by 186k\sec


the only thing amazing & pathetic is your continued denial, and automatic refusal to acknowledge the validity & justifications for the war were coerced, misleading, and trumped up. . .

Or your belief that it was..

MS

[superkool]

, the only thing the various squabbling members of the American foreign policy establishment could agree on about Iraq was that it possessed WMD, then the evidence they saw must have been pretty compelling. The State and Defense Departments, it is widely known, are locked in a fairly constant struggle with one another. Yet according to Wolfowitz, they were both ready to concede the fact that Iraq's WMD programs posed a threat large enough to justify war.




yes were is this evidence they saw? and has it disappeared along with the wmd?

and about the state dept. agreeing that iraq had all these wmd.....didn't you guys hear about the powell, straw recording or whatever it was before the un speech powell gave? does'nt sound like powell was in as tight as you guys want us to believe on the wmd theory

[HexRei]

Originally posted by Ram
From reading the article, it seems quite clear that Wolfowitz is referring to the fact that he thinks Hussein having control of the oil was why he couldn't be coerced in other ways. I think this is still a stupid excuse, but I don't think he was saying he advocated war to gain control of the oil.

But so many people on this board do the same thing on all sides (intentionally distort and take things out of context). And politics is all about that. What's the surprise?

--Ram

not to mention that, taken within context, the quote doesn't even have anything to do with the iraq war:

"The country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse," Wolfowitz said. "That I believe is a major point of leverage." "The primary difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options in Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil," he said. Wolfowitz did not elaborate on how Washington intends to put economic pressure on North Korea, but said other countries in the region helping it should send a message that "they're not going to continue doing that if North Korea continues down the road it's on."

he was answering a question about economic pressures, and why economic pressures might work for north korea where they wouldn't with iraq: because hussein had a constant and large cash flow from their "sea of oil".
It's pretty sad how out of context this was taken. There might be proof out there that the war was all about oil, but this is not it, and those who espouse this article as "proof" just end up looking desperate.

[Ishkur]

Originally posted by Mike S
Even taking Wolfowitz's comments out of context, it's clear that the antiwar set is grasping for straws.

Okay, let me get this straight here:

There hasn't been a single, definable, proven, absolutely sure, uniting, self-evident, etched in stone, 100% justifiable reason for invading Iraq, yet its the Antiwar people who are grasping at straws.

you people are hilarious.

[ZupanGOD]

Originally posted by 186k\sec


the only thing amazing & pathetic is your continued denial, and automatic refusal to acknowledge the validity & justifications for the war were coerced, misleading, and trumped up. . .

[lafs]

How do you figure? But hey, maybe if you pray hard enough your wishes just may come true.

-Jason

[ZupanGOD]

Originally posted by Ishkur


Okay, let me get this straight here:

There hasn't been a single, definable, proven, absolutely sure, uniting, self-evident, etched in stone, 100% justifiable reason for invading Iraq, yet its the Antiwar people who are grasping at straws.

you people are hilarious.

Now let me get this straight.. There hasn't been a single, definable, proven, absolutley sure, uniting, self-evident, etched in stone, 100% justifiable reason that Saddam had complied with the 91 Gulf War cease fire, and all (18 is it?) UN resolutions to disarm, and never possessed or manufactured WMD. And destroyed all WMD stock piles and illegal conventional weapons as well.

Please stop before I wet myself with laughter. :p

The burden of proof layed upon Saddam to prove he didn't have WMD not the US, Britian, Spain, or the UN.

Are you not glad that Suddam is gone? Hmm.. [Scratches head]

[Effendi]

.
sad....:(

[Mike S]

Originally posted by Ishkur


Okay, let me get this straight here:

There hasn't been a single, definable, proven, absolutely sure, uniting, self-evident, etched in stone, 100% justifiable reason for invading Iraq, yet its the Antiwar people who are grasping at straws.

you people are hilarious.

Nope guess not. Guess we should return Saddam to power and let him go on filling those mass graves.. Hey ... maybe we should send you over to help dig them.

MS

[Effendi]

WHAT AN IDIOT!!

[Ishkur]

Originally posted by ZupanGOD
(18 is it?) UN resolutions


Only 18? What an amateur. Israel violates that many in a day.



Are you not glad that Suddam is gone? Hmm.. [Scratches head]

Oh YOU BET!!!! It was my lifelong dream to see Saddam Hussein ousted from power. I've been clinically depressed for the last 12 years, crying myself to sleep every night, thinking "if only there was SOME WAY to FREE the Iraqi people.".....nothing mattered except that Saddam needed to be removed, and the Iraqi people needed to be FREE. I thought about it night and day. It was my soul reason for living.

Because....yeah...the Iraqi people, man...that's like the most important thing in the world, and I'm glad the Bush Administration finally fulfilled it. Why, I bet Chaney is telling Bush right now "thank god the Iraqi people are finally free!! Now my job is officially done, and I can retire and die happy."

Because when it comes to world issues, man, the plight of the Iraqi people is PRIORITY ONE!

[Mike S]

When in doubt bring up Isreal.

MS

[Ishkur]

Originally posted by Mike S
Nope guess not. Guess we should return Saddam to power and let him go on filling those mass graves.. Hey ... maybe we should send you over to help dig them.


If we do, do we get to re-use our "Oust one dictator free" card? Cuz there's, like, 17 other brutal regimes in the world who need to be removed, so that their people can BE FREE!!

That's what it's all about, right? Freeing the people!!! I love freeing people! It's such a warm and fuzzy feeling. Don't you just get all gooshy inside now that the Iraqis are finally free? I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

[Ishkur]

Originally posted by Mike S
When in doubt bring up Isreal.

MS

and see, here's where your aforementioned "everyone is either pure and good or corrupt and evil" paradigm comes crashing around you, Mike.

No ones hands are clean in this. Everyone has wronged. Everyone is partly to blame. Everyone is secretly scheming behind the scenes to shaft the others for their own interests. Multiple factions, with their own motives, and their own stake in the pie, jockeying for power positions.

If it was just "Us vs. Them", this conflict would've been over eons ago. But it's not. And just when it looks like it's coming close to being finalized, a disgruntled party invariably sabotages it since its terms are not to their liking. It's hard to please everybody all of the time.

[Mike S]

Really? Cool Ish.. then do i have a job for you..
I think next up we should free Canada.. Or better yet make it officially the northern colonies.
Then as a means to pay back the war debt we'll clear cut Vancouver Island. Then not to let a perfectly good chunk of rock go to waste .. open it up as a bombing range for our new joint strike aircraft. Hell its big enough we might even be able to test some of those ground penetrating nukes.


Sound fun?

MS

[Mike S]

Originally posted by Ishkur


and see, here's where your aforementioned "everyone is either pure and good or corrupt and evil" paradigm comes crashing around you, Mike.

No ones hands are clean in this. Everyone has wronged. Everyone is partly to blame. Everyone is secretly scheming behind the scenes to shaft the others for their own interests. Multiple factions, with their own motives, and their own stake in the pie, jockeying for power positions.

If it was just "Us vs. Them", this conflict would've been over eons ago. But it's not. And just when it looks like it's coming close to being finalized, a disgruntled party invariably sabotages it since its terms are not to their liking. It's hard to please everybody all of the time.

Yup everyone's a bastard ..everyone's corrupt .. everyone's out for theirs ..no one gives a shit about the other .. Hell lets just hit reset and start the whole mother fucker over.

Waddaya think Ish.. about 150 to 200 well placed Twenty megaton ground bursts ought to throw enough debris in the air to bring life on earth to its knees. Sound like a plan? Maybe in a few million years the descendants of the rabbits will have a shot at running the place..

MS

[Effendi]

.

[186k\sec]

I think next up we should free Canada.. Or better yet make it officially the northern colonies.
Then as a means to pay back the war debt we'll clear cut Vancouver Island. Then not to let a perfectly good chunk of rock go to waste .. open it up as a bombing range for our new joint strike aircraft. Hell its big enough we might even be able to test some of those ground penetrating nukes

you should be taken in for a cat-scan, then detained indefinatley.

Maybe in a few million years the descendants of the rabbits will have a shot at running the place..

"the rabbits"

only a bigot could find this humorous.

[Mike S]

Originally posted by 186k\sec


you should be taken in for a cat-scan, then detained indefinatley.



"the rabbits"

only a bigot could find this humorous.

Rabbits and cockroaches have a very high tollerance for radiation..

Anyway .. hey if we're all so dirty and corrupt and nasty as Ish says we are i may as well play into it and just be the rotten fucker Ish thinks every human is.

MS

[Mike S]

Originally posted by Effendi
.
What.. not enough ground bursts Scott? Yeah You're right. More like 500 to 800 ought to do the job right.

MS

[Mike S]

Not that the innacuracies will matter much to the local loons.

"A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the department of defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed."

AND

"In our front page lead on May 31 headlined "Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims," we said that the foreign secretary Jack Straw and his US counterpart Colin Powell had met at the Waldorf Hotel in New York shortly before Mr Powell addressed the United Nations on February 5. Mr Straw has now made it clear that no such meeting took place. The Guardian accepts that and apologises for suggesting it did."

[Effendi]

.
The truth was spoken, the truth was heard.....End of story!!

Unless of course you want to confuse it with hanging chads and a bought and paid for Supreme court...lol

Scott!!

[Mike S]

Originally posted by Effendi
.
The truth was spoken, the truth was heard.....End of story!!

Unless of course you want to confuse it with hanging chads and a bought and paid for Supreme court...lol

Scott!!

Wait we bought and paid for the supreme court!? Then why am i even bothering. We own the place. I should whip that cigar out now is what you're telling me.

So logically I need to find out which Fema camp youre supposed to have been shipped off to because obviously the thought police forgot one... Right?

Scott.. you are a certified fruit cake. But you being such has its empowering moments. See I know you're a whack job - you know you're a whack job. And everytime one of these liberal morons agrees with you - we both know they're one too.
;)


MS

[Effendi]

.
I love you too:D :D :D :D :D

Scott!!

[Effendi]

Originally posted by Mike S

Scott.. you are a certified fruit cake. I know you're a whack job - you know you're a whack job. And everytime one of these liberal morons agrees with you - we both know they're one too.
MS

I do have to thank you for clarifying the situation for me mike.

and I thank you for all the liberal morons that might occasionally agree with some point I make.

We respect your opinion highly and look forward to the clear and open way you help us understand the complex workings of our government.

Thank You mike.....:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Scott!!

[Mike S]

Originally posted by Effendi


I do have to thank you for clarifying the situation for me mike.

and I thank you for all the liberal morons that might occasionally agree with some point I make.

We respect your opinion highly and look forward to the clear and open way you help us understand the complex workings of our government.

Thank You mike.....:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Scott!!

Well Scotty thank you for the faux compliment but you know and I know the only way to be respected by a liberal is to credentialize. Meaning lay out a litany of people, places, things and concepts I hate that the political inbreeds other wise known as liberals find agreeable.

And golly the only thing I can think of that I absolutely detest is them.. so I guess that wont work.

Say I was trying to think of one positive thing about liberals.. ya know a use.. how do you think they'll do as shark bait? No? Yeah I kinda thought sharks wouldn't like em either.

Oh well.
MS

[Effendi]

.

[Ram]

Originally posted by Mike S


Rabbits and cockroaches have a very high tollerance for radiation..

Anyway .. hey if we're all so dirty and corrupt and nasty as Ish says we are i may as well play into it and just be the rotten fucker Ish thinks every human is.

MS

Actually, certain bacteria have higher tolerance and I suspect if the nuclear winter is long, they'll be the only ones surviving. Which is okay with me -- I think there's a 99% chance this is going to happen.

A way to get around this is to genetically engineer humans to create a homo superior (who homo sapiens cannot co-exist with, of course) who might, among other things, contain the genes from the bacteria that contribution to radiation tolerance. (:

In any event, I think homo sapiens as they are are just another step in the evolutionary dynamics.

--Ram

[Mike S]

Originally posted by Ram


Actually, certain bacteria have higher tolerance and I suspect if the nuclear winter is long, they'll be the only ones surviving. Which is okay with me -- I think there's a 99% chance this is going to happen.

A way to get around this is to genetically engineer humans to create a homo superior (who homo sapiens cannot co-exist with, of course) who might, among other things, contain the genes from the bacteria that contribution to radiation tolerance. (:

In any event, I think homo sapiens as they are are just another step in the evolutionary dynamics.

--Ram

Homo Superior.. I think that arrogant queen lives down the hall from me..
;)
MS

[Effendi]

.
Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.

The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

More...
http://www.guardian.co.uk

Q&A Transcript

"...Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.




In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different..."

Source: Scoop

on edit: Looks like he is saying that Saddam could last a long time with their oil revenue.

BUT that ignores...

1. our sanctions and strict control of 'their' oil
2. and this was supposed to be about WMD (clear and present danger)

Looks like the 'focus groups' were RIGHT and this war DID have SOMETHING to do with OIL... according to WOLFOWITZ anyways ;->


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Sources:
Actually, on June, 3rd, Paul Wolfowitz tried to say the opposite, at a Pentagon News Conference:

Wolfowitz: "Well, let me start with the last part. The notion that the war was ever about oil is a complete piece of nonsense. If the United States had been interested in Iraq's oil, it would have been very simple 12 years ago or any time in the last 12 years to simply do a deal with Saddam Hussein."

12 hours, after the Guardian broke yet another "smoking gun", almost noone else picked it up. The article was however breaking news in all most important newszines, progressive newsletters or newsblogs, i.e. Information Clearing House or Scoop who saved it for their archive.

One newspaper, who mirrored the Guardian story:

Khilafah



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Almost 24 hours after the release of the Guardian article, their online-only story on Wolfowitz was totally shrubbed from the Internet.

The access to Google Cache has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt, same at web.archive.org.

http://new.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/06/04/1542255

WTF..scrubbed from the Internet?.....New fangled freedom of speech I guess..hmmmmm

Scott!!

[ZupanGOD]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,972482,00.html

[Mike S]

The Boy Who Cried Wolfowitz
By Christopher Hitchens
Slate | June 11, 2003


"Yes that's all very well," said the chap from the BBC World Service, "but what about this man Vulfervitz who seems to run the whole show from behind the scenes?" For the fifth time in as many days, and for the umpteenth time this year, I corrected a British interviewer's pronunciation. You see the name in print, you hear it uttered quite a lot in American discussions, you then give a highly inflected rendition of your own. ... What is this? In my young day, the BBC had a special department for the pronunciation of foreign names for the guidance of those commenting on Thailand, say, or Mongolia. But this particular name is pronounced as it is spelled. "Very well," said the BBC chap, with a hint of bad grace. "This man Wolfervitz ..."

It takes a lot, I hope, to make me feel queasy. (I had, during my appointment at the BBC offices in London, already had to pass a door with a sign reading "Male Prayer Room," which means that the British taxpayer is already funding not just religious observance on public property but the sexual segregation of same.) And this is not quite like old-line reactionaries going out of their way to say "Franklin Delano Rosenfeld." Still, I don't think I am quite wrong in suspecting that a sharpened innuendo is in play here. Why else, when the very name of Paul Wolfowitz is mentioned, do so many people bid adieu to the very notion of objectivity?

I noticed this first in an issue of the London Review of Books just after Sept. 11, when Edward Said blamed the random attacks on Muslims (or other turbanned individuals) on the speech made by Wolfowitz calling for "ending states" that sponsor terrorism. I have spent some time with those who monitor and investigate such hate crimes, perpetrated by those who think that it's clever to go and shoot a Tibetan gas-station attendant in Montana in protest of al-Qaida, and I believe I can state with some confidence that such heroes would have difficulty identifying the name of their senator or even their former schoolteacher, let alone that of the deputy secretary of defense. Moreover (and to state the same point in a different way) if the number of inflammatory mentions of the Wolfowitz family name did have this inciting effect, we would be up to our thighs in the blood of pogrom victims by now.

Which seems not to be the case. However, in just the last few days there have been widely disseminated misrepresentations of perfectly clear statements made by Wolfowitz concerning weapons of mass destruction and further concerning the role played by oil in the motivation of United States policy toward Iraq. The interview from which both versions were drawn can easily be read in full on the Web site of the Department of Defense.

In the first instance, it was asserted that Wolfowitz had come clean, as it were, and admitted that WMDs were just one part of a pretext for the attack on Saddam Hussein. This became a "pickup" across the media, to the effect that a cynical fear tactic had been preferred by the administration "for bureaucratic reasons." The transcript reads differently:

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.

But as Wolfowitz went on to say, and had said numberless times before, there were several other reasons such as the Baath Party's connection with terrorism and the crimes of the regime against the Iraqi people. He could have added that the WMD consensus was shared by a majority of U.N. Security Council member states, by a majority of the U.S. Congress, and of the personnel of the Clinton-Gore administration. It is also clearly stated as the preamble to the supposedly sacrosanct U.N. Resolution 1441.

Wolfowitz did not, in this part of the interview, specify oil as a crucial element. But that did not prevent the Guardian of London isolating another remark that he did make, and re-arranging it so as to suit. Under the "gotcha" headline "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil," the newspaper reported that he had made a distinction between Iraq and North Korea, this distinction lying in the fact that Iraq "floats on a sea of oil." This was presented as a clear admission. To quote the Guardian's own climbdown the following day:

He did not say that. He said, according to the Department of Defense website: "The difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war.

It's pretty disgraceful that a serious newspaper should have to instruct its readers, let alone its reporters, on the plain reading of intelligible words. But the introductory sentence of the correction admitted only to "misconstruing" what had been said. That's a weasel word if ever I've seen one.

Many of these discrepant versions of Wolfowitz have been derived or quarried from an initial article on the neoconservative movement by my friend and colleague Sam Tanenhaus at Vanity Fair. The magazine is churlishly described, in a recent riposte by William Kristol in the Weekly Standard, as "the Manhattan celebrity/fashion glossy." Why do I say churlishly? Because the Tanenhaus article was adorned with two excellent photographs by Nigel Parry, making both Wolfowitz and Kristol look quite sexy and potent. They presumably sat still for these portraits.

Coming back to where I began, though, I think that there's genuine cause for alarm in the current vulgar conflation of "Kabbalah" with "cabal," and with the practice of what, if anyone else were to be the target, the left would already be calling "demonization."