[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Chalabi was a secular, wealthy Shiite who had fled Iraq in 1958 after a militarycoup that overthrew the British-installed monarchy.He was also a formerstudent of Wohlstetter s and a longtime friend of Wolfowitz and Perle.In 1992Chalabi went on the CIA payroll after founding the refugee-based Iraqi NationalCongress, but the same year he was convicted of bank fraud and embezzlementby a Jordanian court after the collapse of the Petra Bank, which he founded.Chalabi was sentenced in absentia to twenty-two years in prison.Clintonofficials believed that Chalabi was too tainted by scandal and too much of anoutside dandy to be credible as a political leader in Iraq; by 1996, the CIA andState Department had similar misgivings.Although Chalabi claimed that the CIAsupported his coup attempt, National Security Advisor Anthony Lakeemphatically denied it.The Clinton administration feared another Bay of Pigs,Lake recalled, and thus everyone agreed that we needed to be crystal clear withChalabi.The United States had already betrayed the Kurds twice, and we didn t 62 IMPERIAL DESIGNSwant to see it happen again by our encouraging such a dubious operation.So Ipersonally sent him a message that we didn t support him. 91That lack of support and the failed coup against Saddam enraged Wolfowitz.In 1997 he and Rand strategist Zalmay Khalilzad called for Saddam s forcibleover throw by the United States and its Iraqi allies. If we are serious aboutdismantling Saddam s weapons of mass destruction, and preventing him frombuilding more, we will have to confront him sooner or later and sooner wouldbe better, they wrote.Although military force alone would not be enough tosolve the Iraqi problem, only the substantial use of military force could provethat the United States is serious. Wolfowitz and Khalilzad demanded new U.S.assistance for a serious Iraqi rebellion, not merely coup plots and CIAmanipulation of exile groups. They wanted to arm and train opposition forces, provide U.S.military protection for Iraqi rebels, and broker an end to the fratricidal struggle between the two Kurdish factions.Tactfully, they did notmention Chalabi by name, but Chalabi s exile organization was crucial to theirvision of a liberated Iraq.92Meanwhile, Chalabi s friendships with Perle and Wolfowitz and his energeticlobbying in Washington gave him another political lifeline after he alienated theCIA.Through Perle s annual conferences in Beaver Creek, Colorado, whichwere cosponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and former PresidentGerald Ford, Chalabi met Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other conservativehawks.In Washington he forged key alliances with Senators John McCain andJoseph Lieberman and led the lobbying drive for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998,aided by a new Washington think tank, the Project for the New AmericanCentury.The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was founded in 1997 bythe ringleaders of the new Pax Americana: William Kristol, Donald Kagan,Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams, John R.Bolton, R.James Woolsey, Wolfowitz,Perle, Cheney, Khalilzad, and Rumsfeld.Bankrolled by the Bradley Foundationand led by Kristol, its ideology was unabashedly unipolarist.The Republicanhawks were determined to challenge Clinton after he defeated Bob Dole in the1996 presidential election, and to restore the aggressive internationalist image ofthe Republican Party.Some PNAC hawks were appalled that House and SenateRepublicans vented their hatred of Clinton by opposing his interventions inHaiti, the Balkans, and later, Kosovo.Despite their own contempt for Clinton,the last thing they wanted in their party was a revival of the racialist isolationismof the old right.They also wanted a think tank that focused on foreign policy,unlike the all-issues conservatism of the American Enterprise Institute, withwhich the PNAC was closely affiliated.Essentially they advocated the politics and grand strategy of Wolfowitz sDefense Planning Guidance; following Wolfowitz s current example, theyfocused on Iraq.In January 1998 the PNAC unipolarists wrote an open letter toClinton that called for the overthrow of Saddam s regime. We can no longerdepend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the THE BULLY ON THE BLOCK 63sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades U.N
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
