Is 'The Project for a New American Century' the damning evidence showing a desire to go into Iraq PRE 9/11?

Question

I had never heard of this think tank before,and now that I have some knowledge of it, it seems to me that the Iraq war was planned WAY before 9/11, in fact, it was being planned while CLinton was in office. Does the Bush admin really expect us to believe that the war in Iraq wasn't already an inevitability? Do they really expect us to believe they went in on bad intel, when ALL ALONG they had been planning a pre emptive strike? What am I missing here? Has anyone read this?

Sally, I don't need to check inot 'youtube', and you didn't answer the question. I guess you are fine with anything as long as it comes form your party.

schaufel, having a trained army ready, and planning a PRE EMPTIVE strike against a certain country are not the same thing. Also, if all that were true (an dI am not saying it isn't true) why the need to find a link between 9/11 and Iraq? My guess...to sell it easier to the people...also, perhaps you think that CLinton did nothing because he was 'self absorbed' but I tend to think it was more along the lines of him not believing that Iraq would be like France post WWII where we are greeted in the streets as liberators. Perhaps he was TOO SMART to be tricked into going into war with Iraq.

Answer 1

The PNAC is the home of the neo conservative movement. Since the sixties every President has dealt with these foreign policy "experts", pushing the govt. to export U.S. style democracy to all countries. They've experienced more success with Republican Presidents than Democrats, so in the 80's they've been more active with conservatives.

There are 3 groups of Americans who are most involved with the neocons; financial investors in military equipment manufacturers and their lobbying group (the Aerospace Industry Association), the Jewish American lobby (AIPAC), and investors in Oil Corps. These 3 groups have the most to gain.
Israel wants the U.S. to export democracy to the Arabs, since democracies tend to be more peaceful, and also to recieve funding for their military buildup, which also benefits the AIA.
The AIA benefits from all arms races worldwide, since it's their military equipment being sold to competitors, and they also benefit from U.S. wars.
The oil corps. are involved because most oil producing countries nationalized their oil reserves, preventing oil corp. control of those oil fields. In Iraq, the U.S. is presently pushing the Iraqi Congress to 'privatize' 80% of their oil fields, meaning the oil corps. will be able to buy the oil fields, robbing Iraqis of their main economic resource.
Not surprisingly, Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela are 3 countries with nationalized oil reserves, and these 3 countries are targets of PNAC.
Clinton was aware of the neocon's desire to invade Iraq. He had the wisdom to refuse.
When Bush was elected, he staffed the govt. with personnel from PNAC, leaving only a few members of PNAC at their offices. Our intelligence community is run by PNAC and the intelligence fed to Congress in 2002 was manipulated by them.
Congress authorized Bush to use military force if necessary to force Saddam into compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions. When Saddam complied unexpectedly, Bush invaded anyway, claiming that Saddam failed to prove that he had no WMDs. How does one prove that they don't have something? No U.N. resolution required Saddam to somehow prove that he had no WMDs.
Bush always intended to invade Iraq. His friends vested heavily in the military industry, Halliburton, and the oil corps. Faking a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda was a great opportunity to get the Congress and the American people to go along with it.

Answer 2

I think it is possible. Do you think that there is any possibility that there was concern for the Iraqi people, tho? Personally, if we invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons, we then should go to North Korea, Myanmar, and Sudan, just to name three.

IMO, Bush got stuck not only with Clinton's mess, but with an attack on 9/11 that gave the administration time to totally change their tactics. Is it possible that invading Iraq pre 9/11 was simply a well-formed thought?

Answer 3

I've read it and yes, it's got damning evidence to go into Iraq, I don't believe they ever had bad intel, I believe in my heart that they searched high and low for a reason to go into Iraq hence the 9/11 connection... it's a reflection of greed and what this country has become. Great question, btw!

Answer 4

I have heard that within 5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld had his staff look for as much evidence as possible linking Iraq to the attacks. They obviously wanted to go to Iraq all along and they didn't give a damn about getting justice for the 3,000 who died in the attacks.

Answer 5

Is anybody seriously supprised the planning for war with Iraq was in the works before 9/11?

Come on, Iraq was an irritant, and a security threat ever sence 1991. They had be launching sams against our fighters patrolling the "no fly zone", Saddam was wiping out portions of his own citizenry, they threw out weapons inspectors, everybody in the world thought Saddam had WMD's, Saddam was giving money to suicide bombers families in Gaza and the West Bank... come on... of couse we were planning on war... Saddam was a destabilizing presence in an already tumultus part of the world! Not to mention the UN passed resolution after resolution demanding that Saddam do this or that... but the UN didn't have the balls to do anything about Saddam thumbing his nose at the UN... so clearly, the USA, which, like it or not, is the de facto world's police, had to step in and take care of this situation.

The time to go to war really should have been about 1996 when the weapons inspectors were thrown out... and when Saddam was shooting at US and British planes... but Clinton was more concerned about image than doing what needed to be done... so it was left to Bush, who thought finally the country could understand and appriciate the need to take preemptive action against despots who have no concern for accountability to their people or to the rest of the world... post 9/11 it seemed that Americans had realized that oversees the world is not all sunshine and happyness, and bad people threatened our interests, our allies, and ultimately our existance... but unfortunatly America has become complacent again, and is slipping back into the Fortress America, isolationist, bring the troops home and build a giant wall around America, then pay tribute to our enemies so they please, please don't hurt us, mentality!

So yes... of course we were prepared for war. Of course, we should always be prepared for war. There are threats out there... many people around the world hate the United States and our allies... and given the opportunity they would not hesitate to wipe us off the earth. So yes, we should always be ready for war. And yes, Saddam Hussein was like a giant match in the already unstable powder keg that is the middle east. And of course Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, per se... but they were an avowed enemy of the USA, they did support terror, they did threaten and invade their neighbors, they did promote hate for the west, which resluted in 9/11 and other attacks... and YES THIS WAR IS NECESSARY! We simply cannot sit on our laurals, thinking that everybody loves us and the world is a peacful place, and so long as we don't interfear with the middle east, they are going to love us... they won't... so long as despots blame all of their problems on the Israel, and by proxy the USA.... so long as extreemists are calling the USA the "Great Satan" we cannot be safe. So long as extreemists are willing to sacrifice their lifes in what they consider "holy war" with that "great satan" we will never be safe. We need to root out those who seek our distruction and eliminate or convert them... it is an unsafe world... we need to be prepaired.

Answer 6

Shortly after 9/11, Bush said, "this CRUSADE, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." Up until that moment, I still had hope that Bush would be a new Reagan. But as soon as he said the word "crusade," I knew, as did anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of history, that this was going to be one of the worst Presidents ever. Since then he has exceeded my expectations.

Answer 7

For me that's very much old news.I and others addressed this issue many times when we spoke about the Iraq war also here on answers.
The Bush administration was filled with ex PNAC members who wanted to invade Iraq as early as the late nineties in a strategy to show American force.It's all on their website.
Are you honestly telling me you didn't know about the PNAC?Guess you aren't as informed as you thought.I asked a question very much like this one seven months ago.Maybe you were having fun with the toilet paper questions:)

Answer 8

Yeah, they wrote a public letter to Bush on 9-20-01 telling him to go after Saddam whether or not he was responsible for the terror attacks.

"It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."

Not going after Saddam = surrender! They goaded Bush to attack Iraq, just as the Weekly Standard (which has some of the same people) now goads him to bomb Iran.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm

Answer 9

On its face, no, but there is little question that once 9/11 occured, Bush was openly, to staff and department heads, looking for a manner in which to link Hussein to the attacks on 9/11 to justify invading Iraq.

Answer 10

What's frightening is these kinds of non government and unelected organization have unbelievable influence in our govt. Bush cabinet reads like a PNAC member list.