A Failed Project for the New
American Century?
By Tim Buchholz
It was early morning (for me) when my roommate got a call from
his mother in Wisconsin telling him to turn on the TV. That’s
when we saw the first building on fire. We ran to our roof in
Brooklyn that overlooked Manhattan and saw the plumes of smoke
filling the air, and that’s when we saw the second plane hit.
We were in shock; we couldn’t believe what we just saw. We
thought the world was ending.
As soon as the trains were running again, my friend and I went
in to the city and got off at Union Square/14th Street, where
anything below 14th was blocked off. Makeshift hospitals lined
the streets as gurney’s rushed past us with bleeding bodies
through the smoke clouded air.
“How could this have happened?” we asked ourselves as a
soldier motioned with his machine gun that we could not go any
further.
I’m sure we all have stories of where we were on 9/11; even
those numbers will never be the same to us again. And there
are just as many theories as to why it happened, and who is to
blame. I’m not going to try to answer those questions, but
9/11 did set into motion a military plan that seemed to have
been waiting for it to happen.
In 1997, many of the names we have seen so often since the War
in Iraq began were listed as members of a neoconservative
think tank called “Project for a New American Century,” or
PNAC. Founded by William Kristol (not the comedian) and Robert
Kagan, its stated goal according to Wikipedia was “to promote
American global leadership. Fundamental to the PNAC are the
views that American leadership is both good for America and
good for the world and support for a Reaganite policy of
military strength and moral clarity.” And their Statement of
Principle ends with, “While such a Reaganite policy of
military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable
today, it is necessary if the United States is to build on the
successes of this past century and to ensure our security and
our greatness in the next.” They felt that America was the
most powerful country in the world and it was their duty to
keep it that way, protecting the world while serving the
interests of the United States. PNAC called for an increase in
military spending, and a redeployment of our troops oversees
to meet modern needs.
In January 1998, in a letter to Bill Clinton, written in part
by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, PNAC called for the US
Military to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and later
criticized the December 1998 bombing attempts the Clinton
Administration had made in Iraq, calling them ineffective.
George W. Bush was elected in 2000, and his Vice President
(Dick Cheney), the VP’s Chief of Staff (I. Lewis Scootter
Libby), Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld), Deputy
Secretary of Defense (Paul Wolfowitz), Deputy Secretary of
State (Richard Armitage), and his appointed Ambassador to the
UN (John R. Bolton) were all members of PNAC, as well as many
members of his cabinet and his brother Jeb, who was Governor
of Florida during the recount that made him president. PNAC
published a 90 page report entitled “Rebuilding America’s
Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources for a New Century”
which explains exactly how they planned to implement their
program, and also states, “Further, the process of
transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” They knew the
American people wouldn’t go for the plan without a major
catastrophe, and they were about to get it. But let’s
backtrack just a bit.
Dick Cheney had been Secretary of Defense under George Bush
Sr., and as we all know moved on to Halliburton after Bush
Sr.’s presidency. During the Clinton Administration, the stock
value for Halliburton dropped significantly, and they were
rumored to be doing business through their subsidiary
businesses with Iran, even though sanctions forbid such
dealings. George Jr. asked Cheney to help him pick a VP for
his presidential run, and Cheney suggested … Cheney.
Once elected, Bush put Cheney in charge of a national energy
policy team called “National Energy Policy Development Group
(NEPDG).” According to www.halliburtonwatch.org, Cheney’s
group “met secretly with lobbyists and representatives of the
petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity
industries. Many of these individuals work for energy
companies which gave large campaign contributions to
Bush/Cheney 2000. Environmental groups were mostly excluded
from the task force.”
Congress asked Cheney to release the information from these
meetings, and he declined. Judicial Watch sued under “The
Freedom of Information Act” to make these reports public, and
finally managed to get some released in July 2003. According
to www.halliburtonwatch.org, “Those documents include maps of
Iraqi and other mid-east oilfields, pipelines, refineries and
terminals, two charts detailing various Iraqi oil and gas
projects, and a March 2001 list of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi
Oilfield Contracts." They also sate that, “In January 2003,
The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives from
Halliburton, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron-Texaco Corp. and
Conoco-Phillips, among others, had met with Vice President
Cheney’s staff to plan the post-war revival of Iraq’s oil
industry. However, both Cheney and the companies deny the
meeting took place.” The War didn’t begin until March 2003,
but we already had maps showing who would get Iraq’s Oil
Fields when the war was over, drawn up in meetings held
between January and May, 2001.
According to “Crossing the Rubicon – Simplifying the case
against Dick Cheney” by
Michael Kane, “On May 8, 2001 – four months prior to 9/11 –
the president placed Dick Cheney in charge of all federal
programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction consequence
management within the Departments of Defense, Health and Human
Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection
Agency, and other federal agencies… This included all training
and planning which needed to be seamlessly integrated,
harmonious and comprehensive in order to maximize
effectiveness. This mandate created the Office of National
Preparedness in FEMA, overseen by Dick Cheney.”
Michael Kane goes on to say that Cheney and the Secret Service
were running War Games on 9/11, “that placed ‘false blips’ on
FAA radar screens. These war games eerily mirrored the real
events of 9/11 to the point of the Air Force running drills
involving hijacked aircraft as the 9/11 plot actually
unfolded. The war games & terror drills played a critical role
in ensuring no Air Force fighter jocks – who had trained their
entire lives for this moment – would be able to prevent the
attacks from succeeding. These exercises were under Dick
Cheney’s management.”
As the planes hit, Dick Cheney was rushed to a secret
bunker/command center, while George W. Bush read to school
children. Who was really in charge that day? And was this the
new “Pearl Harbor” that PNAC had said it would take to
implement their plans?
After 9/11, we started to hear links between Al Qaeda and
Hussein, mainly from Members of PNAC who happened to be in
Bush’s administration, like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz. Then we heard the reports of the WMD’s and the PNAC
plan to invade Iraq was set into motion.
The question now is – how did The Project for the New American
Century go? PNAC had stated that removing Hussein from power
would be good for American interests. Well, our economy is in
a recession, we are spending 275 million dollars a day in the
war, the dollar is hitting record lows, and there are rumors
of oil reaching $150.00 a barrel in just a few weeks time.
Bush’s approval rating has gone from close to 70% at the start
of the war to 67% disapproval. Donald Rumsfeld was forced to
resign. Scooter Libby was implicated in the Valerie Plame
scandal, which some say was an attack on her husband for his
views about the US’s desires to go to war. Paul Wolfowitz went
on to lead The World Bank, till he was forced to resign amidst
scandal. Republicans are distancing themselves from the Bush
Administration, and a new report was just issued by the Senate
Intelligence Committee stating the administration “led the
nation to war on false premises,” and, “statements that Iraq
had a partnership with Al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by
intelligence.”
So far, not so good.
But, according to www.halliburtonwatch.org, Halliburton’s
stock price tripled since the Iraq invasion from $20 to $63 as
of 2005. They have since leveled off to around $50.00 today.
Cheney still has stock options from Halliburton, but he gives
the profits to charity. Then in March of 2007, amidst scandals
for no-bid contracts and overcharging our troops, they moved
their headquarters out of the United States and to the United
Arab Emirates, which means they are no longer an American
based company or pay American taxes. Exxon Mobile beat its own
2006 record profit by 3%, and according to a U.S. News report
from February 2008 called “Exxon’s Profits: Measuring a Record
Windfall” by Marianne Lavelle, “If Exxon Mobil were a country,
its 2007 profit would exceed the gross domestic product of
nearly two thirds of the 183 nations in the World Bank’s
economic rankings. It would be right in there behind the likes
of Angola and Qatar—two oil-producing nations, incidentally,
where Exxon has major operations.” She also says, “Exxon
Mobil’s profits are 80 percent higher than those of General
Electric, which used to be the largest U.S. company by market
capitalization before Exxon left it in the dust in 2005.
Microsoft earns about a third as much money. And next to
Exxon, the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, looks like a
quaint boutique, with annual profits of about $11 billion.”
It is interesting to note that their headquarters are in
Bush’s home state of Texas. According to Ms. Lavelle, ExxonMobile was not the only oil company to profit; the major oil
companies combined profits for 2007 surpassed 100 billion.
The members of The Project for the New American Century felt
that America was in a prime position atop the rest of the
world in 1998, and called for an increase in military spending
to keep that position. According to Gordon Lubold of The
Christian Science Monitor; “Since the terrorist attacks of
2001, the defense budget has ballooned about 35 percent.” He
goes on to say, “For the 2009 fiscal year, the Defense
Department is asking for $515 billion and a separate $70
billion to cover war costs into the early months of a new
administration. Those amounts combined would represent the
highest level of military spending since the end of World War
II (adjusted for inflation).” He says that we are currently
spending 4% of our GDP on Defense, (as much as the rest of the
world put together) which The Pentagon wants to keep as the
new “floor” for Defense spending. But Mr. Lubold goes on to
say that this trend is coming to an end. He quotes Steven
Kosiak, a senior budget analyst at the Center for Strategic
and Budgetary Assessments, another think tank in Washington as
saying "Under this plan, between fiscal year 2010 and 2013,
The Defense Department’s base budget would be cut by 1.5
percent. Thus, the administration is proposing that the
buildup, begun in earnest after the terrorist attacks of
September 2001, should come to an end in fiscal 2010."
So the war in Iraq led to an increase in the short term, but
looks like it will lead to a decrease in the future. The
dollar is reaching new lows and people are starting to invest
in Euros and Yen instead. Our housing market has crashed. Our
deficit continues to grow. China and India’s economies are
growing and threatening to overtake our prime spot on top. It
has been suggested by our own Senate in a Bipartisan report
that we went to war under false pretense. An article in
today’s Los Angeles Times states that “Monthly growth in
unemployment rate is biggest in over 20 years,” and the Dow
Jones dropped sharply after this report and another rise in
oil
prices.
And
even
PNAC’s
website,
www.newamericancentury.org, has been taken down, saying only
“This account has been suspended. Please contact the
billing/support department as soon as possible.”
Do not forget, PNAC also said that their, “Reaganite policy of
military strength and moral clarity” was good for the world
too. Noam Chomsky, interviewed by Gabriel Mathew Schivone in
May 2008’s “Monthly Review” states, “There was a recent study
by two leading terrorism experts (using RAND Corporation
government data) which concluded that what they called the
“Iraq effect”—meaning, the effect of the Iraq invasion on
incidents of terror in the world—was huge. In fact, they found
that terror increased about seven-fold after the invasion of
Iraq.” The rise in oil prices has led to a food crisis all
over the world. According to “2008: The Year of Global Food
Crisis” by Kate Smith and Rob Edwards, “Millions more of the
world’s most vulnerable people are facing starvation as food
shortages loom and crop prices spiral ever upwards. And for
the first time in history, say experts, the impact is
spreading from the developing to the developed world.”
How did it go? I guess it all depends on whose interests
you’re interested in.
-Tim Buchholz is a freelance writer living in Ohio. He
contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.