After many months of bashing George Bush I am here to write in his defense. Is he an inept leader? Yes. Did he jury-rig intelligence for an attack on Iraq? Likely. Has he placed this country in economic jeopardy and diminished our world stature? Undoubtedly. Did he think this stuff up all by himself? No.

       For a better look at what led George down the slippery slope of world class war-mongering, one only needs to look at the policies of his immediate predecessors and the stance of the US toward the Middle East, beginning with the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. Mossadegh fell out of favor when he nationalized the Iranian oil industry, much to Washington’s displeasure, so the CIA clandestinely worked to depose him and install a pro-western dictator, the Shah of Iran.  But in 1979, after decades of US-supported despotism under the Shah, a people’s revolution overthrew the government. Since then, the US has been determined to assert its dominance of an oil-rich region, a process that has persisted through both Democratic and Republican administrations.

      After the Shah’s overthrow and a period of oil embargoes, former president Jimmy Carter established what became known as “The Carter Doctrine” in 1980. The doctrine acknowledged “the overwhelming dependence of the Western democracies on oil supplies from the Middle East” and stipulated that “Any attempt to gain control of the Persian Gulf will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States…and will be repelled by any means necessary including the use of force.”

      This doctrine was followed and enhanced by the corporate/governmental alliances of the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations which focused on Iran, Iraq and Middle East oil reserves. Both the Reagan and Bush I administrations provided money, political protection, and armaments to Saddam Hussein,  permitting US corporations to sell materials and chemicals for “weapons of mass destruction” despite Hussein’s appalling human rights record. This cozy relationship continued during Saddam’s long US proxy war with Iran, one which was funded by our government while Saddam allegedly gassed Iranians with our chemicals. It was only when Saddam committed the sin of refusing to allow US corporations exclusive rights to build an oil pipeline across his country that the friendly relationship ended.  

       Attempts at undermining Saddam’s regime intensified under Bush I with sanctions and bombings. But it wasn’t until 1992 that the plan for the economic takeover of Iraq was formulated in a document called “Defense Planning Guidance” (DPG). Authored by Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, Eric Edelman, Colin Powell, and Zalmay Khalizad (now the US-appointed Iraqi Ambassador), it lay out the strategy for economically divvying up Iraq’s resources. The plan also stated the objective of the US “to remain the predominant outside power in the region to preserve US and Western access to the region’s oil.” More ominously, it described for the first time a “pre-emptive military approach” as opposed to working through organizations like the United Nations.

     Later, under Clinton, the removal of Saddam was formalized in legislation authorizing “regime change”. This policy was passed by Congress and signed by some of our Maine representatives. At the same time, familiar forces were hard at work during the Clinton years, waiting until the time when they could again claim the reins of power to implement their Middle East plans.

      The same players who wrote the DPG developed in 1997 the Project for the New American Century. Designed as a blueprint for Middle East domination, the purpose of the PNAC was to promote economic and military control by the US in the Middle East. This coincided with the neo-conservative goals of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group founded in 2002 by defense industry giant Robert Jackson, a Lockheed Martin executive. It is significant that Lockheed Martin received over 11 billion dollars in increased sales and contracts after the invasion of Iraq, and the chairman of the Iraq Liberation Committee, former Secretary of State and Bechtel executive, George Shultz, helped Bechtel to become one of the biggest beneficiaries of US contracts in Iraq.

     These corporate, military procurement and defense industry moguls increasingly came to dominate war-making policy as the movers and shakers who slipped seamlessly in and out of the business boardrooms and halls of government under Bush I and Bush II---Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer, Scooter Libby, Robert Zoellick, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Jim Baker and George Schultz to name a few. Wolfowitz, with a long history working in the Pentagon, became Bush II’s Assistant Secretary of Defense and was the architect of the Iraq War. Two years ago he was chosen as Bush’s head of the World Bank where he has been working for American interests to force countries to change their laws so US corporations can have direct access and control of oil, a process begun during the Reagan years and a part of the “trickle down economic theory” which has made the wealthy wealthier and the poor poorer. Cheney has a much publicized corporate connection as former head of Halliburton, a defense contracting company that has benefited handsomely in Iraq and enabled Cheney’s deferred stock options to increase exponentially in value. The Bush family, Jim Baker, and Donald Rumsfeld are all members of the Carlysle Group, a defense investment entity that has reaped huge benefits in arm sales from the Iraq invasion. Another well-known player, Zalmay Khalilzad, named by Bush as the current Ambassador to Iraq, is part of the Rand Corporation and founded the Center for Eastern Studies while serving as a well-paid advisor to Unocal Oil Corporation. Hamid Karzai, the first US-selected leader of Afghanistan is also a former Unocal executive and has helped facilitate the long-desired multi-billion dollar Unocal pipeline deal (now owned by Chevron), an 890-mile natural gas conduit across Afghanistan that was stalled by the former Taliban leadership. Paul Bremer, a former executive with Kissinger Associates, and a man with a long history of corporate/government dealings involving both Rumsfeld and Schultz, replaced General Jay Garner, the first viceroy of Iraq after the occupation. (Garner was intent on forming an Iraqi coalition government early in the occupation, and opposed dividing up Iraq’s economy to American interests. He was removed by Rumsfeld.) Garners’ replacement, Bremer, was given supreme authority by Bush as the interim leader, and in this capacity, Bremer dictated laws with “binding instructions or directives”. He issued 100 such orders that favored US corporations and oil developers. A sampling follows as reported in Antonia Juhasz’ book, “The Bush Agenda”:

   “Order Number 39 allows for (1) privatization of Iraq’s 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds.” (This means that Iraqis may not receive preference in reconstruction while companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel may buy up Iraqi businesses under no requirement to hire Iraqis or reinvest money in the Iraqi economy.)        

   “Order Number 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq’s laws.” (This means that even murder or environmental disasters may not be prosecuted if committed by foreign firms.)

    “Order Number 57 and 77 places US appointed auditors and inspector generals in every government ministry, with 5-year terms and total authority over contracts, regulations, programs, and employees.”

     Kevin Zeese writes in Counterpunch that “The result of these orders was to create an economic environment more favorable to US corporations than laws in the United States. As a result Iraq corporations and Iraqi workers have been excluded from the rebuilding of Iraq. And, the Iraq reconstruction has failed to provide adequate electricity, food, sewage treatment and even gasoline---but US corporations have profited handsomely from this failed reconstruction.”

    I will explore some of the economic and political ramifications of the takeover of Iraq  in greater detail in future articles, particularly the US plans for a national oil law which will give American companies total control over Iraq’s oil reserves. But it should be remembered that the genesis of these policies has been long in the making. Bush has surely pushed the outer limits of the envelope with his unilateralist pre-emptive policies, representing the corporations who are the real powers pulling the strings of government. But are Bush’s goals all that different from his predecessors? Who is really responsible for the economic sacking of Iraq? What were the real reasons for the invasion? More importantly, how do the answers to these questions expose the shadow policies and players behind the wars we fight? If we look closely, we should not have to ask again what, or who, we are fighting for--- and why we deserve to be losing this war.