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2 page Summary of a 25
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When the United States began transporting troops to
the Persian Gulf in the fall of 2002 it was evident that the war against
Iraq was underway. This paper was begun in an attempt to answer the
question: How did the war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda become the
war to depose Saddam Hussein?
The effort to understand this change in U.S. policy
led to a picture of a relatively small group of persons associated with
certain think tanks and other organizations achieving disproportionate
influence over the policy formulation process.
The activities of fourteen organizations were coordinated by
individuals who comprised a web of interlocking memberships.
Many of these individuals were on record calling for the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein as far back
as 1998, in a letter to President Clinton.
This was well before the September 11, 2001 attack on the World
Trade Center and before George W. Bush became President.
The main contribution of this paper is the attempt to
quantify the inter-linked nature of the 14 organizations by
cross-tabulating individuals with memberships in two or more of them. Examples: Richard Perle was associated with 10 of the 14,
Jeane Kirkpatrick with 7, James Woolsey with 6, John Bolton with 4.
Altogether 223 links were found between the 14 groups, where a link
is defined as the association of a single individual with two
organizations. Although over
650 individuals associated with the 14 organizations included in the study
were analyzed, just 9 individuals formed 121 of the inter-group links,
accounting for over half of the total.
This concentration of the inter-group linkages suggests that a
small number of individuals could effectively influence and coordinate the
foreign policy impact of these organizations.
Using a threshold of at least 3 members in common, a
subgroup of 5 organizations was identified as forming a “clique”.
A “clique” is defined as the largest subgroup wherein each is
directly related to each of the others.
In this case, this meant that each of the 10 pairs among the five
shared at least three members. This clique consisted of The Project for
the New American Century (PNAC), The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq
(CLI), The Center for Security Policy (CSP), The Defense Policy Board
Advisory Committee (DPB), and The Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs (JINSA).
Based upon mission statements and observed actions,
the members of the clique appeared to play somewhat specialized and
mutually supporting roles in the policy process.
For example, PNAC was instrumental in preparing the over-all plan (Rebuilding
America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century),
while the presence of JINSA helped insure the interests of Israel as well
as of the United States. The CLI was set up in the fall of 2002,
reportedly at the behest of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, to “engage in
educational and advocacy efforts to mobilize US and international support
for policies aimed at ending the aggression of Saddam Hussein and freeing
the Iraqi people from tyranny.” That
is, the purpose of the CLI was to sell the war abroad as well as to US
citizens. The CSP prided itself in expertise and facilities to efficiently
disseminate a flood of position
papers and press releases to Congress, the Administration, and the public
at large. The DPB provided a
direct link into the bowels of the Pentagon, with its members having
access to classified information and the opportunity to make private
presentations to the upper echelons of the Department of Defense.
A diagram is included which visually depicts the
interrelations among the 14 organizations.
The many instances of shared members among these
organizations and the numerous instances of ex-members becoming senior
officials in the Bush Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith,
Wurmser, Abrams, Bolton, among others) ensured a coordinated and effective
impact upon the development of U.S. Middle East foreign policy within the
Administration.
So, “How did the war against Osama bin Laden and al
Qaeda become the war to depose Saddam Hussein?” The answer appears to be
that a relatively small number of individuals who still chaffed over the
failure of the first President Bush to finish off the Iraqi leader managed
to get themselves into key positions, inside and outside the current
Administration. When the
attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred, these persons were able to
convince the second President Bush that getting rid of Saddam Hussein
would fulfill a number of goals. It
is argued that the rush to do so, in the face of declining US public and
world support for such unilateral action, resulted in the failure to
adequately plan for the war’s aftermath. This failure is now beginning
to catch up with the President as US casualties and the immense costs of
the occupation continue to grow.
Here is the link to the 670K MS Word File, 25
page article (not including a 15 page+ appendix.) Unless you have
broadband, this will be a long download.
U.S.
Policy Towards Iraq; Unraveling the Web of People and Organizations,
Figure
1
Web
of Organizations Involved in
Formulating
U.S. Foreign Policy on Iraq
Laurence
Toenjes ltoenjes@aol.com recently
retired from the University of Houston’s Department of Sociology where
he was a researcher with The Sociology of Education Research Group.
That work included research and evaluation projects for school
districts in the Houston metropolitan area and the Texas Education Agency.
Dr. Toenjes was involved in school finance analysis in Texas beginning in
1989, and has also participated, as a private consultant, in school
finance policy analyses in several other states. A primary interest of Dr.
Toenjes is the development and use of interactive computer graphics
software to display and analyze school finance and student performance
data and the use of such techniques to communicate findings to policy
makers.Recently he has become interested in exploring ways in which
quantitative methods might contribute to understanding the relationships
among the various forces and interests involved in the formation of US
security policy. Dr. Toenjes received his doctorate in economics from
Southern Illinois University. This
article is originally published at opednews.com. Copyright Laurence A.
Toenjes, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or
web media so long as this credit is attached
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