BLAIR'S DEMISE: The Corrupt Neo-Con Network
socialist
Lyndon Larouche and his Executive Intelligence Review has been smeared as
anti-semitic and discredited in much of the mainstream media. However we
are
interested in facts, and Larouche was the first to identify the neocon
network
which with help from Blair set up the war in Iraq.
Here EIR traces the sinister corrupt networks of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the
American Israel lobby exposing a network of graft and lawbreaking that, if
Democrats were a real opposition party, would land them in jail.
Dumpblair suspects that Blair has also been bought or blackmailed by this
powerful network.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3021cheney_halli.html
This article appears in the May 30, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence
Review.
After dropping more than 28,000 bombs on Iraq, the United States has now
begun the business of rebuilding the country.... The companies that land
the
biggest contracts to do the work will cash in big-time.
"Cheney is vulnerable ... for the same reason his henchman, Perle, is
vulnerable... for doing things that are against the law. He could be out
of
there on impeachment," commented Lyndon LaRouche, during an April 4
interview
with Ambrose Lane, of Pacifica Radio's Washington, D.C. affiliate,
WPFW. "These
guys could be broken with the support of the Congress. The generals could
be
free to say what the truth is about Rumsfeld, and he would be out of
there. So,
if our institutions were functioning, if the Democratic Party were
functioning
as a legitimate opposition, we wouldn't have this problem much longer. But
if
the Democratic Party capitulates, the way the so-called democratic parties
of
Germany capitulated to the Hitler appointment by Chancellor Hindenburg,
then we
could be soon in deep trouble. It could be the end of our civilization,"
stressed the Democratic Presidential pre-candidate.
There is a small, but growing, group of Congressmen, who have also been
fighting Vice President Dick Cheney and the Iraq profiteers. One of them is
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee
on
Government Reform, who has been seeking investigation by various Federal
agencies to follow the trail of corruption, nepotism, and cronyism involved
in
the Second Gulf War. Representative Waxman has particularly drawn attention
to
Vice President Cheney, who in his capacity as the former Chairman and
CEO of
Halliburton Corp., has reaped the benefits of war profiteering from Bosnia,
to
Afghanistan, to Iraq. Similarly, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has demanded
from
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Richard Perle, who resigned as
Chairman
of the secretive Defense Policy Board amid charges of conflict of interest,
be
removed from the DPB completely. Conyers is also demanding that the
Pentagon
release to the House Judiciary Committee, on which Conyers is the ranking
Democrat, the financial disclosure records of all 30 or so members of
the DPB,
so that potential conflicts of these members... who war-gamed and promoted
war
with Iraq since no later than Sept. 18, 2001... could be determined.
The Rumsfeld/Cheney gang's conflicts of interest have become so public,
that
even Republicans are investigating. The probes became bipartisan the week
of May
12, when House International Affairs Committee Chairman Henry Hyde
(R-Ill.),
informed Rumsfeld at hearings, that he had assigned the General Accounting
Office (GAO), Congress' investigative body, to begin a full investigation
of the
"occupation government" of Iraq. He confronted Rumsfeld with the fact
that the
occupation government under Rummy's command, had obstructed Congressional
investigators from entering the country!
However, what Representative Waxman and the other members of Congress have
not raised, is that Cheney is perhaps the leading advocate of a unilateral
imperialist "World War IV" policy in the Bush Administration. Through his
affiliation with neo-conservative citadels, such as the Jewish Institute
for
National Security Affairs (JINSA) and William Kristol's Project for a New
American Century (PNAC), he is linked to the campaign to extend the Iraq
war to
Iran, Syria, and Egypt, and to crush the vision of a Palestinian state.
As EIR has exposed, Cheney was already firmly in the "perpetual war"
faction,
through his relationship with his current chief of staff, I. Lewis
"Scooter"
Libby, and Libby's Yale University mentor, Paul Wolfowitz, now Deputy
Secretary
of Defense. For more than 18 years, Libby served as the attorney for
America's
leading fugitive... the Russian and Jewish Mafia-linked Marc Rich, except
for
several jobs he took in-between his service to Rich, working for Wolfowitz
and/or Cheney. In 1990-91, Libby and Wolfowitz (himself a protogé of the
fascist
Leo Strauss and former Trotskyite Albert Wohlstetter), worked together
to codify the call for "perpetual war" in the 1992 Defense Guidance
Policy. After he left the position of Secretary of Defense in the Bush "41"
Administration, Cheney again hooked up with the Libby/Wolfowitz circle,
joining the International Advisory Board of JINSA. JINSA was founded by
three of Israeli intelligence's leading agents in America: Dr. Stephen
Bryen, who was investigated for passing classified information to the
Israelis from the Senate in 1978; Richard Perle; and Michael Ledeen. All
three JINSA big-wigs were named as members of the circle known as the
"X Committee" behind the espionage of the convicted spy for Israel,
Jonathan Jay Pollard.
JINSA... which has long served as a route for Israeli intelligence
to penetrate the U.S. military and recruit agents of influence for
its interests... has played a significant role in pushing through the
pre-emptive war policy. For example, the Iraq occupation government's
first appointed "Viceroy," Jay Garner, is a JINSA collaborator. James
Woolsey, the former Director of Central Intelligence and currently
an Iraq war fanatic on the Defense Policy Board, who has been the
attorney for the discredited Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi,
is on JINSA's board. And on May 18, JINSA's Ledeen played a major role
at a neo-con/Christian fundamentalist rally to oppose the Road Map for
Mideast peace, and to call for extending the Iraq war to Syria, Iran,
and Saudi Arabia, after which the idea of a Palestinian state could be
dropped for good.
These are the very schemes that Cheney has been whispering in the ear of
President George W. Bush from whatever hole Cheney hides in. The groundwork,
as
EIR has reported, was laid by Cheney and his chicken-hawk brood in 1991-92,
but
the plans were shelved as too insane by President Bush "41" and his
advisors at
the time, including Gen. Colin Powell and Gen. Brent Scowcroft. Cheney
used the
Sept. 11, 2001 irregular warfare attacks to dust off his rejected plans
for
imperial war and a domestic police state, much the way that the Nazis
used the
1933 Reichstag Fire... a phony terrorist incident staged by Nazi
agent-provocateurs... to consolidate their police state.
But Cheney's impeachable offenses are not merely policy-oriented. Through
his
$33 million "golden parachute" retirement plan from Halliburton... payable
yearly in up to $1 million installments... the profits that Cheney's
company
nets from feeding at the "government trough" are also lining his pockets.
On March 26, Representative Waxman began an investigation with a letter to
the Army Corps of Engineers, inquiring about the Defense Department's
contract
to "extinguish oil fires in Iraq." The contract had gone exclusively, and
without competitive bidding, to Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary
of
Halliburton.
As soon as Waxman's office received a reply on April 8 from the Army Corps
of Engineers, the Congressman sent a letter to David M. Walker, Comptroller
General of the United States and head of the General Accounting Office,
asking the GAO "to investigate allegations that Halliburton has received
special treatment from the Administration over the past two years in the
rewarding of Defense Department contracts." Quoting from numerous articles
that name specifics about Cheney's ongoing highly lucrative relationship
to Halliburton, Waxman also wrote, "These ties ... have raised concerns
about whether the company has received favorable treatment from the
Administration. These concerns have increased ... with the disclosure
that Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root ... has been awarded
lucrative Defense Department contracts despite having a record of excessive
costs and other problems." Waxman noted that the GAO found in 1997, and
in 2000, that KBR had to pay $2 million in fines "to resolve fraud claims
involving work at a military base." Despite this record, Waxman received
letters from the Pentagon praising Halliburton for its unmatched ability
to supply services throughout the world.
With the Iraq War, even more damaging evidence has emerged. First, the
April
27 edition of the CBS News television magazine "60 Minutes" exposed the
fact,
that long before the President claimed he had made the decision to launch
a
"preventive war" against Iraq, the Defense Department (DOD) powers that
be,
including Paul Wolfowitz, were talking to Halliburton about the contract
to put
out Iraqi oil-well fires, and even to run the entire Iraqi oil
industry. Such an
imperial grab not seen since World War II, when an angry British Prime
Minister
Winston Churchill defied President Franklin Roosevelt at Casablanca,
after FDR
had promised that the United States would put an end to such British
colonial
methods.
According to the "60 Minutes" exposé, "the Pentagon had secretly awarded
[KBR] a two-year, no-bid contract ... worth up to $7 billion." The program
showed that at the same time this was going on, another company, GSM
Consulting, skilled in stopping oil-well fires and rebuilding petroleum
services, had been
told, in a Defense Department letter dated Dec. 30, 2002, that "it is
too early
to speculate" about Iraq "in the event that war breaks out in the region."
As it appears, the Cheney chicken-hawks had already secretly decided on
the
war, and lined up the contracts with their cronies... they just hadn't
told the
President.
This scandal is only getting worse as the DOD chicken-hawks apparently is
playing cat-and-mouse with Congress in evading questions about the Iraq
contracts. On May 6, Representative Waxman wrote another letter to the
Army
Corps of Engineers' Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, saying that the contract
with
Halliburton's KBR is "considerably broader in scope than previously
known."
Waxman noted that the contract "can include 'operation' of the Iraqi oil
fields
and 'distribution' of Iraqi oil," and said that Flowers April 8 reply to
his
first letter, indicated that Halliburton's contract "is likely to remain
in
place until at least the end of August and could last into 2004."
The icing on the cake for this Halliburton affair, which Charles Lewis,
head
of the Center for Public Integrity, called "a sweetheart deal," is what
the
United States is trying to foist on the UN Security Council: a resolution
that
takes all the proceeds from Iraq oil sales under the Oil for Food Program
supposed to pay for Iraqi civilians' humanitarian needs, and puts them
under the control of an "Iraqi Assistance Fund" which will be established
"in the Central Bank of Iraq." While the U.S. Mission to the United
Nations told EIR that they will not release any drafts of the resolution,
a "fact sheet" on the U.S. Mission's website indicates that the Bush (or
should it be, the Cheney) Administration wants the UN resolution to bless
the unlimited U.S. occupation of the once-sovereign nation of Iraq... and
for the oil money to go directly to Cheney's Halliburton. The fact sheet
states: "The Iraqi oil revenues will be deposited in the Iraqi Assistance
Fund and the draft resolution specifies their use: ... for the economic
reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure."
The only oversight of this fund will be the United States and whatever
other
country... if any... it might choose to include, under the old imperial
doctrine, "to the victor goes the spoils."
Current and former State Department and American military officials have
told
EIR that Iraq is undergoing a humanitarian crisis worse than that which
followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when 1.5 million people are believed to
have died... most of them children... from the bombing of infrastructure,
hospitals, and residences, and the inability to rebuild these facilities
due to sanctions. Today, after being hit with 28,000 bombs, occupied Iraq
is seeing a complete breakdown of availability of safe water, electricity,
and sewage treatment; looting is rampant; hospitals are in wretched shape;
and deadly cholera has broken out in U.S.- and British-occupied areas.
The 14 other member-nations of the UN Security Council have refused to
roll
over and hand over the Oil for Food accounts... ironically held in a
French-owned bank... to the United States for the occupation. Nor has
the UNSC
passed the American resolution, creating a severe cash crunch for Cheney,
Rumsfeld, and the neo-conservative war-mongers. Could this explain why
KBR has
failed to speedily start the reconstruction of Iraq's oil fields, in
order to
redress the medical/humanitarian disaster in Iraq, wrought by lack of
energy for purifying water, and other basic public health and hygiene
measures? While
waiting for sanctions to be lifted and Iraq's oil revenues put at the
disposal
of the occupiers, the record shows that KBR has done little effective
work.
Could that be deliberate?
Deliberate or not, firms like Halliburton's KBR and former Secretary of
State
George Shultz's Bechtel could be held responsible, because this time, the
occupation force is the United States. Under the Geneva Conventions, the
occupying force is responsible for the well-being and survival of the
population... and so are the companies it pays to carry out the services
of the
occupation government.
The record shows that Halliburton is "Cheney's Baby." In 1991, after the
first Gulf War, the then-Secretary of Defense gave Halliburton the first
contracts to rebuild some of the destroyed facilities in Kuwait and Iraq,
at a
handsome profit. It was a vital infusion of funds for Halliburton, which
had
been close to bankruptcy just a few years earlier. The relationship went
much
further. Cheney, in 1991-92, also subcontracted Halliburton to do the
original
Pentagon-funded secret study of how to replace the U.S. military's
war-winning
logistics-in-depth with the bloated, mercenary model of "privatization"... a
policy that subsequently became the Pentagon's general method of operation
and a lucrative source of money for Halliburton. It is no wonder that in
1995, Cheney, having left the DOD in 1993, was hired as Chief Executive
Officer of Halliburton for the next five years, until he agreed to be
George W. Bush's Vice
Presidential candidate on the 2000 GOP ticket.
As described in the October 2002 edition of Texas Monthly, when Cheney was
Secretary of Defense, overseeing reduction of the U.S. military forces by
one-half million men and women, he contracted Halliburton to see if
essential
logistics functions could be privatized. Halliburton, for a fee of $8.9
million, happily responded "yes," in two reports delivered in 1992. This
was part of the process leading to Libby's 1992 Defense Policy Guidance.
At that time, under Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz ran a "Little State Department"
that worked on a scheme to orient warfare toward fighting against
developing
nations that might have the wherewithal to develop technologically. This
plan
was explained by Adm. Carlisle Trost... a current JINSA Advisory Board
member... during House hearings in 1991, as intending to prepare the United
States for "medium-intensity conflict" against raw materials-rich nations
that might have developed weapons of mass destruction... e.g., Argentina,
Brazil, Iraq, Iran, South Africa, and North Korea. It could be known as
the "bomb them to smithereens, then rebuild" plan for perpetual contracts.
The sweetheart deals came in the knick of time for Halliburton, which had
fallen on hard times in 1988, and was saved in part by $3.8 billion in
Federal
contracts and taxpayer-insured loans, according to an Aug. 2, 2001 report
by the Center for Public Integrity.
The CPI report raised other extremely sensitive issues, such as Cheney's
ties
with the Russian Mafia through Halliburton's major project with the
allegedly
Russian Mafia-linked Tyumen Oil Co. EIR sources reported that Tyumen's
owners
had dealings with Marc Rich.
It is notable that in an April 30, 2003 letter to Rumsfeld, Representative
Waxman raised exactly these kinds of charges of "trading with the
enemy." Citing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other government
records that show Halliburton and KBR had contracts with Iran, Iraq, Syria,
and Libya... all the nations that JINSA unjustly accuses of supporting
terrorism... Waxman told Rumsfeld to account for "Halliburton's ties to
countries that sponsor terrorism." Waxman even mentioned Libby's ties to
fugitive financier Marc Rich, and Libby's defense of Rich's deals with
Iran. Waxman wrote that while Libby's "former client's" dealings with
Iran may not be illegal, "you could consider him a traitor for trading
with Iran during that period." Halliburton's activities "appear to raise
similar concerns," Waxman added, but the Administration "rewarded it with
lucrative contracts."
And, not to be ignored is the fact that Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth
Cheney,
is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, where she
is also
responsible for doling out contracts. When she was appointed in March 2002,
a
Washington Post article noted that even more nepotism was implied, since
Liz
Cheney's husband, Philip Perry, left the Justice Department to become
Chief
Counsel for the Office of Management and Budget. Usually well-informed
sources
state that Liz Cheney has a significant role in contracts related to
Middle East
wars. And, it is believed that she will have a hand in the Free Trade
Zone for
the Middle East that President Bush proposed in his address at the
University of
South Carolina on May 9.
There is also the question of whether Halliburton is the Administration's
"Enron." Halliburton nearly went bankrupt in 1988. On June 9 of that year,
the
New York Times reported from two former employees of Dresser Industries,
which
had just merged with Halliburton, that Halliburton used "aggressive
accounting
practices" to report $100 million in earnings. Halliburton's auditor at
the time was Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that evaporated after
the Enron
scandal, for similar practices.
The SEC refuses to "confirm or deny" that this was the subject of a
criminal
investigation. But, Cheney is also under the gun for refusing to provide
Congress with the documents they want from 2001, when Cheney ran the
Energy Task
Force, and met with Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay. Cheney has refused to
release
any reports on how such meetings may have affected policy, or even to
say who
was on the task force. The case is now before the courts.
The question is, will Cheney resign, like Spiro Agnew, before he is
impeached?
On May 13, Cheney emerged from his various "undisclosed locations" to
give an
award to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Hudson Institute,
a bastion
of the Clash of Civilizations. In his remarks, Cheney revealed that he
is in
regular discussion with former British military intelligence "Arabist" and
Princeton University professor emeritus, Dr. Bernard Lewis. Madman Lewis
was the
architect of a plan to reduce the sovereign nation-states of the Middle
East
into an "arc of crisis" for a new Thirty Years' War of religious and
ethnic
bloodshed. Dr. Lewis himself appeared at the Hudson Institute on May 24,
2002 to
proclaim the "death sentence" against Palestinian Authority President
Yasser
Arafat, and promote an "alternative Palestinian" puppet leadership, a
"Palestinian Ahmed Chalabi." Lewis also called for "liberation of the
Shi'ites
in eastern Saudi Arabia"... in effect, to overthrow the Saudi royal family.
But Cheney's really insidious role in the Middle East came from the mouth
of
his JINSA Advisory Board crony, Michael Ledeen, the self-described
"universal
fascist" who spoke on May 18 at the Interfaith Zionist Leadership Summit
in
Washington. Speaking as a cut-out for the Administration neo-cons, Ledeen
denounced the Road Map, and said there can be no "peace process" because
this
was a "war process" for "freedom from tyranny." In terms that would make
his
Straussian colleagues salivate, Ledeen said that there is no such thing as
"peace" in world history, just brief moments after wars when the victor
imposes
a peace treaty on the vanquished.
He said that Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are terrorist-sponsoring
states, which have been led by "tyrants," who all hate the United
States. Thus,
the United States must carry out regime change in all four, before moving
on to
demand from the Palestinians, unconditional surrender.
http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/Blair/bneocon.html
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