Wednesday, March 03, 2004

AxisofLogic/ Critical Analysis: Illuminating interview with Karen Kwiatkowski on how the neoconservatives manipulated the Pentagon and Washington iinto war. "[OSP] was more akin to a nerve center for what she now calls a "neoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon... This was creatively produced propaganda spread not only through the Pentagon, but across a network of policymakers — the State Department, with John Bolton; the Vice President’s Office, the very close relationship the OSP had with that office... this group worked in a coordinated manner, across media and parts of the government, with their neoconservative compadres."

"We knew from many years of both high-level surveillance and other types of shared intelligence, not to mention the information from the U.N., we knew, we knew what was left [from the Gulf War] and the viability of any of that. Bush said he didn’t know. The truth is, we know [Saddam] didn’t have these things. Almost a billion dollars has been spent — a billion dollars! — by David Kay’s group to search for these WMD, a total whitewash effort. They didn’t find anything, they didn’t expect to find anything."

"What exactly drove the neoconservatives to war? ... sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit.... The second reason has to do with our military-basing posture in the region.... The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro."

"I spent 20 years working for something that — at least under this administration — turned out to be something I wasn’t working for. I mean, these people have total disrespect for the Constitution. We swear an oath, military officers and NCOs alike swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. These people have no respect for the Constitution. The Congress was misled, it was lied to. At a very minimum that is a subversion of the Constitution." - another person wakes up to the reality of state/military power.

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