Oil Lust and Israeli
"Hatchet Men" Behind U.S. Plans to Occupy Iraq
By Christopher
Bollyn
American Free Press,
http://americanfreepress.net/
October 19, 2002
The White House plan to invade Iraq in order to replace its regime and
seize
its immense oil reserves is both politically unwise and illegal,
according to
critics and legal experts.
Un-named "senior administration officials" have recently revealed that
the
White House is planning to install an U.S.-led military government in
Iraq
after overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad. If a U.S.-led
coalition
were to succeed in overthrowing the regime in Baghdad, "Iraq would be
governed by an American military commander, perhaps Gen. Tommy R.
Franks," and the U.S. military, for an unspecified time, would "control
the second largest reserves of oil in the world," according to the New
York Times of Oct. 10.
The Times article suggests that the real motivation to wage war against
Iraq is to impose a "lengthy occupation" of Iraq in order to secure its
vast oil
resources for American and British oil companies. While the U.S. plan
reportedly calls for conducting war-crimes trials of Iraqi leaders, it
is the
war-planners in Washington, like the un-named official quoted by the
Times,
who are committing the most serious war crimes, known as "Crimes against
Peace," by engaging in "an on-going criminal conspiracy to conduct a war
of
aggression," according to legal experts.
The U.S. occupation plan would "put an American officer in charge of
Iraq for a year or more while the United States and its allies searched
for weapons and got Iraq's oil fields working," the Times wrote.
Apparently the White House is determined to occupy Iraq regardless of
what happens to the regime in Baghdad, even if Saddam Hussein is
overthrown in a domestic coup, in order to "ensure against anarchy,"
according to the un-named administration official.
As American Free Press has reported, Iraq's immense quantity of proven
and
probable oil reserves, an estimated 335 billion barrels, makes it
possibly the
richest country in the world in terms of oil and gas resources. Britain
previously imposed a military occupation in Iraq from 1919 to 1932.
Earlier in
1899, Britain had created the "British protectorate" of Kuwait by
separating
Iraq's coastal province from the rest of the nation and installing a
cooperative ruling family in order to better control the region and its
oil
resources.
"Our intent is not conquest and occupation of Iraq," Zalmay Khalilzad,
special
assistant to the president for Middle Eastern affairs, said recently.
"But we
do what needs to be done to achieve the disarmament mission and to get
Iraq
ready for a democratic transition and then through democracy over time."
Only after this unspecified transition period would the U.S.-military
occupation
government hand power to Iraqis. The White House plan reportedly calls
for "a
transition to an elected civilian government that could take months or
years."
"NEW MANAGEMENT"
Khalilzad said that the Iraqi armed forces would be "downsized," and
that
senior Ba'ath Party officials who control government ministries would be
removed. "Much of the bureaucracy would carry on under new management,"
he added. This is very similar to the strategy that Israel is currently
applying
in the Palestinian territories seized in 1967.
If the U.S. and its coalition partners (primarily Britain and Israel)
overthrow
Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath regime, the U.S. military and its partners
would
then administer Iraq and control its oil production for an open-ended
period. "One sees little discussion of an occupation of Iraq, but it is
the key
element of the current debate," James Webb, assistant secretary of
defense
during the Reagan administration, wrote in The Washington Post in
September. "The issue before Americans is not simply whether the United
States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a
nation areprepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for
the next 30 to 50 years," Webb wrote. "A long-term occupation of Iraq
would beyond doubt require an adjustment of force levels elsewhere, and
could eventually diminish American influence in other parts of the
world."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says, "Don't do anything that is
not
achievable and which you can't sustain," according to Lt. Col. David
Lapan,
spokesman for the Dept. of Defense. American Free Press had asked Lapan
how the Pentagon plans to occupy an Arabic-speaking nation the size of
California when it has difficulties translating simple Arabic documents
as evidenced by Sept. 11.
During the British military occupation of Iraq during the 1920s, Indians
were
imported to administrate the bureaucracy. The lack of Arabic-speaking
personnel in the U.S. military and the growing use of private
contractors to
carry out U.S. foreign policy suggest that the Pentagon would turn to
hired
mercenary forces and Arabic-speaking sub-contractors to enforce the
occupation.
Although the U.S. Congress voted to give President George W. Bush
"flexibility" to use the military "against the continuing threat" posed
by the Iraqi regime, there is substantial political, military, and legal
criticism of the White House plan to use force to overthrow the regime
in Baghdad and occupy the country.
In Russia the vote in support of the Bush war policy was sharply
criticized as
a provocation and threat to global political and economic stability.
Viktor
Ozerov, chairman of the defense committee of Russia's upper house of
parliament, said the vote in Congress "can be regarded as a challenge to
the
world community that proves that the United States of American does not
pay any attention to the norms of international law."
Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of
Illinois,
told AFP that White House lawyers are well aware that they are
conspiring
in "criminal activity" as they plot to invade Iraq and overthrow its
government. Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter, drafted by the United
States
and adopted as international and U.S. law after the Second World War,
makes
the "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression"
a
Crime against Peace, a war crime for which senior Nazi officials were
hanged.
"Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices" who participate in
"the
formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy" to commit any
of the crimes proscribed by the Nuremberg Charter "are responsible for
all acts
performed by any person in execution of such plan." The language
concerning
involvement in a criminal conspiracy, Boyle said, comes straight from
Supreme
Court-approved U.S. law, namely the Pinkerton rule.
The White House lawyers are well aware that they are engaging in "an
on-going criminal conspiracy to conduct a war of aggression," Boyle
said, adding, "The New York Times finally conceded that the reason the
United States sabotaged the International Criminal Court (ICC) is
because senior members of the Bush administration are afraid that they
risk criminal prosecution."
The notion that the U.S. government rejects the ICC because it places
military personnel at risk of prosecution is "nonsense," Boyle said. It
is the highlypaid civilian planners at the Pentagon and the White House
who have most to fear from the ICC because of their involvement in
planning war crimes,
according to Boyle.
"Israel-ization" of U.S. policy
Boyle named Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, "well
known
hatchet-men for the Israeli lobby," as the primary civilian planners
pushing
for a war of aggression against Iraq. "Their behavior shows what lawyers
call 'consciousness of guilt' because they know they are planning
criminal
activity already," Boyle said. "What we are seeing is the progressive
Israel-
ization of American policy."
The Pentagon's Lapan told AFP that he could not comment on the legality
of U.S. war plans against Iraq because he did not know the law
concerning a so-
called "pre-emptive" war against Iraq to overthrow its government. Asked
if
the Pentagon was concerned that using such legally dubious actions as an
Israeli-style "pre-emptive" war and lengthy military occupation could
seriously erode America's military strength and its moral authority,
Lapan said
comments on these matters were "above my pay grade."
Gen. Anthony Zinni (U.S.M.C. Ret.), the former U.S. military commander
for the Middle East who preceded General Tommy Franks as head of Central
Command criticized the White House rush to war saying, "I'm not
convinced we need to do this now." The Iraqi threat was "containable at
this moment," Zinni told Washington's Middle East Institute on Oct. 10,
adding that war should be considered only as the "very last resort."
Zinni said that getting Middle East peace talks going between
Palestinians and
Israelis was a higher priority than dealing with Iraq. Zinni has served
as an
unpaid consultant to the State Department on Israeli-Palestinian issues
for
the past two years.
