http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO307C.html

Michel Chossudovsky and Ian Woods are the Editors of Global Outlook Magazine.

The Road Map to Empire

In the war's sinister aftermath, the entire world knows that the pretext for the invasion of Iraq was based on fabricated evidence and doctored intelligence. The facts regarding Iraq's alleged WMDs had been carefully manipulated. The lies were known and documented prior to the war, discussed behind closed doors not only at the UN Security Council but also on Capitol Hill.

Prior to the war's onslaught and throughout the military campaign, the US media, in close liaison with the Pentagon, was instrumental in withholding the truth. This tactic is straight out of the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence which Bush promised would be shut down due to the public uproar against the idea that the Pentagon might be allowed to spread false information in the media for their own purposes. (For more see Global Outlook No. 4, p.20.)

Covert 'dirty tricks' operations had been launched to produce misleading intelligence, which was then fed into the news chain. WMD-Al Qaeda threats to 'the Homeland' had been played up and repeated ad nauseam, pasted on a daily basis across the tabloids. The objective of the disinformation campaign was to "whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor", while fudging the issue of forged intelligence until the war was over. The fact that President Bush was an outright liar was only brought to US public's attention in the invasion's aftermath, once a US-UK occupation government ('The Authority'), duly sanctioned by the UN, had been put in place.

Releasing the 'Big Lie'

When the unofficial 'release date' was reached in early June, the 'Big Lie' was revealed. Time magazine, which had relentlessly applauded the coalition's invasion plan, started accusing the Bush Administration of "cooking the books". How convenient! Now that Iraq is occupied, looted and pillaged by American and British troops, the lie has now belatedly surfaced on the front pages of America's newspapers.

Leading Democrats in the US Congress were fully aware that the Administration's casus belli was a brazen lie. They had agreed, however, with their Republican cronies, to remain silent on the issue of cooked intelligence until after the Blitzkrieg and the conquest of Iraq. The US Senate and British House of Commons inquiries do not purport to "undo a war" waged on a fabricated pretext, nor demand the eventual withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq. Quite the contrary - more troops have been sent into Iraq to quell armed resistance against occupation forces. (See p.3, Global Outlook, Issue 5.)

As a result, the US has vastly increased its military presence in the broader Middle East Central Asian region. In the immediate wake of the war, even France, Germany and Russia, which had earlier opposed the invasion, granted (in the name of multilateralism) their unbending support to the US-UK led 'Authority' in Iraq. In so doing, they have not only violated the UN charter, they are also complicit in the crimes committed against the Iraqi people, including the killing of over 3,000 civilians and the maiming of countless others in the latest Gulf War.

Visibly, a token deal had been struck, behind closed doors, between the victors and 'Old Europe' on sharing a portion of Iraq's sizeable oil wealth.

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC)

The 'public outcry' on cooked intelligence - carefully orchestrated by the corporate media - creates the illusion of an unbiased press and a functioning democracy. Yet this ritual, in which political leaders are said to be held accountable, also contributes to upholding the democratic façade and its evolving police state apparatus. The war has been carried out. The political puppets have performed according to plan: how to let their heads roll, while the real powers behind the invasion - including the Anglo-American oil giants and weapons producers - divide up the spoils of war. (See p. 24.)

Under the New World Order, discredited political leaders, who are the lackeys of powerful business interests are replaced by new political puppets. Republicans or Democrats - it makes no difference; this 'regular regime rotation' in a 'two party' system, plagued by corruption and conflict-of-interest, ensures continuity in America's Road-Map to Empire, while providing the illusion that Jeffersonian democracy continues to prevail.

None of the current 'public outcries' for accountability will reverse the tide of US military expansion as outlined by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). (See p.13.) The PNAC is a neo-conservative think tank linked to the Defense-Intelligence establishment, the Republican Party and the powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which plays a behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy.

The PNAC's declared objective is quite simple - to "Fight and decisively win in multiple, simultaneous theater wars" . In fact, barely after the so-called "Liberation of Iraq", the Bush Administration announced that Iran would be next in line. (See p.14.) More recently, the Administration has initiated, with the support of the UN, a similar WMD inspection drill, including the spreading of false information, directed at Iran.

'Pulling the Plug' on George W.

While the PNAC - acting on behalf of the CFR - played a key role in setting the stage for the pre-emptive war on Iraq, the power brokers behind-the-scenes will not hesitate, after such invasions, in "pulling the plug" on their own political puppets.

Witness Chairman of the PNAC, William Kristol, who coordinated the drafting of the PNAC's blueprint entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century," (which contains the strategy of "multiple simultaneous war theaters"). He has not only acknowledged the issue of 'distorted intelligence' on national network TV, he is also blaming Bush for making certain 'misstatements' on Iraq:

 "[Statements] by the president and by the secretary of state... turn out to be erroneous." (Fox News, 8 June 2003.)

Kristol, who is also the editor of the influential New York publication, the Weekly Standard, has been part of the disinformation ploy from the very outset. In the months leading up to the war, his Weekly Standard has consistently upheld the Administration's lies on WMDs and Al Qaeda without batting an eyelash. And yet in his June 23 issue he does an about face, when his Weekly Standard points to:

"... serious questions the Bush administration will have to answer: How did a forged document about Iraq's pursuit of uranium make it into the State of the Union address? Why would President Bush tell the world that 'we have found weapons of mass destruction,' when quite plainly we have not?"

Under a system of bogus democracy, political leaders in high office are often 'disposable'. To maintain continuity in the US doctrine of 'pre-emptive war' and 'homeland defense', the behind-the-scenes architects require a scapegoat or a 'fall guy' to blame in order to save their own secret agenda. Now that "the cat is out of the bag" regarding Iraq's WMDs, somebody has to pay the price (namely Bush and Blair).

Meanwhile PNAC rides off into the sunset victorious ... Corporate America has struck gold ... black gold.

In other words, those who were most actively involved in spreading phony intelligence in the news chain are now accusing the Bush Administration of misleading public opinion. Moreover, there are indications that the actual timing of the disinformation campaign, from the planting of the lies to the "pulling of the plug", was coordinated in consultation with the architects of a this new 'Pax Americana'.

Green Light to the Use of Nuclear Weapons

Barely a few weeks following the entry of the US Marines into Baghdad, the Senate Armed Services Committee gave the green light to the Pentagon to develop a new tactical nuclear bomb, to be used in conventional weapons theaters, "with a yield six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb". Nukes are slated to be used alongside conventional weapons in the next phase of this war, against Iran and North Korea. While there is no evidence so far of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Iraqi war theater, there are indications that nukes may have been dropped on Afghanistan in 2001. According to Canada's Uranium Medical Research Center, tests conducted on Afghan civilians suggest that:

"some form of uranium weapon had been used (...) The results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times greater than in the Gulf War veterans tested in 1999." http://www.umrc.net

The results also confirmed that the toxic radiation was not attributable to 'heavy metal' depleted uranium ammunition (DU), but to another unidentified form of uranium contamination. Of course on this issue of the US starting a nuclear war, the US media has also chosen to remain silent, so as not to 'endanger' in any way the Pentagon's future pre-emptive war plans.

Michel Chossudovsky and Ian Woods are the Editors of Global Outlook Magazine.