Thirteen years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is common knowledge that this war of choice was based on fabrications and slick propaganda. There were no weapons of mass destruction, the country posed no real threat to the U.S., and it was not a hotbed of terrorism until after Saddam was deposed.
Now, a bombshell has dropped in the form of a leaked classified report—a “smoking gun” if you will—that confirms the utter deception carried out on the American people to support the invasion. It demonstrates just how far the cabal under George W. Bush, making up a group known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), would go to prey upon fear in pursuit of global hegemony.
While Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others were proclaiming their certainty about the imminent threats posed to the U.S. by Saddam’s Iraq, the leaked documents reveal that they knew almost nothing about any actual weapons or capabilities.
On August 16, 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, head of the Joint Staff’s intelligence directorate, for a report on “what we don’t know (in a percentage) about the Iraqi WMD program.”
The findings, titled Iraq: Status of WMD Programs, were underscored by this statement:
Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence. The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs.
Regarding the actual programs, it says:
We’ve struggled to estimate the unknowns. … We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program…
Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely—perhaps 90%—on analysis of imprecise intelligence.
When forwarding the report, Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer answered Rumsfeld’s original question by noting, “We don’t know with any precision how much we don’t know.”
Rumsfeld apparently believed the report had some significance when he sent it to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying, “Please take a look at this material as to what we don’t know about WMD. It is big.”
Considering that this was a summary of all that the U.S. intelligence apparatus knew about Iraq’s WMD capabilities (or lack thereof), how could any responsible leader try and sell the invasion to the American people?
Yet that is what happened, perhaps no more fervently than Vice President Dick Cheney. There are countless examples of Cheney stating in no uncertain terms the nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic missile threats that Saddam’s Iraq posed to the U.S.
Cheney asserted that Iraq was secretly reconstituting its biological and chemical weapons programs, but the report stated:
We cannot confirm the identity of any Iraqi facilities that produce, test, fill, or store biological weapons.
We do not know if all the processes required to produce a weapon are in place. [The Iraqis] lack the precursors for sustained nerve agent production…we cannot confirm the identity of any Iraqi sites that produce final chemical agent.
While Cheney and the gang issued repeated fear-mongering about “mushroom clouds,” the report stated:
We do not know the status of enrichment capabilities. We do not know with confidence the location of any nuclear-weapon-related facilities.
Hoarding these items is better than having money in the bank (Ad)
Days before Bush claimed that Iraq was developing ballistic missiles that could hit Israel with WMD, the report had found:
We doubt all processes are in place to produce longer range missiles.
The secret report was kept from the view of key players in the propaganda campaign, including Colin Powell who was made to look the fool. Just before the invasion, Powell said before the U.N. General Assembly:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
With this lack of factual evidence for their yearning to invade Iraq—a goal of PNAC since 1998—the war-mongering officials with deep ties to the defense industry proceeded to fabricate their own tales to justify the propaganda campaign.
They turned to a parallel intelligence apparatus that they created, which relied on a network of Iraqi defectors and exiles, most notably the late Ahmed Chalabi who admitted he provided wrong information.
Back home, Cheney and Rumsfeld had set up something called the Office of Special Plans, run by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. This Pentagon office sent raw intelligence from Chalabi and other nefarious sources directly to the president, unvetted by intelligence analysts and uncorroborated.
If there was ever a smoking gun, this is it. If there was ever enough reason to bring charges of war crimes and other abuses of power against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, this report provides it.
Justin Gardner writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com
Nothing here that we don’t know already, none of those involved in the deception will ever be charged with war crimes, they are above the law, immune to prosecution. When Regan spoke of the “greatest evil being conceived and ordered; moved, seconded, carried and minuted in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”, we know now that the “offices” were located in the corridors of power in the USA.
gold collar scum – one and all.
We knew this ten years ago. We need to understand the president and his administration, along with the rest of the government, are agents of the establishment who are charged with implementation of the orders issued by them. If you do not cross this establishment and do what they tell you to do, you will not suffer consequences such as lawsuits or jail time, or worse. There is a reason why this establishment backs Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. They have already submitted to that authority, as have many others. It remains to seen whether somebody like Sanders or Trump can be truly independent.
The US sold WOMD to these countries, and then our idiots could declare it’s what they ‘don’t know’ and ‘it’s big’ and the bought Congress voted in another illegal assault on a foreign country. We are now running on a Dictatorship with language framed as ‘executive decision’, with Bush, Clinton and Obama selling us out to the UN. The land grabs from Oregon ranchers are not unique. The men that took a stand there are patriots like Paul Revere and our founding Fathers. The country’s checks and balances are effectively dismantled, or else Obama would be in prison, along with Hillary and the rest. Check out who owns the National Parks. Wakey wakey. Another day. Another ‘terror’ drill and shooting.
Many of us could have told this pack of evil there was absolutely no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What sadists to destroy a perfectly beautiful country based on the fact that they are void of anything upstairs usually the case.
The so-called high-jackers of 9/11 were all citizens of Saudi Arabia so we invade Iraq and Afghanistan? The biggest false flag hoax ever conceived and carried out was 9/11, at the expense (oh, just collateral damage after all) of thousands of innocent lives.