End the Occupation of Iraq - and Afghanistan

So far, Bush's plan to maintain a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq has been stymied by resistance from the Iraqi government. Barack Obama's timetable for withdrawal of American troops has evidently been joined by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Bush has mentioned a "time horizon," and John McCain has waffled. Yet Obama favors leaving between 35,000 and 80,000 U.S. occupation troops there indefinitely to train Iraqi security forces and carry out "counter-insurgency operations." That would not end the occupation. We must call for bringing home - not redeploying - all U.S. troops and mercenaries, closing all U.S. military bases, and relinquishing all efforts to control Iraqi oil.

In light of stepped up violence in Afghanistan, and for political reasons - following Obama's lead - Bush will be moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans see it as a justifiable response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the casualties in that war have been lower than those in Iraq - so far. Practically no one in the United States is currently questioning the legality or propriety of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. The cover of Time magazine calls it "The Right War."

The U.N. Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the Council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan. Resolutions 1368 and 1373 condemned the September 11 attacks, and ordered the freezing of assets; the criminalizing of terrorist activity; the prevention of the commission of and support for terrorist attacks; the taking of necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist activity, including the sharing of information; and urged ratification and enforcement of the international conventions against terrorism.

The invasion of Afghanistan was not legitimate self-defense under article 51 of the Charter because the attacks on September 11 were criminal attacks, not “armed attacks” by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after September 11, or Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.” This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the U.N. General Assembly.

Bush's justification for attacking Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training terrorists. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and he was given safe haven in the United States. The people in Latin American countries whose dictators were trained in torture techniques at the School of the Americas could likewise have attacked the torture training facility in Ft. Benning, Georgia under that specious rationale.

Those who conspired to hijack airplanes and kill thousands of people on 9/11 are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be identified and brought to justice in accordance with the law. But retaliation by invading Afghanistan is not the answer and will only lead to the deaths of more of our troops and Afghanis.

The hatred that fueled 19 people to blow themselves up and take 3,000 innocents with them has its genesis in a history of the U.S. government's exploitation of people in oil-rich nations around the world. Bush accused the terrorists of targeting our freedom and democracy. But it was not the Statue of Liberty that was destroyed. It was the World Trade Center - symbol of the U.S.-led global economic system, and the Pentagon - heart of the U.S. military, that took the hits. Those who committed these heinous crimes were attacking American foreign policy. That policy has resulted in the deaths of two million Iraqis - from both Bill Clinton's punishing sanctions and George W. Bush's war. It has led to uncritical support of Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinian lands; and it has stationed more than 700 U.S. military bases in foreign countries.

Conspicuously absent from the national discourse is a political analysis of why the tragedy of 9/11 occurred and a comprehensive strategy to overhaul U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who despise American imperialism. The "global war on terror" has been uncritically accepted by most in this country. But terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. You cannot declare war on a tactic. The way to combat terrorism is by identifying and targeting its root causes, including poverty, lack of education, and foreign occupation.

There are already 60,000 foreign troops, including 36,000 Americans, in Afghanistan. Large increases in U.S. troops during the past year have failed to stabilize the situation there. Most American forces operate in the eastern part of the country; yet by July 2008, attacks there were up by 40 percent. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor for Jimmy Carter, is skeptical that the answer for Afghanistan is more troops. He warns that the United States will, like the Soviet Union, be seen as the invader, especially as we conduct military operations "with little regard for civilian casualties." Brzezinski advocates Europeans bribing Afghan farmers not to cultivate poppies for heroin, as well as the bribery of tribal warlords to isolate al-Qaeda from a Taliban that is "not a united force, not a world-oriented terrorist movement, but a real Afghan phenomenon."

Indeed, on July 29, 2008, the RAND corporation released a report that argues that, "Current U.S. strategy against the terrorist group al Qaida has not been successful in significantly undermining the group's capabilities." The United States should pursue a counterterrorism strategy against al Qa'ida that emphasizes policing and intelligence gathering rather than a “war on terrorism” approach that relies heavily on military force, according to RAND.

We might heed Canada's suggestion that a broader mission, under the auspices of the United Nations instead of NATO, would be more effective. Our policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan should emphasize economic assistance for reconstruction, development and education, not for more weapons. The United States must refrain from further Predator missile strikes in Pakistan, and pursue diplomacy, not occupation.

Nor should we be threatening war against Iran, which would also be illegal and result in an unmitigated disaster. The U.N. Charter forbids any country to use, or threaten to use, military force against another country except in self-defense or when the Security Council has given its blessing. In spite of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency's conclusion that there is no evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons, the White House, Congress, and Israel have continued to rattle the sabers in Iran's direction. Nevertheless, the antiwar movement has so far fended off passage of HR 362 in the House of Representatives, a bill that is tantamount to a call for a naval blockade against Iran - considered an act of war under international law. Credit goes to United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, Peace Action, and dozens of other organizations that pressured Congress to think twice before taking that dangerous step.

We should pursue diplomacy, not war, with Iran; end the U.S. occupation of Iraq; and withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.

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Bush Still Spinning Nukes in Iran

The unanimous conclusion of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, that Iran ceased pursuing a program of nuclear weapons in 2003, has dealt a severe blow to the Bush-Cheney agenda of forcible regime change in Iran. For several months, the rhetoric emerging from the White House escalated to the point that many observers predicted Bush would attack Iran before he leaves office.

But although the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) makes it more difficult to carry out his agenda in Iran, Bush is trying to publicly undermine its conclusions. "I have said Iran is dangerous," he declared, "and the NIE estimate doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world - quite the contrary." Will Bush provoke an incident with Iran and then respond in “self-defense”?

Bush "rewarded" Iran for its help in consolidating U.S. power in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks by inaugurating Iran into his “axis of evil” in January 2002. The following year, Iran offered the U.S. government a comprehensive plan for negotiations and cooperation, which addressed all of Bush's claimed pet peeves about Iran. In Iran's 2003 memorandum, sent to the U.S. government via Swiss diplomats, Iran proposed a "dialogue in mutual respect." It sought negotiations with the United States on the concerns Bush has repeatedly expressed.

Iran proposed “full transparency” to show “there are no Iranian endeavors to develop or possess WMD.” It also sought to guarantee “decisive action against any terrorists (above all Al Qaida) on Iranian territory, full cooperation and exchange of all relevant information.” In Iraq, Iran proposed "coordination of Iranian influence for activity supporting political stabilization and the establishment of democratic institutions and a non-religious government." Iran agreed to discuss the “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory" and "pressure on these organizations to stop violent action against civilians within borders of 1967." And Iran listed its "acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi initiative, two-states-approach)." This meant Iran would recognize the state of Israel.

The Iranian memorandum also offered to negotiate the following with the United States: "Halt in US hostile behavior and rectification of status of Iran in the U.S.: (interference in internal or external relations, 'axis of evil', terrorism list)"; "Abolishment of all sanctions: commercial sanctions, frozen assets, judgments (FSIA), impediments in international trade and financial institutions"; "Iraq: democratic and fully representative government in Iraq, support of Iranian claims for Iraqi reparations, respect for Iranian national interests in Iraq and religious links to Najaf/Karbal"; "Full access to peaceful nuclear technology, biotechnology and chemical technology"; "Recognition of Iran's legitimate security interests in the region with according defense capacity"; and "Terrorism: pursuit of anti-Iranian terrorists, above all MKO."

This 2003 offer by Iran to negotiate these pressing issues with the United States was an incredible opportunity, which Bush, who claims to pursue diplomacy, should have seized. Yet the White House thumbed its nose at the Iranian offer and then tried to cover up the story.

Why did Bush reject Iran's 2003 offer and now seek to discredit the conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate? Because even if all his stated gripes with Iran were resolved, Bush's hidden agenda would not be addressed. That agenda comes into focus on the website of the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank that claims Paul Wolfowitz, Lynne Cheney, Richard Perle and John Bolton as members. Under the AEI's list of "Research Projects" is "Global Investment in Iran."

Just as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was about corporate control over Iraq's oil, Bush's strategy on Iran is about making Iran safe for global investment. And just as Bush lied about the danger posed by Saddam Hussein, he is now lying about the perils Iran poses.

U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei has consistently said there is “no evidence” Iran has ever maintained a program of developing nuclear weapons. Yet even though Bush learned about the NIE report in August or September, according to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, he invoked World War III in the same breath with Iran in October. On December 4, Bush lied about when he learned Iran had no weapons program, saying, "I was made aware of the NIE last week."

Hadley's report on the timing of Bush's knowledge of the NIE is corroborated by a shift in the rhetoric emerging from the White House. During the last two months, Bush stopped talking about Iran possessing nukes, and began referring to Iran having "knowledge" of nuclear weapons, which he linked with World War III.

In spite of the unanimous conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate and ElBaradei's informed judgment, we cannot trust Bush-Cheney to abandon their imperial designs on Iran. Bush will probably provoke a military confrontation with Iran, then invoke the language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq that says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."

Congress must support Rep. Neil Abercrombie's resolution stating that Bush has been given no authority to go to war with Iran.

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Preventing the Impending War on Iran

Rhetoric flowing out of the White House indicates the Bush administration is planning a military attack on Iran. Officials in Saudi Arabia, a close Bush ally, think the handwriting is on the wall. "George Bush's tone makes us think he has decided what he is going to do," according to Rihab Massoud, Prince Bandar ben Sultan's right-hand man. Saudi Social Affairs Minister Abdel Mohsen Hakas told Le Figaro, "We are getting closer and closer to a confrontation."

As Bush and Cheney try to whip us into a frenzy about the dangers Iran poses, their argument comes up short. They say Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says there is "no evidence" of this. They say Iran is sending deadly weapons into Iraq to kill U.S. troops, but those devices can be manufactured in any Iraqi machine shop. Now the New York Times reports most of the foreign fighters in Iraq come, not from Iran, but from two Bush allies - Saudi Arabia and Libya. An estimated 90 percent of suicide bombings are carried out by foreign fighters. And senior U.S. military officials believe the financial support for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia comes primarily from Saudi Arabia.

Yet the Bush/Cheney polemics about Iran continue to escalate. In light of the lack of evidence Iran is actually developing nukes, Bush equated Iranian "knowledge" to make nuclear weapons with World War III. "If you’re interested in avoiding World War III," he said recently, "it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." This substantially lowers the bar for a U.S. attack on Iran.

A few days after Bush warned of World War III, Cheney called Iran “the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism,” adding, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences . . . We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” These threats are eerily reminiscent of his rants in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In an unprecedented move, the Bush administration labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. It appears the administration applied that label in an effort to trigger language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq. That authorization says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."

Like Bush's invasion of Iraq, an attack on Iran would violate international and U.S. law. The U.N. Charter prohibits the use of military force except in self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council. Iran, which has not attacked any country for 2,000 years, hasn't threatened to invade the United States or Israel. Rather than protecting Israel, U.S. or Israeli military force against Iran will endanger Israel, which would invariably suffer a retaliatory attack.

In making its case against Iran, the administration points to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's alleged comment that Israel should be wiped off the map. But this is an erroneous translation of what he said. According to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole and Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, who said the "regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Cole said this "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all." Journalist Diana Johnstone points out the quote is not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the Zionist "regime" occupying Jerusalem. "Coming from a Muslim religious leader," Johnstone wrote, "this opinion is doubtless based on objection to Jewish monopoly of a city considered holy by all three of the Abramic monotheisms."

It seems significant that support for Ahmadinejad may be waning among the real power brokers in Iran, particularly the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Jomhouri Eslami daily in Iran, which has close ties to Khamenei, has denounced Ahmadinejad's characterization of those opposed to his nuclear program as traitors.

If the United States attacks Iran, the results would be catastrophic. Three Europeans, including former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard and Yehuda Atai, a member of the Israeli Committee for a Middle East without Weapons of Mass Destruction, wrote in Libération, "We are being warned about it from all sides: The United States is at the brink of war, ready to bombard Iran. The only thing lacking is the presidential order." Drawing parallels with the U.S. war in Iraq, they caution, "An attack against Iran, whatever its targets, its methods and its initial scope, will significantly aggravate the situation, achieving similar results, without even talking about the disastrous impact on the global economy." They add, "It would be still worse if the insane idea of using tactical nuclear weapons - which exist - to prevent Iran from building, in spite of its denials, the nuclear weapons that recent IAEA inspections have found no trace of, were implemented."

The threats against Iran appear to be politically motivated. Seymour Hersh's extensive research has convinced him that Bush/Cheney will invade Iran. They likely think embroiling us in Iran will ensure a GOP victory in 2008. It will certainly make it harder for the next President to withdraw from Iraq once we are mired in Iran.

If Hillary Clinton becomes that next President, she will likely continue Bush's foreign policy. Clinton, who favors leaving a large contingent of U.S. troops in Iraq, says nothing about disbanding the huge U.S. military bases there. Clinton is also rattling the sabers in Iran's direction. She voted to urge Bush to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization and she, too, misquotes Ahmadinejad about Israel.

As we go to the polls in the coming months, it is imperative we scrutinize the candidates' positions on Iraq and Iran. The security of the United States, as well as the Middle East, is hanging in the balance.

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Pursue Diplomacy, Not War, With Iran

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United States has prompted an outcry, including protests and tabloid headlines calling him “evil” and a “madman.” As Juan Cole says, "The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state." The Bush administration, which maintains that “all options” remain on the table with Iran, should vigorously pursue the diplomatic option, instead of moving inexorably toward the military option.

Ahmadinejad said in a “60 Minutes” interview, “It’s wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing.” Iran has not threatened to attack the United States, or Israel for that matter, except if it is attacked first. Iranian authorities sent a proposal to the United States in May 2003 offering negotiations on a deal for Iran to freeze its nuclear program if the United States would end its hostility against Iran. The Bush administration thumbed its nose at the Iranian proposal, then tried to cover up the story, according to Trita Parsi, in his new book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.

Bush has conducted a belligerent policy toward Iran ever since he inaugurated it into his “axis of evil” in January 2002. General David Petraeus and Bush both menacingly mentioned Iran five times in their respective August speeches touting how well things are going in Iraq. Petraeus referred to “malign actions” by Iran; Bush discussed Iran and al-Qaeda in the same breath even though Iran has never attacked us.

U.S. plans for war with Iran continue to escalate. Centcom (U.S. Central Command) has engaged in detailed contingency planning for an attack on Iran for more than two years. In June, the U.S. Air Force established Project Checkmate tasked with “fighting the next war.” The Pentagon is building a military base near the Iran-Iraq border. Earlier this month, British forces, at the request of the Americans, were sent from Basra to the Iranian border. Two aircraft carrier groups (USS Nimitz and USS Truman) are reportedly en route to the Persian Gulf to join the USS Enterprise.

Philip Giraldi wrote last month in The American Conservative that Dick Cheney ordered the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a “contingency plan” for a large-scale air assault on Iran using both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. “As in the case of Iraq,” according to Giraldi, “the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing – that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack – but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.”

Bush will likely provoke a confrontation with Iran, then strike back in “self-defense.” The Sunday Telegraph reported, “A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the U.S. will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq . . . Under the theory – which is gaining credence in Washington security circles – U.S. action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and even its armed forces.”

Steve Clemons likewise wrote on Salon that David Wurmser, a member of Cheney’s national security staff, allegedly discussed convincing Israel to launch a low-yield cruise missile strike against the Natanz nuclear reactor in Iran, to “hopefully” prompt a military reaction by Iran against U.S. forces in Iraq and the Gulf.

Former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistrano, now a security analyst, stated, “The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the U.S. will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions.”

Patrick Cronin, director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, concurs. “Washington is seriously reviewing plans to bomb not just nuclear sites, but oil sites, military sites and even leadership targets. The talk is of multiple targets,” he said. “In Washington there is very serious discussion that this is a window that has to be looked at seriously because there is only six months to ‘do something about Iran’ before it will be looked at as a purely political issue.”

The United Nations’ chief nuclear weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, warned against an “out of control” drift to war with Iran. “I would not talk about any use of force,” he said. “There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons.” The UN Charter only permits the use of force in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. “Many of the potential targets are in populated places, endangering civilians both from errant bombs and the possible dispersal of radioactive material,” cautioned Peter Galbraith in the New York Review of Books. The failure to protect civilians violates the Geneva Conventions.

Yet Bush continues his march to war. In an end run around the UN Security Council, “Washington and its allies are developing a parallel track to the UN effort in the event that a third resolution ends up only modestly increasing pressure on Iran,” according to the Washington Post. “We’ll continue on the UN track, but we also have the track of the U.S.-E.U.,” a State Department official said.

Former General Wesley Clark is a likely presidential running mate for Hillary Clinton, who also intends to keep the military option against Iran on the table. In Sunday’s Washington Post, Clark laid out a detailed military plan to ensure that we “win” the next war. “Today, the most likely next conflict will be with Iran,” he wrote, while cautioning that war is the last resort.

Senators Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl just introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would authorize Bush to attack Iran. Here is the language from the amendment:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat,
contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing
influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of
Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its
indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of
United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic,
intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy
described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the
Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

If the Congress adopts this amendment, U.S. policy would be to "combat" Iran with "all . . . military instruments." It is imperative that this amendment be defeated.

As Bush and Cheney once again go through the motions of diplomacy as they did during the run-up to war with Iraq, they move steadily toward war. They would do well to heed the sentiments of the Bipartisan Security Group, which advocates the Middle Powers Initiative. That statement says, “Resolution of differences between the United States and Iran through diplomatic means has become imperative. The catastrophe of Iraq should inform us that the use of force under present circumstances will bring even greater tragedy to the war-torn Middle East. Any threat to unilaterally use overwhelming force is irresponsibly hazardous. There is no imminent threat posed by Iran. There is a practical, legal and moral obligation to obtain security through peaceful and law abiding means.”

The initiative points to the United States’ hypocrisy of condemning Iran for seeking nuclear weapons while maintaining the right to use nukes against Iran. “The United States and other nuclear weapon states can more credibly insist on Iranian compliance with its international obligations if they meet their own. To decry the Iranian potential of developing nuclear weapons while brandishing arsenals of unimaginable destructive capacity on launch-on-warning status is inconsistent . . . Accordingly, the United States is required to renounce the use of nuclear weapons against Iran rather than to maintain that ‘all options are on the table.’”

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Bush Plans War on Iran

The Sunday Times of London is reporting that the Pentagon has plans for three days of massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran. Last week, Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, told a meeting of The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal, that the military did not intend to carry out "pinprick strikes" against Iranian nuclear facilities. He said, "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military."

Bush has already set the wheels in motion. With Rovian timing, Alberto Gonzales' resignation was sandwiched between two Bush screeds - one aimed at ensuring Congress scares up $50 billion more for the occupation of Iraq, the other designed to scare us into supporting war on Iran. As Gonzales rides off into the sunset, the significant questions are who will take his place and how that choice will facilitate Bush's occupation of Iraq and attack on Iran.

One name that's been floated for Bush's third attorney general is Joe Lieberman, the "independent" senator from Connecticut. Lieberman, who advocates the use of military force against Iran, was the only person Bush quoted in his August 28 speech to the American Legion. Bush called Iran "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" and pledged to "confront Tehran's murderous activities."

Gonzales greased the Bush/Cheney wheels for torturing in violation of the Geneva Conventions, illegally spying on Americans, and purging disloyal Bushies.

Similarly, Lieberman would ensure the Justice Department mounts a vigorous defense of a war of aggression against Iran. And Bush would get a two-fer: Connecticut's Republican governor would appoint a Republican to fill Lieberman's seat, returning control of the Senate to the GOP. A Republican-controlled Senate would direct the agenda, thereby furthering the Bush/Cheney plan.

Lieberman is closely affiliated with American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. "AIPAC leverages its power by an alliance with the Christian Right, which has adopted a bizarre ideology of 'Christian Zionism,'" according to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole. "It holds that the sooner the Palestinians are ethnically cleansed, the sooner Christ will come back. Without millions of these Christian Zionist allies," Cole added, "AIPAC would be much less influential and effective."

During the 2004 election, a 100% "AIPAC voting record" was Lieberman's litmus test for an acceptable presidential candidate. As the House of Representatives was on the verge of passing a resolution that would've required Bush to consult Congress before attacking Iran, the AIPAC lobby stopped it in its tracks.

Bush's WMD-hyping against Iran is déja vu in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Disaster, where he played loose and fast with the truth about Iraq's alleged WMDs. His statement that a nuclear Iran could put the region "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust" conjures up his images of a "mushroom cloud" in the hype-up to Iraq.

How inconvenient for Bush that the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) just found Iran's uranium enrichment program is operating well below capacity and is nowhere near producing significant amounts of nuclear fuel. The IAEA report says that Iran "has been providing the agency with access to declared nuclear materials, and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and facilities."

Iran and IAEA agreed on a plan with a step-by-step timetable of cooperation to settle unresolved issues. The agreement said there were "no other remaining issues and ambiguities regarding Iran's past nuclear program and activities," and characterized the accord as "a significant step forward."

"This is the first time Iran is ready to discuss all the outstanding issues which triggered the crisis in confidence," said IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei. "I'm clear at this stage you need to give Iran a chance to prove its stated goodwill. Sanctions alone, I know for sure, are not going to lead to a durable solution"

In 2003, when Dr. ElBaradei reported there was no evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, the White House was not pleased. And as Saddam Hussein became more cooperative with the weapons inspectors, Bush became "infuriated," according to Bob Woodward.

Bush's vow, "We will confront this danger before it is too late," is the Iran incarnation of his illegal preemptive war doctrine, which he inaugurated in Iraq. In a clear signal he is seeking regime change in Iran, Bush called for "an Iran whose government is accountable to its people, instead of leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons."

Barnett Rubin reported on Global Affairs blog that one of the leading neo-conservative institutions has "instructions" from Dick Cheney's office to "roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this - they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is 'plenty.'"

Bush/Cheney created the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to lead a propaganda campaign to bolster public support for war with Iraq. The White House decided to wait until after Labor Day of 2002 to kick off WHIG's mission. Chief of staff Andrew Card explained, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Five years later, they're marketing a new and even more dangerous product - war with Iran. British military historian Corelli Barnett says "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III."

Our military spending has reached $1 billion every 2-1/2 days and we are borrowing $2-1/2 billion per day. Bush is mortgaging our children's future security and wealth. We have lost more than 3,700 soldiers in Iraq and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died.

We have already seen how easily Congress caves in to AIPAC. It's up to the people. As Noam Chomsky said, "The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war [on Iran] is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam."

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Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran

It's déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran . Following a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the "threat" from Iran, designed to mislead us into a new war four years after they misled us into Iraq.

Like its insistence that Iraq had WMD, the Bush administration has been hyping claims that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, has found no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei says there is plenty of time for negotiation with Iran.

Bush has sent two battle carrier groups, replete with nukes, to the Persian Gulf and a third is reportedly preparing to follow. In support of Bush's case that Iran poses a danger to the U.S. , three unnamed American officials ceremoniously trotted out metal parts found in Iraq and claimed Iran supplied them to kill our soldiers in Iraq.

This "evidence" - or "packaging," as the Associated Press calls it - doesn't pass the straight face test with most reputable observers. "The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the 'highest levels' of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops," according to Monday's Washington Post.

Saturday's New York Times cited information gleaned from "interrogation reports" from Iranians and Iraqis captured in the recent U.S. raid on the Iranian embassy in northern Iraq . They allegedly indicated money and weapons components are brought into Iraq over the Iranian border at night. If those people indeed provided such information, query what kind of pressure, i.e. torture, might have been applied to encourage their cooperation. Recall the centerpiece of Colin Powell's 2003 lies to the Security Council about ties between Iraq and al Qaeda came from false information tortured out of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi.

Any Iranian weapons in Iraq may belong to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite resistance group the U.S. used to support. There could be old Iranian munitions lying around which are left over from the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s. A former high level U.S. military officer told me it was not uncommon to find large caches of weapons around Iraq . He cited the 2004 discovery of 37,000 American Colt 45 handguns in a warehouse near the Iranian border on the Iraq side, likely procured "when Saddam was our friend." The United States armed both sides in the Iran-Iraq conflict.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq , released last week, concluded that Iranian or Syrian involvement is "not likely to be a major driver of violence" in Iraq .

Paul Krugman wrote that even if Iran were providing aid to some factions in Iraq , "you can say the same about Saudi Arabia , which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents - and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths." Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. But as Krugman mentions, the Bush administration's "close personal and financial ties to the Saudis" have caused it to downplay "Saudi connections to America 's enemies."

American troops are still fighting in Afghanistan . Yet the Bush administration hasn't complained about the Taliban attacks on Afghanistan that originate in Pakistan , a country with documented nuclear weapons. Of course the Bush administration is cozy with the Pakistani regime.

The government of Israel, which also has nukes, is fueling the call for an invasion of Iran . On February 7, the Los Angeles Times cited Israeli politicians and generals warning of a "second Holocaust" if no one fails to prevent Tehran from acquiring nukes.

Israel would like to start a war with Iran and supports this desire by citing a quote from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped off the map. But this is an erroneous translation of what he said. According to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole and Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, who said the "regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Cole said this "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all." Journalist Diana Johnstone points out the quote is not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the Zionist "regime" occupying Jerusalem. "Coming from a Muslim religious leader," Johnstone wrote, "this opinion is doubtless based on objection to Jewish monopoly of a city considered holy by all three of the Abramic monotheisms." Iran has not threatened to invade Israel.

Indeed, only 36 percent of the Jews in Israel told pollsters last month they thought a nuclear attack by Iran posed the "biggest threat" to Israel . Americans concur. Seventy-five percent want negotiations in lieu of war with Iran.

Yet Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, all beholden to the Israel lobby, have bought into Bush's dangerous rhetoric about Iran.

It would be sheer lunacy to make war on Iran. Three former high-ranking U.S. military officers and a coalition of 13 British think-tanks and faith groups have warned that an attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences.

Bush probably won't ask Congress to bless his Iran war. He will provoke a confrontation and then claim we have to fight back. Last year, the New York Times documented a January 2003 meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, where Bush "talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation [with Iraq], including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire."

A nuclear attack on Iran would violate U.S. obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Any attack would violate the U.N. Charter. All treaties we ratify become part of U.S. law under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Twelve European, international, and U.S. legal and human rights groups issued an open letter warning of the illegality of any offensive military action by the U.S. against Iran. (http://www.nlg.org/news/statements/Military_Iran_2007.htm ).

Congress has tied itself in knots over a non-binding resolution on Iraq . If our elected representatives responded to their constituencies instead of the Bush gang's fear mongering, they would stand up to him and pass a modern day Boland Amendment forbidding military action against Iran.

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Bush Targets Iran

As Congress and the American people protest the travesty Bush created in Iraq, our President is gunning for a confrontation with Iran. Bush is rattling the sabers and opting for gunboat diplomacy by pledging to "seek out and destroy" Iranian networks "providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies" in Iraq. But he has produced no hard evidence that Iran is supplying forces in Iraq with such weapons or manufacturing their own nuclear weapons.

When I say "gunboat diplomacy," I mean that literally. Bush recently sent U.S. warships and Patriot missile batteries to the Persian Gulf and moved U.S. attack aircraft to Turkey and other countries on Iran's borders. U.S. forces stormed the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq and captured six Iranian nationals, and Bush announced he will go after any Iranians he considers a threat. There are also indications the Bush administration would support military action by Israel against Iran.

On Tuesday, the administration stepped up its inflammatory rhetoric. U.S. officials said Iranians may have trained attackers who killed five Americans in Karbala on January 20. They also implicated the Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by Moktada al-Sadr. It's very interesting that The New York Times characterized the focus on Iran and the Mahdi Army as "convenient from the point of view of the Bush administration."

Investigators were stumped at how the attackers, who wore American-style uniforms, secured forged U.S. identity cards and American-style M-4 rifles, and used stun grenades like those used only by U.S. forces. They are also confounded at the way the attackers' convoy of SUVs gave the impression that it was American and slipped through Iraqi checkpoints. Wednesday's article in the Times cites a theory that "a Western mercenary group" may have been involved. In the past, the U.S. government used the CIA to covertly overthrow governments, such as Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973. Could mercenaries now be doing the Bush administration's dirty work?

The plan to attack Iran has been in the works since Bush inaugurated that country into his "axis of evil" in January 2002. Bush's 2006 National Military Strategy says, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran." In April 2006, Seymour Hersh revealed the U.S. military was making preparations for an invasion of Iran. "Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, undercover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups," Hersh learned from current and former American military intelligence officials.

One of the military proposals calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons against underground nuclear sites in Iran. That would mean "mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," a former senior intelligence official told Hersh. A Pentagon adviser said the Air Force would strike many hundreds of targets in Iran, 99 percent of which have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.

A former defense official who still advises the Bush administration informed Hersh the military planning was grounded in the belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." That's the same faulty logic the U.S. government used to justify its cruel embargo and blockade of Cuba since 1961.

Congress has the responsibility to prevent Bush from attacking Iran. In view of congressional opposition to his war in Iraq, Bush will not likely ask permission to make war on Iran. We can expect Bush to provoke -- or even fabricate a la Gulf of Tonkin -- an incident with Iran and then claim he's responding to Iranian aggression. Senior Pentagon officials reported in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times that Air Force and Navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border may be used more aggressively. Bush will then try to bootstrap the September 2001 and October 2002 congressional authorizations for force in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, into consent to attack Iran.

Offensive military action against Iran would be illegal under the United Nations Charter, which requires that members settle international disputes by peaceful means. The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the U.S. and thus part of American law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Under the Charter, a country can attack another only in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons would violate our obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Congress should immediately pass a binding resolution reaffirming the United States' legal obligations and informing the Bush administration that it will not concur in any invasion or military action against Iran, would refuse to approve any funding for it, and would consider actions taken in contravention of the resolution as impeachable offenses.

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Willful Blindness

On Friday morning, as I traveled north on Interstate 5, I passed two tractor-trailers heading south toward the 32nd Street Naval Station in downtown San Diego. Each vehicle carried about 10 unmarked bombs; each bomb was approximately 15 feet long. Two military helicopters hovered low above each tractor-trailer, providing overhead escort.

I wondered where these bombs were headed. They must have been in a big hurry because they usually ship their bombs more covertly.

Israel had just put out an S.O.S. to the United States government to rush over several more bombs. "The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration," according to the New York Times. Although always well-equipped with sophisticated US-made weapons, Israel was evidently running out of munitions to drop on the Lebanese people.

Washington loses no opportunity to scold Iran and Syria for providing weapons to Hezbollah.

Yet during the Bush administration, from 2001 to 2005, Israel received $10.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing - the Pentagon's biggest military aid program - and $6.3 billion in US arms deliveries. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign military assistance.

It is a violation of the US Arms Export Control Act to provide weapons to foreign countries that are not used for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security. During the last major Israeli incursion into Lebanon, in 1981, the Reagan administration cut off US military aid and arms deliveries for 10 weeks while it investigated whether Israel was using weapons for "defensive purposes."

Last week, both houses of Congress, mindful of the importance of retaining Jewish votes and campaign contributions, passed resolutions stating that Israel is acting in self-defense. The vote in the Senate was unanimous; the House vote was 410 to 8.

Walking in lockstep with Bush, neither resolution calls for a ceasefire. The Senate resolution praises Israel for its "restraint" and the House resolution "welcomes Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties."

US-provided Israeli bombs have killed nearly 400 Lebanese, the overwhelming majority innocent civilians. The bombing has displaced half a million people and caused an estimated $1 billion in damage.

After Israeli orders that people in southern Lebanon evacuate their homes, several vehicles filled with evacuating Lebanese civilians were bombed by the Israeli military.

An Israeli helicopter fired a missile at a white minibus carrying 19 people fleeing Tairi. Three people were killed and several wounded.

A green Mercedes with a family fleeing Mansuri was struck by an Israeli missile. Three lay dead, others severely injured. Eight-year-old Mahmoud Srour's face was burned beyond recognition.

As Zein al-Abdin Zabit evacuated with his wife and four sons, his white Nissan was hit by an Israeli missile. "It's nothing more than revenge, revenge on civilians," Zabit said as he lay in bed with broken ribs.

Human Rights Watch confirmed yesterday that Israel is using artillery-delivered cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon. "Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be used in populated areas."

The use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the US-led coalition's major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians, HRW reported.

HRW photographed US-produced/US-supplied cluster bombs among the arsenal of Israel Defense Forces artillery teams stationed on the Israeli-Lebanese border during a July 23 research visit.

Independent journalist Dahr Jamail reported that the Lebanese Ministry of Interior has confirmed the Israelis have used the incendiary white phosphorous gas. This is a chemical weapon, much like napalm, that can burn right down to the bone. The US military used white phosphorous in Fallujah, Iraq.

Article 35 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits the use of weapons "of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Cluster bombs and white phosphorous fall into this category.

Bilal Masri, assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital, told Jamail, "The Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs can penetrate bomb shelters," Masri added. "They are bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!"

Masri also said that 55 percent of the casualties are children under 15 years of age.

It is a violation of the laws of war to target civilians. "A fundamental rule of international humanitarian law is the obligation to distinguish between civilians and civilian property on one hand and military targets on the other," Nada Doumani, Middle East spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Aljazeera.net. "Under no circumstances, can civilians and public and private property be deliberately attacked. All parties in the conflict have to abide by these rules."

Doumani quoted ICRC Director of Operations Pierre Krahenbuhl, who said: "The high number of civilian casualties and the extent of damage to essential public infrastructure raise serious questions regarding respect for the principle of proportionality in the conduct of hostilities."

Nearly every report from the corporate media seeks to find symmetry in this war. When an outlet covers the massive devastation in Lebanon and increasing numbers of Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli bombs, it is careful to juxtapose reports of Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel.

Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief chief, however, called the "disproportionate response" by Israel to Hezbollah's actions "a violation of international humanitarian law." Egeland, who characterized the devastated areas of Lebanon as "horrific," said Israel is denying access to relief operations.

At least 384 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 20 soldiers and 11 Hezbollah fighters. Israel's death toll is at least 40, with 17 people killed by Hezbollah rockets and 23 soldiers killed in the fighting.

On Monday, a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer told reporters that Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation for every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa by Hezbollah.

Last week, several Jewish organizations and Christian Zionists lobbied the White House to support Israel.

Bush complied, giving Israel at least another week to continue slaughtering the Lebanese people.

While Bush stood by and watched the humanitarian catastrophe Israel is wreaking in Lebanon, Condoleezza Rice traveled there and met with Fuad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister.

Rice's visit was an "important show of support for the Lebanese public and the Siniora government," a US official said Monday. The official told reporters traveling with Rice, "The fact we are going to go right into Beirut after all that has happened is a pretty dramatic signal to Lebanon and their government."

It would be much more dramatic for Bush-Rice to call a halt to the carnage. When Helen Thomas asked White House spokesman Tony Snow why the President opposed a ceasefire, he rudely thanked her for her "Hezbollah view."

Bush could stop Israel in its tracks with a snap of his fingers. But why would he? Israel is doing Bush's bidding - redrawing the map of the Middle East to facilitate US domination. Bush began that task with Iraq; Israel is following suit with Palestine and Lebanon.

Indeed, Bush is hoping Israel's next stop will be Iran or Syria. A July 21 list of talking points from the White House Office of the Press Secretary referred to a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Max Boot titled, "It's Time to Let The Israelis Take Off the Gloves."

The White House release contained this quote from Boot's piece: "Our best response is exactly what Bush has done so far - reject premature calls for a cease-fire and let Israel finish the job."

That quote was preceded by this language: "Iran may be too far away for much Israeli retaliation beyond a single strike on its nuclear weapons complex. (Now wouldn't be a bad time.) But Syria is weak and next door. To secure its borders, Israel needs to hit the Assad regime. Hard. If it does, it will be doing Washington's dirty work."

We turn a blind eye at our peril.

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Bush Setting up Attack on Iran

Now that the mission - whatever it was - has not been accomplished in Iraq, Bush is setting up a potentially bigger disaster in Iran.

Last month, Seymour Hersh revealed that the US military is making preparations for an attack on Iran. Recent events confirm Hersh's report.

The Bush administration is stepping up the pressure on the Security Council to pass a resolution that the US will use to justify an invasion. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, is pushing Council members to vote on a resolution this week.

Hersh wrote, "There is a growing concern among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush's ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change."

A former defense official who still advises the Bush administration told Hersh that the military planning is grounded in the belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government."

This reasoning is counter-intuitive. Iranians who become the victims of US aggression are much more likely to rally around the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran and fight to expel the foreign infidels.

"Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups," Hersh learned from current and former American military and intelligence officials.

One of the military proposals calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons against underground nuclear sites. That would mean "mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years," a former senior intelligence official informed Hersh.

A Pentagon adviser said the Air Force would strike many hundreds of targets in Iran, 99 percent of which have nothing to do with nuclear proliferation.

It would not just be Iranians who take the hits, the Pentagon adviser told Hersh. "If we go [into Iran]," he said, "the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle." Our troops in Iraq would be at risk of retaliation from Iran and the Muslim world, according to the Washington Post.

Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, said Tuesday that in response to an invasion of Iran by the United States, Iran's first target would be Israel.

Once again, Team Bush is whipping the media - and its consumers - into a frenzy of fear, this time against a nuclear Iran.

Two weeks ago, Condoleezza Rice said that Bush administration officials "have to be concerned when there are statements from Iran that Iran would not only like to have this technology but would share it, share technology and expertise." Rice also said, "We can't let this continue."

Never mind that Western nuclear scientists said last month that Iran lacks the skill, material and equipment to fulfill its immediate nuclear ambitions, the New York Times reported.

Once again, a "preventive" war initiated by Bush would violate the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of armed force against another country unless it poses an imminent threat, or when the Security Council authorizes an attack.

Bush is following the same route he took on the way to regime change in Iraq. He pressured members of the Security Council for a resolution threatening Iraq. The Council passed Resolution 1441. France, Russia and China issued a joint statement specifying, "Resolution 1441 (2002) adopted today by the Security Council excludes any automaticity in the use of force." In other words, the US would have to return to the Council to secure authorization to invade Iraq.

Bush was unable to secure a second resolution from the Council that would authorize an attack on Iraq. So Bush rationalized his invasion by cobbling together Resolution 1441 and two prior Council resolutions from the Gulf War. None of these, separately or collectively, provided a legal basis for Bush's war on Iraq.

A draft Security Council resolution on Iran, which is supported by Britain, France and the US, was circulated on Wednesday. The next day, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said, "My conviction is that military action is certainly no solution." Russia and China, the other two permanent members of the Security Council, concur with de Villepin's sentiments.

But, as it did in Iraq, the British government would likely support Bush if he decides to attack Iran.

Tony Blair has signaled his support of a US military strike, warning that ruling out military action would send a "message of weakness" to Iran.

Last month, Britain's then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, branded the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran as "completely nuts." He said military action against Iran was "inconceivable," and warned his Cabinet colleagues that it would be illegal for Britain to support US military action against Iran.

On Friday, Straw was rewarded for his candor with removal from his position as foreign secretary. Both the Independent and the Guardian in London wrote that Straw's "fate was sealed" after an angry call from the White House to Blair. The Independent reported that friends of Straw believe Bush was extremely upset at Straw's comment that the use of nukes against Iran was "nuts."

When asked a few days ago about the possibility of a nuclear strike on Iran, Bush stated unequivocally, "All options are on the table."

The Bush administration is undoubtedly pushing the draft resolution as a step along the way to its unilateral use of armed force against Iran.

The draft states that the Council would be "acting under Chapter VII" of the UN Charter. This means that it would be based on a finding of a threat to international peace and security, would be legally binding, and could be the basis for the later imposition of sanctions or the authorization of force.

Yury Fedotov, the Russian ambassador in London, explained that Russia opposed the Chapter VII reference because it is reminiscent of past resolutions on Iraq and Yugoslavia that led to US-led military action which had not been authorized by the Security Council.

"We have serious doubts sanctions would work," Fedotov said. "[They] could pave the way to a military action. The military option is a nonsense. It's [an] adventure that could threaten international stability in this region and beyond."

Indeed, there is no basis for a finding that Iran poses a threat to international peace and security, according to John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran to be in non-compliance with some requirements of the non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the IAEA has clearly said there is no evidence that Iran has diverted its declared nuclear materials to weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, who is not necessarily the controlling power in Iran, has engaged in belligerent rhetoric. "This is deplorable," says Burroughs, "but it does not establish a threat to the peace. There has also been belligerent rhetoric coming from Israel and the United States."

Given the stakes, it would seem logical that the Bush administration would pursue a diplomatic solution and avoid another disastrous conflagration in the Middle East.

Hugh Porter reported in Asia Times that even Ahmedinajad is amenable to negotiation. The Iranians, he writes, are willing to compromise on enrichment if they can achieve security guarantees against attack.

But Bush refuses to talk to Iran's leadership. Richard Armitage,deputy secretary of state in Bush's first term, warns that "diplomacy is not simply meant for our friends. It is meant for our enemies."

When he inaugurated Iran into his "axis of evil," Bush defined Iran as our enemy. Sanctions, or an attack, on Iran would hurt the Iranian moderates, whom the US should view as allies.

Moreover, invading Iran may well achieve precisely the opposite of what it portends to do. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains it would strengthen Iran's resolve to develop nukes. It "is almost certain to accelerate a nuclear bomb program rather than destroy it." Cirincione said, "It's clear to me there's no military solution to the Iran problem."

Bush's threatened aggression against Iran is no more about nuclear weapons than Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction. It is propelled by an agenda of the neo-conservatives and Washington's pro-Israel lobby. The US seeks to control the entire Middle East and its valuable oil deposits by changing Iran's regime, installing a US-friendly government, and building permanent US military bases.

It's deja vu with the 1953 CIA coup that removed the democratically-elected Mossadeq and installed the tyrannical Shah of Iran. After 25 years of tyranny, the Iranian people rose up and removed the Shah from power, replacing him with Ayatollah Khomeini's theocracy. The chickens came home to roost.

Bolton said Saturday, "We are still working to achieve unanimity [in the Security Council] ... but we're prepared to go to a vote without it."

It is time to take the military option against Iran off the table.

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Nobel Prize Slaps Bush Nuke Policy

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The award was a slap at George W. Bush, who had pressed for ElBaradei's removal just months before. It was also a blow to Bush's policies of dealing with nuclear issues unilaterally, and the US focus on non-proliferation to the exclusion of disarmament - both of which are required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Bush administration tried to engineer the ouster of ElBaradei after the IAEA chief refused to endorse Bush's claims that Saddam Hussein had restarted Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The US also perceived ElBaradei as too soft on Iran, a charter member of Bush's axis-of-evil.

A month before George W. Bush invaded Iraq, ElBaradei told the United Nations, "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." John Bolton, then Undersecretary of State for Disarmament, now United States ambassador to the UN, responded that ElBaradei's statement was "impossible to believe." Dick Cheney said, "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong."

But it turned out that ElBaradei was right about the absence of nukes in Iraq, and his refutation of Bush's allegation that Iraq had bought tons of enriched uranium from Niger has also been corroborated.

A few days before Bush launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom," ElBaradei revealed that the US had relied on fabricated documents to support its Niger claim. This revelation raised the ire of Bush, who had included the false Niger assertion in his state of the union address in order to whip up support for his impending illegal invasion of Iraq.

In the run-up to the war, ElBaradei said, "No, we are not finding any evidence of weapons of mass destruction." He added courageously, "No, we are not going to give the US the kind of report they wanted that would have served as a legal justification for war against Iraq."

ElBaradei is the first UN official to call for Israel to eliminate its secret nuclear weapons program. He advocated a nuclear-free Middle East, consistent with Security Council Resolution 687 that ended the Gulf War in 1991. In Article 14, the resolution spells out the need to create a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction across the Middle East. Ironically, this US-crafted resolution created enhanced powers for the IAEA and arms inspection verification.

"We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction," ElBaradei said, "yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security - and indeed continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use."

ElBaradei was likely referring to the hypocrisy of the United States, which continues to expand its nuclear arsenal and promulgate policies that would allow it to pre-emptively use its nukes, all the while setting its sights on countries like Iran and North Korea for their nuclear programs.

The Pentagon's March 15th "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" provides for the US to use nuclear weapons to counter potentially overwhelming conventional adversaries, to secure a rapid end of a war on US terms, or simply "to ensure success of US and multinational operations."

By standing up to the mighty United States, ElBaradei showed uncommon courage, leading the Nobel Committee to describe him as "an unfraid advocate of new measures to strengthen" the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

The US and ElBaradei are squaring off again, this time over Iran. ElBaradei says there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. In an attempt to discredit him, the US eavesdropped on dozens of phone calls between ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, according to the Washington Post.

But the United States' efforts to collect ammunition against ElBaradei were unsuccessful. When his re-election was put up for a vote, 34 of the IAEA countries voted for ElBaradei to continue as head of that organization. Only the US voted no.

Although the IAEA recently passed a resolution that discusses the possibility of sending the issue of Iran's nuclear capacity to the Security Council, the Nobel Prize may embolden the IAEA to stand up to US pressure to refer Iran to the Council, according to Phyllis Bennis from the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.

"The fact that the United States government doesn't like the government of Iran doesn't give them the right to impose their own version of what the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] requires and doesn't require," Bennis said on Democracy Now!

The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, whose highly classified findings were disclosed by the Washington Post, reported the intelligence community's consensus judgment that Iran remains 6 to 10 years away from the threshold of nuclear weapons capability.

Dr. Vojin Joksimovich, a nuclear engineer in San Diego, told me that Iran is not violating the NPT by its civilian use of nuclear power. Although there is no right to enrich uranium to 90 percent or more, which would be weapons grade material, Iran is enriching to 3 to 5 percent for fuel for nuclear power plants, according to Joksimovich. Brazil, he said, is also enriching uranium using the centrifuge technique that Iran wants to use. But the US doesn't challenge Brazil; Bush seeks to build a case for war with Iran.

In a dejá vu from the run-up to "Operation Iraqi Freedom," Bush began rattling the sabers against Iran in August. He declared on Israeli television that "all options are on the table" if Tehran does not comply with international demands.

Bush might think that attacking Iran would bolster the Republican Party's showing in the 2006 mid-term elections, by distracting attention from his failed Iraq war. Ironically, the Bush administration is supporting Iraq's Shiite government, which has close ties to Iran.

ElBaradei said in August that the only way to resolve the situation with Iran "is through negotiation." German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder responded to Bush's threatening comments by saying, "Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."

Russia agrees that diplomacy is the answer. A statement on the ministry's web site said, "We favor further dialogue and consider the use of force in Iran counter-productive and dangerous, something which can have grave and hardly predictable consequences ... We consider that problems concerning Iraq's nuclear activities should be solved through political and diplomatic means, on the basis of international law and Tehran's close cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency."

Bennis hopes the peace prize will encourage ElBaradei to call directly on the five nuclear powers (who also happen to be the veto-bearing members of the Security Council), and particularly the United States, to give up their nuclear arsenals, as required by the NPT.

Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, countries that don't have nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them, in exchange for the promise from nuclear states to progressively disarm. Disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin or two contractual promises exchanged. Thus, when the Bush administration unilaterally decides not to disarm, but instead to develop and even contemplate using new nukes, it is in flagrant violation of the NPT. The US cannot "choose" non-proliferation over disarmament.

Tragically, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation were omitted from the Outcome Document at last month's UN Summit that marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. It was the Bush administration that insisted on the omission.

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Bush and the Bomb

The 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians. Many tens of thousands more have been afflicted with radiation-induced cancers, immunologic disorders, birth defects, and lasting psychological trauma.

For years, the United States government engaged in a massive cover-up of the devastation wreaked by its use of the atom bomb in Japan. (See Hiroshima Cover-Up Exposed.) The claim has persisted that the use of the bomb ended the war and saved lives. Yet, historians have now put the lie to the assertion that the Japanese would not have surrendered but for the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (See Hiroshima after Sixty Years: The Debate Continues.)

The United States dropped the A-bomb to test it on live targets, and to demonstrate the overwhelming superiority of America. The Cold War had begun.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." General Curtis LeMay declared that the atomic bomb had nothing to do with Japan's surrender. And Admiral William D. Leahy stated angrily that the "use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender ... in being the first to use it, we ... adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

The Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal defines ill-treatment of a civilian population as a war crime, and inhumane acts committed against a civilian population as crimes against humanity.

The US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes and crimes against humanity. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara admitted in the film Fog of War that if we had lost the war, he and LeMay would have been war criminals. Since only the vanquished Nazis and Japanese were tried and punished, the US officials who ordered these crimes were never brought to justice.

After World War II, the new enemy of the United States became the Soviet Union, and there ensued a nuclear arms race unprecedented in human history.

Concern about the possibility of another, more devastating Hiroshima led to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. When the United States ratified this treaty, it became part of the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The treaty commits the countries that possess nuclear weapons (Britain, China, France, Russia and the US) to negotiate their elimination.

To gain the agreement of the non-nuclear-weapon parties to the treaty’s extension in 1995, the US made promises in connection with a UN Security Council resolution calling for what are known as negative security assurances, in which the US promised not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon parties unless they attack the US while in alliance with another nuclear-weapon country.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was concluded between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1972. This treaty was supposed to maintain the credibility of retaliatory deterrence based on the threat of a successful second strike, known as the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It also put limits on future technological development in order to preserve the "strategic balance" between the US and the USSR.

In 1995, a commitment was made to complete negotiations on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996. It bans all nuclear explosions, for any purpose, warlike or peaceful.

In 1996, in response to a request by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (the World Court) issued an advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

The World Court said that under humanitarian law, countries must "never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets." It held that the threat or use of nuclear weapons was "generally" contrary to international law. Although the divided Court was unable to reach a definitive conclusion regarding threat or use in extreme circumstances of self-defense where the survival of a nation was at stake, the overall thrust of the decision was toward categorical illegality. It strongly implied that the doctrine of deterrence is illegal. The Court said that the radioactive effects of nuclear explosions cannot be contained in space and time. Thus, the use of nuclear weapons can never conform to the requirements of the law.

The World Court also held, unanimously, that Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates all countries to "bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects."

So what has the United States done to fulfill its obligations under this treaty?

In 1999, the US Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The United States has tried to negotiate a more flexible nuclear doctrine that would include missile defenses far beyond the very limited defenses allowed by the ABM Treaty. But Bush didn't like the treaty at all.

Thus, in December 2001, the United States notified Russia of its intent to withdraw from the ABM Treaty in 6 months, based on a treaty provision that permitted withdrawal if there existed extraordinary events jeopardizing the withdrawing country's supreme interests.

The US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is the first formal unilateral withdrawal of a major power from a nuclear arms control treaty once it has taken effect. It also spurred Russia to announce its withdrawal from its commitments under the START II arms reduction treaty.

And the US withdrawal jeopardizes the most important treaty that aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In 2002, the Department of Defense presented the Nuclear Posture Review to Congress, which actually expands the range of circumstances in which the US could use nuclear weapons. This document explicitly allows the option of using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations. It permits pre-emptive attacks against biological and chemical weapons capabilities, and in response to "surprising military developments." It provides for the development of nuclear warheads, including earth penetrators.

Alarmingly, classified portions of the document obtained by the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times call for contingency planning for the use of nuclear weapons against Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya.

The Nuclear Posture Review sets forth policies that explicitly violate the legal obligations the US undertook when it ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and subsequently in 1995 - the prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries, and the obligation to negotiate the cessation of the arms race at an early date.

When the Nuclear Posture Review was presented in 2002, the New York Times said: "Where the Pentagon review goes very wrong is in lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons and in undermining the effectiveness of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ... Nuclear weapons are not just another part of the military arsenal. They are different, and lowering the threshold for their use is reckless folly."

Yet today the United States stands ready to rapidly launch 2,000 strategic warheads with land- and submarine-based missiles. Each warhead would inflict vast heat, blast and radiation 7 to 30 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.

Although less spectacular and obvious than a mushroom cloud, the United States has used nuclear weapons - depleted uranium warheads - in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Reporters from the Christian Science Monitor have measured radiation levels in downtown Baghdad that are 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal background radiation levels.

The US Nuclear Defense Agency condemned depleted uranium weapons as a "serious health threat." Whipped up by sandstorms and carried by trade winds, they can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure and extreme birth defects for 4,500,000,000 years (See Horror of USA's Depleted Uranium in Iraq Threatens World.)

The United States is committing ongoing crimes against humanity by its use of depleted uranium.

The effects of the strategic warheads and depleted uranium "cannot be contained in space or time ... would affect health, agriculture, natural resources and demography over a very wide area ... and would be a serious danger to future generations." Thus, under the definition set by the World Court, these weapons are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets, and are therefore prohibited.

By using nuclear weapons against Japan, the United States became a dangerous role model. The Bush administration persists in the use of depleted uranium, and it has announced its intention to enlarge the use of the extraordinary strategic warheads.

Bush targets countries like North Korea and Iran that may seek to develop their nuclear capabilities. Yet all the while, Bush and his administration continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq and threaten to commit even greater crimes in the future with their horrific new weapons.

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Bully Bolton Threatens National Security

John Bolton is the wrong man for the job of US ambassador to the United Nations. His status as an avowed UN-hater, standing alone, disqualifies him. But there are other, stronger reasons to reject his appointment to that important post.

Bolton's performance in his current position as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security has made the American people less safe. Bolton has been charged, since 2001, with halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But on Bolton's watch, the proliferation problem has gotten worse, not better.

Fewer weapons-grade nuclear materials were secured in the two years after September 11, 2001, than in the preceding two years.

North Korea, which had two nuclear weapons, now has eight. Bolton's scathing insults of President Kim Jong Ill provoked a dangerous reaction from the North Koreans, who called Bolton "human scum" and a "bloodsucker" who was "not entitled to take part in the [six-nation] talks.. "We have decided," they declared, "not to consider him as an official of the US administration any longer nor to deal with him."

On Bolton's watch, Iran has increased its nuclear program. Alarmingly, Bolton often blocked former Secretary of State Colin Powell from receiving “information vital to US strategies on Iran,” according to today's Washington Post.

Bolton successfully pushed to cut funding for the Nunn-Lugar program to halt the proliferation of nuclear materials, and failed to conclude a Plutonium Disposition Agreement with Russia to eliminate 70 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

Bolton has widely been considered responsible for the defeat of the Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would have created an inspection system to protect us against these deadly weapons. This is documented by Nicole Deller and John Burroughs from the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy.

In short, Bolton's resume shows that he has earned a failing grade in arms control.

But the most important reason to reject Bolton's appointment to the UN post is the brutal way he conducts business. His modus operandi poses a real danger to the future security of the United States. Over and over again, Bolton has bullied his inferiors and even a non-governmental employee to get his way. And his way has led repeatedly to the proliferation of false intelligence that could endanger our national security.

Had Bolton not been reined in by the CIA, his exaggerated claims that Cuba had a biological weapons program, and that Syria had chemical and biological weapons programs, could have proved disastrous for the US.

And it was Bolton who pressed for the inclusion of the lie about Iraq seeking to buy uranium from Niger in Bush's State of the Union address, a lie that helped build the case for the unnecessary war with Iraq that has killed 1556 American troops.

Bolton retaliated against at least three intelligence officers who disagreed with him about national intelligence policy. The judgments of the analysts ultimately proved correct; Bolton was wrong on all three occasions.

Former Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford, a conservative Republican and enthusiastic supporter of Bush and Cheney, testified Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ford, who called Bolton a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy" who "abuses his authority with little people," characterized Bolton as a "serial abuser."

Most significantly, Ford told the Senators that Bolton's treatment of intelligence analyst Christian Westermann, who rightfully disagreed with Bolton about whether Cuba had a biological weapons program, had a chilling effect on intelligence analysis in the State Department. In the present historical period, the use of false intelligence could have catastrophic consequences.

The second official incident involved Fulton Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America. After Bolton tried, unsuccessfully, to pressure him to tailor his conclusion about Cuba's biological weapons program, Bolton sought to have Armstrong removed from his post. John McLaughlin, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he intervened to prevent Bolton's unorthodox request. John Gannon, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said he thought Bolton's behavior had been "inexcusable."

The third documented abuse of a government official by Bolton occurred in 2003, when Rexon Ryu, a State Department nonproliferation analyst, allegedly failed to produce a document for Bolton's chief of staff. Bolton charged Ryu with insubordination and concealing information. A former senior State Department official described Ryu as having such a "sharp mind, good analytical skills, and unimpeachable integrity," that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage later hired him as a special assistant. Ryu is currently on temporary assignment to the staff of Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Another example of Bolton's inappropriate, and indeed, outrageous, behavior was documented in a letter Melody Townsel sent to the Senator Foreign Relations Committee. Townsel, stationed in Kyrgyzstan on a US AID project, became the object of Bolton's wrath in 1994. After she complained about the incompetence, poor contract performance, and inadequate funding of the project by a contractor who happened to be represented by John Bolton, Townsel met Bolton. She wrote that Bolton "proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door, and generally behaving like a madman." Townsel also claimed Bolton falsely charged that she was headed for federal prison for misuse of funds, and threatened that other key employees or contractors would also find themselves the target of federal investigations if they refused to cooperate with him. Townsel maintained that Bolton's behavior "wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological."

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is still considering whether to send Bolton's name to the Senate floor for confirmation. Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, who has expressed doubts about Bolton's suitability, will likely cast the pivotal vote. After Ford testified before the committee last week, Chafee described the Westermann affair as an isolated incident. Now that additional episodes of Bolton's dangerous bullying have emerged, Chafee might be persuaded to vote against Bolton.

The New York Times editorialized Wednesday, "Trying to tailor intelligence is enough to disqualify Mr. Bolton from this job. With America's credibility as low as it is, the last thing the nation needs is a United Nations envoy who tried to force intelligence into an ideological construct."

If John Bolton is confirmed as US ambassador to the United Nations, our national security will be seriously compromised in these already perilous times.

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Kerry Hits Nail on Head

We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire.
- George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 20, 2004

The [President] doth protest too much, methinks.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (III, ii, 239)

John Kerry cut to the heart of the matter when he said during Thursday’s debate with George W. Bush that, "a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn’t have long-term designs on it." Kerry cited the U.S. construction of 14 military bases in Iraq that are said to have "a rather permanent concept to them."

Building these bases belies Bush’s protestations that he has "no ambitions of empire."

In fact, the neoconservative cabal that drives Bush's foreign policy has long advocated a strategy premised on worldwide U.S. military dominance. Their blueprint for aggressive war first appeared twelve years before George W. Bush tried to reassure the American people that his war on Iraq was not an imperialist endeavor.

Under the direction of Paul Wolfowitz, a 1992 draft of the Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance on post-Cold War Strategy explained, "We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." The draft went on, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in [the Middle East and Southwest Asia] to preserve U.S. and Western access to the region’s oil." The neocons reiterated this policy in the September 2000 document of the Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.

Bush and his minions began plotting how to remove Saddam Hussein from power as soon as Bush removed his hand from the Bible after Chief William Rehnquist swore him in as President, according to both former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and former Anti-Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke. This was 8 months before the September 11 attacks - the date the "war on terror" officially began.

After the U.S. attacked Iraq, Wolfowitz admitted to Vanity Fair in 2003 that weapons-of-mass-destruction was the agreed-upon "bureaucratic excuse" for seizing that country. He also said it would allow the U.S. to pull its troops out of Saudi Arabia and base them in Iraq.

It is not surprising that Iraqis and people throughout the Arab and Muslim world see the United States as an imperialist invader and occupier.

On the day of the Bush-Kerry foreign policy debate, 41 Iraqis were killed in car bombings, 34 of them children taking candy from U.S. troops. According to Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, based in Baghdad, insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day. She describes the situation as "a raging barbaric guerilla war" where the numbers of dead are "so shocking" that the ministry of health has stopped disclosing them. "The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can’t be put back into a bottle," Fassihi wrote in an email to friends.

Yes, as Kerry said, Bush made "a colossal error of judgment" when he invaded Iraq.

"I will make a flat statement," Kerry declared during the debate. "The United States of America has no long-term designs on staying in Iraq." With that promise, John Kerry turned the policy of Team Bush on its head.

Kerry was also right on when, responding to Bush’s debate mantra that Kerry sends mixed messages, the Senator said: "You talk about mixed messages. We’re telling other people, ‘You can’t have nuclear weapons,’ but we’re pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using."

Indeed, the Bush administration’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review expands options for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states. It identifies Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya as potential targets for U.S. nuclear weapons. Is it any wonder that countries like Iran and North Korea are trying to obtain nuclear weapons?

Also in 2002, Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had been concluded between the United States and Russia in 1972. This was the first formal unilateral withdrawal of a major power from a nuclear arms control treaty after it had been put into effect.

Kerry pledged that as President, "I’m going to shut that program [to pursue a new tactical nuclear weapon] down, and we’re going to make it clear to the world we’re serious about containing nuclear proliferation."

The debate transformed the dynamic of the campaign. John Kerry continues to have his work cut out for him. But one thing is certain. Four more years of Bush presidency will produce increasing danger to the United States and the entire globe.

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Why Iraq and Afghanistan? Cheney Tells All: It's About the Oil

Now that the rationale provided by Bush & Co. for attacking Iraq is unraveling, it's time to ask what the true motivation was for the rush to war. Many dismissed the signs of antiwar protestors, which read "No blood for oil." But if we connect the oily fingerprints, beginning with Vice President Dick Cheney's, it appears those protestors were right.

Cheney's energy task force, in a May 2001 report, called on the White House to make "energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy" and encourage Persian Gulf countries to welcome foreign investment in their energy sectors. In August 2002, Cheney warned a meeting of veterans that Saddam Hussein could seek to dominate the Middle East's vast energy supplies, and said "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sought to decouple oil access from regime change in Iraq, which, he said, had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." Rumsfeld, Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice all invoked Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and his ties to Al Qaeda, neither of which has materialized to date, as imminent threats to the security of the United States. Three days before the attack on Iraq, Cheney said, "we believe he [Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." That claim, and Bush's Niger uranium statement in his State of the Union address, were bogus.

When U.S.-U.K. forces took control of Iraq, their first order of business was to secure the oil fields, instead of the hospitals and antiquities museums. Meanwhile, Kellogg Brown & Root was awarded a controversial $7 billion no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq's oil fields. KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton, the world's largest oil services company, formerly headed by Cheney before he was tapped for vice president. In a 1998 speech to the "Collateral Damage Conference" of the Cato Institute, Cheney said, "the good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is."

The business is in Iraq. Since April 2001, the public interest group Judicial Watch has sought public access to the proceedings of Cheney's energy task force meetings, under the Freedom of Information Act. Yet Cheney has fought tenaciously to keep them secret. On July 17, however, Judicial Watch secured some of the documents from the task force, which contain the smoking gun: "a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects" and "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts." The documents are dated March 2001, two years before Bush invaded Iraq.

The Bush administration's October 2001 bombing of Afghanistan, although justified as a response to the September 11 attacks, was also part of U.S. oil strategy. Afghanistan never attacked the U.S. Yet, the U.S. and U.K. ousted the Taliban and secured Afghanistan for the construction of an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan, south through Afghanistan, to the Arabian Sea. Bush had been uncritical of the Taliban's human rights record when Unocal oil company was negotiating for the pipeline rights before September 11. After assuming control of Afghanistan, Bush conveniently installed Hamid Karzai, a former Unocal official, as interim president of Afghanistan. "Operation Enduring Freedom" will allow oil corporations freedom to exploit Afghanistan for profit, while the Afghans continue to live in squalor.

Likewise, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" has enabled U.S. corporations to exploit Iraq's oil, while thousands of Iraqis continue to die, lose their jobs, and live without electricity. American soldiers are still dying while U.S. taxpayers foot the $3.9 billion monthly bill. Oil has proven to be the most terrible weapon of mass destruction.

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