conspiracy theories

from November 2003

Despite Rumsfeld's denial, Tom Donnelly, a military specialist at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) with close links to Pentagon planners, published an article in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard that took Rumsfeld to task for not ''fess(ing) up'' that bases in Iraq were entirely consistent with changes in Washington's global military posture.

Iraqi airfields in particular, he wrote, ''are ideally located for deployments throughout the region ... There's plenty of space, not only for installations but for training,'' he said, adding confidently, ''And they are enough removed from Mesopotamia that they would not be 'imperial' irritants to the majority of Iraqis."

In September, according to Jessica Tuchman Matthews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) who participated in a delegation of foreign-policy specialists the Pentagon took to Kuwait and Iraq after the war, the administration's future basing plans were a major mystery.

''We were told (by senior military briefers) in Kuwait that we needed two billion dollars to improve housing for U.S. troops for, quote, 'enduring' bases in Iraq, but I did not get to ask what 'enduring' meant," she said.

In January 2003, she added, ''a senior (administration) official'' had told her that ''we're going to move our forces out of Saudi Arabia into Iraq,'' an account echoed by other sources at the same time.

''The conquest of Iraq will not be a minor event in history,'' noted George Friedman, chairman of the Stratfor.com private intelligence agency in February. ''It will represent the introduction of a new imperial power to the Middle East and a redefinition of regional geo-politics based on that power.''

Building bases in Iraq is consistent with neo-conservatives' long-held argument for invading Iraq in order to both ''remake the face'' of the Middle East and to transform and enhance Washington's global military posture to ensure its domination of key strategic resources.

In the words of a 2000 study by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) such a move would ''project sufficient power to enforce Pax Americana.''

Global peace and stability ''demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations,'' asserted the report, whose charter members include Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and half a dozen other top national-security officials in the Bush administration.

FULL TEXT: Jim Lobe, 28 November 2003, Inter Press News Agency (IPS)