Wilkie Iraq Putin

June 20, 2004

“The reason we don’t have an exit strategy is that we don’t plan to leave,” says Savinar. There’s an estimated 20- to 30-year supply of oil in Iraq’s reserves, and the longer it stays in the ground, the more valuable it becomes. Heinberg is inclined to agree that the United States has no intention of leaving Iraq, pointing to 14 permanent military bases that have been built there since the war started. These bases complete a line of military outposts stretching through Afghanistan, all situated near areas where large reserves of oil are known to exist.”

Oil Gone R. V. Scheide


In his new book AXIS OF DECEIT, senior Australian intelligence analyst turned whistleblower, Andrew Wilkie.has indicted his PM John Howard, UK PM Tony Blair and George Bush for telling a big lie to their citizens and the world as an excuse for war in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.

Wilkie also suggests that there might be an Iraq-illegal war equivalent of the Watergate tapes: intelligence of US government preparation for war gathered by Australian, British and Canadian intelligence agencies.

A pre-publication article about Wilkie’s book in The Age suggests that

  • Australian agencies gathered intelligence on the US Administration and reported that allegations of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorists were not the main reasons it wanted to invade Iraq.
  • The Opposition was deliberately misled during briefings by intelligence agencies in the lead-up to the war, with facts undermining the Government’s position omitted.
  • The Government knowingly presented false intelligence to the public that exaggerated the threat that Saddam Hussein posed.

According to the article, AXIS OF DECEIT postulates:

“Mr Howard and Alexander Downer knew exactly why the US was going to war and that terrorism and WMD was not the most important part of the reason,” Mr Wilkie said.

The US wanted to gain control of oil reserves, reinforce its global power ascendancy, respond to domestic political considerations after the September 11 attacks and influence the shape of the Middle East, he said. Confidential US Administration information was obtained from sources and contacts, then communicated back to Australia in diplomatic cables, he said.

There were no WMDs – just lots of Chalabi and neocon cynical misinformation. The second reason that the Bush Administration gave for attacking Iraq was that Saddam was a danger to his neighbours – hardly credible now when we know that containment was working and that Saddam was mouse.

The recent 9/11 commission report reaffirms what almost everybody but the Bush Administration knew all along about the final self-defense reason for attacking Iraq – that there was no terrorist collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Then why did the Bush Administration almost singlemindedly remain intent upon regime change in Iraq?

For a bundle of self-interested reasons, but, most importantly – because most of the damage to America and every other world state maybe has been catalyzed but is yet to happen; consider the reaction of oil poor China or Japan – the US and its coalition attacked Iraq in a naked power grab for an oil rich Middle East.

WMDs, Saddam’s relative danger, any connection with al-Qaeda and now the Crusader mission to bring democracy to the Middle East are all part of the big lie. And evidence available in Aussie, Brit, Canuck and US intelligence in the period leading up to war should contain proof that Bush and Cheney lied, and explain once and for all why the US and its coalition invaded Iraq.

The Bush Administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to try and keep Iraq tied in American minds to al-Qaeda and terrorism. Electorally they know from polling that even Heartland America is beginning to doubt the president about why there was a war in Iraq.

Hence Putin’s surprise revelation that Russian intelligence warned the US (who?) after 9/11 that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks (real or Saddam make believe?) against the US (finally a legitimate excuse for a defensive war under the UN Charter?).

Your search – wilkie iraq Putin did not match any documents.”


www.pacificfringe.net

Bill Henderson

Bill Henderson is a longtime climate activist who lives on Canada’s West coast.

Tags: Fossil Fuels, Geopolitics & Military, Oil