NWI Insights - Neo-Conservative policies, a driving force for the war in Iraq?

In his recent report CBC's Neil Macdonald unearthed a possible driving force behind the war in Iraq. According to the findings, the motives for war could in fact be the goals of a small but powerful elite neo-Conservative group in Washington.

In the run up to the presidential elections President Bush made statements which indicated that the US needed to stop enforcing their beliefs and way of life on people around the world, asserts Macdonald. Since his presidency this outlook has rapidly changed. This was not in response to September 11th Macdonald argues, but a consequence of a manifesto for the US future orchestrated by a distinct group of neo-Conservatives.

Macdonald interviews, Jay Bookman, Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Bookman contends that the manifesto by the neo-Conservative Washington think-tank summarizes future strategies that effectively make the US the controlling advisory in world peace and "enforce what they call American principles and American interests."

Bookman states the founding members of the group include Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz of the Defence Department, Richard Pearl, head of the Defence Advisory Board, Lewis Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff, John Bolton who is under the Secretary of State for Arms Control, and Eliot Cohen of the Defence Policy Board.

Macdonald emphasises that the manifesto outlines a way forward for America in the 21st Century and that many of the approaches laid out have already been put into practice. For example specifies Macdonald, it proposes that the Anti-Ballistic missile treaty should be abandoned and that military bases and presence should be expanded worldwide. He asserts that the manifesto details the role of the US as a "global constabulary", not constricted by the UN or world input or opinion, and that foreign wars should include regime changes where appropriate.

Many of these plans are now a reality, states Macdonald, not only with the war in Iraq, but the creation of military bases in Georgia and the Philippines, and the forsaking of the Anti-Ballistic missile treaty.

Further to the above strategies, the manifesto also asserts that such achievements would be likely to initially cause a catastrophic event of the magnitude of Pearl Harbour, reports Macdonald. And then there was September 11th.

Macdonald interviews William Crystal, director of the project for a new American Century who openly backs these ideas and beliefs and furthers that although there has been progress,

"We haven't persuaded the Bush administration of everything. I think we need to spend more on defence. I think they need to rethink their policy towards Saudi Arabia. They kicked the can down the road on North Korea but obviously they're going to have to deal with that."

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