WASHINGTON, DC—Scott Ritter, former UN Special Commission inspector, claims that
Richard Butler, former chief UN weapons inspector, "deliberately planned UN
inspections in 1998 to orchestrate a confrontation between Iraq and the UN so the
United States could carry out its threats to bomb Iraq." Ritter makes the
allegations in a documentary film, "In Shifting Sands: The Truth About
UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq," shown to journalists at the UN reported Ronni
Berke (CNN, July 19).
Ritter's revelation should come as no surprise. The alleged pretext for
bombing Iraq, was just one more act of deadly deception, by the U.S. and its
allies, designed to rally the public against the "enemy." Some examples:
The annual commemoration of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, invariably
includes these words from the speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United
States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
of the Empire of Japan." But, few Americans know, and they're seldom told, that,
"The U.S. believed that war with Japan was inevitable, and that 'the United
States should provoke it at a time which suited U.S. interests.' Analysts
recommended an eight point plan designed to provoke a Japanese attack,"
according to Robert Stinnett, writing in Day of
Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. The plan included military
provocations, and a recommendation to "Completely embargo all trade with Japan,
in collaboration with a similar embargo by the British Empire."
The
embargo was in place, and the U.S. had made several provocative military moves,
at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Britain and France had their plan for taking back the Suez Canal after it was
nationalized by President Nasser of Egypt on July 26, 1956. "France secretly
enlisted the help of Israel," writes James Bamford in Body of
Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency from the Cold
War Through the Dawn of a New Century. Mr.Bamford was Washington Investigative
Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and has written
investigative cover stories for the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post
Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine.
"The intrigue involved Israel launching a war against Egypt," writes Mr.
Bamford. Then, once Egypt began defending itself, England and France would go in
as 'peacekeepers.' As part of the 'peace,' the canal would be taken from Egypt
and kept by Britain and France. Israel would capture the Sinai from Egypt." The
plan was agreed to by Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion, defense minister
Shimon Peres, and armed forces chief Moshe Dayan, and Britain's prime minister,
Anthony Eden.
Following the failed, Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 17, 1961, by
1,300 members of a CIA-supported counter-revolutionary Cuban exile force, the
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) drew up and approved plans for "launching a
secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick
the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch
against Cuba." Mr. Bamford writes:
"Codenamed Operation Northwoods, the plan . . . called for innocent people to
be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk
on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington,
D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not
commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be
blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer [Chairman JCS] and his cabal the excuse,
as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their
war."
Accidents, writes Mr. Bamford, were to be used to advance U.S. interests. Had
the February 20, 1962 launch of John Glenn—the first American to orbit the
earth, later a U.S. presidential candidate—not been successful, the JCS were
prepared to use John Glenn's possible death as a pretext for war.
"The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and
democracy into orbit high over the planet. But Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a
different idea. They proposed to Lansdale [U.S. general in charge
of Operation Mongoose—covert operations against Cuba] that, should the rocket
explode and kill Glenn, 'the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that . . .
the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic].' This would be accomplished,
Lemnitzer continued, 'by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove
electronic interference on the part of the Cubans.'"
In 1963, writes Mr. Bamford, the JCS proposed secret U.S. attacks on Jamaica
and Trinidad-Tobago. "Both were members of the British Commonwealth; thus, by
secretly attacking them and then falsely blaming Cuba, the United States could
lure England into the war against Castro."
The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, that sparked the Vietnam
War, was also deliberately provoked. "Restless from a decade of peace," writes Mr.
Bamford, "out of touch with reality, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were desperate for a war,
any war."
In the 1960s, as Britain was dismantling its colonies, the U.S. conspired
with Britain to receive secretly, gratis, and for 50 years, the Chagos
Archipelago. Between 1965 and 1973, to clear the largest island in the archipelago,
Diego Garcia, for a listening post for the U.S. National Security Administration,
every man, woman, and child was physically removed from the islands, and placed
bewildered and frightened, on the islands of Mauritius and Seychelles, wrote a
British writer, Simon Winchester.
While falsely blaming their "enemies," the U.S. government, and American "free
press," have covered-up for their "friends."
Three days after Israel launched its June 5, 1967, surprise attack on Egypt,
it carried out a deliberate and sustained attack on the
USS Liberty, with the objective of
leaving no survivors.
Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman JCS, in a memo dated June 8, 1997
wrote, "I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio
messages from all parties and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its
fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria
despite President Johnson's known opposition to such a move."
Mr. Bamford describes the attack:
"Within the first few hours Israeli jets pounded twenty-five Arab air bases
ranging from Damascus in Syria to an Egyptian field loaded with bombers, far up
the Nile at Luxor. Then using machine guns, mortar fire, tanks, and air power,
the Israeli war machine overtook the Jordanian section of Jerusalem as well as
the west bank of the Jordan River and torpedo boats captured the key Red Sea
cape of Sharm al-Sheikh."
Based on declassified transcripts of radio communications, survivor accounts,
and interviews with others in the chain of command on the day ot the attack, Mr.
Bamford writes:
"On the morning of June 8, the Israeli military command received a report
that a large American eavesdropping ship was secretly listening only a few miles
off El Arish. At that same moment, a scant dozen or so miles away, Israeli
soldiers were butchering civilians and bound prisoners by the hundreds, a fact
that the entire Israeli army leadership knew about and condoned, according to
the army's own historian. . . .
"At the time, Israel was loudly proclaiming—to the United States, to the
United Nations, and to the world—that it was the victim of Egyptian aggression
and that it alone held the moral high ground. Israel's commanders would not have
wanted tape recordings of evidence of the slaughters to wind up on desks at the
White House, the UN, or the Washington Post."
The Gulf War of January 16, 1991, is yet another example of U.S. deception.
"Iraq's war against Iran may have cost as much as $500 billion," write Alan
Geyer and Barbara G. Green in Lines in
the Sand: Justice and the Gulf War. Postwar economic problems and
reconstruction costs were $280 billion or more. Saddam Hussein was in a position
to be manipulated.
In a July 25, 1990 meeting with U.S. ambassador April Glaspie, Saddam Hussein
was informed, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border
disagreement with Kuwait." Meanwhile, the U.S. encouraged Kuwait to continue its
slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields. On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Ever since the Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s, the U.S. had been seeking an
opportunity to dominate the Middle East. Now the public had to be rallied to the
"just war."
[James Bamford is the best-selling author of "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the
Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies" (2004) and "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of
the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency" (2001).]
[Tatum's resignation from Pegasus followed his refusal to "neutralise" a leading US
political figure in the 1992 US presidential elections. . . .
A plan had been drawn up at the highest levels of Nixon's administration. Team Red
Rock were to enter Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, in secret and attack the airport
and military and civil installations, wreaking as much havoc as possible. The plan
called for the team to parachute into the outskirts of Phnom Penh, carrying captured
NVA "Sappers" with them. Taken in unarmed and alive, the Sappers would be
"sacrificed" and their bodies left to be discovered by Cambodian forces. A furious
Lon Nol would assume North Vietnam was to blame. It was hoped that such an act would
stiffen Lon Nol's backbone. With nowhere else to turn, the US puppet would urgently
seek US hardware to strengthen his forces and continue the battle.
The team members were not told that they, too, were to be sacrificed by their
President to ensure that word of the operation never reached the light of day. . . .
The "Contragate" years teem with well-documented accounts of illicit wholesale
gun-running and dope-smuggling. . . . Tatum says that North's "Enterprise" not only
set up the cocaine factories and "ran" the Colombian cartels, but was also
responsible for masterminding the massive shipments of narcotics into the US.--"THE PEGASUS FILE:
A former CIA deep-cover agent turns whistleblower at great risk," Nexus
Magazine, April-May 1997]
[Code named Operation
Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible
assassination of Cuban emigres, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas,
hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism
in U.S. cities.--David Ruppe, U.S.
Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba," ABC News, May 1, 2001]
[When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf - to
reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait - part of the administration case
was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in
mid-September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the
border, threatening the key US oil supplier.
But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet
satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were
visible near the Saudi border - just empty desert.--Scott Peterson, "In War, Some Facts
Less Factual," Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002]
["A Persian Gulf War POW accuses the United States and Britain of being
hypocritical about Saddam."--"'A War Waiting for a
Pretext'," Newsweek, September 27, 2002]
The Papers That Cried Wolf: Brian Whitaker looks at how the
American media are softening up public attitudes to war with Iraq,"
Guardian, December 16, 2002
[". . . a new Pentagon bureau, the Office of Strategic Influence, was
considering ways to plant false information with unwitting foreign
journalists."--"White
House Plays Down Propaganda by Military," New York Times, December 17,
2002]
[". . . the 'Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)' -- will carry
out secret missions designed to 'stimulate reactions' among terrorist
groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose
them to 'counterattack' by U.S. forces."--Chris Floyd, "Global
Eye--Into the Dark," Moscow Times, November 1, 2002]
[When Greene, a veteran of British intelligence, used his contacts in French
security services to investigate the Saigon bombings of January 1952, he discovered
a US campaign to create a "Third Force," opposed to both Communism and colonialism
and designed to evolve into a US-backed "democracy" in Vietnam. Any resemblance to
recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq is hardly coincidental.--H. Bruce Franklin,
"Our Man in
Saigon," The Nation, February 3, 2003]
["We know from experience that politicians about to go to war are not above
manipulating information to heat up public opinion. They have manufactured
international incidents - the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin "clash", for example,
which President Johnson used to deceive the Senate into giving him a
declaration of war against North Vietnam. They can be the simple peddling of
"evil Hun" stories, as with the discredited accounts of Iraqi soldiers
pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators."--"Don't Let
the Facts Get in the Way," The Guardian, February 6, 2003]
[Britain secretly and brutally expelled the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands in the
Indian Ocean - so that the US could build a military base there.--Arun Kundnani, "Stealing A Nation: A Special Report By John
Pilger," IRR News, September 29, 2004]
[The US National Security Agency has kept secret a 2001 finding by its own historian
that its officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence during the Tonkin
Gulf episode that helped precipitate the Vietnam War.--Scott Shane, "Washington hid damaging Vietnam finding," Sydney
Morning Herald, October 31, 2005]
[Saddam . . . was also quietly assured by the United States that it would have no
objection to his claiming his prize - Kuwait - once he defeated Iran.--George
Friedman, "America's Secret War," Broadway,
October 11, 2005]
[Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management,"
manipulating information - and, by extension, the news media - to achieve the
desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government
contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions
for the removal of Hussein from power." . . . Rendon was guarded about the details
of his clandestine work - but he boasted openly of the sweep and importance of his
firm's efforts as a for-profit spy. "We've worked in ninety-one countries," he said.
"Going all the way back to Panama, we've been involved in every war, with the
exception of Somalia." . . . The seventy-four-page document, titled "Information
Operations Roadmap," also calls for psychological operations to be launched over
radio, television, cell phones and "emerging technologies" such as the Internet. In
addition to being classified secret, the road map is also stamped noforn, meaning it
cannot be shared even with our allies.--James Bamford, "The Man Who Sold the
War: Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war," Rolling Stone,
November 17, 2005]
[Israel and our government, in this 2 hour attack, had come up with a plan to sink
our ship, blame it on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the Six Day War.--Phillip F.
Tourney, "TREASON
ON THE HIGH SEAS," ussliberty.wordpress.com, December 9, 2007]
"Inside America's Meddling Machine," grayzoneproject.com, August 20, 2018
[Before Pearl Harbor, there was an elaborate British influence operation of forged
documents, fake news, and manipulation.--Hunter Derensis, "The Campaign To Lie America Into World War II,"
theamericanconservative.com, December 6, 2019]