DONALD Rumsfeld, the US
defense secretary, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz wrote to President Bill
Clinton in 1998 urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein
because he is a 'hazard' to 'a significant portion of the world's supply
of oil'.
In the letter, Rumsfeld also calls for America to go to war alone,
attacks the United Nations and says the US should not be 'crippled by a
misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council'.
Those who signed the letter, dated January 26, 1998, include Bush's current
Pentagon adviser, Richard Perle; Richard Armitage, the number two at the
State Department; John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, under-secretaries of
state; Elliott Abrams, the presidential adviser for the Middle East and a
member of the National Security Council; and Peter W Rodman, assistant
secretary of defense for international security affairs.
It reads: ' We urge you to
seize [the] opportunity and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure
the interests of the US and our friends and allies around the world.
'That strategy should aim,
above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.'
' We can no longer depend on
our partners in the Gulf war coalition to uphold the sanctions or to
punish Saddam when he blocks or evades the UN inspections.
'If Saddam does acquire the
capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain
to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American
troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the
moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of
oil, will all be put at hazard.'
Bush's current advisers spell
out their solution to the Iraqi problem: 'The only acceptable strategy is
one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or
threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means
a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly
failing. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
'We believe the US has the
authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps,
including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In
any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided
insistence on unanimity in the Security Council.'
The letter -- also signed by
Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's special envoy to the Iraqi opposition;
ex-director James Woolsey and Robert B Zoelick, the US trade
representative -- was written by the signatories on behalf of the Project
for the New American Century (PNAC), a right-wing think-tank, to which
they all belong.
Other founding members of PNAC
include Dick Cheney, the vice-president.
�2002 smg sunday newspapers
Ltd
