The PNAC shop is closing
http://www.newamericancentury.org/While the situation in Iraq is getting completely out of control, groups and individuals who encouraged America to attack Iraq, declare war on it and occupy it are trying to disappear and make themselves forgotten.
According to news, one of the most important of these groups, the PNAC (Project for the New American Century), has decided to close its office on Washington’s 17th Avenue. Very active with many people coming and going until recently, this office today has only one employee working to complete wind-up operations. The PNAC’s website has turned into a ghost site; only voice mail remains as an e-mail service.
The PNAC was one of the most prominent and powerful of the new conservative (neocons) movement’s institutions. The first target they announced was to make the values and policies of “real conservatism” dominant in the Republican Party and America in general. The aspect applied to American foreign policy was based on establishing democratic values in the Middle East and on redesigning this region in this way, and in respect to this, Iraq became the first target. As a matter of fact, in a letter the PNAC wrote to President Clinton in 1998, they showed Iraq as a target to the President. In one place in the letter, which is in front of me as I write this article, it is stated as follows:
“…When we look at the greatness of the threat, the success of today’s policy, which is tied to the determination of our coalition partners and cooperation with Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that will remove the possibility of Iraq’s being able to use its weapons of mass destruction or threatening to use them. Due to the failure of diplomacy, this means resorting to a military operation over the short-run and overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his regime over the long-run. It is necessary for this to be the aim of American foreign policy. We want you to think about this and to give your administration’s attention to the strategy of removing Saddam Hussein from power. It is necessary to coordinate diplomatic, political and military efforts in unison. We are fully aware of the difficulties and dangers of applying these policies, but we believe that the dangers of not applying it are even greater.”
These signatures are on this letter that included the policy which President Clinton did not accept, but which President George Bush adopted and put into action via war:
Elliot Abrams, Richard L.Armitage, William Bennet, Jeffrey Bergner, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robet Kagan, Zalmay Halilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W.Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider Jr., Vin Veber, Paul D.Wolfowitz, R.James Woolsey and Robert B.Zoellick.
Many of these names are well-known. Some of these people left the stage at their own desire or were forced to do so. Rumsfeld, who resigned last month from the defense ministry, Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, and Bolton, who had to leave his post as American Representative to the UN, all were forced to leave. Afghani Zalmay Halilzad, Zoellick and Abrams are still on the stage. As for Wolfowitz, he is playing on a different stage as director of the World Bank.
While some of these individuals who encouraged the Iraq war do not hesitate to blame President Bush who made the decision for war, they do not appear and talk in public so as to be forgotten more easily. A few of them have found themselves another place or another shop and they are trying to sing and sell the same song in a different style. This “shop” is a think tank known as the AEI.
As I said at the beginning, because the PNAC’s work is finished, it is closing shop and trying to become invisible...
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=columnists&alt=&trh=20061229&hn=39573
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