An Early Warning on the Prince of Darkness Jude Wanniski September 22, 2003

Memo To: Sen. Carl Levin [D MI]
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: The Perle Iraqi Hoax

I'm happy to see you taking the lead at the Armed Services Committee in grilling the man behind the war in Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, about his "rosy scenarios." The oil-paid-for "cakewalk" has now turned into a mega-billion "quagmire." You do have to remember that Wolfowitz thinks like a college professor, which is what he really is, and that no matter how costly the occupation of Iraq becomes he will find a way to justify the war, on any grounds. I see he is quoted in the NYTimes today saying there were three reasons for the war. 1)Saddam Hussein's drive to obtain weapons of mass destruction (which we know ended a dozen years ago). 2)Saddam Hussein's connections to Al Qaeda (which President Bush finally has admitted we do not know ever existed). 3) We had to end "Saddam's reign of terror," which Wolfie says was responsible for "perhaps a million Iraqi deaths." Oh?

"It was a human rights nightmare," he told a Greenwich Village audience Sunday, with Timesman Eric Schmitt adding that this was "a reason that was not a principal one the administration articulated before the war, but has become so since." At some point, Senator, you and your colleagues really owe it to the nation to find out where these million Iraqis are buried. I've been watching the papers for months for news about this proof of Saddam's genocide, and so far only read about cemeteries or rebels killed in the various civil wars.

On Meet the Press yesterday, please note Wolfie's press secretary at the Times, William Safire, taking the same line: "You saw Ted Kennedy taking the super-dove, isolationist line and saying essentially, 'You lied to us. We should never have been in this war. We were flummoxed and misled.' OK. That’s a position. If Ted Kennedy had been president, Saddam Hussein would be in office right now and tens of thousands of Iraqis would have been killed this year as they have been in previous years."

Of course Safire has it backwards. If Saddam remained in office this year, the only Iraqis that would been killed are those blown up by U.S. and British bombers, who had been using Iraqis as target practice for years. (They stepped up the pace last summer when they got advance word that war was coming, no matter what Saddam did or did not do.)

Instead, with Saddam not in office, the record indicates there may have been as many as 37,000 Iraqi civilians killed as collateral damage during the war and perhaps an equal number of uniformed Iraqis now dead at the hands of the coalition forces. We now see developing a cottage industry of American journalists writing stories of genocide and mass graves and torture chambers -- the same newsies who eagerly supported the neo-conservatives who cooked up the pre-emptive war, at Professor Wolfie's blackboard. In fact, this is simply a cover-up, because deep down they know they were snookered by the neo-cons and FoxNews and can't face the ugly truth. Every country in the Middle East uses torture, by the way. Pre-emptive confessions.

Do you remember, Senator, Al Capp's "L'il Abner's favorite cartoon strip was "Fearless Fosdick," a detective whose mission in life was to prevent innocent citizens from eating from a can reportedly containing poisoned beans? Every time Fosdick spotted hapless citizens about to take a spoonful from a can of beans, he would pull out his revolver and blow a hole in their heads! The bullet would go through cleanly, with never a spot of blood. This is Fearless Wolfowitz, saving people from a fate worse than death by killing them!

Even more so, it is Fearless Perle, the Prince of Darkness, the Evil Genius who coaxed his sidekick Wolfie into designing a war with a rosy scenario. Take my word for it, Senator. I know these guys. Only a week after 9-11, I wrote an early warning of what they were up to, right in this space. If you click on this link, you will find the "Prince of Darkness" memo that I maintain in my archives. Ted Kennedy of course was exactly right. The war was a hoax, but it is not polite to say so. Just keep digging and you will find it gets worse and worse. It is a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and as ranking Democrat on Senate Armed Services, you are just the fellow to do it.