Neo-Con Iraq Regime Change Plans from January 26, 1998

In a letter to President William Jefferson Clinton dated 1/26/1998, the neo-con leadership pleaded for a pre-emptive war to remove Saddam from power. Following is a brief excerpt (a link to the full text of the letter is provided in the title of this blog):

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. 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. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. 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 UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

Sincerely,

Elliott Abrams - Richard L. Armitage - William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner - John Bolton - Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama - Robert Kagan - Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristol - Richard Perle - Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld - William Schneider, Jr. - Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz - R. James Woolsey - Robert B. Zoellick


Clinton was a bit distracted at the time. In an odd coincidence he declared to the media on the same date, "I want you to listen to me. I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. I never told a single person to lie, not a single time, never."

A couple years after President Clinton declined to "wag the dog" by entering into a pre-emptive campaign to invade Iraq, these neo-cons found their man in George W. Bush. The rest is an evolving history that is increasingly costing America lives, treasure, and good will around the world. When will America wake up from this self-inflicted nightmare?

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