Who Is Paul Wolfowitz?

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1960s: Ahmed Chalabi Studies at University of Chicago; Meets Albert Wohlstetter
Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile, studies for his doctorate in math at the University of Chicago where he gets to know Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent cold-war strategist and a mentor for Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. After receiving his degree, Chalabi moves to Lebanon where he works as a math teacher at the American University of Beirut. His brother, Jawad, is also living in Beirut and runs Middle East Banking Corp. (Mebco). [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; Salon, 5/5/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004; Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004]

1976
President Gerald R. Ford signs a presidential directive giving the Iranian government the opportunity to purchase a US-built nuclear reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. Iran, with support from the US, wants to develop a massive nuclear energy industry that has complete “nuclear fuel cycle” capability so fissile materials can be supplied self-sustaining basis. US companies, chief among them Westinghouse, stands to make $6.4 billion from the sale of six to eight nuclear reactors and parts. The shah has argued that Iran needs a nuclear energy program in order to meet Iran’s growing energy demand. Iran is known to have massive oil and gas reserves, but the shah considers these finite reserves too valuable to be spent satisfying daily energy needs. In a 1975 strategy paper, the Ford administration supported this view saying that “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.” Top officials in the Ford administration—including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, who is responsible for nonproliferation issues at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency—are strong supporters of Iran’s ambitions. Kissinger will tell the Washington Post 30 years later that the Ford administration was not concerned about the possibility of Iran using the facilities to produce nuclear weapons. “I don’t think the issue of proliferation came up,” he says. But Charles Naas, deputy US ambassador to Iran at this time, will tell the Post that nuclear experts had serious concerns about potential proliferation. Naas will explain that the administration was attracted to the nuclear deal “terms of commerce” and interested in maintaining good relations with the shah. [Washington Post, 3/27/2005]

1979: Meeting Held in Turkey Discussing US-Turkey Alliance
Albert Wohlstetter arranges a meeting in Istanbul bringing together 13 Americans, 13 Turks, and 13 Europeans. Richard Perle is possibly present. The policies discussed at the meeting later become the basis of the Turgut Ozal administration’s pro-American policies in Turkey (see September 1980) (see December 1983). [American Enterprise Institute, 11/22/2003 Sources: Seyfullah Nejat Tashan] Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, is a mentor to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. [Think Tank, 11/14/2002] He sees Turkey as “a US staging post for Middle East contingencies and as a strategic ally of Israel.” [Evriviades, 1999]

March 8, 1992: Raw US World Dominance Plan Is Leaked to the Media
The Defense Planning Guidance, “a blueprint for the department’s spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” is leaked to the New York Times. [New York Times, 3/8/1992; Newsday, 3/16/2003] The document causes controversy, because it hadn’t yet been “scrubbed” to replace candid language with euphemisms. [New York Times, 3/10/1992; New York Times, 3/11/1992; Observer, 4/7/2002] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role, it “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992; New York Times, 3/8/1992] As the Observer summarizes it, “America’s friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington.” [Observer, 4/7/2002] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who hold relatively low posts at the time, but become deputy defense secretary and Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, respectively, under George W. Bush. [Newsday, 3/16/2003] The authors conspicuously avoid mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992] They call for “punishing” or “threatening punishment” against regional aggressors before they act. [Harper's, 10/2002] Interests to be defended preemptively include “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism.” The section describing US interests in the Middle East states that the “overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve US and Western access to the region’s oil…, deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect US nationals and property, and safeguard… access to international air and seaways.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R) later says, “It is my opinion that [George W. Bush’s] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report.” [Newsday, 3/16/2003] In response to the controversy, US releases an updated version of the document in May 1992, which stresses that the US will work with the United Nations and its allies. [Washington Post, 5/24/1992; Harper's, 10/2002]

1997: Ahmed Chalabi Says He Supports Normal Relations between Iraq and Israel
Ahmed Chalabi, speaking before an audience at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), insists that with just minimal support from the US, Saddam Hussein’s government could easily be toppled and replaced with a government friendly to Israel. Chalabi’s ideas reportedly catch the attention of neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. [Newsweek, 5/31/2003; New Yorker, 6/7/2004]

January 26, 1998: Neo-Conservative Think Tank Urges US Should Attack Iraq
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, publishes a letter to President Clinton 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 a foretaste of what eventually happens, the letter calls for the US 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.” The letter is signed by many who will later lead the 2003 Iraq war. 10 of the 18 signatories later join the Bush Administration, including (future) Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Undersecretaries of State John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, presidential adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams, and Bush’s special Iraq envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. [Project for the New American Century, 1/26/1998; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 3/16/2003] Clinton does heavily bomb Iraq in late 1998, but the bombing doesn’t last long and its long term effect is the break off of United Nations weapons inspections. [New York Times, 3/23/2003]

February 19, 1998
The Committee for Peace and Security publishes an open letter to President Bill Clinton outlining a 9-point “comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime.” The letter is signed by a litany of former US government officials known for their neoconservative viewpoints. Several of the signatories are also involved with the Project for the New American Century and had endorsed a similar letter published by that organization the previous month. [Abrams et al., 2/19/1998; CNN, 2/20/1998]

September 11, 1998: PNAC Calls on Clinton To Take ‘Decisive Action’ Against Milosevic
The Project for a New American Century publishes an open letter to President Clinton urging him put an end to diplomatic efforts attempting to resolve the situation in the Balkans. Instead, they argue, he should take “decisive action” against the Serbs. The US must “distance itself from Milosevic and actively support in every way possible his replacement by a democratic government committed to ending ethnic violence,” the group writes. [Century, 9/11/1998]

September 2000
The neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century writes a “blueprint” for the “creation of a ‘global Pax Americana’” (see also June 3, 1997). The document, titled, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the Bush team even before the 2000 Presidential election. It was written for future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and President Bush’s brother Jeb Bush, and future Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby. The report calls itself a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” The plan shows that the Bush team intended to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The report calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” (see also Spring 2001 and April 2001 (D)). [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000 pdf file; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] However, the report complains that these changes are likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/2003] In an NBC interview at about the same time, Vice Presidential candidate Cheney defends Bush Jr.‘s position of maintaining Clinton’s policy not to attack Iraq because the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [Washington Post, 1/12/2002] This report and the Project for the New American Century generally are mostly ignored until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).

End Part I