Bush Adviser: Iraq War launched to protect Israel

”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.

”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” said Zelikow.

WASHINGTON, Mar 29 (IPS) - IPS uncovered the remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 -- the 9/11 commission -- in which he suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Zelikow's casting of the attack on Iraq as one launched to protect Israel appears at odds with the public position of President George W. Bush and his administration, which has never overtly drawn the link between its war on the regime of former president Hussein and its concern for Israel's security.

The administration has instead insisted it launched the war to liberate the Iraqi people, destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to protect the United States.

Zelikow made his statements about ”the unstated threat” during his tenure on a highly knowledgeable and well-connected body known as the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president.

IPS News

Philip D. Zelikow is best known as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission. Where he helped hide the Bush Administrations role in either helping the attackers or knowing the attack was forthcoming and did nothing to prevent the attack, thereby enabling the Bush White House to declare war on civil liberties at home and overseas, to make war on states Israel thought to be a threat to its Zionist State and Palestinian Genocide policies.

Zelikow also helped sabotage the appearance at the 9/11 Commission by the brave patriot Sibel Edmonds , who said in an August 2004 letter to one of the leaders of the commission, Tom Keane, the following: "I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of. Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations....After the terrorist attacks of September 11 we, the translators at the FBI’s largest and most important translation unit, were told to slow down, even stop, translation of critical information related to terrorist activities so that the FBI could present the United States Congress with a record of ‘extensive backlog of untranslated documents’, and justify its request for budget and staff increases. While FBI agents from various field offices were desperately seeking leads and suspects, and completely depending on FBI HQ and its language units to provide them with needed translated information, hundreds of translators were being told by their administrative supervisors not to translate and to let the work pile up (please refer to the CBS-60 Minutes transcript dated October 2002, and provided to your investigators in January-February 2004)."

What did Philip Zelikow know about the 9/11 attacks and when did he know it? And why did he deliberately fight off testimony to the 9/11 Commission that could have helped shed light on the attacks?

There's a straight line from Zelikow's early days in the first Bush administration, where he joined Bush the Elder's National Security, along with a certain Condi Rice, to his present position in Bush the Younger's administration as Counselor of the United States Department of State, where her serves at the will to the now Secretary of State, Condi Rice.

Where does this line wind up? And why won't any of the major news organizations take Sibel Edmonds up on her offer to " ... tell EVERYTHING she hasn't been allowed to tell since 2002, about the criminal penetration of the FBI where she worked, and at the Departments of State and Defense; everything she heard concerning the corruption and illegal activities of several well-known members of Congress; everything she's aware of concerning information omitted and/or covered up in relation to 9/11. All of the information gleaned from her time listening to and translating wire-taps made prior to 9/11 at the FBI.

"Here's my promise to the American Public: If anyone of the major networks --- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX --- promise to air the entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything that I know," about everything mentioned above, she told us.

Will WE the People ever get to hear the facts about 9/11, as promised by Sibel Edmonds, or will power brokers like Philip Zelikow continue to muddy the waters and throw the posse off their scent?