Shadow Elite by Janine R. Wedel

Author:Janine R. Wedel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780465020843
Publisher: Basic Books

Pursuing Personalized Policy

By the time George W. Bush entered office in January 2001 and the Neocon players maneuvered themselves into roles of influence, both within and outside of formal positions in the administration, they had spent the better part of a decade advocating the overthrow of Hussein. Wolfowitz and others had long maintained that the elder Bush had made a grave mistake by not unseating the dictator during the first Gulf War in 1991. Brick by brick members of the Neocon core put together the building blocks that would attempt to correct that mistake and reorder the Middle East according to their own vision. They spawned a proliferation of initiatives and organizations underpinned by collections of roughly the same set of players.

In 1996, during the Clinton years, Perle chaired a study group that issued a report aimed at balancing power in the Middle East in Israel’s favor. Neocon core member David Wurmser, husband of Meyrav Wurmser, directed the effort from a Jerusalem-based think tank, with the involvement of his wife, Feith, and others.69 The report, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, called for “removing Saddam Hussein from power,” among other prescriptions to rearrange the region. Intended to influence the policies of the new Likud-led government, Perle delivered the report personally to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.70

Before long, Perle and other members of the Neocon core were pressing the Clinton administration to pursue the same objectives. In 1998, in an effort known as the Project for the New American Century, core members Perle, Wolfowitz, Woolsey, and Elliott Abrams (who would serve Bush II as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy, and additionally as Middle East adviser), as well as core ally John Bolton (who would serve as undersecretary of state for arms control), were among the signatories of a letter to President Clinton calling for the removal of Hussein. Clinton sought regime change in Iraq, mostly through sanctions imposed by the United Nations. But the neoconservatives considered sanctions ineffective. Signatories of these two documents would later overhaul this approach from their posts in the Bush II administration.71

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