A Pretext for War (with Iraq)

Hosted byArt Bell

A Pretext for War (with Iraq)

Highlights

  • Bush & The War in Iraq
  • 911 & U.S. Suicide Pilots
  • About the show

    Investigative journalist and author James Bamford shared his research into the National Security Agency (NSA) and our reasons for going to war with Iraq. Bamford said he had been threatened with prosecution by the NSA for not relinquishing a previously declassified document released to him under the Freedom of Information Act. The purported document is a summary of the Justice Department's criminal investigation of illegal spying/eavesdropping performed by the NSA during the 1960s and early 1970s. According to Bamford, the Justice Department did not prosecute the NSA because it would have revealed too many national security secrets.

    Regarding the War in Iraq, Bamford alleges the "Bush administration came into office with a predetermined attitude to attack Iraq." He said President George W. Bush had personal reasons (threats against his family) for wanting to take down Saddam Hussien, but instead used the 911 terrorist attacks and weapons of mass destruction as a "pretext for war."

    Bamford said "our foreign policy is driving the terrorists" to act out against us (in Iraq and around the world), and then suggested that terrorism poses no real danger to America. According to his statistics, the average number of Americans killed each year by terrorists prior to 911 was only nine; globally, around 600 casualties are credited to terrorist activity.