Full Release - IRmep

·Israel's Albatross: U.S. }lJeocons
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and Deputy Defen~e ~ecretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, the two strongest promoters inside the administration
..,.. ofpreemptively invading Iraq. He also was part ofthe unit that funneled intelligence chum up the food
chain and into Bush's now..discredited speeches claiming Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent
danger.
These are the folks who bought the disinfonnation pumped out by Iraqi exile.Ahmad Chalabi, whom
they promoted as the George Washington ofthe new Iraq state. Now the neocons distance themselves
from Chalabi, who'has been accused ofspying for Iran and harangues radical Iraqi Shiite crowds with
anti-American rhetoric. That can't be good fOf Israel, which is threatened by Iran's n~clear program.
The neocons are unstable ideologues, more in love with their own radical dream ofbreaking the world to
remake it in their image than they are with protecting Israel or the U.S. Such unbounded arrogance,
embraced by Bush, has greatly amplified the voices ofthose persistent anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists
in the Muslim world and beyond who are now seizing upon the latest Israeli spy rumors. .
tilt revives the old charge that Israel is not an ally but a treacherous country," Nathan Guttman wrote
Monday in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
That charge is false. What is troe is thatnot every Bush administration hawk who claims to support Israel
is actually a'reliable friend.
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