Reply #6: Zell and Feith! Deja Vu - Such lovely PNAC people

[Tinoire]

Before becoming NATO Commander, Clark was the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy within the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From this vantage point, Clark was well aware of and likely supported the arming of the Bosnian government by accepting contributions from various deep-pocketed Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Brunei, Jordan, and Egypt. Via something called the Bosnia Defense Fund, these countries deposited millions of dollars into U.S. coffers to buy weapons for the Bosnians and train them in their use through the use of private military contractors like Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI). And when some of the weapons and cash for the Bosnians became "unaccounted for," where did some of the guns and cash wind up? In the hands of Al Qaeda and Iranian Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) units in Bosnia.

More interestingly is how General Clark's Bosnia strategy ultimately goes full circle. According to Washington K Street sources, the law firm that established the Bosnia Defense Fund was none other than Feith and Zell, the firm of current Pentagon official and leading neo-con Douglas Feith. Feith's operation at Feith and Zell was assisted by his one-time boss and current member of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle. Both Feith and Perle advised the Bosnian delegation during the 1995 Dayton Peace talks. The chief U.S. military negotiator in Dayton was Wesley Clark.


http://thomasmc.com/0919b.htm (Excerpt)

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Feith-Based Initiative

By Al Kamen

Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page A17


With a great chunk of President Bush's proposed $87 billion scheduled to flow to Iraqi reconstruction "big time," as they say, we've come across a most timely announcement from the highly regarded international corporate and commercial law firm of Zell, Goldberg & Co.

The firm "has recently established a task force dealing with issues and opportunities relating to the recently ended war with Iraq," its Web site announced. With offices in Israel and Washington, the firm says it "is assisting regional construction and logistics firms to collaborate with contractors from the United States and other coalition countries in implementing infrastructure and other reconstruction projects in Iraq. Through its Washington, D.C., office, ZGC is also assisting American companies in their relations with the United States government in connection with Iraqi reconstruction projects as prime contractors and consultants."

Interested parties can reach the law firm through its Web site, at www.fandz.com. Fandz.com? Hmmm. Rings a bell. Oh, yes, that was the Web site of the Washington law firm of Feith & Zell, P.C., as in Douglas J. Feith, former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration and now undersecretary of defense for policy and head of -- what else? -- reconstruction matters in Iraq.

It would be impossible indeed to overestimate how perfect ZGC would be in "assisting American companies in their relations with the United States government in connection with Iraqi reconstruction projects."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51378-2003Sep9?language=printer
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Open Letter to the President

19 February 1998

Dear Mr. President,

Many of us were involved in organizing the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf in 1990 to support President Bush's policy of expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Seven years later, Saddam Hussein is still in power in Baghdad. And despite his defeat in the Gulf War, continuing sanctions, and the determined effort of UN inspectors to fetter out and destroy his weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein has been able to develop biological and chemical munitions. To underscore the threat posed by these deadly devices, the Secretaries of State and Defense have said that these weapons could be used against our own people. And you have said that this issue is about "the challenges of the 21st Century."

Iraq's position is unacceptable. While Iraq is not unique in possessing these weapons, it is the only country which has used them -- not just against its enemies, but its own people as well. We must assume that Saddam is prepared to use them again. This poses a danger to our friends, our allies, and to our nation.

What is needed now is a comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime. It will not be easy -- and the course of action we favor is not without its problems and perils. But we believe the vital national interests of our country require the United States to:

Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq.


<snip>

We are confident that were you to launch an initiative along these line, the Congress and the country would see it as a timely and justifiable response to Iraq's continued intransigence. We urge you to provide the leadership necessary to save ourselves and the world from the scourge of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction that he refuses to relinquish.

Sincerely,


Hon. Stephen Solarz
Former Member, Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. House of Representatives

Hon. Richard Perle
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense

Hon. Elliot Abrams
President, Ethics & Public Policy Center; Former Assistant Secretary of State

Richard V. Allen
Former National Security Advisor

Hon. Richard Armitage
President, Armitage Associates, L.C.; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense

Jeffrey T. Bergner
President, Bergner, Bockorny, Clough & Brain; Former Staff Director, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Hon. John Bolton
Senior Vice President, American Enterprise Institute; Former Assistant Secretary of State

Stephen Bryen
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

Hon. Richard Burt
Chairman, IEP Advisors, Inc.; Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany; Former Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

Hon. Frank Carlucci
Former Secretary of Defense

Hon. Judge William Clark
Former National Security Advisor

Paula J. Dobriansky
Vice President, Director of Washington Office, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Member, National Security Council

Doug Feith
Managing Attorney, Feith & Zell P.C.; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy

Frank Gaffney
Director, Center for Security Policy; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces

Jeffrey Gedmin
Executive Director, New Atlantic Initiative; Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Hon. Fred C. Ikle
Former Undersecretary of Defense

Robert Kagan
Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Zalmay M. Khalilzad
Director, Strategy and Doctrine, RAND Corporation

Sven F. Kraemer
Former Director of Arms Control, National Security Council

William Kristol
Editor, The Weekly Standard

Michael Ledeen
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State

Bernard Lewis
Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Ottoman Studies, Princeton University

R. Admiral Frederick L. Lewis
U.S. Navy, Retired

Maj. Gen. Jarvis Lynch
U.S. Marine Corps, Retired

Hon. Robert C. McFarlane
Former National Security Advisor

Joshua Muravchik
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

Robert A. Pastor
Former Special Assistant to President Carter for Inter-American Affairs

Martin Peretz
Editor-in-Chief, The New Republic

Roger Robinson
Former Senior Director of International Economic Affairs, National Security Council

Peter Rodman
Director of National Security Programs, Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom; Former Director, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. Department of State

Hon. Peter Rosenblatt
Former Ambassador to the Trust Territories of the Pacific

Hon. Donald Rumsfeld
Former Secretary of Defense

Gary Schmitt
Executive Director, Project for the New American Century; Former Executive Director, President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

Max Singer
President, The Potomac Organization; Former President, The Hudson Institute

Hon. Helmut Sonnenfeldt
Guest Scholar, The Brookings Institution; Former Counsellor, U.S. Department of State

Hon. Caspar Weinberger
Former Secretary of Defense

Leon Wienseltier
Literary Editor, The New Republic

Hon. Paul Wolfowitz
Dean, Johns Hopkins SAIS; Former Undersecretary of Defense

David Wurmser
Director, Middle East Program, AEI; Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Dov S. Zakheim
Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense