Cruz's Military Industrial Complex

Cruz's anti-establishment message belies his embeddedness in the military industrial complex - take a look at his most senior foreign policy and nationa security advisors:

 

Ted Cruz's Foreign Policy Advisors

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Chad Sweet
Victoria Coates
James Woolsey
Elliot Abrams
John Bolton

Chad Sweet - Chairman

Bio

With a diverse background, starting as Director of the CIA, Chad Sweet went into the world of big banks - from Investment Banker at Morgan Stanley to VP with Goldman Sachs. He would then work for the Department of Homeland Security in the Bush Administration. Currently he is the Co-Founder of Chertoff Group.

NSA - Phone Records

After Edward Snowden leaked details about the NSA, Steel came to the defense of the agency, defending the NSA practice. The Chertoff Group, which he co-founded with a former DHS official, advocates for expanding NSA metadata collection while operating a private collection database mirroring NSA practices.

TSA - Body Scanners

In 2010, Sweet was exposed for calling for body scanners in airports while neglecting to reveal that that he stood to profit from the sale of back scatter scanners. The manufacturer of the scanners was Rapiscan, a client of The Chertoff Group.

"If You think about a haystack, in order for you to search a haystack, you have to have hay"

Chad Steele, Defending NSA Bulk Data Collection

Victoria Coates - National Security Advisor

Bio

Having served as director of research for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and as an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Coates has a track record of supporting a neoconservative foreign policy. In 2012, she was an advisor to Rick Perry’s, whose campaign was in support of sending troops back into Iraq.

Neoconservatism

Coates has a notable history of supporting neoconservative foreign policy. She has been noted for her support of using American military power to spread democracy as well as her support of intervention in Syria. She has also called in the past for a no fly zone over Libya in 2011, and comparing Gadahfi to Saddam Hussein. She is on record as having supported the Iraq War.

Reading List

Coates has endorsed a pair of very controversial books which have what some would describe as an inhumane view of foreign policy. The Daily Beast reported she requires her interns to read “Dictatorships and Double Standards”, a book which argued that supporting anti communist dictators amounted to support for human rights. She also recommended the book “The World America Made”, an essay which argues that American military power had been essential to the proliferation of democracy in the 20th century.

James Woolsey - Foreign Policy Advisor

Bio

Woolsey was a national security specialist and former Director of the CIA under the Clinton administration. He heads up many Neoconservative groups including being the Chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Founding Member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Edward Snowden

While being interviewed by Fox News, Woolsey called for the hanging of Edward Snowden after the contractor leaked information about the NSA collection of bulk metadata.

Iraq

Woolsey was famous for quickly tying Iraq to the September 11th attacks, hours after the planes hit. He would then later try and tie Iraq to other bombings, including the first World Trade Center Bombing. In 2005 he was called out by a senior fellow for profiting off wars he advocated for due to his many national security firms, investment funds, and other national security related activities.

"I think giving him amnesty is idiotic, He should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted by a jury of his peers, he should be hanged by his neck until he is dead"

James Woolsey, On Edward Snowden

Elliot Abrams - Foreign Policy Advisor

Bio

Abrams served in the George W Bush administration as a deputy national security adviser for Global Democratic Strategy. He accompanied Condoleezza Rice as an adviser on her visits to the Middle East in July 2006 during discussions regarding the Israel-Lebanon conflict.

Iran-Contra

Elliot Abrams is most notable for his involvement in the Iran Contra scandal, where he was convicted of withholding information from congress as part of a plea deal to avoid more serious charges. He was than pardoned by George HW Bush, but subsequently publicly censured for giving false testimony on three occasions before congressional committees by the DC Court of Appeals.

Think Tanks

Abrams has served on a number of neoconservative think tanks, including the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Center for Security Policy, Hudson Institute, National Endowment for Democracy and several others. He has written several articles for the CFR, including this celebration of the neoconservative tone of every candidate in the first Republican debate.

"If we only strike one side, we are just defining Syria as a safe haven"

Elliot Abrams, On bombing Syria as well as Iraq

John Bolton - Foreign Policy Advisor

Bio

Bolton has served several Republican administrations and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton is Senior fellow at Neoconservative groups like American Enterprise Institute and Senior advisor to Freedom Capital Investment Management. He also serves as Chairman of Gatestone Institute.

Spinning Intelligence

On many occasions John Bolton has been accused of spinning intelligence to support his views, going as far keeping information from Secretary of State Colin Powell many times, and Condoleezza Rice at least once. In 2003, Congressman Henry Waxman alleged that Bolton was the one who had convinced George W. Bush to include a statement about Iraq obtaining Yellowcake from Niger in his State of the Union Address, The source for which was later found to be forged.

Attacking Liberty

In an interview with Fox News, Bolton would attack Congressman Ron Paul stating that Paul's foreign policy is worse than Obama. Later in 2015, a foundation Bolton is the Chairman of, Foundation for American Security and Freedom, spent a million dollars in ads against Senator Rand Paul in which a family was abruptly blown up by nuclear bomb. A fear inducing campaign ad run in all early voting primary states.

"I would of done this five or six years ago, because the earlier you strike the more damage you can do"

- John Bolton, On bombing Iran

Sources:

Sweet - How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA

Sweet - US Safer 12 years after 9/11, but threat has evolved

Sweet - Ted Cruz's Campaign Chairman Profited from TSA

Coates - A Box is in the Eye of the Beholder

Coates - It's a Wonderful Country

Coates - A Risk of Contagion: The Growing Threat of Syria's WMD

Woolsey - Snowden should be "hanged"

Woolsey - Woolsly needs to choose between Pundit or Profiteer

Abrams - Pressure Points Blog

Bolton - No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program

Bolton - John Bolton's Foundation goes Nuclear on Rand Paul

Bolton - Foundation for American Security and Freedom

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Blair and Bush went to war in Iraq despite South Africa's WMD assurances, book states

Blair and Bush went to war in Iraq despite South Africa's WMD assurances, book states

• New book God, Spies and Lies details Mbeki’s attempts to stop invasion
• SA experts worked with Saddam in 1980s; Mandela also tried to warn Bush

David Smith

Monday 30 November 2015 08.00 GMT Last modified on Tuesday 1 December 2015

Tony Blair went to war in Iraq despite a report by South African experts with unique knowledge of the country that showed it did not possess weapons of mass destruction, according to a book published on Sunday.

God, Spies and Lies, by South African journalist John Matisonn, describes how then president Thabo Mbeki tried in vain to convince both Blair and President George W Bush that toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003 would be a terrible mistake.

Mbeki’s predecessor, Nelson Mandela, also tried to convince the American leader, but was left fuming that “President Bush doesn’t know how to think”.

The claim was this week supported by Mbeki’s office, which confirmed that he pleaded with both leaders to heed the WMD experts and even offered to become their intermediary with Saddam in a bid to maintain peace.

South Africa had a special insight into Iraq’s potential for WMD because the apartheid government’s own biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programme in the 1980s led the countries to collaborate. The programme was abandoned after the end of white minority rule in 1994 but the expert team, known as Project Coast, was put back together by Mbeki to investigate the US and UK assertion that Saddam had WMD – the central premise for mounting an invasion.

Mbeki, who enjoyed positive relations with both Blair and Saddam, asked for the team to be granted access.

“Saddam agreed, and gave the South African team the freedom to roam unfettered throughout Iraq,” writes Matisonn, who says he drew on sources in Whitehall and the South African cabinet. “They had access to UN intelligence on possible WMD sites. The US, UK and UN were kept informed of the mission and its progress.”

The experts put their prior knowledge of the facilities to good use, Matisonn writes. “They already knew the terrain, because they had travelled there as welcome guests of Saddam when both countries were building WMD.”

On their return, they reported that there were no WMDs in Iraq. “They knew where the sites in Iraq had been, and what they needed to look like. But there were now none in Iraq.”

In January 2003, Mbeki, who succeeded Mandela as president, sent a team to Washington to explain the findings, but with little success. Mbeki himself then met Blair for three hours at Chequers on 1 February, the book relates.

He warned that the wholesale removal of Saddam’s Ba’ath party could lead to a national resistance to the occupying coalition forces. But with huge military deployments already under way, Blair’s mind was clearly made up. When Frank Chikane, director-general in the president’s office, realised that the South Africans would be ignored, it was “one of the greatest shocks of my life”, he later wrote in a memoir.

Matisonn adds: “Mandela, now retired, had tried as well. On Iraq, if not other issues, Mandela and Mbeki were on the same page. Mandela phoned the White House and asked for Bush. Bush fobbed him off to [Condoleezza] Rice. Undeterred, Mandela called former President Bush Sr, and Bush Sr called his son the president to advise him to take Mandela’s call. Mandela had no impact. He was so incensed he gave an uncomfortable comment to the cameras: ‘President Bush doesn’t know how to think,’ he said with visible anger.”

Nelson Mandela was left fuming after being rebuffed by President George W Bush. Photograph: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

On 19 March, airstrikes on Baghdad began, triggering a conflict that has dragged on for more than a decade, killing hundreds of thousands of people and contributing to the rise of Islamic State.

Mbeki’s spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, confirmed that Mbeki met Blair at Chequers to advise against the war and the UK’s involvement in it. Blair disagreed, Ratshitanga said, insisting that he would side with Bush.

“President Mbeki informed the prime minister that the South African government was about to send its own experts to assist and encourage the Iraqis to extend full cooperation to the UN weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix,” Ratshitanga said. “He urged the prime minister to await the report of the SA experts before making any final commitment about going to war against Iraq.

“The prime minister responded to this information and suggestion by telling President Mbeki that the SA experts should operate knowing that relative to the decision-making process about the then impending war, ‘it is two minutes to midnight’.”

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Mbeki also had a phone conversation with Bush in 2003 and tried to discourage him from going to war, the spokesman said. “President Bush said he would rather not go to war but needed a clear and convincing signal that the Iraqis did not have WMDs to enable him to avoid the invasion of Iraq.

“President Mbeki informed him about the report of the SA experts which by then had already been sent to the UN secretary general, Dr Hans Blix and the UN security council. He informed President Bush that the report of the SA experts said Iraq had no WMDs. President Bush said he did not know about the report but would obtain a copy from the US ambassador at the UN, New York.”

It is not known whether Bush did obtain a copy of the report.

Mbeki later contacted Blair to ask him to find out from the US president what would constitute a “convincing signal” from Saddam, promising that he would contact Saddam to persuade him to send such a signal, according to Ratshitanga. “President Mbeki understood from his sources and was convinced that Prime Minister Blair received his message as reported above, but did not convey it to President Bush.”

Blair’s office did not deny the meeting with Mbeki or the specifics of what was said. A spokesperson said: “All such information, including that based on limited and controlled access, would have been scrutinised and assessed by our intelligence agencies. Other intelligence agencies agreed that Saddam had weapons, the disagreement in the international community was what to do about it.

“We did not brush anything aside but of course had to act on the information of our own and other agencies. However, as we now know the outcome was that although he had used chemical weapons extensively against his own people and others, the programme did not exist in the way that was thought.”

In an interview last month, ahead of the release of the Chilcot inquiry, the former prime minister apologised for the intelligence he received being wrong, and for mistakes in planning, but said he found it hard to apologise for removing Saddam.