The Electronic Intifada 1 March 2005
Former CIA director James Woolsey. (Photo: Henry Leutwyler)
Most U.S. anti-war activists opposed the Bush Administration’s 2003 military invasion and occupation of Iraq because it was an immoral violation of the Nuremberg Accords and international law.
Justifications from the pro-war side emphasised the supposed threat posed by Saddam Hussein. In an interview with Paula Kaufman that appeared on Insight magazine’s website on May 13, 2002, former CIA Director James Woolsey, a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of Advisors, said the following:
“I would hope that by this autumn we would have rid the region of Saddam…So sometime in early fall would be reasonable. First, we need to build our stockpile of smart weapons and prepare logistically to put 100,000 to 200,000 troops on the ground…
“Saddam’s top nuclear scientist, Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza, who in 1994 defected to the U.S., has claimed that nuclear weapons equipment and facilities exist all over Iraq, many buried under schools, mosques and the like…
“…Saddam may have obtained radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium…
“…I am inclined to believe defectors’ claims that Saddam’s biological weapons laboratories are mobile and carried on trucks and, hence, difficult to detect…
“…The CIA has a close relationship with Israeli intelligence dating back to the inception of the state of Israel…
“…The U.S. must rid the Mideast of its tyrants…”
Coincidentally, in January 2004, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of Advisors Member Woolsey’s wife, Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Trustee Suzanne Woolsey, became a director of Fluor Corporation, which has $1.6 billion in Iraq-related reconstruction contracts.
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board member Woolsey, himself, is also a vice-president of the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting company which was given a $75 million sub-contract for a telecommunication reconstruction project in Iraq, according to an August 15, 2004 Los Angeles Times article. (The same article also noted that the U.S. universities-linked Institute for Defense Analyses weapons research think-tank, on whose board Woolsey’s wife sits, ”provided senior Pentagon officials with assessments of the operation” during “the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.”)
Most people in the U.S. now realize that Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board member Woolsey’s pre-war talk about the Iraqi government’s alleged hidden “nuclear weapons equipment” and “biological weapons laboratories” was inaccurate. Yet the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs role as a pro-war pressure group with an annual budget of $2.5 million, is rarely mentioned by the U.S. media.
According to the 1984 book The Armageddon Network by Michale Saba, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs became fully operational in December 1979 when former U.S. Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen was named as its first executive director. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs’ founders included pro-war U.S. political operatives like Max Kampelman and pro-Israeli government lobbyists like Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC.
Homepage of JINSA’s website
According to its website at www.jinsa.org, the mission of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs is to address “the security requirements of both the United States and the State of Israel” and strengthen “the strategic cooperation relationship between” the U.S. government and the Israeli government. Its annual program includes “a study program in Israel for cadets and midshipmen from the Naval Academy, the Military Academy at West Point, and the Air Force Academy” and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs also “arranges interchanges between Pentagon officials and Jewish community leadership.”
Since 1982, at least twelve trips to Israel have been sponsored by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs for retired Pentagon admirals and generals who are connected to the American security establishment. More than 135 retired Pentagon admirals and generals have gone on these trips to Israel to meet with the Israeli MInister of Defense, the Israeli Chief of Staff and Israeli weapons manufacturers. And, according to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs website, “upon their return” from their Israeli Ministry of Defense-hosted trips to Israel/Palestine, the retired U.S. military “officers take a number of active steps to translate their newfound understanding into concrete cooperation and assistance” to the Israeli war machine.
The pro-war Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs pressure group has 17,000 members nationwide and is ”governed by a board of directors comprised of key figures in the national security community and leadership throughout the country,” according to its website. In addition to being a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board and a vice-president of Booz-Allen Hamilton, for instance, former CIA Director Woolsey is also a former board member of British Aerospace and Martin Marietta, chairman of the board of Freedom House, a Center for Strategic & International Studies trustee and a principal in the Paladin Capital Group’s Homeland Security Fund. The Paladin Capital Group’s Homeland Security Fund is a $235 million fund which profits from its investments in the U.S. “homeland security” growth industry.
The chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of Advisors, American Securities, LP Managing Director David Steinmann, is also a member of the American-Israel Friendship League board of directors, the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College Advisory Board, the Golan Fund board, the Center for Security Policy board and the Executive Board of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), the pro-Israel pressure group which works to increase censorship of pro-Palestinian perspectives in U.S. mainstream media reporting about the Middle East.
With assets of $2,769,154 and annual revenues of $2,072,620 in 2002, the Zionist movement’s CAMERA “media watchdog” group apparently has more funds at its disposal than most U.S. anti-war movement media activist groups. According to its website at www.camera.org, CAMERA will be holding a conference with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey in Cherry Hill, NJ on March 20, 2005, entitled “Israel and the Media: A Global Challenge,” at which members of the media such as Fox News Consultant Claudia Rossett will speak.
Other members of the Jewish Institute for National Security Board of Advisors include the following pro-war figures:
1. Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell who, according to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs website, “serves as Ohio’s chief elections officer.” Coincidentally, some U.S. anti-war activists have claimed in recent months that the official presidential election results in Ohio in 2004 which insured Bush’s re-election were obtained by violating the democratic rights of anti-Bush voters in Ohio.
2. Former Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Executive Director and former U.S. Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen, who presently is the President of Finmeccanica Inc., a global aerospace and defense company based in Italy.
3. Lt. General Anthony Bushick USAF (retired)
4. Republican Congressional Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia. In recent years Rep. Cantor has been a member of the House International Relations Committee, a chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and a Chief Deputy Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives.
5. Lt. General Paul Cerjan (retired), a former president of the National Defense University.
6. Admiral Carlisle Trost (retired).
7. General Louis Wagner (retired).
8. Former World Zionist Organization Executive Member Jacques Torczyner.
9. Democratic Congressional Representative from New York Steve Israel. Rep. Israel is the only New York Democratic who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
10. The Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Michael Berkow.
11. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick; and
12. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board member Perle “came under fire in 1983 when newspapers reported he received substantial payments to represent the interests of an Israeli weapons company,” according to the book They Dare To Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby by Paul Findley. In 1996, Perle also co-authored a paper for Israel’s Likud government leaders, entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” which apparently encouraged it to disregard the Oslo agreement of the early 1990s.
The Washington, D.C. office of the pro-war Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs pro-Israel pressure group is located in Suite 515 at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, according to its website.
Bob Feldman is an anti-war Movement writer and activist who contributed “Inspecting Nuclear Israel” to Counterpunch magazine and is an occasional contributor to EI.
