(This letter spurred Clinton to adopt "regime change" rather than "containment" as the official American policy stance toward Saddam's Iraq. Although Saddam had always been truculent with regard to the weapons inspectors, Clinton's policy change set off a chain reaction that by the end of that year witnessed Saddam kick out the inspectors altogether -- under the pretense that they were not simply "monitoring" weapons systems, but "spying" on behalf of people whose official policy was to bring him down.)
The signatories of this letter form a roll-call of the neocon A-team. Of the 18 signatories, half have received senior appointments in the Bush regime, becoming its leading hawks:
- Donald Rumsfeld: Secretary of Defense
- Paul Wolfowitz: Deputy Secretary of Defense
- Peter Rodman: Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs (Defense)
- Dick Armitage: Deputy Secretary of State (recently resigned)
- John Bolton: Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
- Paula Dobriansky: Under Secretary, Global Affairs (State)
- Elliott Abrams: National Security Council, Mideast specialist (and, btw, a confessed Iran-Contra criminal)
- Zalmay Khalilzad: U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 2003-
- Bob Zoellick: United States Trade Representative
The other signatories of the letter included former C.I.A. Director R. James Woolsey, Bill "Loose Change" Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, Vin Weber, Robert "Martian" Kagan, Bill Kristol, William Schneider, Jr., Richard "Prince of Darkness" Perle -- and of course Fukuyama.
So far, Fukuyama is the only member of this cabal who has been intellectually honest enough to admit publicly the disastrous nature nature of what we have accomplished in Iraq. The only other one who's even come close is Kristol, though Kristol's critique is more about failed tactics than failed strategy.
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