Should the Congress form a Committee to determine whether PNAC

U.S. Policy Towards Iraq: Unraveling the Web
Laurence A. Toenjes

Executive Summary

When the United States began transporting troops to the Persian Gulf in the fall of 2002 it was evident that the war against Iraq was underway. This paper was begun in an attempt to answer the question: How did the war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda become the war to depose Saddam Hussein?

The effort to understand this change in U.S. policy led to a picture of a relatively small group of persons associated with certain think tanks and other organizations achieving disproportionate influence over the policy formulation process. The activities of fourteen organizations were coordinated by individuals who comprised a web of interlocking memberships...

~snip~

The main contribution of this paper is the attempt to quantify the inter-linked nature of the 14 organizations by cross-tabulating individuals with memberships in two or more of them. Examples: Richard Perle was associated with 10 of the 14, Jeane Kirkpatrick with 7, James Woolsey with 6, John Bolton with 4. Altogether 223 links were found between the 14 groups, where a link is defined as the association of a single individual with two organizations. Although over 650 individuals associated with the 14 organizations included in the study were analyzed, just 9 individuals formed 121 of the inter-group links, accounting for over half of the total. This concentration of the inter-group linkages suggests that a small number of individuals could effectively influence and coordinate the foreign policy impact of these organizations.

~snip~

A major purpose in creating this diagram was to provide a visual representation of the frequently-referred-to interrelationships of core organizations involved with formulating U.S. policy on Iraq...

~snip~

Web of Organizations Involved in
Formulating U.S. Foreign Policy on Iraq



Figure 1 see page 11 (pdf)

~snip~

Observation 4: PNAC has the largest number of links (71 in all, including links of degrees 1 and 2 which are not shown in Figure 1) with the remaining organizations (See row 16, Table 6), followed by CSP with 50 and CLI with 49. The two other members of the 5-member clique identified above—DPB and JINSA—follow with 43 linkages each. This is further evidence of the centrality of these organizations within the complete network of 14

~snip~

Analysis of the 5-member clique

~snip~

Within the 5-member clique, henceforth referred to merely as the clique, some degree of specialization of roles is discernible, and acknowledged in part by the manner in which at least three of the members describe themselves. While there is still considerable overlap in functions, the major roles played by each of the 5 members of the clique might be described as follows:

PNAC Planning function
CLI Coordination function
CSP Information dissemination function
DPB Policy Action
JINSA Interface with Israel

Each of these organizations will be discussed in turn, with a focus on the specialized function they appear to play within the clique...

~snip~

This study was undertaken with some degree of optimism. To the extent that the methodology developed and the knowledge gained has contributed to a better understanding of the development of U.S. policies towards Iraq leading up to the recent war, and to a better appreciation of the predicament in the Middle East in general, that optimism was warranted. The documentation of the roles of several key individuals and organizations has been enlightening. But that same knowledge and understanding have not tempered the feeling that the foreign policies of the Bush Administration are leading the U.S. in a direction that is inimical to many of the ideals which have made Americans proud of their country in the past.


Although the answer to the question “Why are we following this path?” goes beyond the original scope of this paper, a hypothesis does emerge. The hypothesis is that all of the operative incentives are in the wrong direction. These incentives include the following: (a) the political advantages of military actions that appeal to feelings of patriotism; (b) the political advantages of tax decreases for the wealthy, making their future campaign contributions to the party in power more feasible; (c) the economic advantages to major sectors of the economy which benefit from military expansion, from the replacement of expensive high-tech munitions and from the rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure; (d) the financial advantages to companies and executives in the energy industry, many of whom have close ties to the Administration and the Pentagon, of greater U.S. control over world oil supplies; and (e) the informational advantages to the military to be able to test in combat new high-tech weaponry, communications systems, and military strategies and doctrines.


It is difficult to come up with a comparable list of incentives that work against these policies. The distinguishing characteristic of the incentives just listed, which tend to support the Administration’s policies, is that they have well-defined beneficiaries—President Bush, military firms, the wealthy minority. Incentives that might favor the majority of Americans often have only widely dispersed benefits, insufficiently discernible by a typical beneficiary to generate intense support...

U.S. Policy Towards Iraq: Unraveling the Web
Laurence A. Toenjes

Executive Summary

When the United States began transporting troops to the Persian Gulf in the fall of 2002 it was evident that the war against Iraq was underway. This paper was begun in an attempt to answer the question: How did the war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda become the war to depose Saddam Hussein?

The effort to understand this change in U.S. policy led to a picture of a relatively small group of persons associated with certain think tanks and other organizations achieving disproportionate influence over the policy formulation process. The activities of fourteen organizations were coordinated by individuals who comprised a web of interlocking memberships...

~snip~

The main contribution of this paper is the attempt to quantify the inter-linked nature of the 14 organizations by cross-tabulating individuals with memberships in two or more of them. Examples: Richard Perle was associated with 10 of the 14, Jeane Kirkpatrick with 7, James Woolsey with 6, John Bolton with 4. Altogether 223 links were found between the 14 groups, where a link is defined as the association of a single individual with two organizations. Although over 650 individuals associated with the 14 organizations included in the study were analyzed, just 9 individuals formed 121 of the inter-group links, accounting for over half of the total. This concentration of the inter-group linkages suggests that a small number of individuals could effectively influence and coordinate the foreign policy impact of these organizations.

~snip~

A major purpose in creating this diagram was to provide a visual representation of the frequently-referred-to interrelationships of core organizations involved with formulating U.S. policy on Iraq...

~snip~

Web of Organizations Involved in
Formulating U.S. Foreign Policy on Iraq



Figure 1 see page 11 (pdf)

~snip~

Observation 4: PNAC has the largest number of links (71 in all, including links of degrees 1 and 2 which are not shown in Figure 1) with the remaining organizations (See row 16, Table 6), followed by CSP with 50 and CLI with 49. The two other members of the 5-member clique identified above—DPB and JINSA—follow with 43 linkages each. This is further evidence of the centrality of these organizations within the complete network of 14

~snip~

Analysis of the 5-member clique

~snip~

Within the 5-member clique, henceforth referred to merely as the clique, some degree of specialization of roles is discernible, and acknowledged in part by the manner in which at least three of the members describe themselves. While there is still considerable overlap in functions, the major roles played by each of the 5 members of the clique might be described as follows:

PNAC Planning function
CLI Coordination function
CSP Information dissemination function
DPB Policy Action
JINSA Interface with Israel

Each of these organizations will be discussed in turn, with a focus on the specialized function they appear to play within the clique...

~snip~

This study was undertaken with some degree of optimism. To the extent that the methodology developed and the knowledge gained has contributed to a better understanding of the development of U.S. policies towards Iraq leading up to the recent war, and to a better appreciation of the predicament in the Middle East in general, that optimism was warranted. The documentation of the roles of several key individuals and organizations has been enlightening. But that same knowledge and understanding have not tempered the feeling that the foreign policies of the Bush Administration are leading the U.S. in a direction that is inimical to many of the ideals which have made Americans proud of their country in the past.


Although the answer to the question “Why are we following this path?” goes beyond the original scope of this paper, a hypothesis does emerge. The hypothesis is that all of the operative incentives are in the wrong direction. These incentives include the following: (a) the political advantages of military actions that appeal to feelings of patriotism; (b) the political advantages of tax decreases for the wealthy, making their future campaign contributions to the party in power more feasible; (c) the economic advantages to major sectors of the economy which benefit from military expansion, from the replacement of expensive high-tech munitions and from the rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure; (d) the financial advantages to companies and executives in the energy industry, many of whom have close ties to the Administration and the Pentagon, of greater U.S. control over world oil supplies; and (e) the informational advantages to the military to be able to test in combat new high-tech weaponry, communications systems, and military strategies and doctrines.


It is difficult to come up with a comparable list of incentives that work against these policies. The distinguishing characteristic of the incentives just listed, which tend to support the Administration’s policies, is that they have well-defined beneficiaries—President Bush, military firms, the wealthy minority. Incentives that might favor the majority of Americans often have only widely dispersed benefits, insufficiently discernible by a typical beneficiary to generate intense support...