IRAQ: THE OPENING SHOT OF THE NEW STRATEGIC DOCTRINE. 

Shortly after Defense Secretary Rumsfeld issued his warning to Iran and Syria -- that any hostile acts would have "severe consequences" -- one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn Bush that Rumsfeld had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation. Bush smiled, and just said one word -- "Good" -- and went back to work.

The NY Times's David Sanger notes that the Iraq war is the first war conducted under the new national security strategy of preventive wars, and that Administration officials are already talking about the lessons that Bush expects other countries to take from the Iraq conflict. "Iraq is not just about Iraq," says one senior Administration official. Undersecretary of State John Bolton has been warning that other states will face the same fate as Iraq, if they do not abandon their WMD programs.

On the other hand, says Sanger, Secretary of State Powell was taken aback by Rumsfeld's comments on Iran and Syria, and he has been warning the Administration against further inflaming other Arab governments, and fueling North Korea's insecurities. According to an aide, Powell has been saying that we've made enough enemies in recent months, and that we don't need to go looking for another fight.

Sanger concludes by noting that several of the hawks are pushing for the next step, citing James Woolsey's ranting that Iraq is the opening of "World War IV." 

`POST-WAR' IS LATEST CHICKEN-HAWK LIE: DUMP THEM, OR IT'S PERPETUAL WAR

Lyndon LaRouche stressed yesterday the absolutely fraudulent and lying character of the huge international hype about the "post-war plan" for Iraq, stressing that what is being discussed is simply the next, occupation phase of a {continuing} and spreading war, one with no exit. This is all coming from the chicken-hawks around Cheney, Rumsfeld, and "Wolfie." There is no "post-" to this war, no end to it, unless these chicken-hawks are forced to follow Perle out the door.

The casualties of the Iraq war are already, conservatively, more than 10,000 dead on all sides, with many thousands more wounded Iraqis in hospitals which have no supplies with which to treat them, and round-the-clock bombing and shelling of several major cities going on. Chicken-hawk threats are flying to take the war immediately to Syria and Iran, for starters; in an ominous development likened to the Chinese Embassy bombing in Belgrade, a pre-announced convoy of Russian diplomatic personnel yesterday came under "coalition" fire on its way to Damascus from Baghdad. And while U.S. "Viceroy of Baghdad" Gen. Jay Garner arrogantly prepares an immediate announcement of an interim government, some members of the U.S. Senate are beginning to point to the reality LaRouche insisted on at the outset: first, this cannot work, it will further outrage the entire Arab world, and it won't function; and second, it will pile up hundreds of billions in costs--the "trillion-dollar occupation" LaRouche warned of on BBC radio April 3. Among many other things, it will loot and wreck U.S. government revenues, already collapsed.

LaRouche, interviewed yesterday by a Lebanese journalist for an N-TV (Germany) broadcast, was asked ten questions by the interviewer and others; to the last--``Can other nations stop the American monopoly of Iraq reconstruction,'' he answered, No: it's not reconstruction, but occupation. The U.S. officials pushing it are fascists, followers of Leo Strauss, ``both committed, and insane.'' It's not a post-war plan but an occupation plan; it's the dividing up of the Mideast into zones of military action, for war on Iran, war on Syria, etc. The worst thing the U.S. can do, he concluded, is try to become an occupying power in Iraq.

Congress should dump the entire "Iraq post-war" package, LaRouche said yesterday, vote it down, put the Defense Policy Board and the chicken-hawks on the hot seat. They are running a continuing, perpetual war which some of their spokesmen, such as James Woolsey, have taken to calling "World War IV." There's no exit strategy or peace-winning possibility; there's no end to it without driving the chickenhawks out.

LaRouche Interview with BBC FIVE LIVE
April 3, 2003

LaRouche Interview with Pacifica Radio
April 4, 2003 10-11 AM

FORMER LONGTIME GERMAN DIPLOMAT FEARS PERMANENT U.S. WAR FOR 50-80 YEARS TO COME.

 In an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a daily for which he worked in the early 1960s, Guenter Gaus (73 years old), who was chief West German envoy to East Berlin from 1973-81, said that although the capitalist system has outlived itself, it will keep degenerating for some time, definitely "for a longer period" than the Soviet system did.

"It will not proceed so bloodlessly as the decline of the East bloc. It will not be that they won't shoot. Capitalism will shoot. That will last for 50 or even 80 years. And I do not know what will emerge from this horrible transition period, the beginning of which we seem to be living through now. There will be increasing misery; capitalism will not step down just like that, as socialism did." 

DR. MAHATHIR WAS INTERVIEWED BY AL-JAZEERA: TO STOP THE WAR, WE NEED COUNTRIES IN THE NORTH TO JOIN US, AND REGIME CHANGE IN WASHINGTON. 

Quotes from the interview:

"The war in Iraq is already wreaking havoc to the world economy.... The United States and even countries far from the scene of the war were suffering economically. Whether they win or lose the war, the problem is not how to revive the Iraqi economy but the world's economy. Then, it is going to take a very long time because there will be no confidence, people will always live in fear of new terrorist attacks....

"We know most of the U.S. airlines have been bankrupted, most European airlines are in trouble and when the airlines fail, other (related) industries like hotel, travel agencies and tourism will fail. These are very big contributors to the economy of Europe, the U.S. and the world. The economy of the world is going to be so bad that talking about rebuilding would be a hypocrisy because nobody can rebuild Iraq, just like they cannot rebuild Afghanistan....

"Our hopes lie in co-operating with countries in the North that are against the war and we want to restore good international behavior, respect for international law and the UN.... We do not know whether Pakistan and Syria will be the next target for the same reason that these countries are a threat to the U.S. So many countries, including Iran, will not feel safe.... The new government to be installed in Iraq is bound to fail.

"The only way to stop the war is for the Americans to replace their government.

"The Non-Aligned Movement countries can do more for the war than demonstrating and collecting money. There are other things we can do but because we are not united, it is not possible. 

WIESBADEN, April 7 -- THE "MOTHER OF ALL THREATS" IS A DOLLAR CRASH, STATES THE GERMAN WEEKLY SPIEGEL,

 in its headline. Spiegel notes that the U.S. dollar, "once a symbol of American strength" is rapidly losing value as there is the "growing fear in financial markets of a sudden downturn of the U.S. economy." Bankers, including Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill, are quoted, saying that a dollar ratio of 1.40 to the euro is quite possible in mid-term. Mideast oil exporters are debating about selling oil against euros, instead of dollars. And central banks, including Russia, China, Taiwan, and Canada have already announced plans to replace some of their dollar holdings with other currencies or gold.

The biggest threat for the dollar, states Spiegel, lies in Asia. Much of the huge U.S. current account deficit is being financed by capital flows from Japan, China and other Asian countries. The Bank of Japan alone holds $363 billion U.S. Treasuries, the Chinese central banks another $102 billion. Sooner or later, investors from Tokyo, Beijing, and Hongkong will no longer be willing to take the risk. At this point, says economic historian Harold James of Princeton University, there will be "the great crash." The dollar, as well as the U.S. economy, will go under. It could turn into a global currency crisis, adds O'Neill. He says, "President Bush is right now trying to refute economic theory and economic history. He will fail." Concerning the threat of a dollar crash, Newsweek warns, "Forget the Iraq war. Forget the transatlantic conflict. The mother of all threats is lurking at a different front."

Spiegel compares the coming upheavals centered around the fall of the U.S. dollar to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971-73, a system created in 1944, which "secured stability at global foreign exchange markets for more than 20 years."

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