Deep Throat Returns: Insider Notes from the Pentagon

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre – Coming Soon to a Desert Near You!

21 January 2003

America has had both powerful mafias and powerful political figures. Sometimes they have been the same folks.

George Clooney, that great American, now says “Washington is running itself like the Sopranos.”

We all know Hollywood culture drives everything, so I’m in. Hey, George! In recent months I have actually been warned by several different people inside the Pentagon that “You have to watch out... these people are ruthless.”

Never in twenty years of government service have I been warned in such a way – so maybe Clooney is on to something!

The Pentagon decision makers and their counterparts in the NSC and the White House are indeed members of a small select group who share a culture of secrecy and intense personal relationships. They are proud neo-conservatives, working hard to implement “muscular Wilsonianism” with a hint of Zionism, and making oil money is no crime, either. They have a monopoly on foreign policy-making these days, and to challenge their views on the final solution for the Middle East is to be disloyal, a betrayer.

The fellas here have a great setup, except there is a little competition in the ingenuity department, as Saddam Hussein’s recently orchestrated turn of events illustrates. The Blix team is turning up actual physical evidence!

The evidence is older stuff, some missiles with traces of bad juju, defunct mostly, but it’s a helluva lot more evidence than the Sopranos have produced so far. What’s even better – just as Blix was looking as if he was all whine and no bite, Saddam throws him a bone! Think of the pressure to continue the newly successful inspection regime!

Given these events, the mood among pro-war planners is an odd mixture of confidence in the momentum of our accelerating logistics engine and a strange new distrust of the President’s willingness to see through the elimination of Saddam, occupy with U.S. soldiers, and establish the desired outpost of neo-conservative Americanism in Baghdad and selected oilfields.

You can’t have a good mafia story without betrayal. And the possibility of a Bush betrayal makes this story fascinating. Distrust of the President’s “backbone” is seen in recent Pentagon-initiated attention given to alternatives to war – Saddam’s voluntary retirement to an undisclosed location, advocated by Rumsfeld. Israeli and U.S. hit teams operating globally, to inspire the idea that the President has already set in motion something he no longer fully controls.

Wolfowitz’s recent statement regarding his intention to deal with the Palestinian settlements “immediately after the war” is also part of it. While the Likud Party and Sharon disagree with Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of War sends the plea to Europe and the Arab world, “Please, give us this military action and we promise to play fair with Palestinian concerns afterwards.”

We see it in yesterday’s Washington Times commentary discounting sinking Bush poll numbers and American’s rising concern about what a technically unprovoked war with Iraq will do to the economy and security of the United States.

All this tension would be healthy -- for a democracy. But if Clooney is right, it isn’t good for a family operation, with the hand-selected group of made men wannabes running security. As we plan for the grand invasion in February, it is looking more and more like a St. Valentine’s Day massacre.

The original event, back in 1929 (only nine months ahead of the famous stock market crash!) occurred when Al Capone’s group of thugs needed improved market access to a certain high-value liquid commodity, and took some pre-emptive action to solve the problem.

Capone’s thugs dressed like policemen, complete with a paddywagon, and violently took out the competition, Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang in the middle of February.

What’s not to like? One gang fighting another gang – lots of angst and an impassioned lust to control and leverage a certain market in liquid commodities. One of them dresses up like legitimate cops, and does the deed.

Capone’s plan was ingenious, vicious and effective. I’ve been told that the cabal in Washington that wants our flag and our oil company deal-makers planted in Baghdad is ingenious, vicious and so far, they have been effective.

Speaking of Al Capone, I’m going to stay on the lookout for that baseball bat... I know they keep it here somewhere…..