This article, by long-time PNAC-focused investigative journalist Jim Lobe, features claims made by an apparent whistleblower of sorts from the Pentagon. If the claims are true—and it seems that at the very least, the names and affiliations of the various people named are likely accurate—then they would substantiate most of what the detractors of PNAC, myself included, have claimed and feared. Which is to say, that a group of like-minded policymakers and administrators has managed to acquire an actionable amount of influence upon the U.S.’s foreign policy, and have used that influence to direct the U.S. strongly toward a new body of policy that involves many of the goals outlined in the Project for the New American Century’s “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” strategy document, among other places.

Those goals being, briefly, to move the world toward a “unipolar” power structure—with the United States being the one driving pole of power and influence in global matters—by means of the aggressive and widespread use of the U.S. force capabilities, high-pressure diplomacy, or any of the other strategic tools in the U.S. foreign policy toolbox. (Though it often seems that the use of force, and high-pressure diplomacy, are the preferred tools, along with manipulation of evidence and data to bolster their arguments.)

POLITICS-U.S.: Pentagon Office Home to Neo-Con Network

Analysis – By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (IPS) – An ad hoc office under U.S. Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith appears to have acted as the key base for an informal network of mostly neo-conservative political appointees that circumvented normal inter-agency channels to lead the push for war against Iraq.

The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which worked alongside the Near East and South Asia (NESA) bureau in Feith’s domain, was originally created by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to review raw information collected by the official U.S. intelligence agencies for connections between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Retired intelligence officials from the State Department, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have long charged that the two offices exaggerated and manipulated intelligence about Iraq before passing it along to the White House.

But key personnel who worked in both NESA and OSP were part of a broader network of neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002 through February 2003.

The heads of NESA and OSP were Deputy Undersecretary William Luti and Abram Shulsky, respectively.

Other appointees who worked with them in both offices included Michael Rubin, a Middle East specialist previously with the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI); David Schenker, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Michael Makovsky; an expert on neo-con icon Winston Churchill and the younger brother of David Makovsky, a senior WINEP fellow and former executive editor of pro-Likud ‘Jerusalem Post’; and Chris Lehman, the brother of the John Lehman, a prominent neo-conservative who served as secretary of the navy under Ronald Reagan, according to Kwiatkowski.

Full story…