Remember the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq? Much like Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a front group established by Hill & Knowlton before the first Gulf War, it was a made-to-order pressure group formed for the sole purpose of building support — and providing a rationale — for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. I’d long since forgotten about the organization — which was supported by such neocon luminaries as James Woolsey, Richard Perle, and William Kristol and quietly disbanded after the invasion — until I read the interesting investigative piece in the current issue of Playboy (yes, Playboy) that Liz references below. Titled “Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” the article boldly bills itself as “the story of how Lockheed’s interests — as opposed to those of the American Citizenry — set the course of U.S. Policy After 9/11.”
According to the article, in November 2002 Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security advisor, had a meeting with a Lockheed official named Bruce Jackson, telling him that the U.S. was “going to war” but “struggling with a rationale.” Reportedly, Hadley then asked Jackson to “set up something like the Committee on Nato” — referring to another group previously formed by Jackson — to fill this void. The result was the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
If the names and organizations connected to the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq seem to blur together, it’s no coincidence. Many of the people involved had been
in and out of that set of revolving doors connecting government, conservative think tanks, lobbying firms and the defense industry. And many shared another common
bond, as well: a link to Lockheed Martin.
By the time the committee had assembled, they had a number of contacts in the Bush administration—many of whom also had Lockheed connections. Bush had appointed
Powell A. Moore assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs serving directly under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. From 1983 until 1998, when he had become chief of staff to Republican Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Moore was a consultant and vice president for legislative affairs for Lockheed.
Albert Smith, Lockheed’s executive vice president for integrated systems and solutions, was appointed to the Defense Science Board. Bush had appointed former Lockheed chief operating officer Peter B. Teets as undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office, where he made decisions on the acquisition of reconnaissance satellites and space-based elements of missile defense. Former Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, the only Democrat appointed by Bush to his cabinet, worked for Lockheed, as did Bush’s Secretary of the Navy, Gordon England. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee before becoming the governor of Mississippi, worked for a Lockheed lobbying firm. Joe Allbaugh, national campaign manager of the Bush-Cheney ticket and director of FEMA during the first two years of the Bush administration (he appointed his college friend Michael Brown as FEMA’s general counsel), was a Lockheed lobbyist for its rapidly growing intelligence division.
Dick Cheney’s son-in-law, Philip J. Perry, a registered Lockheed lobbyist who had, while working for a law firm, represented Lockheed with the Department of Homeland Security, had been nominated by Bush to serve as general counsel to the Department of Homeland Security. His wife, Elizabeth Cheney, serves as deputy assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs.
Vice President Cheney’s wife, Lynne, had, until her husband took office, served on the board of Lockheed, receiving deferred compensation in the form of half a million dollars in stock and fees. Even President Bush himself has a Lockheed Martin connection. As governor of Texas, he had attempted to give Lockheed a multimillion-dollar contract to reform the state’s welfare system.
Jackson, who while serving as vice president of strategy and planning for Lockheed was also “responsible for the foreign policy platform at the Republican National Convention,” told the author that “only ‘literary types’ would see a connection between Lockheed Martin and the Iraq war as ‘seamless,'” insisting “that his own activities were ‘not part of my day job.'” He then offered up this bizarre example: “There are lesbians who work for Lockheed Martin. One of them might be a belly dancer at night.”
