Tulsi Gabbard on the Israel Lobby’s Role in Fabricating WMD Hoax

I have been keeping fairly close track on the Senate confirmation hearings but never came across any mention of these exchanges. The New York Times, e.g., has nothing to say about them in its article “4 Takeaways from Tulsi Gabbard’s Confirmation Hearing.” Nor is there any mention of these exchanges in a second Times article on her career leading up to the hearings.

One would think that condemning the Iraq war as based on lies from neocons like Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Abram Shulsky’s Office of Special Plans(OSP) would be front page news. As Gabbard noted, it was “a complete falsification of intelligence. This was not a ‘mistake.’ It was a deliberate deception.”

When have you ever seen a U.S. politician make a statement challenging the very basis of U.S. foreign policy and its complete deference to the interests of Israel? Deference that resulted in 4,431 total American deaths (including both killed in action and non-hostile) and 31,994 wounded in action. And cost the U.S. approximately $1.1 trillion.

Slanting the news in favor of promoting and  protecting the Israel Lobby is nothing new for the Times. As I noted in my 2004 paper on neoconservatism as a Jewish movement (now a chapter in my forthcoming revision of The Culture of Critique)

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, The New York Times was deeply involved in spreading deception about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorist organizations. Judith Miller’s front-page articles were based on information from Iraqi defectors well known to be untrustworthy because of their own interest in toppling Saddam.[1] Many of these sources, including Ahmed Chalabi, were also touted by the Office of Special Plans of the Department of Defense, which is associated with many of the most prominent Bush administration neocons (see below). Miller’s indiscretions might be chalked up to incompetence were it not for her close connections to prominent neocon organizations, in particular Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum (MEF), which avidly sought the war in Iraq. The MEF lists Miller as an author; she has published articles in MEF media, including the Middle East Quarterly and the MEF Wire. The MEF also threw a launch party for her book on Islamic fundamentalism, God Has Ninety-Nine Names. Miller, whose father is ethnically Jewish, has a strong Jewish consciousness: Her book One by One: Facing the Holocaust “tried to . . . show how each [European] country that I lived and worked in, was suppressing or distorting or politically manipulating the memory of the Holocaust.”[2]

The New York Times has apologized for “coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been” but did not single out Miller’s stories as worthy of special censure.[3] Indeed, the Times’ failure goes well beyond Miller, as noted in 2004 by Daniel Okrent, public editor of the Times:

Some of the Times’s coverage in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq was credulous; much of it was inappropriately italicized by lavish front-page display and heavy-breathing headlines; and several fine articles by David Johnston, James Risen and others that provided perspective or challenged information in the faulty stories were played as quietly as a lullaby. Especially notable among these was Risen’s “C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports,” which was completed several days before the invasion and unaccountably held for a week. It didn’t appear until three days after the war’s start, and even then was interred on Page B10. (Okrent 2004)[4]

As is well known, Times is Jewish-owned and has often been accused of slanting its coverage on issues of importance to Jews.[5] It is perhaps another example of the legacy of Jacob Schiff, the Jewish activist-philanthropist who backed Adolph Ochs’s purchase of the New York Times in 1896 because he believed he “could be of great service to the Jews generally.”[6]

Shulsky and the OSP are illustrative of neocon ethnic networking and their close relationships to Israeli intelligence:

Shulsky was a student of Leo Strauss, a close friend of Paul Wolfowitz both at Cornell and the University of Chicago,[1] and yet another protégé of Richard Perle. He was an aide to neocon Senators Henry Jackson (along with Perle and Elliott Abrams) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and worked in the Department of Defense in the Reagan administration. During the George W. Bush administration, he was appointed head of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) under Feith and Wolfowitz. The OSP became more influential on Iraq policy than the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency,[2] but is widely viewed by retired intelligence operatives as having manipulated intelligence data on Iraq in order to influence policy.[3] Reports suggest that the OSP worked closely with Israeli intelligence to paint an exaggerated picture of Iraqi capabilities in unconventional weapons.[4] It is tempting to link the actions of the OSP under Shulsky with Strauss’s idea of a “noble lie” carried out by an elite to manipulate the masses, but one doesn’t really need Strauss to understand the importance of lying in order to manipulate public opinion on behalf of Israel.

The OSP included other neocons with no professional qualifications in intelligence but long records of service in neoconservative think tanks and pro-Israel activist organizations, especially WINEP. Examples include Michael Rubin, who is affiliated with AEI and is an adjunct scholar at WINEP, David Schenker, who has written books and articles on Middle East issues published by WINEP and the Middle East Quarterly (published by Daniel Pipes’ MEF, another pro-Israel activist organization), Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, and Michael Ledeen. The OSP relied heavily on Iraqi defectors associated with Ahmed Chalabi, who, as indicated above, had a close personal relationship with Wolfowitz, Perle, and other neocons.[5]

(The numbered citations may be found in the linked article.)

So let’s hope that Gabbard is confirmed. A truly America First foreign policy is at stake. As Alexis notes:

Gabbard is not perfect. She has made political compromises. But she is the closest thing to an actual dissident the intelligence community has ever seen inside its ranks.

And that’s why the Senate hearings have turned into an all-out war to discredit her.

Because the real criminals—the ones who lied America into war—are still in power.

By Jonas Alexis, in  Veterans Today

As the U.S. Senate holds confirmation hearings for Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the gloves have come off in a brutal confrontation between Gabbard and the very intelligence establishment that lied America into war.

Gabbard’s nomination is shaking the corridors of power—not because of partisan infighting, but because she is directly challenging the deep-seated corruption at the heart of U.S. intelligence: the role of the Israel Lobby in fabricating intelligence, promoting endless war, and leading America into catastrophic interventions that have killed hundreds of thousands.

And no scandal is bigger—or more damning—than the Iraq War’s fake WMD story, a crime that led to the deaths of over 100,000 children.

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Gabbard’s Senate Showdown: Calling Out the Iraq War Lies

During the hearing, Democratic war hawks aggressively questioned Gabbard’s foreign policy positions, particularly her outspoken opposition to regime change wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Senators attacked her for “supporting Assad” and “supporting Gaddafi.”

Her response? A direct, brutal takedown of the U.S. intelligence community’s legacy of lies:

“I have no love for Assad or Gaddafi. I simply hate Al-Qaeda. The U.S. government has repeatedly allied itself with terrorists—people who killed Americans on 9/11 and who are responsible for the deaths of our soldiers. Our policy failures have put them in power, and I refuse to be part of that lie.”

Gabbard then shifted the conversation to the most infamous intelligence failure in U.S. history: the Iraq War’s fraudulent WMD claims.

“We launched the invasion of Iraq based on a complete falsification of intelligence. This was not a ‘mistake.’ It was a deliberate deception.”

And she’s right.

The Iraq War wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a failure of intelligence.

It was a premeditated crime, orchestrated by the Israel Lobby, with fabricated evidence designed to push the U.S. into an illegal war.

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The Israel Lobby’s Hand in the Iraq War: A Manufactured Intelligence Hoax

For years, the Israel Lobby and its network of neoconservatives inside the U.S. intelligence apparatus worked to fabricate a case for war. The infamous ‘WMD’ hoax—the very lie that justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq—was crafted by Israeli-linked operatives and their American allies.

Scott Ritter: The Man Who Exposed the WMD Lies

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was one of the few officials who publicly exposed the WMD hoax before the war even began.

“Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was cooked, deliberately falsified to justify an illegal war. The real architects? The neoconservatives inside the Bush administration, backed by the Israel Lobby.” – Scott Ritter

The key players in the WMD deception included:

• Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon officials with direct ties to Israel, who led intelligence manipulation efforts.
• Ahmed Chalabi, a U.S.-backed Iraqi exile who fabricated false intel, working closely with Israeli sources.
• The Office of Special Plans, a secretive intelligence unit inside the Pentagon that bypassed CIA oversight, feeding false WMD claims directly to policymakers.

This was not a mistake. This was a deliberate, coordinated disinformation campaign designed to drag America into a war that would serve Israeli geopolitical interests.

And it worked.

The result? Over 500,000 Iraqis killed. A destroyed nation. The birth of ISIS. And a generation of American soldiers betrayed and sent to die for a lie.

Yet, to this day, not a single one of these war criminals has faced justice.

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Why Gabbard’s Nomination Terrifies the Establishment

Gabbard’s willingness to call out these intelligence failures—and the role of the Israel Lobby in crafting U.S. war policy—has put her in the crosshairs of Washington’s most powerful interest groups.

• She refuses to push regime change wars.
• She opposes military alliances with terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
• She has repeatedly denounced the influence of foreign lobbies on U.S. policy.

Her stance on Edward Snowden is equally revealing. In the past, she has said that Snowden was being persecuted for exposing government crimes—a position that enrages the intelligence community.

Now, under Senate pressure, she’s toned down her support, but the underlying truth remains:

The U.S. intelligence apparatus is not about national security. It is about controlling the narrative, manufacturing consent for war, and covering up its own crimes.

The Real Fight: Gabbard vs. the War Machine

Gabbard’s nomination is more than a political appointment.

It’s a direct challenge to the entire foundation of U.S. intelligence—a system built on lies, foreign influence, and perpetual war.

The same forces that manufactured the Iraq War are the same forces that:

• Destroyed Libya and turned it into a failed state
• Armed terrorists in Syria to overthrow Assad
• Back Ukraine while pushing America toward a war with Russia

And now, they fear a Director of National Intelligence who won’t play their game.

Gabbard is not perfect. She has made political compromises. But she is the closest thing to an actual dissident the intelligence community has ever seen inside its ranks.

And that’s why the Senate hearings have turned into an all-out war to discredit her.

Because the real criminals—the ones who lied America into war—are still in power.

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