Administration's aim - Domination of the world

To the editor:

The real intentions of the Bush administration have always been available to anyone willing to look deeper than the mainstream news. Online documents related to the "Project for the New American Century" are readily available with a simple Internet search. These documents, some of which were written by Perle, Wolfowitz and other familiar names, constitute the general thinking of the neoconservatives holding prominent positions in the Bush administration.

Their intentions are clear: Total, unilateral, U.S. domination of the planet in the economic, political and military spheres. This is no conspiracy theory. The essence of neoconservative thought -- replete with wild-eyed visions of world empire -- is clearly articulated.

Those of us familiar with these writings understood that the public reasons given for the Iraq war were probably only a cover for such larger aims, with Iraq being a strategic step toward controlling the critical Middle East oil resources. The administration's prewar problem was finding a public pretense for invading Iraq that was compelling, seemingly moral and simpleminded enough for the television-watching public. The administration made a miscalculation in believing that the invasion would yield the evidence of weapons needed to substantiate its exaggerated public arguments. Officials were also naïve in regard to the response of the Iraqis, whom they believed would tolerate an occupying army. Now they are in a credibility crisis as the quagmire deepens, more American lives are lost and we heap billions on an already burgeoning deficit.

ROBERT POLACK JR.

Cape Girardeau