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The American 'Founding Fathers' included such figures as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine and, perhaps the most influential personality in its 233-year history, Alexander Hamilton. What these men achieved was so rare - the creation of a republic - that most now take it for granted.
Few of their successors rise to that stature, especially in the 21st century. With weak personalities mired in incompetence, their rule is dominated by fear, led by instincts and under claims of divine inspiration.
Led by President George W. Bush, today's American leaders are so distant from their predecessors' standards, that one wonders what is left of those ideals.
It would be safe to conclude that no founding father would have espoused a policy of 'Shock-and-Awe', and while these mostly White segregationists practised slavery, none could have dreamed of Guantanamo Bay prison to evade justice. Simply stated, they were men of honour, even if imperfect.
In the post 9/11 period, when cooler heads ducked to avoid the vortex of revenge, leading neo-conservative decision makers in the Bush administration promised the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain and his Ba'ath Party more than 'Shock-and-Awe'.
Some advanced 'Crash-and-Burn', which destroyed what was not looted, and torched the rest. Iraq lay in ruins while these operatives accumulated medals of freedom and other insignia that now have lost much of their value. A few packed their decorations, resigned, or left under pressure.
Others were promoted to lucrative positions, though their lies continued to cause untold deaths.
Five years on, few repented for the most colossal strategic error in the history of the United States.
Who were these luminaries?
One of the most distinguished military officers in contemporary American history, Secretary of State Colin Powell risked his reputation on February 5, 2003, when he appeared in the well of the Security Council in New York.
Citing anonymous Iraqi defectors, he presented a strong case for military action, asserting that "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussain has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more".
Even worse, Powell declared that there was "no doubt in [his] mind" that Saddam was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons", which was untrue.
As the damage of his "untruths" accumulated, Powell retired from office in the second term. In a September 2005 interview, Powell recognised that his 2003 New York performance was a "blot", which "will always be part of [his] record. It was painful. It's painful now".
Another key player is former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The second longest serving Secretary of Defence, Rumsfeld re-engineered the American military into a smaller force ready to pounce on all possible conflicts around the world.
Both US invasions under his command - Afghanistan and Iraq - were conducted under this doctrine, but it flopped in Iraq.
Little knowledge of region
He is known for his smart replies like the one he made in 2003: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." But his true colours emerged when he answered a 'town hall' query from a soldier regarding inadequate military equipment in Iraq declaring that "you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want".
He resigned in disgrace with most of the excesses of the War for Iraq - from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo - hanging around his neck although Bush was, ultimately, responsible for it all.
Paul Wolfowitz is another major architect of the Bush Iraq policy. Wolfowitz was picked to sell the 2003 invasion on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
He is known for famously dismissing Army General Eric K. Shinseki's estimates of the size for a post war occupation force as "quite outlandish" and "wildly off the mark". He was rewarded with the presidency of the World Bank which he had to quit after evidence that he unethically promoted his companion.
Richard Perle is the most controversial neo-conservative with the least knowledge of international affairs - especially Middle East.
Perle linked Saddam to Osama Bin Laden without any shred of evidence. "Even if we cannot prove to the standards that we enjoy in our own civil society that they were involved, we do know, for example, that Saddam Hussain has ties to Osama Bin Laden...," he had said during an interview with CNN in 2001. In November, 2006 Perle regretted his support.
Another key player was John Bolton, the man with even less foreign affairs experience than Perle. But Carl Rove, the deputy chief of staff of the President, is widely known as being Bush's "brain".
Rove was delegated to develop a strategy for publicising White House assertion that Saddam posed a threat to the United States. Rove pulled all known stops after 9/11, including feeding the frenzy that surrounded the outing of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, partly as retribution against criticisms lobbed by her husband Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
He resigned in August 2007 following the controversial Scooter Libby trial. According to Rove, Bush was "one of the most intellectually gifted presidents" in United States history". Gifted leaders and geniuses seldom ruin their societies and it remains to be determined how effective both were in achieving their objectives.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is a commentator and author of several books on Gulf affairs.
... there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussain has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."
Colin Powell (right)
The then US Secretary of State at the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003
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