Unger said that neocons see everything in the Manichean view emblematic of the Trotskyite fanaticism against Hitler and Stalin. These views, for example, are pushed by Yale professor Donald Kagan. Kagan and his two sons, Fred and Robert, are among the leading neocons of today who see the world in terms of a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam. However, Unger also sees the neocons and their allies, the Christian and Jewish right, as battling against the basic tenets of the Western enlightenment. In this, the neocons and their religious allies share much in common with the Islamic fundamentalists.

Unger pointed out that the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was ordained by Orthodox Jewish rabbis because they were opposed to giving up any land occupied by Israel in exchange for peace. This same extremism can be found in the 1996 "Clean Break" policy authored by Richard Perle in association with David Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav Wurmser, with the encouragement of Dick Cheney. The document, which called for the cessation of the Middle East peace process, was also embraced by such Christian fundamentalists as Jerry Falwell and John Hagee.

The neocon "ends justifies the means" extremism is also found in the forgery of documents, such as the Niger "yellowcake" documents and other disinformation pushed by the Bush administration. Unger stated that one of the key disinformation agents for the neocons is Michael Ledeen who fancies himself as an Italianist and is very close to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Unger pointed to Ledeen's connections with Italian intelligence and his one time association with the right-wing Masonic P-2 Lodge in Italy and the discredited influence agent Manucher Ghorbanifar. While in Italy, Ledeen proffered two bogus stories: one about Pope John Paul II's attempted assasin Mehmet Ali Agca being run by Bulgarian intelligence and the other about Billy Carter's ties to Muammar Qaddafi.

Unger discovered that Paul Wolfowitz was the Bush administration's first pick for CIA director, however, those plans were shelved after Wolfowitz's wife, Clare Selgin Wolfowitz, informed the incoming Bush administration in December 2000 about Wolfowitz's extra-marital affair with Shaha Riza. Wolfowitz's claim on the CIA job was cemented during briefings for Bush he attended, along with Condoleezza Rice, in Austin while Bush was governor of Texas. It was during these meetings that Bush was sold on the idea of democratization of the Middle East.

A letter sent by Mrs. Wolfowitz to Bush in December 2000 was intercepted by Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Wolfowitz's protege at Yale. Wolfowitz, who would find it nearly impossible to be confirmed as CIA director because of the allegations of at least one extra-marital affair, was, instead, chosen as Deputy Defense Secretary where he proceeded to run phony intelligence out of the Pentagon's newly-established Office of Special Plans.

George Tenet, who thought he would be replaced as CIA director, was kept on. From 1998 to 2000, there were also several secret visits to Bush in Austin by Wolfowitz, Perle, and Elliott Abrams to get Bush's concurrence on their Middle East plans.

The neocons also placed John Bolton at the State Department to keep an eye on Colin Powell. Unger discovered that Powell wanted no confrontation with Bolton and the neocons. Powell's laissez faire attitude permitted Bolton to ban State's Intelligence and Research Bureau (INR) from attending intelligence meetings. In the lead up to the war in Iraq, Libby and his assistant John Hannah oversaw the cooking of intelligence at the CIA to justify the U.S. attack.

There is also evidence that the origin of the Niger documents was the result of a break-in at the Niger embassy in Rome the last weekend of November 2000, two weeks after the U.S. presidential election. The break-in at the 3 bedroom apartment embassy, located in a 10-story building in a middle class neighborhood in Rome, resulted in the theft of embassy stationery. The letterhead was subsequently used to forge the Niger "yellowcake" letters suggesting that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger. The embassy was actually in the care of an Italian intelligence asset known locally as "La Signora." The forged documents were then passed by the Silvio Berlusconi government to British and French intelligence, as well as to the State Department. Although discredited on 14 different occasions, Unger stressed that the contents still ended up in the 2003 State of the Union address.

Unger also pointed out that there was a sub rosa conflict between Bush and his father after the 2000 election. George W. Bush appointed his father's worst enemies to his administration, particularly Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The elder Bush referred to the neocons, including Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams Douglas Feith, and Abram Shulsky (all of whom came from Henry "Scoop" Jackson's Senate staff), and their Christian fundamentalist allies as the "extra chromosome crowd."

Unger's book, like others that have exposed the duplicity of the neocons and their allies, has been attacked by the corporate media. Unger said the Washington Press Corps practice "access journalism" that has become a pervasive syndrome in the nation's capital. It is also significant that Unger interviewed a number of former Bush administration officials and Republicans for his book.

www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20071116