"The unexpected gift of the invasion of Iraq has really been more than bin Laden ever dreamed was possible." —Michael Scheuer, former head of the bin Laden tracking unit at the CIA.

Professor Paul Wolfowitz is back in the news, big time. He has finally emerged from his bolthole at the World Bank. It took a sex and corruption scandal to do it. It seems that the regular staff at that international organization does not much care for his high-handed ways, and wants him out. The Jerusalem Post‘s 2003 "Man of the Year" left the Pentagon in 2005 for the World Bank along with a posse of "neocon" hatchet men to assist him in doing whatever they do at the World Bank.

What exactly is the World Bank, anyway? I was surprised to learn that it is headquartered in Washington, D.C., not far from the White House. When G.W. announced that Wolfowitz was leaving the Pentagon for the World Bank, no explanation was given for the unexpected job change. The move appeared to come from out of the blue. Wolfowitz went from being the #2 civilian at the Pentagon, behind Donald Rumsfeld, to being president of the World Bank. Was it a promotion? It may have been on paper, but something else was going on.

The reason for the shift, it now seems clear, was to get Wolfowitz off the skyline immediately, before the public or the press began to put 2 + 2 together with respect to the real motives behind the Iraq war. "Wolfowitz’s War" had turned into a debacle fast, in a matter of months, and no WMD were to be found anywhere. The prime architect of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" had to be sidelined before he became a lightning rod for criticism and before he uttered more preposterous falsehoods to match those of the pre-war propaganda blitz. Douglas Feith, Pentagon #3 civilian, was perhaps even more responsible for the unnecessary and unprovoked invasion of Iraq than Wolfowitz, but Feith worked behind the scenes, almost underground, which was appropriate, given the shadowy nature of his activities.

In this respect, Feith is similar to Elliot Abrams, the Administration’s invisible man who is firmly ensconced at the National Security Council. The public never sees or hears from Abrams, yet this dedicated "neocon" hyperZionist has been placed in charge of U.S. Middle East policy. The Cheney-Bush-Rove triumvirate must have been alarmed at the prospect of Wolfowitz, the most visible "neocon" operative in the Administration, being hauled before Congress, where his embarrassing pre-war disinformation could be read back to him. That never happened. Thanks to those in charge of Congress, then as now, it is very doubtful that such a confrontation will ever take place. By the way, Wolfowitz, according to Wikipedia, has dual citizenship in both the U.S. and Israel. Did I hear somebody shout conflict of interest? Sorry.

In a just and perfect world, which this certainly is not, Wolfowitz and Feith (not to mention Don Rumsfeld) would now be under house arrest, awaiting indictment and deportation to the Hague for war crimes associated with "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and the so-called "War on Terror". Ditto for Cheney and Bush, awaiting impeachment for malfeasance. Please understand, Wolfowitz and Feith should not be given more credit for the colossal disaster in Iraq than they deserve. They should be assigned just the lion’s share which they are entitled to. They knew what they were doing and why, whereas their superiors, even including Cheney, may have been either duped, were ignorant and misguided, and/or opportunistic, all of which is a slightly lesser transgression in the grand scheme of things.

Wolfowitz and Feith were methodically following the 1996 road map delineated for Likud PM Benjamin Netanyahu in "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This working paper had been co-authored, after all, by Douglas Feith himself, along with the discredited "neocon" godfather, Richard Perle, and Likud ideologue, David Wurmser. It was put together for the Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic Political Studies. Wurmser currently works for Dick Cheney, alongside the aforementioned Abrams at the White House, plotting to bomb Iran. The "realm" to be secured was Israel. The advanced strategic thinking of Messrs. Perle, Feith and Wurmser posited a series of conflicts to take out Syria and Iraq, while Israel continues to digest and expropriate Palestine. Divide et impera. This standing agenda has created a host of enemies for America, above and beyond Al-Qaida.

In context, therefore, it is not farfetched to suggest that the 2003 invasion which the White House code-named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was actually a Tel Aviv enterprise from the word go. Uncle Sam was outsourced to do the heavy lifting and the dirty work required for the "clean break". That way, the American taxpayer picked up the bill and would share in the blowback. Rien n’arrive par hasard. In this undertaking, Cheney and Bush served as willing enablers and front men. As such, they were opportunists in service to the Israel Lobby. Were they in fact misguided and mistaken, as well, in the manner, say, of a Condoleezza Rice, Rush Limbaugh, Tony Blair, and countless others? Perhaps. It is academic. All that matters is that Cheney and Bush are responsible for the fiasco in Iraq, for the crisis in the Middle East as a whole, and for the ongoing atomizing of the Palestinians. But then again, so is the U.S. Congress. So are we all.

Patrick Foy is author of The Unauthorized World Situation Report.