As of the time of this writing the war in Iraq has cost just a little over $450 billion. According to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on July 31, 2007, the war in Iraq could cost over a trillion dollars. The report warns that even if there was an immediate and substantial troop withdrawal, the American taxpayers would continue to pay the costs of this war for another decade.

“In 1987, in the New York Times’ Sunday magazine and on the front page of the Atlanta Constitution, the truth of my vision was verified, for the headlines of the Atlanta Constitution read, “President Reagan Planned War Against Libya.”—the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, October 24, 1989

Since learning of published reports of the Pentagon plans to bomb Iran, I have been thinking more and more about the experience that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan had, the night of September 17, 1985, where he received important spiritual information. The debate over the physical and spiritual aspects of his experience are beyond the focus of my writing, but since 1999, and due to a certain article I read in The Final Call, I have considered the debate over the Minister’s experience in terms of the words of Paul, written in 2nd Corinthians 12: 1- 6. Please read this Biblical passage, as well as the entire text of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s October 24, 1989 Announcement, at your earliest convenience.

What is not debatable is the accuracy of the information Minister Farrakhan received, eventually confirmed in the world’s most influential and respected newspapers.

In his experience, Minister Farrakhan was told by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in part, that the President, “has met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war.”

Two important questions to consider when reflecting over the Minister’s vision are: 1) how wars have historically affected the United States economy; and 2) who benefits the most, financially, from war (and conversely, who has the most to lose when they are reduced or ended)?

For several days I have had a growing sense that in some ways, President Bush finds himself in a position not as unlike that of President John F. Kennedy during the Vietnam War, as it might first appear. Recent headlines (“Bush To Start Pullout”) regarding his September 13, 2007 speech, and other factors, contribute to my thinking. Increasingly, I think that the President is torn between his own thinking and that of those influencing him, behind the throne, so to speak, regarding a pullout of Iraq, and plans to go to war in Iran.

In 1994, I initiated written correspondence with Mr. L. Fletcher Prouty, whose views and experience inspired the movie JFK, directed by Oliver Stone. He was the Chief of Special Operations in the Pentagon during the years 1955 to 1964. He worked at three levels: Air Force, Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As part of our discussions, Mr. Prouty would frequently make reference to a novel, “Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace” by Leonard Lewin. Colonel Prouty told me that the “fiction” book was based on an actual top secret study, commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in August of 1963, exploring the possibility of an America at peace, instead of war. The document was loaded with economic implications, among which was the suggestion that the American economy and control of the masses actually depended upon war.

An excerpt of “Report From Iron Mountain” read, “War itself is the basic social system. It is the system which has governed most human societies of record, as it is of today….The capacity of a nation to make war expresses the greatest social power it can exercise; war-making, active or contemplated, is a matter of life and death on the greatest scale subject to social control….War-readiness is the dominant force in our societies….It accounts for approximately a tenth of the output of the world’s economy.”

Colonel Prouty informed me, and also detailed in his book, “JFK: The CIA, Vietnam And The Plot To Assassinate John F. Kennedy,” that President Kennedy and his Special Study Group for “the possibility and desirability of peace,” were threatening the interests of those who stood to benefit the most from the commercial aspects of the Vietnam War.

He wrote, in his book, “Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have had a greater impact on the enormous military machine of this nation than the specter of peace. This Kennedy plan jeopardized, not hundreds of millions, not even billions, but trillions of dollars. (The Cold War has cost no less than $6 trillion.)”

Now, think of the so-called “War On Terror,” in terms of the Cold War, and how much it has and will eventually cost. What commercial interests stand to benefit? In thinking that over, casually, or in deep research, consider this from Mr. Prouty’s book. It relates to the planning of wars before and since Minister Farrakhan’s vision:

“Kennedy’s plans would mean an end to the warfare in Indochina, which the United States had been supporting for nearly two decades. This would mean the end to some very big business plans, as the following anecdote will illustrate.

“It was reported in an earlier chapter that the First National Bank of Boston had sent William F. Thompson, a vice president, to my office in the Pentagon in 1959, presumably after discussions with CIA officials, to explore ‘the future of the utilization of the helicopter in [clandestine] military operations’ that had been taking place in Indochina up to 1959.

“A client of the bank was Textron Inc. The bank had suggested to Textron officials that the acquisition of the near-bankrupt Bell Aircraft Company, and particularly its helicopter division, might be a good move. What the bank and Textron needed to determine was the extent of use of helicopters by the military and by the CIA then and the potential for their future in Indochina.

“Both parties were satisfied with the information they acquired from the Pentagon and from other sources in Washington. In due time the acquisition took place, and on October 13, 1963, news media in South Vietnam reported that an elite paramilitary force had made its first helicopter strike against the Vietcong from ‘Huey’ Bell-Textron helicopters. It was also reported in an earlier chapter that more than five thousand helicopters were ultimately destroyed in Indochina and that billions of dollars were spent on helicopter purchases for those lost and their replacements.

“Continuing the warfare in Vietnam, in other words, was of vital importance to these particular powerful financial and manufacturing groups. And helicopters, of course, were but one part of the $220 billion cost of U.S. participation in that conflict. Most of the $220 billion, in fact, was spent after 1963; only $2-$3 billion had been spent on direct U.S. military activities in Vietnam in all of the years since World War II up to and including 1963. Had Kennedy lived, it would not have gone much higher than that.”

As of the time of this writing, the war in Iraq has cost just a little over $450 billion. According to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on July 31, 2007, the war in Iraq could cost over a trillion dollars. The report warns that even if there was an immediate and substantial troop withdrawal, the American taxpayers would continue to pay the costs of this war for another decade.

This can’t be sustained.

What business interests influenced the planning of the war by the President and Joint Chiefs Of Staff, that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad informed Minister Farrakhan about in September of 1985?

They still stand to benefit in 2007, from the next phase of that war, which has already been planned.

More, next week, on what historians, economists, and government officials are warning is on the way for the American economy.

(Cedric Muhammad is a business and political economist who advises entrepreneurs and small businesses through his company, CM Cap (http://www.cmcap.com). He can be reached via e-mail at cedric@cmcap.com and his weekly Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program airs every Wednesday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST on The Black Coffee Channel: www.blackcoffeechannel.com.)