Asia Times -- New Influential Champions For War -- The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq

A small group of influential right-wingers with close ties to the offices of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney will this week launch a new political campaign to rally public support for the invasion of Iraq.

The task may not be easy: according to a recent survey, public support for invading Iraq has fallen from highs of close to 80 percent earlier this year to between 52 percent and 60 percent, and less than one half of the respondents opposed taking unilateral action if US allies were not on board.

The committee appears to be a spin-off of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a front group consisting mainly of neo-conservative Jews and heavy-hitters from the Christian right, whose public recommendations on fighting the war against terrorism and US backing for Israel in the conflict in the occupied territories have anticipated to a remarkable degree the administration's own policy course.

Finding out about the PNAC really got me into politics this Fall.