April 13, 1008 (LPAC)--In the wake of last week's Capitol Hill testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the Bush Administration, according to senior U.S. intelligence sources, has ordered American forces inside Iraq, to escalate the military campaign against Shi'ite cleric Moqtadr al-Sadr and his Madhi Army. Lyndon LaRouche promptly denounced this action as totally psychotic, and guaranteed to blow up the Iraqi situation, which is already fragile, at best.

According to the sources, U.S. military forces will increasingly take the lead in battling the Shi'ite militia in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, and in the southern region of Basra. This, LaRouche warned, is guaranteed to throw Iraq into further chaos. ``Is President Bush actually psychotic?''

The U.S. is counting on Saudi Arabia to continue pouring money into Sunni tribes, in the Anbar and Diyala provinces, to prevent a new outbreak of anti-American insurgency in that part of the country. However, it is known, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources, that the Saudi support is not reliable, particularly as the Saudis view the U.S. support of the Shi'ite al-Maliki government, as evidence that Washington will back a Shi'ite domination of Iraq. The sources add that, within the Pentagon, both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the majority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, oppose the acceleration of U.S. ground operations against al-Sadr, because they are concerned about other threats to the stability of the larger region, including the prospects of a major escalation in fighting in Afghanistan and the bordering regions of Pakistan. In recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, two retired U.S. Army Generals, Barry McCaffrey and William Odom, had strongly asserted that the Iraq situation could not be settled militarily, and called for a U.S. troop withdrawal, accompanied by a new U.S. diplomatic initiative, including direct talks with Iran and Syria.

LaRouche painted an even more dire strategic picture, one that is largely missed by American policymakers and intelligence officials. The entire Iraq fiasco was a ``Made in London'' operation, in which then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair played a dominant role in drawing the United States into the Iraq invasion and ensuing quagmire. The British, then pulled their forces out of Basra in 2007, setting the stage for the Shia-on-Shia confrontation, which the United States has now been drawn into. The psychotic policy of the Bush White House, LaRouche concluded, borders on treason--although President Bush, personally, could make a very compelling case that he is not guilty, by virtue of insanity. LaRouche suggested that medical records from the President's yearlong drug rehabilitation treatment, from cocaine addiction, while he was purportedly serving in the Texas Air National Guard, during the Vietnam War period, might assist in his insanity defense.

As the result of the Bush Administration walking into the British trap, which is part of a larger British drive to orchestrate a world war between the trans-Atlantic powers versus Asia, we now have both Russia and China preparing strategic asymmetric warfare against the West. India is headed in the same direction, and even Japan will be forced, albeit reluctantly, to join with the rest of Asia. ``We are staring at World War III,'' LaRouche warned, ``orchestrated from London. And most so-called strategic thinkers in Washington are clueless about the British role.''