[casi-analysis] The WMD Hoax Unravels

[Endsanctions@DELETETHIScs.com]

[ This message has been sent to you via the CASI-analysis mailing list ]


[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ]

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Hoax Unravels

In his January 20 State of the Union address President Bush briefly referred
to the fraudulent claims in last year's speech to justify the invasion of
Iraq. He cited a forthcoming report by a veteran of UN inspections in Iraq since
1991, David Kay. Three days later Kay bailed out. Since the invasion the US
spent nine hundred million dollars to support its claims of the Iraqi WMD threat.
The legions of weapons experts scouring Iraq for WMD have found nothing. One
of the most successful frauds of all time and certainly the greatest swindle
of the young 21st Century is unraveling.

Last year the issue of Iraqi WMD dominated center-stage of world politics.
For months the administration monopolized headlines with phony charges of
chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. Many media figures, politicians and
intellectuals actively promoted the disinformation campaign. At the conclusion of
Congressional hearings in the fall of 2002, house leader Dick Gephardt set the
tone for the Democratic collaboration with the Republican war rhetoric: "I share
the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass
destruction." (September 19) There was no debate.

Until last week the White House tenaciously stuck to the original "...yes we
believe they will be found" script. Vice President Cheney still insisted an
"additional considerable period of time" was needed to find the WMD in Iraq.
Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said,
"I'm glad they are continuing to do the search." Others like Secretary of
State Powell and Kay pointed the finger at the "intelligence community." They
have both played leading roles as spokespeople of the US intelligence community
promoting the Iraqi WMD hoax.

Once the US gained control over Iraq, the WMD allegations became increasingly
untenable. In the early months the US press statements featured upbeat US
commanders vowing that US claims would be vindicated by tomorrow's discovery of
WMD. The canned optimism droned on for months, and then the WMD issue became
overshadowed by the insurgency war, and then it disappeared.

The famous palaces of the Iraqi leader once cited as the hiding places for
chemical and biological weapons have become the headquarters for the occupiers.
The secret bunkers revealed nothing more than corroded conventional ordinance.
 A May ABC news broadcast began "U.S. intelligence officials say they have
concluded that the two tractor-trailers, which they found in northern Iraq
during the war, are laboratories for making biological weapons. But they have found
absolutely no trace of biological agents in them." These were the "mobile
weapons labs" Secretary Powell portrayed with a cartoon in his address to the UN.
With little fanfare it was later confirmed that they were in fact, what Iraq
had always claimed they were, hydrogen production trailers sold to the Iraqis
by the British in the late 1980's. Last September an initial draft by 1,500 US
experts of the Iraq Survey Group could not cite a single piece of evidence
substantiating US claims.

Back in August 2003, Hans Blix, the head of UN weapons inspection prior to
the invasion, made these guarded comments about the likelihood of finding WMD in
Iraq. "The more time that has passed, the more I think it's unlikely that
anything will be found..." and went on to add "I'm certainly more and more to the
conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed almost all of what
they had in the summer of 1991."

This conclusion flies in the face of everything we have been told by the US
government and media for more than a decade. Iraq's longstanding contention
that it had not had WMD since 1991 has proven to be true. Irrespective of Iraqi
government's intent to evade the intrusive inspections, it was in fact in
compliance with UN's WMD disarmament mandates since 1991.

The WMD hoax and the sanctions

If Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction beyond 1991, how did two UN
commissions fail to verify it? Can we say in retrospect that Iraq was afforded
the "fair and impartial inspections" promised by the UN Security Council?
(Similar promises are now being made to Libya.) Last year's UN commission headed
by Blix was widely promoted as the best chance of heading off the impending US
invasion. Yet when Blix's inspections failed to find WMD or evidence of any
active programs he did not certify Iraq's compliance.

The first UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) from 1991 until 1998 despite the
evidence, also failed to certify Iraq's compliance. After the Gulf War, UN
Security Council resolutions made Iraq's elimination of its WMD a pre-condition for
lifting the comprehensive sanctions that had shut down Iraq's economy since
1990.  The economic siege on the defeated nation would continue until Iraq
proved it had eliminated its WMD to the satisfaction of the veto wielding members
of the UN Security Council, the US and Britain. This proved impossible.

Throughout the nineties the US used its political power within the Security
Council to wage economic war on Iraq with devastating effect. Chlorine needed
to purify water could not be imported to Iraq. It might be used to make
chlorine gas, a chemical weapon. Every month thousands of children died from
water-borne diseases that were unheard of before the war. To satisfy the concerns of
UN weapons inspectors, Iraq shut down its pharmaceutical industry. But Iraq was
also prohibited from importing vaccines because they had the potential of
being used to make a biological weapon. The most elementary technology required
for modern life was forbidden to Iraq, because it might be used to make a WMD.

Besides the recent invasion and current occupation of Iraq, the promoters of
WMD hoax are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who
perished from the UN sanctions. The US and Britain and the United Nations owe
reparations to the people of Iraq.    - February 1, 04

Bob Allen
5 Awbury Rd.
Philadelphia Pa 19138
215 438 4187      endsanctions@cs.com
Committee to End the Occupation     www.endocciraq.org

_______________________________________
Sent via the CASI-analysis mailing list
To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-analysis
All postings are archived on CASI's website at http://www.casi.org.uk