[casi] Eight Washington Lies About Iraq

[James Parke <jp@DELETETHISmrc-dunn.cam.ac.uk>]

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Eight Washington Lies About Iraq
<http://www.antiwar.com/rep/utley9.html>

What, If Anything, Does Iraq Have to Hide?
<http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vprit302803614jul30.story>

With Friends Like These, Iraq Needs No Enemies
<http://www.boneill.blogspot.com/2002_07_01_boneill_archive.html>

Iraq War Hearings: The Fix Is In
<http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j073102.html>

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<http://www.antiwar.com/rep/utley9.html>

Eight Washington Lies About Iraq
by Jon Basil Utley
7/31/02

ONE

IRAQ WAS INVOLVED IN THE 9/11 ATTACK ON AMERICA OR IS CLOSE TO OBTAINING
NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

ANSWER: The War Party in Washington has mounted a vast campaign in
conservative media to attack Iraq again. See Georgie Anne Geyer column on
lobby in Anti-Arab Advocates Risk U.S. Interests. Saddam is an enemy of
Islamic Fundamentalists. Iraqi women are among the most emancipated in the
Moslem world. You never see Saddam wearing a robe and shouting about Holy
War. Iraq has not been a supporter of "global terrorism," although it does
support Palestinian terrorists against Israel's UN declared illegal
settlements on the West Bank. There is no evidence of Iraqi nuclear
ability, nor that it ever provided chemical weapons to other nations or
terrorists.

TWO

IF WE DON'T BOMB IRAQ, SADDAM WILL USE HIS WMD AGAINST US OR HIS NEIGHBORS
OR ISRAEL

ANSWER: Saddam is rational. He had these weapons during the First Gulf War
and didn't use them because he feared our threats of worse consequences
even when his nation was being decimated. Israel has some 200 atomic bombs
and its own active biological and chemical weapons program. It can well
defend itself. Meanwhile Washington arms all Iraq's neighbors (except
Iran), and Turkey bombs and invades Iraq at will. Yet the pressure now in
Congress to attack Iraq is based upon its unreal threat to Israel. Also,
Iraq's neighbors oppose an American attack. If Iraq was such a threat, why
do they not fear it?

THREE

IRAQ WOULDN'T LET THE UN--US MONITORS INSPECT POSSIBLE WMD PRODUCTION OR
STORAGE SITES. THAT'S WHY AMERICA STARTED BOMBING.

ANSWER: Untrue ? Iraq did allow them from 1991 until 1998, but Washington
still wouldn?t take off the trade blockade, under which thousands of
children were dying every week without clean water, electricity, etc. Scott
Ritter, the former UNSCOM inspector, told CNN on 2/18/01 "In terms of
large-scale weapons of mass destruction programs, these had been
fundamentally destroyed or dismantled by the weapons inspectors as early as
1996." Yet Madeleine Albright declared in 1997: ?We do not agree with the
nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning
weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted.? Clinton went one
step further when he said, ?sanctions will be there until the end of time,
or as long as he [Saddam] lasts." THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT
REPUDIATED THESE STATEMENTS.

Then in 1998 Washington made new demands, access to all government
personnel files, the basis of its power structure. UN weapons inspectors
were still roaming Iraq and the country had been found "clean" for 7 years.
Iraq saw that U.S. demands were just always escalated with no hope of
sanctions being lifted. The Iraqis also complained that most of the UN
inspectors were British and American intelligence agents, who were trying
to overthrow their government (Scott Ritter on CNN 1/5/02 said he had been
working with Israeli intelligence from 1995-98). Clinton then launched a
new bombing campaign using information from the "spy UN inspectors" for
bombing targets. Iraq now fears, justifiably, that this would happen again.

FOUR

IT'S SADDAM'S FAULT THAT HALF A MILLION CHILDREN DIED SINCE THE ECONOMIC
BLOCKADE, SADDAM COULD FEED HIS PEOPLE IF HE CARED INSTEAD OF USING HIS
MONEY TO BUY WEAPONS ? " More than one million Iraqis have died ? 500,000
of them children ? as a direct consequence of economic sanctions... As many
as 12% of the children surveyed in Baghdad are wasted, 28% stunted and 29%
underweight." ? UN FAO, December 1995. For details see Morbidity and
Mortality Among Iraqi Children 1990-98.

ANSWER: Nearly all oil sales money has been controlled through United
Nations officials, subject to over 35% reduction for reparations (Iraq is
forbidden to contest any claim) and UN expenses, and subject to
Washington's veto and foot dragging. Washington allowed food and medicine
imports, but almost nothing else for economic reconstruction. For nearly
ten years it blockaded chlorine to sanitize the water and any equipment to
rebuild the electricity grid, sanitation and irrigation facilities. Even
pencils for school children were prohibited. (A NY Times editorial 2/11/01
reports, "currently American diplomats are holding up billions of dollars
of imports needed for civilian transportation, electric power
generation...and even medical treatment"). Finally the Europeans rebelled
at the cruelty and shamed Washington into allowing such imports, (NY Times
12/6/00). However, as of 12/2/01 about $1 billion of electric and other
machinery has been held up for a year by Washington. Until oil prices
increased in 2000, sales ran about $4 billion yearly minus about 35%
withheld by UN left 2.6 billion divided by 20 million population = $130 per
year per person = 36 cents per day per person for food, medicine.

Iraq is now also getting substantial monies through sales of smuggled oil,
especially since the price of oil went up and the rest of the world tires
of the American blockade. No doubt some of this goes for weapons purchases.

FIVE

IF IRAQ ALLOWED INSPECTIONS FOR WMD (WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION),
WASHINGTON WOULD REMOVE THE BLOCKADE. IRAQ MUST PROVE THAT IT HAS NO WMD
AND THAT IT WON'T MANUFACTURE ANY IN THE FUTURE.

ANSWER: There's No Connection Between Inspections and Sanctions on Iraq.
Equally no Nation can "prove" a negative, that it's not doing something.
Biological and chemical weapons can be made, "in a large closet which is
all the space you need to mix deadly chemical weapons... Chemical and
biological weapons are the great equalizers against our atomic weapons."
(Time "Everyman a Superpower", 11/24/97).

Re inspections, Reuters reported, 12/13/99, "The (European) aim was to
prevent the United States and Britain from imposing arms requirements that
Iraq could not meet and thus keeping the sanctions in place for years to
come." And Agence France Presse 12/13/99, "French diplomats retorted that
by insisting on full cooperation, the council would give the United States
an excuse to refuse to suspend sanctions on the flimsiest grounds.?

Scott Ritter, former head of the U.N. arms inspection team in Iraq, on the
NBC Today Show, 12/17/98, explained, "Washington perverted the U.N. weapons
process by using it as a tool to justify military actions... The U.S. was
using the inspection process as a trigger for war." For details on how Iraq
complied, e.g. 700 inspections by UN/US officials, and grew to realize that
Washington would prevent the sanctions from ever being lifted see Le
Monde-Diplomatique . Note also that Iraq did not expel the inspectors. The
U.N. withdrew them in anticipation of the extensive American bombing
attacks.

SIX

IT'S IRAQ'S FAULT THAT THE BLOCKADE CONTINUES. AMERICA HAS NOTHING AGAINST
IRAQ'S PEOPLE, ONLY AGAINST ITS GOVERNMENT.

ANSWER: Britain and Washington have introduced a "peace plan"demanding that
Iraq must allow inspections, but would still be under the trade blockade
indefinitely.

Russia and France have introduced a plan (vetoed by Washington) allowing
for immediate lifting of sanctions in return for continued, ongoing WMD
inspections and blockade of military supplies. Washington's policy (also
followed in Serbia) is to tell local dictators to get themselves killed or
thrown out of power (and then tried for "war crimes") or otherwise have
their citizenry starve while their country's devastated economy is kept in
ruins. The policy was denounced by former Pres. Jimmy Carter . (For
detailed discussion of UN resolutions see CASI from Cambridge and IAC
detailed analysis of UN Resolution)

Most nations in the world want trade sanctions lifted for non-military
goods. It is the U.S. veto that prevents lifting of sanctions (United
Press, 11/1/00). Imposed in 1990 many nations argue that they were never
intended to last for years and are one of the most brutal sanction regimes
in modern history. The crippling trade embargo is incompatible with the UN
charter as well as UN conventions on human rights and the rights of the
child (BBC News Online, 9/30/00).

SEVEN

SADDAM GASSED HIS OWN PEOPLE

ANSWER: Atrocities are often the key substance of propaganda to get
Americans to go to war. Didn?t our government also do that at Waco? The C2
gas used by the FBI killed children who couldn?t fit into gas masks and
then created an explosive mixture which triggered fire and immolation, (see
super documentary, Waco, nominated for an Academy Award).

To see how good natured Americans are lied to by our own government see,
How Hill and Knowlton Public Relations "sold" the Iraq War). For the First
World War, it was stories that German soldiers ate Belgian babies. For the
Iraq war it was lies about babies being thrown out of incubators,
"testified" to a Congressional Committee, with massive media coverage, by a
"mystery" witness who later turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti
sheik?s ruling family who is Ambassador in Washington. It was all lies.
Then we were told there were aerial photographs of the Iraqi Army massed on
Saudi Arabia?s border ready to attack. They were never released; they
apparently were lies too. How do we know we weren't also lied to about the
gassing? See Jude Wanniski Report on gassing for questions about it.

For more background and earlier answers about Iraq, please go to
http://iraqwar.org/talking-points.htm and to
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-consp.htm#one about the missing evidence that Iraq
was planning to attack Saudi Arabia in 1990.

EIGHT

A WAR WOULD BE QUICK AND EASY TO WIN. IRAQIS WOULD WELCOME AMERICANS TO
OVERTHROW THEIR CRUEL DICTATOR. AMERICA WOULD THEN SET UP A FRIENDLY
REGIME, EASILY OCCUPY THE COUNTRY AND RID IT OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

ANSWER: To assume that after massive new bombing (what we always do) and
killing tens of thousands more Arabs, that America would be welcome is
unreal. Also Washington is now considered in the Arab world as an
instrument of Israeli policies. More likely would be continuing guerrilla
warfare against occupying Americans, possible break up of the nation,
economic chaos in Jordan and Turkey which trade with Iraq, and/or the rise
of a new dictator. War, once started, has its own momentum. Arnaud de
Borchgrave draws a possible scenario of a worldwide oil crisis, overthrow
of pro-U.S. Moslem regimes, and chaos for American interests.

Also millions more Moslems would be seeking vengeance against America.
There would be little support in Congress for a prolonged occupation and
"Democracy building."

CONCLUSION

Look at the above and think how America is now hated. No wonder many Arabs
engage in suicide missions. American soldiers are so unpopular in Saudi
Arabia that the government hides our Airmen away in desert bases to keep
them out of sight from its citizenry. How the world sees us was reported by
the Wall Street Journal's European edition editor (2/24/98):

"What came up most were charges of American hypocrisy. The US wants to bomb
Iraq over its violations of UN directives, but won?t take any action
against the Israelis for theirs (e.g. occupation of and settlements in
Palestine)."

Washington Times columnist Bruce Fein (10/9/01) put it another way, "Other
nations and peoples are more resentful of our pious hypocrisy than of
Realpolitik bluntness."

No doubt America can easily decimate Iraq again. But then what? More death,
more hatred, more enemies wanting vengeance. Out of the billion plus Moslem
world others would finally find new ways, perhaps biological, to hit us
back. And meanwhile we would live in constant fear of that day.

If, instead, Washington showed justice and fairness in its policies, then
it would not be creating sworn and desperate enemies who, in former
Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's words, "define themselves as being Enemies
of America." The best security for Americans is not to make so many enemies
(see Joseph Sobran column, How Many Enemies Do We Want?)

ADDENDUM

The Boston Globe (5/16/99) reported:

"In planning the 1991 Persian Gulf War, US officers found a 12 bridges for
the movement of Iraqi troops in and out of Kuwait. US planes bombed those
bridges over and over, with little effect. So they bombed every bridge in
Iraq, 160 in all, about two-thirds of them far from Kuwait. After a while,
all bridges were seen and treated equally. Similarly, now in Belgrade, it
seems, all military agencies are seen and treated as if they were of equal
importance. The Pentagon announced last week that three-quarters of the
targets hit in this air war, 270 out of 380, have been 'strategic targets.'
Only 110 have been directly connected to the soldiers and militias in
Kosovo."

Jon Basil Utley is the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises
Institute. A former correspondent for Knight/Ridder in South America, Utley
has written for the Harvard Business Review on foreign nationalism and
Insight Magazine on preparation for terrorist threats.

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<http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vprit302803614jul30.story>

What, If Anything, Does Iraq Have to Hide?

By Scott Ritter
Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector, is author of "Endgame: Solving
the Iraq Problem, Once and For All."

July 30, 2002

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joseph Biden
(D-Del.), has announced that he plans to hold hearings on Iraq starting
tomorrow.

Given Sen. Biden's open embrace of regime removal in Baghdad, there is a
real risk that any such hearings may devolve into a political cover for the
passing of a congressional resolution authorizing the Bush administration
to wage war on Iraq. Such hearings would represent a travesty for the
American people.

Sen. Biden would do well to focus his attention on the case for war against
Iraq. Discussion should ensue on both Iraq's potential and, more
importantly, known weapons of mass destruction capability.

On Sept. 3, 1998, I provided detailed testimony before a joint hearing of
the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees concerning the
circumstances of my resignation as a chief inspector of the United Nations
Special Commission (UNSCOM). The testimony also dealt with Iraq's
obligation to be disarmed of its proscribed weapons of mass destruction
capability in accordance with relevant Security Council resolutions. In the
nearly four years that have passed, much has been made of this
presentation, especially by those who seek to use my words to reinforce the
current case for war against Iraq.

My testimony was an accurate, balanced assessment in full keeping with the
facts available. As of September, 1998, Iraq had not been fully disarmed.
UNSCOM was pursuing important investigatory leads concerning (among others)
Iraq's VX nerve-agent program, disposition of biological bombs and
warheads, and ongoing procurement activity in the field of ballistic
missiles with potential application for use in systems with a range greater
than the permitted 150 kilometers.

Iraqi obstruction prevented UNSCOM from fully discharging its mandated
tasks. We could account for 90 percent to 95 percent of Iraq's proscribed
weaponry, versus the 100 percent required by the Security Council. Based
upon an assessment of intelligence information available to UNSCOM, once
inspection activity had ceased in Iraq, the government of Saddam Hussein
could be in a position to resume aspects of his mass weapons programs
within a period of six months. While most of this would be related to
organizational realignment of dispersed capability, some small-scale
weapons production capacity could potentially be reconstituted.

The potential for Iraq to restart its programs, however, did not, and does
not today, mean that such reconstitution would be inevitable. The danger in
the collapse of the weapons-inspection program lay in the elimination of a
major obstacle to any such decision being made by Baghdad, as well as the
means to detect any related actions. As such, I spent a great deal of my
testimony speaking of the need to maintain a robust regime of inspections
that objectively implemented the mandate of the Security Council.

While much attention has been given lately to my discussion of the
potential threat posed by Iraq, little has been made of what I then
considered to be the main crux of the issue: the collapse of the UNSCOM
inspection regime, and the absolute need to get UN weapons inspectors back
to work in Iraq. The current war-like posturing of the United States
towards Iraq, centered on unsubstantiated speculation about the grave and
imminent risk posed by Iraq's current alleged weapons of mass destruction
capabilities, makes the issue of inspections as relevant today as they were
in 1998.

In 1998, I told the Senate that UNSCOM had a job to do and we expected to
be able to carry it out in accordance within the framework of relevant
Security Council resolutions. I emphasized the danger of entering into
inspection activity that lacked any compelling arms control reason, noting
that in doing so we would be heading down a slippery slope of confrontation
that was not backed by our mandate. I pointed out the importance of the
United States keeping commitments made to the Security Council. This meant
not only holding Iraq accountable for its actions, but also preserving the
integrity of the overall inspection operation so that any potential issue
of confrontation would be about Iraq's non-compliance, versus issues not
expressly covered by the mandate of the Council. I reiterated again and
again the harm done to the inspection process by the continued interference
by the United States.

Unfortunately my warnings were not heeded. In December, 1998, continued
manipulation of the UNSCOM inspection process by the United States led to a
fabricated crisis that had nothing to do with legitimate disarmament. This
crisis led to the United States ordering UNSCOM inspectors out of Iraq two
days before the start of Operation Desert Fox, a 72-hour bombing campaign
executed by the United States and Great Britain that lacked Security
Council authority. Worse, the majority of the targets bombed were derived
from the unique access the UNSCOM inspectors had enjoyed in Iraq, and had
more to do with the security of Saddam Hussein than weapons of mass
destruction. Largely because of this, Iraq has to date refused to allow
inspectors back to work. The ensuing uncertainty has created an atmosphere
that teeters on the brink of war.

Through his propossed hearings, Sen. Biden has an historic opportunity to
serve the greater good of the United States. If a substantiated case can be
made that Iraq possesses actual weapons of mass destruction, then the
debate is over - the justification for war is clear. But, to date the Bush
administration has been unable - or unwilling - to back up its rhetoric
concerning the Iraqi threat with any substantive facts.

For Sen. Biden's Iraq hearings to be anything more than a political sham
used to invoke a modern-day Gulf of Tonkin resolution-equivalent for Iraq,
his committee will need to ask hard questions - and demand hard facts -
concerning the real nature of the weapons threat posed by Iraq. Void of
that, it is impossible to speak of Iraq as a grave and imminent risk to
American national security worthy of war. Therefore, it is imperative that
the Senate discuss means other than war for dealing with this situation -
including the need to resume UN-led weapons inspections in Iraq.

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<http://www.boneill.blogspot.com/2002_07_01_boneill_archive.html>

Liberals and lefties couldn't oppose a war if their lives depended on it.
Luckily for them, it's usually only other people's lives that depend on it.

I arrived back from my five-day break to hear that opposition to America's
planned invasion of Iraq is 'hotting up'. Apparently, commentators,
left-wing politicians, anti-war groups and potential new archbishops of
Canterbury are 'voicing serious concerns' about bombing Baghdad. One report
claims that 'the numbers who oppose invading Iraq are growing every day'.

It sounds exciting....but it isn't. When you dig a little deeper you
discover that what is presented as opposition to war is in fact just a
demand to 'do things differently', to find less violent ways to 'deal with
Saddam'. None of those who oppose bombing Iraq opposes America's right to
interfere in other states' affairs or support Iraq's right to be an
independent sovereign state.

They just want America/the UN/the international community (select according
to how 'radical' you are) to do all their interfering and dictating without
spilling too much blood. In short, they want a new, polite imperialism.

According to UK Liberal Democrat Menzies Campbell, there should be 'no war
without more jaw-jaw'. Rather than demanding no invasion at all, Campbell
says we should discuss it first, weigh up the options, and then act.
'Before Bush comes to shove', he writes, 'the British government owes the
people of the UK a clear explanation of the reasons why British forces may
be asked to put their lives at risk'.

Like many others, Campbell buys into the notion that Iraq is a threat to
the West - and thinks he is being radical by demanding that Blair and Bush
provide evidence of that threat before bombing. He accepts the basic
international framework that allows the West to attack Iraq in the first
place: namely, the idea that Iraq is evil and that it's up to America and
Europe to give it a good telling off. Without challenging this framework,
Campbell and co haven't a hope in hell of taking a stand against war with
Iraq.

Likewise, the Guardian's Hugo Young says 'we need to talk about the war on
Iraq before it begins'. His ?big challenge? to America is simply to argue
that Europe should play a bigger role in the Iraqi question and should ask
itself some serious questions about Saddam:

'What do they propose to do about Saddam? How do they think about his
weapons of mass destruction? What is their view on the balance between
terror and freedom? How do they propose to counter the virulent American
voices which remark that Europe is simply failing to address the threats it
faces from terrorist-harbouring states?'

According to Young, President Bush cannot be trusted on Iraq (he is only
pursuing a 'son's revenge for what happened to his father' after all), so
Britain should take the lead and decide what to do. 'Britain has a position
and a special voice, and now is the time to make use of them', he writes.
Nowhere does Young question the West's right to dictate what should happen
to Iraq - he just wishes Britain was doing the dictating, rather than
gung-ho Bush.

As for the allegedly radical Rowan Williams, who is tipped to be the next
archbishop of Canterbury, he opposes invading Iraq on the grounds that it
goes against ?Christian moral teaching? (still awake back there?).
According to Williams and other signatories to a letter published in the
Catholic newspaper The Tablet:

?It is our considered view that an attack on Iraq would be both immoral and
illegal and that eradicating the dangers posed by malevolent dictators and
terrorists can be achieved only by tackling the root causes of the
disputes.?

Got that? Bombing Baghdad is bad ? but it?s still up to us in the civilised
West to deal with ?malevolent dictators and terrorists? (that is, third
world leaders) as best we can. Like the rest of the ?heated opposition? to
invading Iraq, Williams and friends would simply prefer a nicer way to
depose Saddam and anyone else ?we? don?t approve of. They may be anti-war ?
but they sure ain?t anti-imperialist.

This is a typical response from the left and liberals to the threat of war
? to demand diplomacy or sanctions or discussion, instead of bombings. They
call for nation-building and forming a new government for Iraq, instead of
bombing it back to the Stone Age (again). They seem to have forgotten two
important points: democratic governments, by their nature, cannot be
imposed from without ? and to those on the receiving end, choosing between
diplomacy and war is a bit like choosing between a rock and a hard place or
between having a gun pointed at your head and having somebody pull the
trigger. It?s no choice at all.

The question is: do you oppose America and Britain?s right to intervene in
Iraq at any level whatsoever, or don?t you?

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July 31, 2002

THE FIX IS IN
Phony Iraq war 'hearings' ? more propaganda for the War Party

Disaster is always a clarifying event, which was why I was kinda hoping
that there was more to this story about an asteroid streaking toward the
earth threatening the human race with near-extinction. Why, they even had
Doomsday ? February 1, 2019 ? all picked out. Dr. Benny Peiser, an asteroid
expert, told Reuters:

"In the worst case scenario, a disaster of this size would be global in its
extent, would create a meltdown of our economic and social life, and would
reduce us to dark age conditions."

It turns out to have been a false alarm, but just imagine if it hadn't. At
least, in that case, our physical condition would finally come to reflect
our inner state. For what else can one say about a people that starves to
death the children of a nation ? namely Iraq ? for over a decade, and then,
tiring of playing with its victims, moves ? slowly and noisily ? in for the
kill? What else can we call them but barbarians?

Morally, we never left the Dark Ages. The proof is to be found in the war
plans of our rulers, who, with nary a peep from most of you, are about to
embark on a military campaign against a country that has never attacked us
? and is, indeed, utterly incapable of doing so. For weeks we have been
inundated by various "leaked" war plans, of one sort or another, detailing
the precise strategy and tactics to be used in conquering Iraq. These
battlefield scenarios detail the tactical aspects of a massive US invasion
that will likely involve tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and
level much of that unfortunate country ? just as if it had been hit by a
giant asteroid. Only in this case, the malevolent Thing from Outer Space
that came howling out of the great Void is not a chunk of rock, but a
clique of power-maddened American politicians, and their corporate and
political allies in both parties.

I am sick unto death of our Western triumphalists, who hail "the end of
history" and the supposedly unassailable virtues of "democracy" and "free
markets." What friggin' hypocrites they are! Here we are about to go to
war, and the Senate holds hearings on the subject ? with not a single
opponent of our war policy scheduled to testify! Oh, isn't democracy
wonderful! Aren't you oh-so-glad that you live in the freest country in the
world? Doesn't it make you swell with pride?

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden
gets to largely pick the line-up of witnesses, albeit with input from the
other members. "The senator believes it's time to start a wider national
dialogue on a potentially critical decision to go to war," says Norm Kurz,
Biden's communications director. "We need to educate the American public on
the risks of both action and inaction on Iraq."

Pardon me while I go vomit?.

There. I feel a little better, but not much. Kurz, and Biden, are liars:
This isn't a "dialogue," it's a monologue, with only one side allowed to
have its say. Let's go down the witness list, culled from the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee website, and see for ourselves. On day one, we
have the following:

Dr. Phebe Marr, a former Professor at National Defense University in
Washington, DC ? This Valkyrie of the War Party believes that both Iraq and
Iran are equally deserving of US attentions on account of their stubborn
desire to "deter real adversaries," including the US, by acquiring "weapons
of mass destruction." She admits that "both powers have a new, powerful
motive; deterrence of the US," but her solution to the problem ? "regime
change" ? seems somehow counterintuitive. She told the St. Petersburg Times
that "the transition to a new Iraqi government would be turbulent but adds
"'that's the price we're going to have to pay' to set Iraq on a better
course."

Someone should tell Phebe that it's the people of Iraq who will pay the
price, while people like her will be charged with exacting it. See what I
mean about being in the Dark Ages? With views like that, she should come to
the hearings dressed in animal skins, her withered old neck adorned with a
necklace of bones.

Next up is Mrs. Rahim Francke, Executive Director of the Washington,
D.C.-based Iraq Foundation and a leading figure in the Iraq National
Congress ? you remember them, they're the guys who mishandled and perhaps
outright embezzled "tens of millions" in US tax dollars and were all but
cut from the dole in January. This hardly came as a surprise to longtime
observers of the Iraqi exile scene: after all, the INC's leader, Ahmad
al-Chalabi, was convicted by Jordan for embezzling money from his own bank.
The Iraq Foundation, although nominally an "independent" thinktank, is in
reality funded by the US government and is the main conduit of Washington's
direct influence over the Iraqi opposition. Ms. Francke has long advocated
US aid to the INC, and will doubtless be trotted out to present her plan:
unleashing the Iraqi opposition to penetrate Iraq and set up "free zones"
with food aid that would act as a "magnet to Iraqis" ? and provoke Saddam
into attacking, thus drawing in the US.

Dr. Sinan al-Shabibi an economist with the U.N. Conference on Trade and
Development in Geneva, Switzerland, who will be wheeled out to tell us how
to rebuild what we destroyed ? and how much it's going to cost us.

Then there's Col. Scott Feil (Ret.), Executive Director of something called
"Role of American Military Power," an interventionist nutball of the
"humanitarian" school, who argues that the US should have invaded Rwanda in
the name of "saving lives."

The day's proceedings will be topped off by two former US government
officials, representing the interventionist views of past administrations
of both parties: Sandy Berger and Caspar Weinberger. These two will
disagree, mildly, on how to go about it, but you can be sure there will be
no dissent on the key question of whether or not a war to unseat Saddam is
in American interests.

Day two will hardly give us a respite from this Soviet-style unanimity,
when the witnesses will include:

Richard Butler, former head of UNSCOM, a man who has made a career out of
campaigning for war with Iraq, now with the Council on Foreign Relations:
Dr. Khidir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear engineer who claims (without offering
much in the way of solid evidence) that the "Saddam bomb" is close to
becoming a reality; Professor Anthony Cordesman, Senior Fellow at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has been skeptical of
the Iraqi opposition, and likewise critical of the Clinton administration's
Iraq policy:

"The Clinton Administration spoke stickly and carried a big soft. It
"nickel and dimed" its use of force to contain Iraq, issued a series of
abortive threats over UN inspections, launched Desert Fox, and then halted
it before it could be effective. Two years of pin-prick strikes over the
"No Fly Zones" have done as much to give Saddam a propaganda victory as
they have to hurt his air defenses."

No "pin-prick" strikes for Commander Cordesman: it's damn the torpedoes and
full speed ahead!

Gen. Joseph Hoar (ret.), is a former commander of the U.S. Central Command
that dispatched forces to Somalia: perhaps he can give us a few pointers in
how to avoid having your men captured and dragged through the streets. The
solution, no doubt: overwhelming force. (Remember, non-intervention is not
an option?.)

Robert Gallucci, Dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown
University, and another veteran of UNSCOM, will give us the diplomatic
perspective, from a viewpoint that can only be described as interventionist
if not overtly pro-war. Here is a man who once said:

"You can endlessly explain to Americans--and I've done this--that there are
children and old people who are starving to death, that there are old
people who are not getting medicine, and that there have been deaths as a
result of what Saddam has done, and not as a result of the sanctions. You
explain that Saddam is successfully blackmailing the international
community and holding his own people as hostages. The answer is: 'Yeah,
Yeah, Yeah? but if you lift sanctions those people won't die.' I can't get
over that reaction."

Not that he didn't try really really hard?.

Dr. Morton Halperin, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
poster boy of Democratic multilateralism, and a rabid interventionist who
wants to arm the Iraqi opposition and ? I'll save us the trouble of
listening to his upcoming testimony by quoting what he has said at similar
Senatorial dog-and-pony shows:

"There is an alternative policy and that is to arm the opposition and to
try to get rid of the current regime quickly. I think it is no doubt that
it would be in our interest to do so. I think one can raise serious
questions about whether we should have done it when we had the chance to do
so, when we had an overwhelming army in the field and we had defeated the
Iraqi military force. But I do not think we should allow ourselves the
luxury of believing that somehow this can be done on the cheap.

"If we arm people and put them in the country, if we declare and support
the creation of safe zones in the North or in the South, we have to mean
it. And that means we have to be prepared to commit as much military force
as it will take to hold those zones against an attack. And it means we
cannot wait until they're attacked."

Halperin previously has argued in favor of merely containing Saddam, but
here he is communing with the monstrous Max Boot on the "Communitarian
Network," where he complains that Bush I should have finished off the
conquest of Iraq, criticizes Clinton for being too softcore, and hails Bush
II for "attacking without restraint" after 9/11. For all his
"multilateralism," this guy is no peacenik.

Another witness is one Charles Deulfer, now with the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, of whom former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter
said:

"On one occasion, I uncovered activity that I viewed as being suspicious,
and that it was being done on behalf of the United States. The deputy
executive chairman of UNSCOM, Charles Deulfer, is an American, the senior
American. So I went to him with my concerns, and I laid it out, and I said,
'Charles, this is what I think's happening. What are we going to do about
it?'

"Well, his response was, 'Scott, I can't talk about it, and my advice to
you is to stop digging, son, because you're getting into national security
areas, and if you keep moving, you'll have a problem with the FBI. It's a
law enforcement problem. It's espionage, and you'll lose that game.'"

Geoffrey Kemp, of the Nixon Center, is a raving interventionist, whose
testimony on this occasion will probably differ only in degrees of emphasis
from what it was last year:

"The only sure way to replace the Baathist regime is to invade and occupy
Iraq. This is such a daunting challenge that it would require a far greater
consensus amongst regional and international partners of the United States
that is present today. While Iraqi forces are much weaker than in 1991,
they may still have access to WMD and certainly possess short range surface
to surface missiles. The occupation of an Arab country by American forces
would reinforce Muslim radicals basic tenet that we are intent on waging a
war against Islam.

"Nevertheless under certain circumstances we may have no option but to take
such a step?."

And we mustn't forget Fouad Ajami,, an Arabic Steppin' Fetchit who, no
matter what the occasion, can be counted on to denigrate the culture of his
ancestors and rationalize US military intervention as a program of moral
and cultural uplift.

Representing Turkish interests is Mark Parris, former US ambassador to
Turkey, and now a Senior Policy Advisor at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, &
Caldwell, the high-powered Washington, D.C. law firm where Lawrence
Eagleburger holds court and Linda Hall Daschle, wife of the Senate Majority
Leader, lobbies for high-powered clients. This is going to be one of the
highlights of the hearings: an explanation of just how the US can possibly
justify opposing an independent state for the oppressed Kurds ? the very
Kurds it claims to want to "liberate" from the Iraqi yoke.

And of course a propaganda show such as this wouldn't be complete without
Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (ret.). former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of
the U.S. Air Force and now head of something called "Business Executives
for National Security," which has pushed the Star Wars program and
represents the union of global business interests and our policy of global
intervention. He's a talking head who always shows up whenever the winds of
war blow, bloviating and making predictions that never come true, such as
this one enunciated in December of last year:

"We have basically eviscerated their capacity to project power outside of
Afghanistan. They are really right now in the survival-only mode. Bin Laden
has gone to ground, as we say. I expect we will have him in two weeks."

I can hardly wait for his predictions about the Iraq war. All we have to do
is invert whatever he says and we'll probably be much closer to the truth ?
The General is a kind of oracle in reverse. He just loved the Kosovo war,
and he is sure to love this one, too, provided we can do it on the cheap.

Dr. Shibley Telhami, a political science Professor at the University of
Maryland, was advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations
during Gulf War I, and also was on the staff of Congressman Lee Hamilton.
His vague, unremarkable opinions are likely to reflect the mushy bromides
of a piece, co-authored with "communitarian" Amitai Etzioni, which have no
discernible meaning or application in the world of foreign affairs: at
best, what we'll get from him is a cautionary note, and advice on how best
to pacify the Arab masses.

So this is to be our "great debate" over the question of war and peace in
the Middle East ? not a debate at all, but a procession of rationalizers
and enablers, who will explain just how and why it is necessary to annex
half the Middle East and subjugate the rest. It's an outrage, one that a
free people would never sit still for ? so why are you sitting still for it?

You need to follow this link and get on the phone at once ? call your
congressional representatives and ask them: how come there's just one side
being presented at these phony-as-all-get-out "hearings"? What's up with
that?

Remind them that, in spreading "democracy" to the four corners of the
globe, we seem to be neglecting its practice right here at home.

Tell them you think the panel is stacked, and you might even make some
concrete suggestions. What about Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector
who says there is no evidence that Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction,"
or any of the other UN inspectors who say the same thing? What about
someone from one of the noninterventionist thinktanks in Washington? (I'll
think of one in just a minute?.) Why not have Kathy Kelly, who has been to
Iraq, and dealt directly with its people, to get a feel for what the
on-the-ground consequences of an invasion would really be like? What about
General Sir Michael Rose, the British former commander of Allied forces in
Bosnia, whose eloquent dissent from "the madness of going to war with Iraq"
has just been published? And what about some of our own military, who have
been leaking the hare-brained schemes of the military planners llike mad
and keep telling journalists that they oppose this war? Let these military
whistle-blowers tell it like it is, without fear or favor, and give them
immunity from political retaliation.

Like that Killer Asteroid from Beyond the Stars, the prospect of war is
hurtling toward us at breakneck speed.

It doesn't seem to matter to the War Party that the economy may collapse:
money is no object in the struggle for global hegemony ? especially if that
money belongs to other people and the War Industry continues to rake in
record profits.

As for genuine US interests, they are of little concern when the fate of
Israel hangs in the balance: a US invasion and pacification of much of the
region would solve Ariel Sharon's problems more quickly and completely than
anything the IDF might accomplish in the West Bank. What more do we need to
know?

Iraq's fabled "weapons of mass destruction," in the unlikely event they
exist, are likely to hit Israeli, not Jordanian or Saudi targets. So who
cares if the Arab contingent of the anti-terrorist coalition falls apart,
and those "moderate" governments are no more? All that matters is that
Israel's amen corner in the US is appeased, so both parties can count on
the support of key constituencies come election time.

If this is "democracy," then I say the heck with it.


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