| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2002 11:34 am Post subject: U.S., Israel set stage for two-front Mideast War |
| http://www.themilitant.com/2002/6632/663204.html
Vol.66/No.32 August 26, 2002
U.S., Israel set stage for
two-front Mideast war
(front page)
BY PATRICK O’NEILL
AND JACK WILLEY
As Washington prepares a new war aimed at overthrowing the government of Iraq and capturing control of major oil reserves in the Middle East, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is setting the stage for a major new assault on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under cover of the planned U.S. ground invasion.
During the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1990–91, Washington forced Tel Aviv to the sidelines, refusing to give the Israeli air force the friend-or-foe codes necessary to put warplanes in the air over Iraq. And it made the Israeli rulers accept near-daily bombardment by Iraqi scud missiles without direct air retaliation.
The new confrontation is shaping up differently. There is no reason to believe that with the evolution of the fighting Washington will oppose an Israeli military response if threatened by Iraq or another country. The U.S. war will provide the colonial settler state the opportunity to escalate its drive against the Palestinians, even pursuing the long-held goal of pushing them into Jordan.
A victory in such a two-front war by the U.S. imperialists and their junior partners in Israel would create a new axis of power in the region. Working people in the Middle East would face the pincers of a U.S. protectorate in Baghdad and the military garrison state of Israel.
By seeking to conquer Iraq, Washington hopes to strengthen its domination of Kuwait and its oil reserves, and put the rulers of Saudi Arabia on notice that their days are short if they don’t do the bidding of U.S. imperialism. Such a scenario sends shudders down the spines of the superwealthy rulers of France, Germany, Japan, and other major powers whose world position would decline in relation to their rivals in the United States.
Expulsion of entire populations is the time-honored answer of the Israeli rulers to the Palestinian fight for self-determination. The new push being readied involves driving Palestinians into neighboring Jordan, the country frequently named by Sharon as his choice for a future "Palestinian state."
Sharon has cast the escalating assaults on the Palestinians as parallel to Washington’s "war on terror," while Washington has increasingly given political support to Tel Aviv’s repression, in addition to providing ongoing military and economic backing to the colonial settler state.
On August 12 Sharon openly aligned his government with U.S. preparations to strike at Baghdad, saying, in the words of the Jerusalem Post summary, that "Iraq now poses the biggest threat to the country.... Coordination with the U.S. is at the highest level ever, and the government should certainly not express opposition to an attack."
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, a right-wing critic of the pro-Tel Aviv policy of the White House, reported that Sharon told a closed-door hearing of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "U.S. military action against Iraq, instead of exacerbating the Palestinian problem, would end it."
"We need many more Jews to come to Israel, a million more Jews," said Sharon, according to Novak. Immigration to Israel fell by 27 percent in the first half of 2002.
Writing in the April 24 Daily Telegraph of London, Israeli historian Martin van Creveld laid out the means of ending the Palestinian "problem" that Sharon has long supported--the "transfer" of perhaps 2 million Palestinians into Jordan.
"Mr. Sharon would have to wait for a suitable opportunity--such as an American offensive against Iraq," he wrote. The prime minister "himself told Colin Powell, the [U.S.] secretary of state, that America should not allow the situation in Israel to delay the operation" against Iraq.
"Should such circumstances arise," he continued, "then Israel would mobilize with lightning speed," using its submarines, armored land units, and air force to counter any possible threat of intervention by Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon--Israel’s immediate neighbors.
Van Creveld wrote that the "expulsion of the Palestinians would require only a few brigades. They would not drag people out of their houses but use heavy artillery to drive them out.... Israeli military experts estimate that such a war could be over in just eight days. If the Arab states do not intervene, it will end with the Palestinians expelled and Jordan in ruins."
If Sharon "decides to go ahead" with this bloody scenario, wrote van Creveld, who opposes such a course, "the only country that can stop him is the United States.... I would not count on it."
Commenting on the political climate in Washington, a Middle Eastern diplomat told the New York Times, as reported on August 9, that in the White House "there are those who think the U.S. should not touch Sharon and if the Palestinians want their own state, they should move to Jordan."
Impasse in Israeli policy
The expulsion of the Palestinian population from their land, a course of action that has won the long-standing public backing of a wing of the Israeli ruling class, is posed by the impasse of Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In spite of the escalation of their military attacks, the Israeli armed forces have not been able to stifle the Palestinian resistance or their struggle for self-determination and a homeland.
Having shoved aside the Palestinian Authority and established control of the West Bank through military occupation, the Israeli rulers are now confronted by the devastation their actions have wrought. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society stated on August 5 that in the West Bank city of Nablus "electrical and water systems have sustained heavy damage in much of the old city" during the current Israeli offensive. "Sewage water now covers many of the city streets. A serious health crisis is developing as garbage collection has been hampered.
Testifying before a Knesset committee on August 7, Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, the armed forces’ Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, sought to play down the reports of a 20 percent level of malnutrition among Palestinian children. "Hunger is when people have swollen bellies and fall over dead," he said. "There is no hunger now."
Sharon’s "solution is to call for huge influxes of relief aid, to keep the Palestinians alive while his tanks remain in their cities, and all movement and trading remain banned," reported the August 10 Economist.
Big-business commentators have noted that such an occupation is neither economically nor politically sustainable. Israeli capitalists who count on hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for cheap labor have been hit hard by the closure of the West Bank and restrictions on movement from Gaza. Tel Aviv has so far been unable to make up for the shortfall by bringing in workers from Asia and elsewhere.
The construction by the Israeli government of the 225-mile "separation fence" between the West Bank from Israel is crawling along at less than a snail’s pace. In three months only 120 feet of the structure has been built. From the start, the plan for the fence drew many critics, including leaders of the settlements that honeycomb the West Bank. Opponents also complain that the fence draws a de facto border around Israel, giving legitimacy to Palestinian claims for sovereignty over the West Bank.
Reflecting the frustration among the Israeli rulers over their failure to stifle the resistance, a member of the Knesset or parliament, told the body’s Security and Foreign Affairs Committee on August 12 that the Israeli air force should bomb heavily populated Palestinian areas from the air, after delivering a warning to civilians.
War preparations against Iraq
On August 9, officials from the Bush administration met with representatives of exile groups and other parties that oppose the government of Saddam Hussein. The State Department admitted that the groups can claim little support inside Iraq and that it is "premature to talk of a government in exile." The meeting came eight days after congressional hearings that garnered bipartisan support for war.
Following an invitation from the Iraqi parliament to U.S. politicians to visit the country and carry out their own inspections, U.S. vice president Richard Cheney sought to puncture any pretense that Washington will negotiate with Baghdad. Inspections "would be an effort by him [Hussein] to obfuscate, delay and avoid having to live up to the accords that he signed up to at the end of the Gulf War," Cheney said.
Among the scenarios "leaked" by administration and military officials is the "inside out" plan, that would involve the use of troops and massive bombardments to conquer Baghdad block-by-block. One former military official noted that such an approach would involve heavy "collateral damage"--a euphemism for civilian casualties.
Aim is to install a protectorate regime
The next day, Bush told reporters that he had "no imminent war plan" or timetable. He added, reported the New York Times, "that Iraq was ‘an enemy until proven otherwise’ because of its programs to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the missiles that might carry them."
"Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if Iraq were similar to Afghanistan, if a bad regime was thrown out.... I mean, it would be fabulous," said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The economic stakes behind the U.S. rulers’ drive to replace the government of Saddam Hussein with a compliant regime--effectively a protectorate as is being constructed in Afghanistan--are seen in the oil reserves in Iraq and its neighbors.
At more than 112 billion barrels, the country has the world’s second largest proven reserves of oil. Only Saudi Arabia sits atop more, with one-quarter of the global quantity. Adjacent Kuwait, already ruled by a government that is heavily dependent on Washington’s backing, boasts 96 billion barrels, or 9 percent of global reserves. Around 8,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Kuwait, a country of 2 million people.
The position of Saudi Arabia, a traditional ally of Washington, came into the limelight in early July when the conservative Rand Corporation, a group of former senior government officials, delivered a report to the Pentagon claiming that "Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies." The briefing recommended that Washington warn the Saudi king to stop his government’s alleged backing of "terrorist" groups, or face seizure of the country’s oil fields and financial assets.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the briefing did not represent the "dominant opinion" and assured the Saudi government of Washington’s support.
Discussing the document’s approach, one administration official said, "The road to the entire Middle East goes through Baghdad. Once you have a democratic regime in Iraq...there are a lot of possibilities."
Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in early August that the U.S. military "will not be allowed to use the kingdom’s soil in any way for an attack on Iraq." One week later the Wall Street Journal noted a "softening of the Saudi position" on joining a U.S. offensive. Prince Saud said that Saudi Arabia will back the assault if it sees "an imminent threat." Washington has reportedly moved military gear from Saudi Arabia to a base in Qatar in recent months.
The Saudi regime was a major supporter of Washington’s 1990-91 assault on Iraq, and since then has allowed U.S. planes to take off from its territory in constant patrols of the imperialist-declared "no-fly zones" and frequent attacks on Iraqi targets.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2002 6:58 pm Post subject: 'Get Iraq' Cabal: Lieberman, Helms and McCain |
| http://www.americanfreepress.net/NWO/_Get_Iraq__Cabal__Lieberman__H/_get_iraq__cabal__lieberman__h.html
‘Get Iraq’ Cabal: Lieberman, Helms and McCain
Three big-name supporters of Israel in the U.S. Senate have joined the crowd stoking the fire for an all-out war on the entire Islamic world —beginning with Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Exclusive to American Free Press
By Michael Collins Piper
Although Secretary of State Colin Powell and the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Rep. Porter Goss (R-Ill.) and Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fl.)—among many others—have firmly stated time and again that there is “no evidence” to suggest that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 or the recent anthrax scare, a pro-Israel clique in the Senate is demanding that President Bush expand the war on terrorism to include a strike against Saddam.
Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Jesse Helms (N.C.) and Democrat Joseph Lieberman (Conn.) are leading the Senate charge for war against Saddam, implicating him in the terrorist attacks on the United States. The involvement of these “big name” characters in promoting this crusade is no surprise.
• McCain—who counts anti-Muslim agitators such as Bilderberger William Kristol—chief publicist for the anti-Saddam war-drive in “conservative” circles—as among the top boosters of his past and future presidential ambitions, is an obsequious patsy for Israel who hopes any public dissatisfaction with President Bush’s war on terrorism will give McCain’s White House dreams new impetus.
• Helms is a former outspoken critic of Israel who suddenly “converted” when publishing billionaire S. I. “Si” Newhouse (a “rightist” supporter of Israel) is said to have arranged for some American Jewish financial interests to withdraw their support for Helms’ Senate opponent during his faltering 1984 re-election bid. Helms then managed an astounding and quite tragicomic and obvious flip-flop instantly converting himself into an outspoken Arab-hating cheerleader for Israel’s imperial ambitions.
• Lieberman, of course, is a Jewish religious fundamentalist coming from the Orthodox community a 1986 study for the American Jewish Committee by Prof. Steven Cohen found has considerable sympathy for Muslim- and Arab-hating hardliners. Perhaps not by coincidence, Lieberman has been mentioned as a possible running mate for the aforementioned McCain in some sort of “bipartisan” fusion ticket challenging George W. Bush in 2004.
Now this unusual trio is banging the drum for war against Saddam. Yet, ironically, by attacking Saddam, a U.S. strike would actually be in Osama bin Laden’s interests since The Washington Post acknowledged on Sept. 30 that bin Laden is actually hostile to Saddam and would like to bring his perceived “modernist” secular regime to its knees.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Editorial/Ed_Issue_9/ed_issue_9.html
IT DOESN’T TAKE A GENIUS to clearly see that we will lose this undeclared war.Our sorry leaders have a bad habit of losing wars. Even against primitive countries far away from our shores.Until now, the worst loss we’ve ever had was in Vietnam. When we finally scuttled out, after dropping more explosives on that little country than were used in all World War II by all sides, over 50,000 Americans were dead.Although it was a huge loss for America, the war profiteers and bankers found it very profitable.The taxpayers will never recover what was lost, and the interest on the money that was so patriotically lent to them will literally never stop because the bonds will never be paid off.The Vietnamese people were far more motivated than ours. They knew what they were fighting for and against. They were fighting against the American invaders who, they believed, only wanted to replace their former French occupiers.Our undeclared war against Iraq is another case in point. For 11 years your leaders have been killing Iraqis—in 1997 the UN reported that 1.2 million had died as a result of the war and sanctions, including 750,000 children below the age of 5. The death rate for kids is now estimated at 5,000 per month.Your Air Force has destroyed much of Iraq’s water system, bringing starvation and disease. It is still bombing that country.Any way you look at it, this is genocide by American politicians and the evil forces prodding them.All we are doing in Afghanistan is manufacturing more hatred of America and more kamikaze human bombs. Your political leaders are making us the most hated people on Earth.We are SITTING DUCKS for terrorism. With a little imagination you can come up with uncounted scenarios, from bombs in mailboxes to one in the middle of Grand Central Station; from anthrax to ebola; from poison gas in subways to derailment of trains.Even if our Air Force and Navy are able to kill every Afghan—25 million of them—and level their mountains like a huge football field—there are billions of other Muslims from Mindanao and Indonesia to Casablanca to take on.Our great democratic politicians can kill a hundred times as many people as did Stalin and still not do the job.Because of their irresponsible—even criminal—support of Israel over the years, America’s politicians have put America’s head in the noose.For 25 years a great newspaper—The Spotlight—warned of this impending catastrophe, predicting that American intervention into the age-old and insoluble problems of the Mideast could bring only disaster to all of the people of this once-free nation.The Spotlight time and again called for America to “Get Out of the Mideast.”And because of that sane advice, the paper was ignored, except when it was pilloried by apologists for our insane Mideast policy.And finally, as you know, The Spotlight and its publisher, Liberty Lobby, were brought down.Two plus two equals four. What ye sow, so shall ye reap. Injury breeds hatred. Hypocrisy brings contempt. Aggression brings retaliation. The wages of sin is death.IT DOESN’T TAKE A GENIUSYou can figure it out . . .
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Editorial/Ed_Issue_7_3/ed_issue_7_3.html
The Bush administration’s “crusade” against terrorism have many wondering what will be the cost of this war. Exclusive to American Free PressBy Jake Randall According to CNN, as many as 5,000 men and women from 18 states are being deployed for military reserve duty “over there.” So what number of mainline troops will be deployed on final count in what the Pentagon has relabeled “Eternal Freedom” from Bush’s “Infinite Justice”? This is imparting that we are really waging a political war rather than just a police action with an already admitted 90,000 in reservists alone.The Wall Street Journal only a week before these fatal urban terrorist attacks said no matter what Bush did we were headed for a major economic downfall along the lines of 1973. Quoting several big economic analysts and think tanks, there was no peacetime way to avoid the inevitable, regardless of how much federal pump priming took place.Bush now has admitted Afghanistan will not be the only target but Iraq could be included as well as other so-called “terrorist nations.” The reason is that the charged hijackers purportedly visited or “identified with” other target countries.Massive deployment has immediately taken place before any evidence implicating any country has been presented.While intelligence claims the United States has satellite capabilities which can see clearly a haystack anywhere around the world close-up and robot spy planes patrolling the region—two of which have been shot down—U.S. intelligence has been unable to locate one little man in the mountains.President Bush has said this war won’t be fought like the last one. Major economists in both Democratic and Republican camps have alluded to something in between Vietnam ground excursions and a Roosevelt-conducted whole-continent war.However, if the war is fought, it is certain that the taxpayers, not politicians, will pay for it. And pay and pay.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Editorial/Ed_Issue_7_2/ed_issue_7_2.html
OUR PROBLEM is that we have to stay ahead of the news in order to stand still.For example, the page one commentary in our issue datelined Sept. 24 (No. 5) was written on Sept. 11, the day of the terror attack in New York and Washington. But it wasn’t printed until Sept. 14 and readers did not receive it until a week or even two weeks afterward. And the issue of Oct. 1 (No. 6) was written Sept. 17-19 and mailed on the 21st. But it was not delivered until, in most cases, after Oct. 1Thus, the important news that the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, knew about the bombing in advance was not widely circulated until 10 days to two weeks afterward.And the news that “at least 13” Israelis were caught celebrating the bombing and had been arrested, reported on Sept. 20, was not known by most readers until October. But here’s good news . . .AFP SUBSCRIBERSwill be happy to know that the Oct. 1 issue (No. 6), with the headline, “Did Israel Have Foreknowledge?” was mailed to all members of Congress. Thus, none of them can honestly plead ignorance of the fact that the Israelis had advance knowledge of the attack. And having this knowledge, now, Congress should find out why didn’t our “ally” stop the destruction, or at least report the facts to American intelligence?Also, subscribers will be happy to note that one or two stories from the latest issue will be posted to American Free Press’s brand new web site, at americanfreepress.net, every Monday. So readers itching to get the latest from AFP will be able to log onto our web site and see at least one teaser article from the current issue—one week before the complete issue arrives at your door. You can copy, print and distribute them too.In this issue, you’ll find a lot more exclusive news about the horrible attack on America Sept. 11. Just remember that if American newspapers were honest and not controlled by America’s enemies, you would have known what you read in this issue a week or ten days ago. But that’s not OUR PROBLEM... | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2002 9:25 pm Post subject: The war drums are now beating for war against Iraq |
| August 17, 2002
Editor
Letters
The PostCrescent
pcletters@appleton.gannett.com
The war drums are now beating for war against Iraq. Various interests are
calling for the great massacre of the Iraqi people.
One such interest is the Texas oil crowd who would love to get their hands
on Iraqi oil in order
to control it thus making sure that 10 percent of the world’s oil resources
will not not be
used to hurt their profits by flooding the world with cheap oil.
Another is the “Israel-First” crowd in various “think-tanks” led by Richard
Perle, Frank Gaffney, and Paul Wolfowitz who would love to see the United
States pull Israel’s chestnuts out of the fire by attacking Iraq.
But let us assume Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The United States
faced an “evil empire”
in the Soviet Union for nearly fifty years. The policy of MAD (Mutually
Assured Destruction) worked to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking us.
Are we to assume that Iraq will attack the
USA should she possess some weapons of mass destruction and thus guarantee
her own destruction?
The dictator of Iraq, once an esteemed friend of the United States, is no
fanatic willing to
destroy himself and his country in acts of futile vengeance. He is a cool,
if not cold-hearted machiavellian, who is interested only in himself and
his country.
The rest of the world is opposed to an unprovoked American attack against
Iraq.Only Israel and her friends are enthusiastically egging the Bush
administration on.
William Gartland
gartland1@hotmail.com | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2002 5:19 am Post subject: The Coming October War in Iraq |
| The Coming October War in Iraq
http://truthout.com/docs_02/07.25A.wrp.iraq.p.htm
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday, 24 July, 2002
Room 295 of the Suffolk Law School building in downtown Boston was filled to capacity on July 23rd with peace activists, aging Cambridge hippies and assorted freaks. One of the organizers for the gathering, United For Justice With Peace Coalition, handed out green pieces of paper that read, "We will not support war, no matter what reason or rhetoric is offered by politicians or the media. War in our time and in this context is indiscriminate, a war against innocents and against children." Judging from the crowd, and from the buzz in the room, that pretty much summed things up.
The contrast presented when Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, entered the room, could not have been more disparate. There at the lectern stood this tall lantern-jawed man, every inch the twelve-year Marine Corps veteran he was, who looked and spoke just exactly like a bulldogging high school football coach. A whistle on a string around his neck would have perfected the image.
"I need to say right out front," he said minutes into his speech, "I'm a card-carrying Republican in the conservative-moderate range who voted for George W. Bush for President. I'm not here with a political agenda. I'm not here to slam Republicans. I am one."
Yet this was a lie - Scott Ritter had come to Boston with a political agenda, one that impacts every single American citizen. Ritter was in the room that night to denounce, with roaring voice and burning eyes, the coming American war in Iraq.
According to Ritter, this coming war is about nothing more or less than domestic American politics, based upon speculation and rhetoric entirely divorced from fact. According to Ritter, that war is just over the horizon.
"The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to have 20,000 Marines deployed in the (Iraq) region for ground combat operations by mid-October," he said. "The Air Force used the vast majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money and told Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS satellite kits, that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets while the planes
fly away, by September 30, 2002. Why? Because the Air Force has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready for combat operations in Iraq by mid-October."
"As a guy who was part of the first Gulf War," said Ritter, who indeed served under Schwarzkopf in that conflict, "when you deploy that much military power forward - disrupting their training cycles, disrupting their operational cycles, disrupting everything, spending a lot of money - it is very difficult to pull them back without using them."
"You got 20,000 Marines forward deployed in October," said Ritter, "you better expect war in October."
His purpose for coming to that room was straightforward: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Democrat Joe Biden, plans to call a hearing beginning on Monday, July 29th. The Committee will call forth witnesses to describe the threat posed to America by Iraq. Ritter fears that much crucial information will not be discussed in that hearing, precipitating a war authorization by Congress based on political expediency and ignorance. Scott Ritter came to that Boston classroom to exhort all there to demand of the Senators on the Committee that he be allowed to stand as a witness.
Ritter began his comments by noting the interesting times we live in after September 11th. There has been much talk of war, and much talk of war with Iraq. Ritter was careful to note that there are no good wars - as a veteran, he described war as purely awful and something not to be trivialized - but that there is such a thing as a just war. He described America as a good place, filled with potential and worth fighting for. We go to just war, he said, when our national existence has been threatened.
According to Ritter, there is no justification in fact, national security, international law or basic morality to justify this coming war with Iraq. In fact, when asked pointedly what the mid-October scheduling of this conflict has to do with the midterm Congressional elections that will follow a few weeks later, he replied, simply, "Everything."
"This is not about the security of the United States," said this card-carrying Republican while pounding the lectern. "This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation."
Ritter was sledding up a pretty steep slope with all this. After all, Saddam Hussein has been demonized for twelve years by American politicians and the media. He gassed his own people, and America has already fought one war to keep him under control. Ritter's presence in Iraq was demanded in the first place by Hussein's pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, along with the ballistic missile technology that could deliver these weapons to all points on the compass.
According to the Bush administration, Hussein has ties to the same Al Qaeda terrorists that brought down the World Trade Center. It is certain that Hussein will use these terrorist links to deliver a lethal blow to America, using any number of the aforementioned weapons. The argument, propounded by Bush administration officials on any number of Sunday news talk shows, is that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, and the unseating of Saddam Hussein, is critical to American national security. Why wait for them to hit us first?
"If I were an American, uninformed on Iraq as we all are," said Ritter, "I would be concerned." Furthermore, continued Ritter, if an unquestionable case could be made that such weapons and terrorist connections existed, he would be all for a war in Iraq. It would be just, smart, and in the interest of national defense.
Therein lies the rub: According to Scott Ritter, who spent seven years in Iraq with the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams performing acidly detailed investigations into Iraq's weapons program, no such capability exists. Iraq simply does not have weapons of mass destruction, and does not have threatening ties to international terrorism. Therefore, no premise for a war in Iraq exists. Considering the American military lives and the Iraqi civilian lives that will be spent in such an endeavor, not to mention the deadly regional destabilization that will ensue, such a baseless war must be avoided at all costs.
"The Bush administration has provided the American public with little more than rhetorically laced speculation," said Ritter. "There has been nothing in the way of substantive fact presented that makes the case that Iraq possesses these weapons or has links to international terror, that Iraq poses a threat to the United States of America worthy of war."
Ritter regaled the crowd with stories of his time in Iraq with UNSCOM. The basis for the coming October war is the continued existence of a weapons program that threatens America. Ritter noted explicitly that Iraq, of course, had these weapons at one time - he spent seven years there tracking them down. At the outset, said Ritter, they lied about it. They failed to declare the existence of their biological and nuclear programs after the Gulf War, and declared less than 50% of their chemical and missile stockpiles. They hid everything they could, as cleverly as they could.
After the first lie, Ritter and his team refused to believe anything else they said. For the next seven years, the meticulously tracked down every bomb, every missile, every factory designed to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry. They went to Europe and found the manufacturers who sold them the equipment. They got the invoices and shoved them into the faces of Iraqi officials. They tracked the shipping of these materials and cross-referenced this data against the invoices. They lifted the foundations of buildings destroyed in the Gulf War to find wrecked research and development labs, at great risk to their lives, and used the reams of paperwork there to cross-reference what they had already cross-referenced.
Everything they found was later destroyed in place.
After a while, the Iraqis knew Ritter and his people were robotically thorough. Fearing military retaliation if they hid anything, the Iraqis instituted a policy of full disclosure. Still, Ritter believed nothing they said and tracked everything down. By the time he was finished, Ritter was mortally sure that he and his UNSCOM investigators had stripped Iraq of 90-95% of all their weapons of mass destruction.
What of the missing 10%? Is this not still a threat? Ritter believes that the ravages of the Gulf War accounted for a great deal of the missing material, as did the governmental chaos caused by sanctions. The Iraqis' policy of full disclosure, also, was of a curious nature that deserved all of Ritter's mistrust. Fearing the aforementioned attacks, Iraq instituted a policy of destroying whatever Ritter's people had not yet found, and then pretending it never existed in the first place. Often, the dodge failed to fool UNSCOM. That some of it did also accounts for a portion of that missing 10%.
Ritter told a story about running down 98 missiles the Iraqis tried to pretend never existed. UNSCOM got hold of the documentation describing them, and demanded proof that they had, in fact, been destroyed. He was brought to a field where, according to Iraqi officials, the missiles had been blown up and then buried. At this point, Ritter and his team became "forensic archaeologists," digging up every single missile component they could find there.
After sifting through the bits and pieces to find parts bearing serial numbers, they went to Russia, who sold Iraq the weapons in the first place. They cross-referenced the serial numbers with the manufacturer's records, and confirmed the data with the shipping invoices. When finished, they had accounted for 96 of the missiles. Left over was a pile of metal with no identifying marks, which the Iraqis claimed were the other two missiles. Ritter didn't believe them, but could go no further with the investigation.
This story was telling in many ways. Americans mesmerized with stories of lying Iraqis who never told the weapons inspectors the truth about anything should take note of the fact that Ritter was led to exactly the place where the Iraqis themselves had destroyed their weapons without being ordered to. The pile of metal left over from this investigation that could not be identified means Iraq, technically, could not receive a 100% confirmation that all its weapons were destroyed. Along with the other mitigating factors described above, it seems clear that 100% compliance under the UNSCOM rules was impossible to achieve. 90-95%, however, is an impressive record.
The fact that chemical and biological weapons ever existed in the first place demands action, according to the Bush administration. After all, they could have managed to hide vast amounts of the stuff from Ritter's investigators. Iraq manufactured three kinds of these nerve agents: VX, Sarin and Tabou. Some alarmists who want war with Iraq describe 20,000 munitions filled with Sarin and Tabou nerve agents that could be used against Americans.
The facts, however, allay the fears. Sarin and Tabou have a shelf life of five years. Even if Iraq had somehow managed to hide this vast number of weapons from Ritter's people, what they are now storing is nothing more than useless and completely harmless goo.
The VX gas was of a greater concern to Ritter. It is harder to manufacture than the others, but once made stable, it can be kept for much longer. Ritter's people found the VX manufacturing facility that the Iraqis claimed never existed totally destroyed, hit by a Gulf War bomb on January 23, 1991. The field where the material they had manufactured was subsequently buried underwent more forensic archaeology to determine that whatever they had made had also been destroyed. All of this, again, was cross-referenced and meticulously researched.
"The research and development factory is destroyed," said Ritter. "The product of that factory is destroyed. The weapons they loaded up have been destroyed. More importantly, the equipment procured from Europe that was going to be used for their large-scale VX nerve agent factory was identified by the special commission - still packed in its crates in 1997 - and destroyed. Is there a VX nerve agent factory in Iraq today? Not on your life."
This is, in and of itself, a bold statement. Ritter himself and no weapons inspection team has set foot in Iraq since 1998. Ritter believed Iraq technically capable of restarting its weapons manufacturing capabilities within six months of his departure. That leaves some three and one half years to manufacture and weaponize all the horrors that has purportedly motivated the Bush administration to attack.
"Technically capable," however, is the important phrase here. If no one were watching, Iraq could do this. But they would have to start completely from scratch, having been deprived of all equipment, facilities and research because of Ritter's work. They would have to procure the complicated tools and technology required through front companies, which would be detected. The manufacture of chemical and biological weapons emits vented gasses that would have been detected by now if they existed. The manufacture of nuclear weapons emits gamma rays that would have been detected by now if they existed. We have been watching, via satellite and other means, and we have seen none of this.
"If Iraq was producing weapons today, we would have definitive proof," said Ritter, "plain and simple."
And yet we march to war, and soon. A chorus of voices was raised in the room asking why we are going. What motivates this, if not hard facts and true threats? According to Ritter, it comes down to opportunistic politics and a decade of hard anti-Hussein rhetoric that has boxed the Bush administration into a rhetorical corner.
Back in 1991, the UN Security Council mandated the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions were placed upon Iraq to pressure them to comply. The first Bush administration signed on to this, but also issued a covert finding that mandated the removal of Saddam Hussein. Even if all the weapons were destroyed, Bush Sr. would not lift the sanctions until Hussein was gone.
Bush Sr., and Clinton after him, came to realize that talking about removing Hussein was far, far easier than achieving that goal. Hussein was, and remains, virtually coup-proof. No one could get close enough to put a bullet in him, and no viable intelligence existed to pinpoint his location from day to day. Rousing a complacent American populace to support the massive military engagement that would have been required to remove Hussein by force presented insurmountable political obstacles.
The tough talk about confronting Hussein continued, but the Bush and Clinton administrations treaded water.
This lack of results became exponentially more complicated. Politicians began making a living off of demonizing Hussein, and lambasting Clinton for failing to have him removed. The roots of our current problem began to deepen at this point, for it became acceptable to encapsulate a nation of 20 million citizens in the visage of one man who was hated and reviled in bipartisan fashion. Before long, the American people knew the drill - Saddam is an evil threat and must be met with military force, period.
In 1998, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Iraqi Liberation Act. The weight of public American law now demanded the removal of Saddam Hussein. The American government went on to use data gathered by UNSCOM, narrowly meant to pinpoint possible areas of investigation, to choose bombing targets in an operation called Desert Fox. Confrontation,
rather than resolution, continued to be the rule. By 1999, however, Hussein was still in power.
"An open letter was written to Bill Clinton in the fall of 1999," said Ritter, "condemning him for failing to fully implement the Iraqi Liberation Act. It demanded that he use the American military to facilitate the Iraqi opposition's operations inside Iraq, to put troops on the ground and move on up to Baghdad to get rid of Saddam. Who signed this letter? Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Robert Zoellick, Richard Perle, and on and on and on."
The removal of Saddam Hussein became a plank in the GOP's race for the Presidency in 2000. After gaining office, George W. Bush was confronted with the reality that he and many within his administration had spent a great amount of political capital promising that removal. Once in power, however, he came to realize what his father and Clinton already knew - talking tough was easy, and instigating pinprick military confrontations was easy, but removing Hussein from power was not easy at all. His own rhetoric was all around him, however, pushing him into that corner which had only one exit. Still, like the two Presidents before him, he treaded water.
Then came September 11th. Within days, Bush was on television claiming that the terrorists must have had state-sponsored help, and that state sponsor must be Iraq. When the anthrax attacks came, Bush blamed Iraq again. Both times, he had no basis whatsoever in fact for his claims. The habit of lambasting Iraq, and the opportunity to escape the rhetorical box twelve years of hard-talking American policy, were too juicy to ignore.
The dearth of definitive proof of an Iraqi threat against America began to go international. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld appeared before NATO not long ago and demanded that they support America's looming Iraq war. Most of the NATO nations appeared ready to do so - they trusted that America's top defense official would not come before them and lie. But
when they tried to ask questions of him about the basis for this war, Rumsfeld absolutely refused to answer any of them. Instead, he offered this regarding our utter lack of meaningful data to support a conflict: "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."
Scott Ritter appeared before NATO some days after this at their invitation to offer answers to their questions. Much of what he told them was mirrored in his comments in that Boston classroom. After he was finished, 16 of the 19 NATO nations present wrote letters of complaint to the American government about Rumsfeld's comments, and about our basis for war. American UN representatives boycotted this hearing, and denounced all who gave ear to Ritter.
Some have claimed that the Bush administration may hold secret evidence pointing to a threat within Iraq, one that cannot be exposed for fear of compromising a source. Ritter dismissed this out of hand in Boston. "If the administration had such secret evidence," he said, "we'd be at war in Iraq right now. We wouldn't be talking about it. It would be a fait accompli." Our immediate military action in Afghanistan, whose ties to Al Qaeda were manifest, lends great credence to this point.
Ritter dismissed oil as a motivating factor behind our coming war with Iraq. He made a good defense of this claim. Yes, Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves on earth, a juicy target for the petroleum-loving Bush administration. But the U.S. already buys some 68% of all the oil produced in Iraq. "The Navy ships in the Gulf who work to interdict the smuggling of Iraqi oil," said Ritter, "are fueled by Iraqi oil." Iraq's Oil Minister has stated on camera that if the sanctions are lifted, Iraq will do whatever it takes to see that America's oil needs are fulfilled. "You can't get a better deal than that," claimed Ritter.
His thinking on this aspect of the coming war may be in error. That sort of logic exists in an all-things-being-equal world of politics and influence, a world that has ceased to exist. Oil is a coin in the bargaining, peddled as influence to oil-state congressmen and American petroleum companies by the Iraqi National Congress to procure support for this baseless conflict. Invade, says the INC, put us in power, and you will have all you want. There are many ruling in America today, both in government and business, who would shed innocent blood for this opportunity.
Ritter made no bones about the fact that Saddam Hussein is an evil man. Like most Americans, however, he detests being lied to. His work in Iraq, and his detailed understanding of the incredible technological requirements for the production of weapons of mass destruction, leads him to believe beyond question that there is no basis in fact or in the needs of national security for a war in Iraq. This Marine, this Republican who seemed so essentially hawkish that no one in that Boston classroom would have been surprised to find wings under his natty blue sportcoat, called the man he cast a Presidential vote for a liar.
"The clock is ticking," he said, "and it's ticking towards war. And it's going to be a real war. It's going to be a war that will result in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. It's a war that is going to devastate Iraq. It's a war that's going to destroy the credibility of the United States of America. I just came back from London, and I can tell you this - Tony Blair may talk a good show about war, but the British people and the bulk of the British government do not support this war. The Europeans do not support this war. NATO does not support this war. No one supports this war."
It is of a certainty that few in the Muslim world support another American war with Iraq. Osama bin Laden used the civilian suffering in Iraq under the sanctions to demonstrate to his followers the evils of America and the West. Another war would exacerbate those already-raw emotions. After 9/11, much of the Islamic world repudiated bin Laden and his actions. Another Iraq war would go a long way to proving, in the minds of many Muslims, that bin Laden was right all along. The fires of terrorism that would follow this are unimaginable.
Scott Ritter wants to be present as a witness on Monday when the Foreign Relations Committee convenes its hearing, a hearing that will decide whether or not America goes to war in Iraq. He wants to share the information he delivered in that Boston classroom with Senators who have spent too many years listening to, or propounding, rhetorical and speculative fearmongering about an Iraqi threat to America that does not exist. Instead, he wants the inspectors back in Iraq, doing their jobs. He wants to try and keep American and Iraqi blood from being spilled in a military exercise promulgated by right-wing ideologues that may serve no purpose beyond affecting the outcome of the midterm Congressional elections in November 2002.
"This is not theory," said Ritter in Boston as he closed his comments. "This is real. And the only way this war is going to be stopped is if Congress stops this war." | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Annie Laurie | | Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2002 5:16 am Post subject: No War |
| [P. Bush Sr. was told by his generals that it would only take them 24 hours and they could get Saddam, and Bush told the generals "No" and Bush stopped the war. The generals asked why and he told them that if Saddam was left in it would keep the Arabs divided. Now that I have read these articles, it makes sense because 9/11 happens and gains the support of the Americans to get these so-called terrorists. I really think the terrorists are Israelis. In the Bin Laden pictures, Bin Laden has his left hand over his mouth. An Arab man would never put his left hand over his mouth. You never serve, shake hands, etc. with the left hand because you use it for the bathroom. When a person steals, they cut off the right hand. Another point I noticed was that the people never speak in Arabic on TV. This is always translated in English. There are millions in the US and they would know what they are saying. Another point is that a Jew and Arab have different accents. I once heard Arafat on the TV and I think he is a Jew. He seems to be working against his own people. I was in the Jerusalem on the Arab side in an hotel and I remembered seeing the predecessor of Sharon in the elevator. I know it was him because I have sense of remembering faces but not names. My Saudi friend always told me Arafat was a trader. Back to 9/11 -- it was odd that we have perfect pictures by the media. Another odd fact is that all the pictures from the media, the skies were clear by the end of the day. A friend from New York told me that her husband noticed the smoke lingered over the site for two days he noticed driving into the city. I was in Saudi Arabia during and after the war and the smoke from the oil wells lingered over the camp for months, but this is a much larger scale but the same principal. Now, I read an account of someone going down the WTC building from the 84th floor and he stopped several times on the floors and nothing was wrong except they didn't have any people. Another thing was I noticed that the buildings went straight down. This reminded me of years ago I saw how the Shamrock Hilton was demolished and it went straight down just like the WTC towers except the utilities were turned off in the Shamrock Hilton.
These are things I remember and seem to stick in my mind for some reason. Maybe they can help you figure this mess out.
I tell people that the news is like watching a TV show as it all seems to be staged to bias one's view of life. I have noticed that the media uses the same picture such as Israel over and over. When they want to upset Americans against Arabs, they get a picture of Arabs celebrating and tell them that they are celebrating 9/11. If you check it out according to the date on the film, it will be another time.
All the terror since 9/11 has come within the United States. The first one was anthrax and I told my friends it was Americans. Then the kidnappings begun and when this would die down, then the so-called terrorists cells were found, but people were charged without evidence.
The only bills which were passed since 9/11 was Homeland Security to control you and Patriot Bill which the government wants you to spy on your neighbor (gimme a break).
I told people that when Enron happened our government would do nothing about it and the other companies would follow suit and they did.
I could go on and on but if I could be of any help to you about the Gulf War, just e-mail me: AnnieLaurieB@aol.com as I was over there before, during and after the war.
Love, Annie Laurie | | | | Guest | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
