Iraq: The jewel in the Bush crown

This war has cost the lives of 2036 US soldiers (at least), 97 British and 102 others, making a total of 2235

Three years ago, as the United States of America was preparing a barrage of lies to justify what would be its illegal act of butchery in Iraq, this column warned George Bush that he was about to commit a monumental mistake.

Three years on, who was right, George W. Bush and his regime, or Pravda.Ru?

The pretext for war

The pretext given by George Bush was that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the USA and its allies, due to the fact that Baghdad was trying to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger to make weapons-grade material and that Saddam Hussein's government had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

At a time when the UNMOVIC teams were already inside Iraq, inspecting thoroughly yet finding nothing, the question was posed as to why not let these experts, like Dr. David Kelly, carry out their work? The answer from the Bush regime was the arrogant “We know where they are”. Donald Rumsfeld even went so far as to specify that they were “in Tikrit and Baghdad and north, south, east and west of there” and Colin Powell, after the WMD failed to show up, made a lame claim that “they're being driven around the desert, in vehicles.”

Upon examination, the uranium case was later exposed in this column as a colossal lie. Mohammed El-Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated that the documental evidence produced by the Americans was nothing more than forged documents with false signatures and the wrong type of letterhead.

The result? There was no uranium deal, Dr. David Kelly, the British WMD expert, committed suicide and once again, we ask those involved in this war and who entered the war on this pretext: Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction?

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The Resolution

After proving that the casus belli did not exist, therefore rendering the war illegal, it was also pointed out at the time in this column that the UN Charter rules over all Resolutions and that each and every resolution comes under the modus operandi of the UNO, namely that all decisions to go to war need a separate resolution.

If this were not the case, why did Washington try so hard to get this resolution and why did Tony Blair ask an audience in a televised debate if it would justify a war in their opinion if such a resolution was forthcoming?

The United States and its handful of allies broke international law by waging this illegal war, they broke the UN Charter, they broke every rule of diplomacy in the book, they broke that bond of trust that links the citizen who elects a government to use reasonable tact in its decisions and a modicum of decency.

Forgery, lies, blackmail and under-handedness do not amount to decency. Neither does breaking the law.

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The war

What has the war achieved? No doubt George Bush would claim that it removed a bloodthirsty dictator who colluded with terrorists, set up an elected democratic regime and set the Iraqi people free.

He would also claim that he hears voices and that God tells him what to do, these being clear signs of a psychotic state brought on by years of substance abuse. One wonders whether he swings his golf club at leprechauns mocking him on the fairway or spits at the fairy godmother who whisked his ball off into a bunker.

Saddam Hussein has been removed, true – the only point of equilibrium in the country and in the region, the only person between a stable Iraq and an Iraq crawling with international terrorists, who flooded into the country after the invasion.

One dictator has been substituted by tens of dictators, religious fanatics, Islamist politicians and reactionaries who rule the country de facto – not the “elected” Parliament who control the Green Zone in Baghdad and pilfer the funds allocated for the reconstruction of the country. How much money has disappeared into their hands since the Constitution appointed them? Has anyone investigated this?

What to say of a “government” which institutes that husbands are allowed to beat wives who “misbehave” and which is full of political Islamists who want women to wear the veil?

What to say of women's rights? Are the women free if they are beheaded for not wearing a veil? Are women free if they cannot walk around without a bodyguard for fear of being raped? Are women free when American soldiers rape them? Are women free if they are victims of honour killings, which have sprung back under the American-led invasion?

Are the people free when two and a half years on, many of them still do not have water or electricity because the Americans targeted these civilian infra-structures? Are the children free if they cannot walk the streets without fear of being shot?

Are people free if they cannot go out without fearing for their lives? Was this the reality before the invasion?

Freedom? What freedom?

As for the widespread cases of torture in US concentration camps, no comment.

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The human cost

Although the Bush regime frequently claimed that civilian casualties would be reduced to a minimum, there is now evidence that at least 26,700 civilians were murdered by direct foreign military intervention (such as dropping cluster bombs in civilian areas) and indirect deaths have totaled up to 100,000 in two and a half years. For a regime which purposefully targets civilian infrastructures, what a surprise!

This war has cost the lives of 2036 US soldiers (at least), 97 British and 102 others, making a total of 2235, admitted by the respective authorities.

All these deaths in an illegal war whose pretext has been exposed as the lie it always has been.

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The cost to the US Taxpayer

When this article was begun, the war in Iraq had cost the US taxpayer 216. 935. 401. 216 USD. By the end, it had cost 216. 937. 910. 351, a question of just over 2.5 million USD in half an hour.

Not only does George Bush invade a sovereign nation, breaking every law in the book, lying through his teeth to the international community, he destabilizes the country and the region, sending it into chaos and leaving in a state in which the people claim they were better off under Saddam Hussein (even his enemies claim this), he commits an act of mass murder, sheds the blood of thousands of fellow Americans and bleeds its workers dry, so that his friend Cheney can gather the benefits from the rebuilding programme, without public tenders.

Everything that we predicted in this column three years ago has come true. What a disgraceful comment on George Bush's ability to manage his nation.

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