Iraq: Truth and Lies

As the USA and UK get ready to turn the heat up on their leaders, to see whether or not they lied to their nations, it becomes increasingly obvious that the only one who was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth was Saddam Hussein
The demonology, the hype, the hysteria, the hypocrisy remind one of the Nazi regime of the 1930s. The ingredients are all there: first Rumsfeld,  then Powell, then Bush, ranting and raving about "active nuclear programs" and "programs to develop biological and chemical weapons" or "large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons", like a Nazi newsreel about the massacre of ethnic Germans by Czechs in the Sudetenland, hype true to form of a master of mass hysteria such as Goebbels.

The pretext for the war against Iraq was that the "odious regime" of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, WMD. WMD is not a few rusting shell cases, nor is it piles of out-of-date flasks sitting in some laboratory. Biological and chemical agents deteriorate over time and even the highest quality and most stable have a shelf-life of less than a decade.

WMD is not a handful of missiles with a capacity to strike at 150 kilometers. WMD is the capability to deliver a weapon which will cause mass destruction, killing hundreds of people, in a major center of population.

Whether or not the Ba'ath regime had WMD was a matter for the United Nations UNMOVIC inspectors to decide and whether or not a nuclear program existed, as Rumsfeld et al. claimed, was for the International Atomic Energy Agency to decide. Mohammed el Baradei had already declared that the "evidence" presented by Washington and London, linking Baghdad to the purchase of yellowcake uranium from Niger had been forged, and his IAEA inspection teams concluded that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program. 1-0.

Secondly, Dr. Hans Blix's UNMOVIC teams did not discover a single case of WMD in their hundreds of unhindered inspections, despite the great pressure they were under. The USA insinuated at the time that no WMD was being found because it was being hidden, but that Washington knew where it was.

Despite the fact that the UN inspections were going ahead, and that Iraq was complying fully with the teams, Washington and London tried to bully through a resolution calling for an armed attack against Iraq in the UN Security Council, but behind the scenes. Why was so much energy spent t to pursue agreement on this issue? Because they knew that, under international law, a second resolution was always necessary. 2-0.

Finally, had Iraq possessed WMD, it is hardly likely that Washington, especially, would have sent its troops into Iraq, given that the Pentagon's number one rule for military engagement is a failsafe guarantee of a war under hermetically sealed conditions of safety, in which only a defenseless country is attacked and casualties are limited to the carelessness and incompetence with which the Pentagon's own troops handle their own weapons systems (and inflict 80% of its allies' casualties). 3-0.

Now that Washington has had more than enough time to find the WMD, where are they? Where are these "large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons", where are these "active nuclear programs"? Hidden in the desert? How can one hide an active nuclear energy program in the desert? Moving around the country on the backs of vehicles? Still? Taken across the border into Syria? What, a nuclear energy program, complete with reactor and cooling rods? 4-0.

The truth is, these systems did not exist. Washington was in such a hurry to install itself in the region, so desperate to find an alternative to the increasingly unstable Saudi Arabia, so pressed by the handful of companies which gravitate around the White House and form the policy of the State department by proxy, that any excuse was steamrollered through and a massive and murderous military assault brushed the Ba'ath regime aside.

Having failed to find the WMD, because this was a fabrication from the start, or in plain English, a blatant lie, the talk is now conveniently turned to AIDS programs in Africa, friendly smiles at the G8 summit and plans to bolster the world economy in a climate of stability, collaboration and friendship. The real issue here is being forgotten. Thousands of innocent people were slaughtered, murdered, in the worst act of butchery since the Vietnam War, in an illegal campaign without any pretext whatsoever, one based on lies.

It was not Saddam Hussein who "stiffed" the world, it is George W. Bush and his increasingly absurd lap-dog, Tony Blair. Saddam Hussein, it seems, was the one telling the truth, making Bush and Blair blatant, barefaced liars. They lied to their nations, they lied to the UNO, they lied to the world. All in aid of establishing a convenient military base in Iraq for the USA to push forward another piece as the stranglehold closes around Russia and all in aid of the vanity, fickleness and protagonism of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 5-0.