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Powell’s
“evidence against Iraq” was baseless. |
Editor’s note: This is part 1
of a series of articles that examine how the war manifested
itself, how the proponents pushed the war agenda, and the tools
they used to convince a domestic and international audience.
The
current debacle in Iraq was predicted by thousands of political
scientists, historians, economists, United Nations officials,
human rights organizations, journalists, priests, imams, and
ordinary anti-war pundits who had the foresight to realize what
the invasion of Iraq really meant
However,
many in the US refused to listen, blinded by the post-9/11 web
of paranoia and a media that simply caved in to the whims of a
neoconservative agenda. Many in the US continued to believe that
Iraq perpetrated the attacks in New York and Virginia. Many
believed that Saddam could strike the US with a nuclear bomb, a
radioactive “dirty” bomb, or supply terrorists like Al-Qaeda
with the technology to do it themselves.
Within
the next few weeks, David Kay, the American lead man seeking
proof of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and former head
of UNSCOM, the UN weapons inspection regime, is expected to
brief the world on his findings. Reports coming out of
Washington indicate that the Kay report may indeed be postponed
for undetermined reasons.
Despite
the dwindling likelihood of finding anything substantial to
report after five months, many regional experts expect Kay to
continue his long repertoire of embellishing the context –
much in the same way in the months leading up to the Iraq war
when he claimed he was confident Iraqi weapons would be found.
In
the four months since Saddam’s statue was toppled, the claims
of Iraq’s weapons, imminent threat, and arsenal, have slowly
started to unravel.
Claim
#1 – US President George Bush repeated claims that Iraq was in
possession of aerial drones fitted with chemical weapons
delivery systems. This was also the basis of US Secretary of
State Powell’s UN “evidence against Iraq” presentation.
Proven
Fact - Subsequent intelligence and analysis from Iraq indicate
the drones could not have possibly been designed except for
reconnaissance missions. No chemical delivery systems were
found. The Associated Press would later report that “Huddled
over a fleet of abandoned Iraqi drones, US weapons experts in
Baghdad came to one conclusion: Despite the Bush
administration’s public assertions, these unmanned aerial
vehicles weren’t designed to dispense biological or chemical
weapons”.
Claim
#2 – UN weapons inspectors are unable to find chemical weapons
because the Iraqis have been adept at hiding them in mobile
labs. This assertion was used by both President Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair. It was also the basis of Powell’s
UN presentation.
Proven
Fact - The Observer (Guardian Unlimited) reported in
early June that British intelligence “has established that it
is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used
for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a
system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.”
Claim
#3 – PM Tony Blair told Parliament as early as September of
last year that Iraq had the capability to mobilize its chemical
weapons within 45 minutes and strike. A British Government
dossier published last year (September 2002) to justify an
invasion of Iraq made notable mention of Blair’s claim.
Proven
Fact – The Blair claim has caused quite a flap in British
domestic politics. A government weapons adviser, David Kelly,
who had disagreed with Blair’s statement, as well as the level
of Iraq’s threat to the world, was later found dead – an
apparent suicide.
According
to BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, Kelly believed that the
British government tried to sex up the dossier in order to make
a better sell to the public and justify an invasion of Iraq.
Furthermore,
“Blair's headline-grabbing claim that Iraq could deploy
weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do
so was based on hearsay information,” The Guardian
reported in mid-July.
In
July, an 11-member House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
investigated Blair’s statements and the British dossier. Their
consequent report said that Blair “misrepresented” the
information he was given and, by presenting it to Parliament,
had “inadvertently made a bad situation worse.”
Addressing
evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the report
stated, “We further conclude that the jury is still out on the
accuracy of the September dossier until substantial evidence of
Iraq’s WMD, or of their destruction, is found.”
An
entire conflict was initiated and continues to rage because
“the jury is still out on” the very evidence that justified
the conflict.
(The
entire report, known as the Ninth Report of the House of Commons
Foreign Affairs Committee, can be found at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/
cmfaff/813/81302.htm
Claim
#4 – In January of this year, President Bush used the State of
the Union Address to firmly tell Congress and the American
nation that Iraq was a threat to peace in the world, and,
specifically, a threat to US shores. President Bush cited
evidence of Iraqi efforts to procure enriched uranium: “The
British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The
claim was repeated by several senior members of the Bush
administration, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice. It was later circulated that documents were in Coalition
hands implicating that Niger was the country providing the
uranium to Iraq.
Proven
Fact – Subsequent research by the CIA, MI-6, UN weapons
inspectors, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
have revealed that Bush’s claim was simply unfounded. The
documents linking Niger to Iraq were third-rate forgeries,
according to the IAEA.
On
July 6, Joseph Wilson, US ambassador to Gabon (1992-1995) wrote
a scathing editorial in The New York Times berating the
Bush administration for “twist[ing] to exaggerate the Iraqi
threat.” Wilson, who was able to determine that the Niger-Iraq
connection was a fabrication and the documents forgeries, said:
“Based on my experience with the administration in the months
leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that
some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons
program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
The
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report also
criticized the Bush claim and called on the British government
to conduct an investigation as to how the Niger claim was
allowed into the Blair September 2002 dossier.
Claim
#5 – When UN weapons inspectors came up empty in their search
for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, the Bush
administration affirmed the belief that these weapons would be
found by US forces once Iraq was “liberated.”
Richard
Perle, head of the US Defence Department policy board, told the
BBC in January of this year that “we must assume that what is
unaccounted for is hidden.” The US position at the time was
that even if weapons inspectors came up empty, it was impossible
to give Iraq a clean bill of health.
Proven
Fact – There are currently more than 2,000 inspectors, agents,
Special Forces teams, FBI investigators, CIA personnel, and
scientists scouring Iraq. After more than four months they have
found close to nothing to suggest Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction.
The
BBC’s Andrew Marr recently told BBC Television “Senior
government sources are telling me that they no longer believe
that physical weapons of mass destruction are actually going to
be found in Iraq.”
As
the effort to find weapons of mass destruction began to seem
fruitless, the Bush administration quickly offered a plethora of
reasons why, and in some cases, pointed to Saddam’s human
rights record as adequate justification for an invasion of Iraq.
“In
his weekly radio address yesterday, Mr Bush was forced to
produce a new explanation of why the US has not found Iraq’s
alleged chemical and biological weapons. He told listeners that
suspect sites had been looted in the closing days of Saddam
Hussein’s regime,” said The Independent, June 24.
Does
the US administration possess a blueprint for world domination?
Next week, Firas Al-Atraqchi examines the particulars of a
document drafted in 2000, which advocated an all out-war against
Iraq.
Firas
Al-Atraqchi is a Canadian journalist of Iraqi heritage.
Holding an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication, he has
eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and
gas markets, and the telecom industry. You can reach him at firascape@hotmail.com
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