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Lie No. 5: “The Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”
The Washington Post article cited above noted that CIA officials were concerned “about whether administration officials have exaggerated intelligence in a desire to convince the American public and foreign governments that Iraq is violating United Nations prohibitions against chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons and long-range missile systems.” The article quoted “a senior intelligence analyst” who said the inspectors could not locate weapons caches “because there may not be much of a stockpile.”
Former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook, who resigned from the Blair government Monday in protest over the decision to go to war without UN authorization, declared, “Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term.” Even if Iraq is concealing some remnants of its 1980s arsenal, these would hardly deserve Bush’s lurid description, since they are primitive and relatively ineffective. “Some of the most lethal weapons ever devised” are those being unleashed by the United States on Iraq: cruise missiles, smart bombs, fuel-air explosives, the 10,000-pound “daisy-cutter” bomb, the 20,000-pound MOAB just tested in Florida. In addition, the US has explicitly refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons.
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Well part of my rebuttal is to see again what I said for lie 4. Has Bush taken an exaggerated stance in portraying Iraq’s chemical/biological weapons program? That I don’t disagree with, however, I do believe that Iraq does have some sort of WOMD program in place. And although they “MAY” not have much and although they “PROBABLY” don’t have any in the common sense of term (meaning they do have some stockpiles), that’s a lot of maybes when they shouldn’t have ANY according to UN resolutions. The UN resolutions don’t say it’s ok for him to have 50 chemical warheads but 500 is a no no. The past 11 years have been about him not having much but still having some and the issue now is for him to have none. As for our militarily superiority, that’s a separate issue, it has nothing to do with the disarmament of Iraq. We aren’t prohibited from having lethal weapons and we most certainly aren’t going to use WOMDs. That whole nuclear weapons issue is silly. It’s meant to be a threat to Saddam to not use his womds, but any sane person will concur that the US will not use any kind of WOMDs when the whole issue is about WOMDs … that’s simply ludicrous.
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Lie No. 6: “[Iraq] has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of Al Qaeda.”
No one, not even US government, seriously believes there is a significant connection between the Islamic fundamentalists and the secular nationalist Ba’athist regime in Iraq, which have been mortal enemies for decades. The continued assertion of an Al Qaeda-Iraq alliance is a desperate attempt to link Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks.
It also serves to cover up the responsibility of American imperialism for sponsoring Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. The forces that now comprise Al Qaeda were largely recruited, trained, armed and set in motion by the CIA itself, as part of a long-term policy of using Islamic fundamentalists as a weapon against left-wing movements in the Muslim countries. This policy was pursued from the 1950s and was escalated prior to and during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, which ended in 1989. Osama bin Laden himself was part of the CIA-backed mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan before he turned against Washington in the 1990s.
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With part of this I agree. I think that there is very little affiliation between Al Qaeda and Iraq. But do I think that Iraq has aided, trained, and harbored terrorists? Yes. Al Qaeda isn’t the only terrorist group on the block. I’m sure Saddam wouldn’t hesistate for a second to sponsor terrorist groups against the US or Israel. As a matter of fact, Iraq’s pledge of money to suicide bomber families is a form of support right there.
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Lie No. 7: “America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully.”
The Bush administration went to the United Nations because it wanted UN sanction for military action and it wanted UN member states to cough up funds for postwar operations, along the lines of its financial shakedown operation for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Bush’s most hawkish advisors, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, initially opposed going to the UN because they did not want diplomacy to slow down the drive to war. They only agreed after Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that the pace of the US military buildup in the Persian Gulf gave enough time to get the UN to rubber-stamp the war.
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That’s pure speculation. If this guy is so sure and has evidence that we only went through the UN for military action and funds I would like to see the evidence that this guy used. It’s funny how he knew from the get go that there would be war for sure when everybody else was unsure. Again sources would be appreciated. Nobody can say for sure that the US would have completely backed down if weapons inspectors came back with glowing reports praising Iraqi cooperation showing the entire world that they have indeed disarmed beyond a doubt.
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! Thanks for dredging this up ... it brings back the memories. Let this make no mistake, I tried to give this administration the benefit of the doubt and reason. Yet my demands for reserved judgment until we got more information only yielded unbridled anger once we got that information. I admit that I was wrong, but I can honestly say that I can't find logical flaws with my prior reasoning (with the information I had at the time).
