Before Pentagon blitzkrieg
U.S. war of lies
By Deirdre Griswold
It doesn't take much digging to prove that the much-hyped
indictment of Iraq that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
laid before the UN Security Council on Feb. 5 was a brazen
rehash of discredited charges.
What is amazing is that the Bush ad min istration obviously
doesn't care that its arguments can easily be disproven. It is
relying on the power of the U.S.-dominated mass media to sell
these trumped-up excuses for a war to a misinformed public.
And it is playing the diplomatic game only to gain time as
it deploys a nightmarish armada for mass destruction around
Iraq and its rich oil fields.
Take the charge that Iraq gassed thousands of Kurds at the
town of Halabja in 1988, and that this proves Iraq's "monstrous
human rights record." Just days before Powell's appearance at
the UN, this allegation was disproven in an opinion piece in
the New York Times of Jan. 31 by Stephen C. Pelletiere. He
wrote that "all we know for certain is that Kurds were
bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say
with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the
Kurds."
He goes on to explain that the incident took place during
the Iran-Iraq war, and that the Kurds were not deliberate
targets of the gas but were caught up in a battle. Furthermore,
says Pelletiere, "the United States Defense Intelligence Agency
investigated and produced a classified report ... that it was
Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas." Iraq and
Iran both used gas in the battle, but only Iran possessed nerve
gas, the kind that killed the Kurds, according to this
report.
And who is Pelletiere? The CIA's senior political analyst on
Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and a professor at the Army War
College from 1988 to 2000. He got to see much classified
material about the region.
Like the story of babies being torn from incubators by Iraqi
soldiers in Kuwait in 1990, which was later proven to be
totally invented, this gruesome charge about poison gas was
created for its media value in softening up the population to
accept a war of aggression by Washington.
That Powell used it again--even right after it had been
publicly discredited by a CIA expert--shows that he had nothing
more convincing on which to pin his case.
The Iraqi government had a mountain of rebuttal ready as
soon as Powell had finished speaking, even though most
governments take more time to frame a response to such serious
charges. However, the Iraqi ambassador to the UN was given only
a few minutes to respond to Powell's hour-and-a-half
speech.
Most of Powell's allegations about Iraq concealing weapons
were based on unnamed and unidentified "intelligence sources"
or "defectors" and therefore cannot be independently
verified.
Powell also showed slides purportedly taken by U.S.
reconnaissance planes that he claimed showed Iraq's intent to
deceive UN inspectors. In a press conference from Baghdad,
Iraqi scientific adviser Amer Al-Saadi pointed out that the UN
has its own sources for aerial imagery and has found no such
evidence.
The Iraqi pointed out that under Resolution 1441, which
Powell cited many times as justification for the U.S.
unilaterally moving toward war, member states of the UN are
required to hand over any information they might have about
Iraqi weapons programs to the UN agencies in charge of
inspections: UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy
Agency.
Not only isn't Washington doing this, but it quickly removed
all its so-called "evidence" from the Security Council as soon
as Powell finished speaking, according to the Pacifica program
"Democracy Now."
Washington is presenting as fact its uncorroborated
allegations. And the media are playing along, saturating the
public with this old wine in new bottles.
The stock markets fell after Powell's speech. At least one
financial analyst said it was because the markets are afraid
that he failed to convince the world to support a U.S.-British
war, and that therefore it will be long and bloody. "This (war)
is not going to be easy. It's not going to be short and it's
not going to be limited," said Hugh Johnson, chief investment
officer at First Albany Corp.
What the world saw on Feb. 5 was a classic case of "might
makes right." The clear aggressor in this situation is U.S.
imperialism, which is determined to go to war against Iraq even
though that country has done nothing to provoke a
confrontation. Yet most of the capitalist governments in the
world are demanding that Iraq do more to prove it has no
weapons of mass destruction. Anyone familiar with logic knows
that proving a negative is virtually impossible.
Not one country is demanding that the UN look into U.S.
weapons of mass destruction, investigate the Pentagon's
stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, or
reveal the secret deals made by the White House and State
Department in collusion with the big oil companies over who
will get what in a post-war Iraq.
These are the issues on the minds of millions around the
world. Every diplomat knows, however, that even to contemplate
such a question is to bring down the wrath of the true
terrorist government--the one run by George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz,
Condoleezza Rice and John Ashcroft. It is insisting on total
obedience from the countries in the UN or they will be made
"irrelevant"--a euphemism for their destruction.
Yet even as this shoddy scenario was being played out in the
organization that claims to be the guardian of world peace, yet
has never even tried to stop a U.S. war, the anti-war forces
around the world were preparing for a new round of
demonstrations. Some protesters came out in the streets
immediately.
In Europe and a number of cities across the U.S., the week
of Feb. 15 will be a time of mass mobilizations against the war
that are expected to bring out many millions of people.
Powell's speech may convince many people that it is up to them
to stop this war, especially if it becomes clear that no other
deterrent will work.
Reprinted from the Feb. 13, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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