 |
Iraq In The Crosshairs By Michael D. Roberts |
Such unmitigated arrogance was seen during the Carter visit to Cuba when State Department officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell himself, continuously uttered a number of falsehoods about Cuba exporting biological germs to America's enemies. Again, nobody bothered to say which county or countries that these exports were going to, for how long had the United States known about them, and how come Administration loudmouths were only just yapping about it. Naturally, when challenged to produce evidence the entire thing died a natural death.
But with Iraq things are a lot different. At the crux of any action against Iraq and the continued demonizing of Saddam Hussein are the Iraqi oilfields. For while the war in Afghanistan drove out the Taliban and scattered Al-Queda, the volatile and capricious nature of that country does not make it easy for the U.S. to set up shop there and to exploit the Afghanistan oil fields. And Iran is no easy nut either; that is why President Bush deliberately branded both Iran and Iraq as part of his "axis of evil." Oil, lots of it, is at the bottom of the equation.
However, Bush and Company's insistence that Iraq is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction has been debunked by a former US Marine and a member of the United Nations Special Commission Unit (UNSCOM) that was charged with overseeing the allegations of Iraqi arms development, including biological and other weapons. Ritter is on record as saying that by the time UNSCOM's people were kicked out by the Iraqis in 1998 the country's weapons program has been effectively destroyed and that the UN group's mission was tantamount to providing continued excuses for ongoing belligerence particularly from the United States.
Ritter also claimed that the composition of these inspection teams was suspect in that it included former and current members of the United States Delta Force and the CIA who had little knowledge about weapons of mass destruction, and did not know what to look for. In essence therefore these were simply spies who used the UN mission as cover to set up clandestine activities inside Iraq. It is the same CIA that is today telling Bush that a covert war against Iraq has little chance of success and that any move to oust Saddam Hussein would involve over 250,000 troops, massive air strikes, and heavy civilian casualties that could turn many of America's allies against her.
In fact the Europeans have consistently balked at the U.S. saber rattling against Saddam Hussein and Bush himself had to back-track on his "Axis of Evil" dictat after his friends in Europe felt that he'd gone off the deep end with that one. And just this week Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld feigned righteous anger at leaks in the press about a war plan to invade Iraq, a plan that Israeli newspapers have said would go into effect before the end of 2002. I believe that Rumsfeld was just grandstanding since a leak of such plans, coming right in the middle of a third round of talks between the Iraqis and the UN secretary general Kofi Anan on allowing the weapons inspectors back into Baghdad might expose the myth of the weapons of mass destruction claim.
By ratcheting up the rhetoric about plans to invade Iraq, the Bush Administration will sow suspicion in the minds of the Iraqis that any such new weapons inspection teams will include CIA and other U.S. defense department operatives whose sole purpose was to gather intelligence on Iraq for a pending U.S. invasion. The Catch 22 is this: Should the Iraqis balk at the composition or walk away from the negotiating table the U.S. will loudly proclaim that Saddam Hussein has something to hide, and will accuse the Iraqi leader of developing more weapons of mass destruction. Thus will there be intact the pretext for the invasion.
The lessons of history have taught us that these public saber rattlings, harsh rhetoric, and barely concealed belligerence by both sides, are the danger signs that precede all out conflict. When the anthrax scare hit the United States some very prominent news networks blamed Iraq, and every morning on CNN a former member of the UN inspection team to Iraq, Richard Butler, spewed venom about the state of the Iraqi weapons preparedness, and the dangers of not going after Saddam. In recent times the Bush Administration's swing towards rabid militarism has seen the public unshackling of the CIA to engage in assassinations and other extrajudicial means to promote America's foreign policy.
Here it is good to remember that this return to the notorious CIA days of the 1960s and 1970s signals a dangerous time for anyone deemed "America's enemy." It was during this time that the CIA helped organize, aided, abetted or became directly involved in the bloody murders of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, Chilean President Salvador Alliende, Dominican President Rafael Trujillo, Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevera, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, and the countless failed assassination attempts on the life of Cuba's president Fidel Castro.
It was only after these "above the law" activities were made public that in 1976 President Gerald Ford issued an executive order that banned these kinds of assassinations and the policy of overthrowing or undermining governments that American interests deemed undesirable. Since that time successive government and presidents have all publicly, at least, upheld this ban. The Bush Administration has no such compunctions and has publicly stated that it wants President Hussein removed one way or the other.
Iraq continued to be a divided country with the imposition of "no fly zones," ironically not sanctioned or as a result of any UN resolution, but by the dictat of the United States and Britain. Since the end of the Gulf War British and American warplanes have flown over 10,000 sorties over Iraq and have routinely launched missiles, strafed, and attacked not only Iraqi military installations, but bridges and other vital communication links. The UN sanctions and the partition of Iraq has resulted in unbelievable hardships on the Iraqi people and to date the death toll from disease and other health-related problems stands at over 1 million the vast majority of that number being children.
Bullying, unreasonable demands, harsh inflammatory rhetoric makes any negotiation with Saddam Hussein impossible. The irony of the situation is that when Saddam Hussein spews venom, murders his own people, and thumbs his nose at the democratic world, America takes the lead in condemning him. Now President Bush has beaten the erratic Iraqi leader to the punch this time with statements that are worthy of Saddam Hussein at his best. But nobody will say that in the final analysis both good fellas may be kindred spirits after all.