Posted by Karen on March 06, 2003 at 12:20:32:
Thirteen Myths About the Case for War in Iraq
By Rich Cowan, Paul Rosenberg a
nd Abigail Caplovitz, AlterNet
March 4, 2003
The Internet has certainly pla yed a major role in the current debate over war in Iraq. Recently, a group of on line "mythbusters" involved in the 13myths.org project went one step further. Th ey posted a summary of key claims made by the proponents of war and then inv ited hundreds of people to offer suggestions on how to respond. The following is the result of this exchange. The complete document, with more than 120 foot notes from mainstream and primary sources, is online at 13myths.org.
MYTH #1:
Removing Saddam Hussein from power would eliminate a key backer of the al-Qaeda
terrorist network responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
RESPONSE #1:
Just four days a
fter the Sept. 11 attacks, the Wall St. Journal doubted any Iraqi involvement in
an article titled "U.S. Officials Discount Any Role by Iraq in Terrorist Attacks:
Secularist Saddam Hussein and Suspect bin Laden Have Divergent Goals." The CIA and the
FBI remain skeptical of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein,
despite continued political pressure to find one, according to a front page article
in the NY Times on Feb. 2, 2003. None of the hijackers came from Iraq;
15 of the hijackers came from the same country as Osama bin Laden: Saudi Arabia.
RESPONSE #2:
Many of Powell's assertions were quickly refuted. For example,
Powell said, "By 1998, UN experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected drying techniques
for their biological weapons programs."
Actually, the UN's
1/99 report on this matter said only that Iraq had performed drying experiments
prior to the Gulf War, in 1989 - not that it had perfected them.
A journalist for The Observer toured Ansar al-Islam's alleged chemical weapons factory and found it to be a bakery with outhouses. Powell's claims that ricin found in Britain came from Iraq were rejected by European intelligence agencies, who said it was crude and "homemade" in Europe.
Even more appalling was the revelation in the British press about the one of the key documents Powell used in his UN speech, the "dossier" on terrorism prepared by the staff of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Powell praised the document as a "fine paper." However, much of it was plagiarized from source material written before the current round of inspections, primarily from a published article written by Ibrahim al-Marashi, a graduate student in California. The al-Marashi article, published nearly a year ago, focused largely on the evidence of Iraq's weapons programs as they existed in 1990, prior to the first Gulf War.
RESPONSE #3:
The comparison to Nazi Germany is a stretch. Germany, by 1938, was
number one in military spending, and had recovered from the Great Depression well before the
other leading nations. It formed a real military alliance - the Axis - with two other
powerful industrial nations, Italy and Japan.
By contrast, Iraq's military capability was largely destroyed in the 1991 Gulf War, and the "Axis of Evil" that Iraq is supposedly part of (Iran-Iraq-N. Korea) does not really exist as an alliance. In fact, Iran and Iraq fought each other in a 9-year war from 1980-1989.
The $399 billion US military budget proposed at the end of January 2003 is almost 300 times the size of Iraq's.
RESPONSE #4:
Though the Feb. 12 UN finding made the headlines, it was not really
new; it was based on information volunteered by Iraq over
a month ago. According to the 2/13 NY Times and numerous other sources, "The inspectors learned
of the range of the missiles from test results that were provided in the 12,000-page arms
declaration Iraq delivered at the start of the inspections." The missiles in question are short
range models that, all sides
agree, can travel less than half of the distance from the western tip of Iraq to
the eastern tip of Israel. (By comparison, the CIA reported on the same day that North Korea's
Taepo Dong 2 missile is designed to travel 50 to 100 times as far.)
At last word Iraq has agreed to destroy these missiles. This agreement came after UN Weapons Inspection head Hans Blix reported the results of Al Samoud missile tests on 2/27/03. He reported that in a test firing of 40 missiles, 27 of the missiles landed within the legal limit of 150 km. But about one-third of the missiles exceeded the limit.
RESPONSE #5:
According to the transcript of the 16-min. Al Jazeera tape, bin Laden
called Hussein a "Muslim apostate," i.e., a turncoat against Islam. Bin Laden has long called
for the secular Baathist Party in Baghdad to be replaced with an Islamic fundamentalist,
cleric-led government. The new words were intended to rally support for radical Islam
in the Muslim world, including factions within Iraq that are more anti-US than Saddam Hussein.
According to Gen. Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan's spy agency InterServices Intelligence, bin Laden and Saddam cannot work closely together because "Bin Laden and his men considered Saddam the killer of hundreds of Islamic militants" within Iraq.
It is true that Saddam Hussein has expressed support for suicide bombings against Israel, and that the bin Laden tape refers to the suicide operations "that cause so much harm" in the U.S. and Israel. However, the existence of such terrorism is quite independent of Hussein.
Dr. Khidhir Hamza, from 1987 to 1994, served as "the head of
Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program" and has said that "Iraq runs its nuclear program under
the very nose of the international community."
- Quotes by Larry Elder,
Worldnetdaily.com, and Hamza
RESPONSE #6:
Saddam did refer to a nuclear energy program in a speech he made on 9/10/00.
According to the British expert Glen Rangwala, Bush is taking advantage of a mistranslation of
this speech that left out the word "energy," among other problems.
Although it would make sense to also forbid nuclear energy programs in Iraq, the U.S. and the U.N. have not called for that. There is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein's scientists are now working on nuclear weapons, even though Hussein has wanted them in the past.
In his Jan. 27 report to the UN Security Council, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Mohamed ElBaradei concluded, "we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s."
In an article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Dr. Khidhir A. A. Hamza states that he was "for a brief period in 1987 - director of weaponization" of Iraq's nuclear weapons program (5) Hamza also states, in his book "Saddam's Bombmaker" and in is 'Curriculum Vitae', that he was not employed in the Iraqi nuclear weapons program after 1989. He left Iraq in 1994. So it is clear that he has no personal knowledge of the status of the Iraqi nuclear program after 1994, and the extent of his personal knowledge after 1989 is open to question. Other Iraqi defectors with more inside knowledge than Hamza have disputed his claims.
RESPONSE #7:
Top US officials have repeatedly stated they want to avoid war:
"I will tell my friend Silvio [President of Italy] that the use of military troops is my
last choice, not my first."
- President Bush, quoted in White House News Release,
January 30, 2003.
"We still hope that force may not be necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein...
Let me be clear: no one wants war." - Donald Rumsfeld, in Munich, Germany, Feb. 8, 2003.
The U.S. position is that "Force should always be a last resort." - Colin Powell, response
to weapons inspection head Mohamed El Baradei, February 14, 2003.
If the U.S. can
disarm Saddam without war - the administration's stated objective - how is our credibility
hurt? Even French President Chirac, a critic of war, has credited the presence of U.S. troops
with increasing Iraqi compliance.
Kissinger and top Bush administration officials are not
satisfied with this progress. However these individuals have conflicts of interest. They
have strong ties with companies that produce weapons, drill oil, and build military bases.
The President's father, and his 2000 recount advisor James Baker, are, respectively,
"Asian Advisor" and Partner of Carlyle Group. According to Fortune magazine, Carlyle makes
much of its profits by buying smaller "defense" companies, assisting them in winning huge
taxpayer-funded contracts, and then selling them at a large profit.
Dick Cheney's wife , until January 2001, was on the board of Lockheed, the largest U.S. military contractor. Eight other administration officials had Lockheed ties before they were appointed. Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were involved in a think-tank advocating for "global military dominance" that is funded by family foundations whose fortunes came from military contracting and whose founders included a Lockheed executive. These ties must be taken into account when evaluating the legitimacy of 'fears' about a peaceful outcome of the Iraq crisis.
RESPONSE #8:
Bush's former economic advisor Laurence Lindsey
estimated to the Wall Street Journal last summer that the war would cost $100-$2
00 billion. A veteran ABC News reporter revealed on 1/13/03 that the actual
deployment planned was 350,000 troops.
One reason the proposed war would cost so much more than the Gulf War is that the administration plans to occupy Baghda d, a city of 5 million people. Another is that other countries have declined to pay the costs of the war as they did in 1991; instead, the U.S. has offered to pay Turkey $30 billion in grants and loans, an offer Turkey has thus far refu sed.
As Colin Powell wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1992, "The Gulf War was a lim ited-objective war. If it had not been, we would be ruling Baghdad today at unpa rdonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships ."
Credible estimates of cost of a "short" Iraq war start at $120 billion. Thi
s is on top of a 2003 military budget that is already expanded dramatically. The
numbers tell the story: the military budget in 2001 was $304 billion after 9/11
expenses were added. The
military budget in 2003 is already $407 including
homeland security and military construction. Adding the cost of the war, it coul
d reach $527 billion or more. The cost of the increase from 2001-3 comes out
to $2,000 for every family in the U.S.
The Bush administration does not seem concerned with the fact that their own budget projections two years ago anticipa ted a surplus of over $300 billion in 2004, but their projections now anticipate a 2004 deficit of over $350 billion, before the costs of an Iraq war are factor ed in.
RESPONSE #9:
The last 20 years have seen a trend toward "management" of the press by the
government: restricted access press pools, fabricated stories, fake letters
to the editor, and even violence
against U.S. war reporters.
According to the Winter 2002 Navy War C ollege Review, citing the book "America's Team: Media and the Military," the mil itary had assigned reporters to a pool to cover the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1 989, but the Defense Secretary at the time, Dick Cheney, "delayed calling ou t the pool."
During the 1991 Gulf War, according to Pulitzer Prize winning jou rnalist Patrick J. Sloyan, "The Associated Press... sent photographer Scott Appl ewhite to cover victims of a Scud missile attack near Dahran. The warhead had hi t an American tent, killing 25 army reservists and wounding 70... Applewhite , an accredited pool member, was stopped by US Army military police. When he obj ected, they punched and handcuffed him while ripping the film from his camer as."
Dick Cheney, quoted in "America's Team," was honest after the Gulf War ab
out his treatment of the media. "Frankly, I looked on it as a problem to be mana
ged," he said after the war. "The information
function was extraordinarily i
mportant. I did not have a lot of confidence that I could leave that to the pres
s."
The most famous Gulf War media fiasco occurred right here at home. Employe
es of the large PR firm Hill & Knowlton arranged for a speech to be made by a 15
-year-old girl, "Nayirah," to an unofficial "Congressional Human Rights" group i
n October 2000. Her so-called
eyewitness story about Iraqi soldiers removing
babies from hospital incubators was publicized by the entire news media and eve
n by Amnesty International. But Nayirah was actually the daughter of Kuwait's Am
bassador to the United States; the other eyewitness
recanted his story, and
other eyewitnesses have said that the story was fabricated. Amnesty was forced t
o issue a rare retraction.
"Iraq's oil and other natural resources belong to all t
he Iraqi people - and the United States will respect this fact."
- Stephen H
adley, US Deputy National Security Advisor, Feb. 11, 2003.
RESPONSE:
The U.S. government has made statements elsewhere asserting
that we will control both Iraq's government and its oil, for quite some time.
Excerpt from the Oil and Gas International, an industry trade publication, 1/27/03: "France and Russia have been warned they must support the US military invasion and occupation of Iraq if they want access to Iraqi oilfields in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."
Excerpt from the Globe and Mail, quoting US Congressional Testimony
on 2/12/03: "The United States intends to rule postwar Iraq through an American
military governor, supported by an Iraqi consultative council appointed by Washington,
Iraqi opposition leaders gathered in this northern Kurdish city said yesterday. 'While
we are listening to
what the Iraqis are telling us, the United States government
will make its decisions based on what is in the national interest of the United States,'
said Mark Grossman." Grossman, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, was
testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
RESPONSE #11:
It is true if someone handed us unfettered control of all
Iraq's oil, Saudi Arabia would have less influence than it does now as the lead oil
exporter in the world. But acquiring that control through war has enormous costs,
and these costs have to be factored in to assess the true cost of energy.
The Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent research organization in Colorado, points out: "Since 1970, oil imports have been responsible for nearly 75 percent of the U.S. trade deficit and have resulted in a net outflow of $1 trillion to the OPEC nations - much of which is respent on armaments... the peacetime readiness cost of U.S. military forces earmarked for Persian Gulf intervention is around $50 billion a year, raising the effective cost of Gulf oil to around $100 per barrel." This was before the post -9/11 buildup (see myth #8).
If the government charged the oil companies a larger portion of the taxpayer cost of obtaining the oil, and used this money to subsidize use of renewable energy, it would be possible within 5-10 years to completely eliminate the need for U.S. oil imports from the Persian Gulf.
RMI calculated that raising average automobile fuel economy from 20mpg to 33 mpg would accomplish this goal. Or, this goal could be accomplished with a smaller fuel economy increase, combined with other wind, solar, and energy efficiency initiatives that can be implemented with today's technology.
"[UN Resolution] 1441 gives us the authority to move without any second resolution." - George Bush, press conference with Tony Blair, Jan. 31, 2003.
RESPONSE #12:
When the U.S. was achieving independence from Britain, we did not
do it alone. France helped!
In the wake of World War II, the US took a leading role in establishing the UN to prevent future world wars. The recent unilateral position of the Bush administration runs counters to decades of US policy, the language in resolution 1441, and international law. To ignore the usefulness of the United Nations at this time would strengthen the hand of those who want global war, including anti-U.S. terrorist groups.
As President Bush himself said during one of the 2000 presidential debates, "If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us, If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us." He went on to add, It's important to be friends with people when you don't need each other so that when you do, there's a strong bond of friendship. And that's going to be particularly important in dealing not only with situations such as now occurring in Israel, but with Saddam Hussein."
The text of 1441 concludes, "[The Security Council] decides to remain seized of the matter," meaning that it retains jurisdiction, and has not given anyone else the power to act. The US Senate ratified US agreement to the UN Charter by a vote 89 to 2 on July 28, 1945. Under Article 2 of the Charter, the use of military force is prohibited without explicit authorization (under Article 42).
RESPONSE:
Since the American Revolution, democracies have steadily
replaced dictatorships, in part because open debate produces a more responsive and
accountable government. Punishing dissenters is the hallmark of totalitarianism; it
throws away one of democracy's
greatest strengths.
After John McCain - the Senator
from Arizona - was released from captivity as a POW in Vietnam, he was asked,
"How did it feel when
you heard Americans were protesting the war?" He said,
"I thought that's what we were fighting for - the right to protest."
It is true that courts have not always fully supported the rights to dissent. But in 1964, thanks to Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on the matter. They ruled that the New York Times could not be sued for an ad critical of the actions of Montgomery, Alabama police against civil rights protesters. According to one account, the court "made explicit the principle that seditious libel - criticism of government - cannot be made a crime in America and spoke in this connection of 'the central meaning of the First Amendment.'"
This piece was created by the entire
13myths.org team, using an online collaborative
process. Email: info@13myths.org.
13myths.org is a project of Organizers'
Collaborative; for more information, visit organizenow.net