the 20 lies of president bush

[Kdogg21]

Lie No. 1: ?My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now
reached the final days of decision.?

The decision for war with Iraq was made long ago, the intervening time having been spent in an attempt to create the political climate in
which US troops could be deployed for an attack. According to press reports, most recently March 16 in the Baltimore Sun, at one of the
first National Security Council meetings of his presidency, months
before the terrorist attacks on the WorldTradeCenter and Pentagon,
Bush expressed his determination to overthrow Saddam Hussein and
his willingness to commit US ground troops to an attack on Iraq for
that purpose. All that was required was the appropriate
pretext?supplied by September 11, 2001.

 

[Kdogg21]

Lie No. 2: ?For more than a decade, the United States and
other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to
disarm the Iraqi regime without war.?

The US-led United Nations regime of sanctions against Iraq, combined
with ?no-fly? zones and provocative weapons inspections, is one of
brutal oppression. The deliberate withholding of food, medical
supplies and other vital necessities is responsible for the death of
more than a million Iraqis, half of them children. Two UN officials who
headed the oil-for-food program resigned in protest over the
conditions created in Iraq by the sanctions. The CIA used the
inspectors as a front, infiltrating agents into UNSCOM, the original
inspections program. The CIA?s aim was to spy on Iraq?s top officials
and target Saddam Hussein for assassination.

Lie No. 3: ?The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to
gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security
Council resolutions demanding full disarmament...?

Iraq has never ?defied? a Security Council resolution since the end of
the Persian Gulf War in 1991. It has generally cooperated with the
dictates of the UN body, although frequently under protest or with
reservations, because many of the resolutions involve gross
violations of Iraqi sovereignty. From 1991 to 1998, UN inspectors
supervised the destruction of the vast bulk of the chemical and
biological weapons, as well as delivery systems, which Iraq
accumulated (with the assistance of the US) during the Iran-Iraq war,
and they also destroyed all of Iraq?s facilities for making new
weapons.

 

[Kdogg21]

Lie No. 4: ?Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have
failed again and again because we are not dealing with
peaceful men.?

According to the Washington Post of March 16, referring to the
1991-1998 inspection period: ?nder UN supervision, Iraq destroyed
817 of 819 proscribed medium-range missiles, 14 launchers, 9 trailers
and 56 fixed missile-launch sites. It also destroyed 73 of 75 chemical
or biological warheads and 163 warheads for conventional
explosives. UN inspectors also supervised destruction of 88,000 filled
and unfilled chemical munitions, more than 600 tons of weaponized
and bulk chemical weapons agents, 4,000 tons of precursor
chemicals and 980 pieces of equipment considered key to production
of such weapons.?

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.

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.

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.

 

[Kdogg21]

Lie No. 8: ?These governments [the Security Council majority]
share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to
meet it.?

This is belied by virtually every statement on Iraq issued by the
governments of France, Russia, China, Germany and other countries
opposed to military action, which have repeatedly declared that they
see no imminent threat from Iraq. Bush brands his opponents on the
Security Council as cowards, as though they were afraid to take
action against Saddam Hussein. These countries were, in fact,
increasingly alarmed?by the United States, not Iraq. Insofar as they
summoned up resolve, to the shock of the Bush administration, it was
to deny UN support for the war that Washington had already decided
to wage.

Lie No. 9: ?Many nations, however, do have the resolve and
fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad
coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the
world.?

Only three nations are contributing military forces to the war: 250,000
from the US, 40,000 from Britain, and 2,000 from Australia. The other
members of the ?broad coalition? are those which have been bribed
or browbeaten to allow the US to fly over their countries to bomb
Iraq, to station troops, ships or warplanes on their territory, or provide
technical assistance or other material aid to the war. None will do any
fighting. All are acting against the expressed desire of their own
population.

Lie No. 10: ?The United Nations Security Council has not
lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.?

Bush defines the UN body?s responsibility as serving as a rubber
stamp for whatever action the United States government demands. In
relation to the UN, however, the United States does have definite
responsibilities, including refraining from waging war without Security
Council authorization, except in the case of immediate self-defense.
Under Article 42 of the UN Charter, it is for the Security Council, not
the US or Britain, to decide how Security Council resolutions such as
1441 are to be enforced. The US decision to ?enforce? its
interpretation of 1441 regardless of the will of the Security Council is
a violation of international law.

Lie No. 11: ?If we must begin a military campaign, it will be
directed against the lawless men who rule your country and
not against you.?



The widely reported US military strategy is to conduct an aerial
bombardment of Iraq so devastating that it will ?shock and awe? the
Iraqi people and compel the Iraqi armed forces to surrender en
masse. According to one press preview, US and British forces ?plan
to launch the deadliest first night of air strikes on a single country in
the history of air power. Hundreds of targets in every region of Iraq
will be hit simultaneously.? Estimates of likely Iraqi civilian casualties
from the immediate impact of bombs and missiles range from
thousands to hundreds of thousands, and even higher when the
long-term effects are included.

Lie No. 12: ?As our coalition takes their power, we will deliver
the food and medicine you need.?

This is particularly cynical, since the immediate consequence of
Bush?s 48-hour ultimatum was the withdrawal of all UN humanitarian
aid workers and the shutdown of the oil-for-food program, which
underwrites the feeding of 60 percent of Iraq?s population. As for
medicine, the US has systematically deprived the Iraqi people of
needed medicine for the past 12 years, insisting that even the most
basic medical supplies, like antibiotics and syringes, be banned as
?dual-use? items that could be used in a program of biological warfare.

 

[Kdogg21]

Lie No. 13: ?We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we
will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.?

The goal of the Bush administration is to install a US puppet regime in
Baghdad, initially taking the form of an American military dictatorship. It
is no exaggeration to say that the US government has been the
leading promoter of dictatorships around the world, from Pinochet of
Chile to Suharto of Indonesia to Saddam Hussein himself, who,
according to one recent report, got his political start as an
anti-communist hit-man working in a CIA-backed plot to assassinate
Iraq?s left-nationalist President Qasem in 1959.

A classified State Department report described by the Los Angeles
Times of March 14 not only concluded that a democratic Iraq was
unlikely to arise from the devastation of war, it suggested that this was
not even desirable from the standpoint of American interests, because
?anti-American sentiment is so pervasive that elections in the short
term could lead to the rise of Islamic-controlled governments hostile to
the United States.?

Lie No. 14: ?Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation,
the American people can know that every measure has been
taken to avoid war and every measure will be taken to win it.?

This combines a lie and a brutal truth. The Bush administration has
taken every possible measure to insure that war takes place, viewing
the resumption of UN weapons inspections with barely disguised
hostility and directing its venom against those countries that have
suggested a diplomatic settlement with Iraq is achievable. In
prosecuting the war, the Bush administration is indeed prepared to
use ?every measure,? up to an including nuclear weapons, in order to
win it.

Lie No. 15: ?War has no certainty except the certainty of
sacrifice.?

There will be colossal sacrifices for the Iraqi people, and sacrifices in
blood and economic well-being for the American people as well. But
for Bush?s real constituency, the wealthiest layer at the top of
American society, there will be no sacrifices at all. Instead, the
administration is seeking a tax cut package of over $700 billion,
including the abolition of taxation on corporate dividends. Major US
corporations are in line to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in
profits from the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure shattered by the
coming US assault. These include the oil construction firm Halliburton,
which Vice President Cheney headed prior to joining the Bush
administration, and which continues to include Cheney on its payroll.

Lie No. 16: ?[T]he only way to reduce the harm and duration of
war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we
are prepared to do so.?

Every aggressor claims to deplore the suffering of war and seeks to
blame the victim for resisting, and thus prolonging the agony. Bush is
no different. His hypocritical statements of ?concern? for the Iraqi
people cannot disguise the fact that, as many administration
apologists freely admit, this is ?a war of choice??deliberately sought
by the US government to pursue its strategic agenda in the Middle
East.

 

[Kdogg21]

Lie No. 17: ?The terrorist threat to America and the world will
be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is
disarmed.?

No one, even in the American military-intelligence complex, seriously
believes this. US counter-terrorism officials have repeatedly said that a
US conquest and occupation of Iraq, by killing untold thousands of
Arabs and Muslims and inflaming public opinion in the Arab world and
beyond, will spark more terrorism, not less.

Lie No. 18: ?We are now acting because the risks of inaction
would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of
Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied
many times over.?

This is belied by the record of the past twelve years, which has seen a
steady decline in Iraqi military power. Saddam Hussein has never
been a threat to any ?free nation,? if that term has any meaning, only to
the reactionary oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf and to neighboring
Iran, all ruled by regimes that are as repressive as his.

Lie No. 19: ?As we enforce the just demands of the world, we
will also honor the deepest commitments of our country.?

The demands of the world were expressed by the millions who
marched in cities throughout the world on February 15 and March 15
to oppose a unilateral US attack on Iraq. Bush seeks to have it both
ways?claiming to enforce previous Security Council resolutions
against Iraq (?the just demands of the world?), while flagrantly defying
the will of the majority of the Security Council, the majority of the
world?s governments, and the vast majority of the world?s people.

Lie No. 20: ?Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi
people are deserving and capable of human liberty... The
United States with other countries will work to advance
liberty and peace in that region.?

For ?the Iraqi people,? substitute ?the Egyptian people,? ?the people of
the Arabian peninsula,? ?the Pakistani people? or those of other
US-backed dictatorships, not to mention the Palestinians who live
under a brutal Israeli occupation that is supported by Washington.
Does the US government believe that any of them are ?deserving and
capable of human liberty?? When the parliament of Turkey, under the
pressure of popular opposition, voted to bar the US from using
Turkish territory to invade Iraq, the Bush administration appealed to
the Turkish military to pressure the government into overturning this
democratic decision.