Attack on Iraq: With Trampled Logic and Morality

Columnist Muhammad Irshad argues that the US policy on Iraq is not correct.

Last year the United States of America declared that the purpose of its political and military operation in Afghanistan was to take revenge against Al-Qa’eda leader Osama bin Laden and his accomplices, who were alleged to have attacked New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. The rest of the world bought this story. By the end of the campaign, the US had apprehended neither Bin Laden, his right-hand man Ayman El-Zawahri nor any other top Al-Qa’eda leader. By the standard of its declared objective, the US campaign in Afghanistan was a political and military failure. However, the US did succeed in masterfully realising an undeclared agenda. It established a military presence in Central Asia, having signed with those countries agreements permitting permanent US military bases on the borders of China, Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan — all countries that could become regional or global powers and thus pose a threat to US influence and hegemony, not to mention control over the enormous oil reserves in the Caspian Sea area.
Today, we are watching the closing episode in the US drive to encircle rising powers and sources of wealth. The alleged aims are to topple the “dictatorial” regime of Saddam Hussein, to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction it possesses and to give the Iraqi people “freedom, democracy and medical and food aid”. This is ostensibly why Washington has deployed thousands of forces in the region, expanded many of its bases and signed more defence agreements to build more military bases. Its real agenda — to protect and further its interests by altering the geo-political map of the region, from physical boundaries to systems of government — is nonetheless thinly disguised. Numerous scenarios for the impending military operation against Iraq have been announced or leaked or are still under consideration by experts. While they conflict in many aspects, they converge on the point that Attack on Iraq must take place immediately. The enthusiasm and zeal is such that America is willing to do it alone, without some NATO partners and even without UN mandate. International enthusiasm for a US attack has been lukewarm. When the US pushed ahead, some allies – particularly France, Germany, and Belgium – grumbled about a “go it alone” attitude. The US which has opted out of the Kyoto climate treaty, the World Court, and land-mine and chemical-weapons treaties – efforts broadly supported by the UN is justifying action in Iraq on the basis of UN mandates, only to try to steamroll Security Council opposition to a war, opens the US to charges of hypocrisy and feeds cynicism about US imperialism. It also undermines US moral authority. If the US goes into Iraq without a UN mandate, it would confirm the image of a nation that talks about rule of law but fails to live by it.
The American President kicked off the public relations campaign with his State of Union Address on January 29. The portion dealing with Iraq was peppered with nationalistic rhetoric, promises for providing a better life for the Iraqi people (after killing more than five thousand Afghans and displacing more than a million, Americans still think they have saved Afghans!), personal insults directed at the Iraqi regime and the arrogant premise that God has chosen America to save the world. Later, a dossier of proofs submitted by the US Secretary of State Colin Powell, before the members of UN Security Council, was submitted. Powell put what first appeared to be an impressive case highlighting Iraq’s deceit and unwillingness to cooperate with the UN Security Council Resolution 1441.
The Powell presentation which most of the international media termed it as “Dog and Pony Show” began with purported audio intercepts of conversations between members of Iraq’s forces and republican guards, aerial photographs showing alleged chemical bunkers, hinting that Iraq might be connected with anthrax attacks on the US, and went as far as to link Saddam with Abu Musab Zarqawi, an affiliate of Al-Qaida supposedly now in Kurdish/ CIA-controlled North-Western Iraq. He further asserted that Zarqawi was running a poison and explosives factory at Khurmal. The Secretary insisted that Iraq still refused to cooperate with inspections by not allowing Iraqi scientists to be interviewed without an Iraqi minder and by refusing U-2 flyovers, as requested by Chief inspectors Hans Blix and Dr Mohammad El Baradei. But just as the Bush administration was rejoicing by watching the public opinion in the US tilting towards a pro-war stance, things began to go wrong.
As soon as the Iraqi ambassador to the UN had finished his adequate, but unimpressive rebuttal to Powell’s speech, President Saddam’s Scientific Advisor General Amer Al Saadi appeared on American TV to ruin everything for the Powell camp. The sophisticated and smooth talking advisor shredded most of Powell’s allegations in a deliberate and convincing fashion, and laughed off the US Secretary’s attempt to implicate Iraq in terrorism. He waved aside the intercepts saying “A third-rate intelligence team could have done it”.
He said that Iraq had no objection to its scientists being interviewed privately, without a minder, and the government did not object to U-2 flyovers in principle. He explained that Iraqi government would agree to this as soon as American and British aircraft discontinue flying over South and North Iraq in contravention of UN resolution 1441, which provides for sovereignty and integrity of the Iraqi nation. At a press conference,
Al-Saadi reiterated that he was concerned that Iraq could not protect the U-2s as long as allied flights were there, but amplified the point that British or American could easily shoot down a U-2 and blame Iraq, exactly in a manner of the Tonkin incident, when US had falsely blamed that North Vietnam had sunk its destroyer, as a prelude to starting the Vietnam war – an incident which later was proved false but by then the war had actually killed millions including 60,000 Americans.
The fact that Saddam Hussein lacks credibility doesn’t mean that President Bush and his administration have it. They, too, have been engaging in deception. Both Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell continue to claim that Iraq has a nuclear weapons programme. The UN nuclear inspectors, however, say they have found no evidence of any nuclear weapons programme. Moreover, a top Iraqi nuclear scientist who defected to Canada (and therefore has no obligation to tell American officials what they want to hear) broke his silence recently. He was in Iraq up until 1998. He said Iraq was so devastated by the war that scientists working on the nuclear programme were all pulled off and reassigned to help rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Dr. Imad Khadduri, now a college instructor in Toronto, said, “All we had after the war from that nuclear programme were ruins, memoirs and reports of what we had done ... on the nuclear weapon side, I am more than definitely sure nothing has been done.” In an interview with Reuters, he said further, “For Bush to continue brandishing this image of a superhuman Iraqi nuclear power programme is great fallacious information.”
As for Powell’s dog-and-pony show, the satellite photos and the alleged voice intercepts prove nothing, and both can be easily fabricated. If you don’t think American intelligence agencies indulge in fabrications and forgeries, then you have a lot of reading to do on the history of those agencies. The rest of his presentation was based on “anonymous sources” and defectors who, as any veteran intelligence officer will tell you, always have to be taken with a grain of salt. Since their request for asylum depends on the intelligence agency’s recommendation, they have a tendency to say what they know the intelligence people want to hear.