President George W Bush and the
Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (2003)
excerpted from the book
Lying for Empire
How to Commit War Crimes With
A Straight Face
by David Model
Common Courage Press, 2005, paper
p280
The mighty American war machine destroyed the infrastructure,
industry, agriculture and war-making capability of Iraq in 1991.
Then, for the next 12 years, the United States and Britain were
responsible for denying the Iraqi people access to food, clean
water, medicine and for a continual bombing campaign on a smaller
scale. Finally, the Herculean American war machine unleashed another
round of bombs on Iraq just in case it was still breathing. As
Karl von Clausewitz (Prussian General and military strategist)
once said, "The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he
would prefer to take over our country unopposed."
Myths abounded during America's obsession
with the destruction of Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Millions of dollars were spent on the largest public relations
firms and advertising agencies whose objective was to "manufacture
consent" in the United States for the atrocities perpetrated
against Iraq. Some of the major myths include:
* Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) in 2003 when George W. Bush bombed Iraq. o The aim of U.S.
military planners was to bomb military targets. o Sanctions were
designed to force Iraq to destroy its WMD.
* Iraq expelled the UNSCOM arms inspectors.
o Iraq posed a threat to the security of the United States. o
Iraq posed a threat to its neighbours.
* Iraq had ties with al Qaeda.
* Iraq was sponsoring terrorist groups.
* The U.S. had the right to bomb Iraq
without the support of the United Nations.
* The "Coalition of the Willing"
was a legitimate international coalition.
* The world is a safer place without Saddam
Hussein.
* The purpose of the United States bombing
Iraq was to either destroy WMD or democratize Iraq.
* The Iraqi government diverted revenues
from oil to benefit themselves and not the people of Iraq.
* The government of Iraq did not distribute
all the food available from humanitarian groups.
p281
The Sanctions
The first bombing of Iraq ended on February
27, 1991. During the bombing, 88,500 tons of explosives were dropped
on Iraq but only 6,500 tons were so-called "smart bombs."
The country's infrastructure, including '/ power utilities, water
treatment plants, and transportation centres was destroyed along
with the agricultural and industrial base. By the end of the bombing,
Iraq was incapable of producing sufficient food for its citizens
and most people lacked access to clean water. Estimates of the
number of casualties range from 100,000 to 200,000 people.
p286
Dan Plesch, in a report titled "US Claim Dismissed by Blix",
in the Guardian International (February 5, 2003) proved that to
be a lie when he claimed that:
Hans Blix said there was no evidence
of mobile biological weapons laboratories or of Iraq trying to
foil inspectors by moving equipment before his teams arrived.
Dr. Blix said he has already inspected two alleged mobile labs
and found nothing.
Colin Powell claimed in his remarks to
the Security Council and President Bush stated in his address
to Congress that Iraq was acquiring materials to build nuclear
weapons. Powell claimed that:
Saddam Hussein is determined to get his
hands on a nuclear bomb .... he has made repeated covert attempts
to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from eleven different
countries, even after inspections resumed... they can be used
as centrifuges for enriching uranium... Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
The executive director of the IAEA had
reported to the Council that "From our analysis to date it
appears that the aluminum tubes would be consistent with the purpose
stated by Iraq." An IAEA report concluded that the size of
the tubes made them unsuitable for Uranium enrichment but were
identical to tubes used for conventional artillery rockets. The
claim that Saddam Hussein had purchased nuclear material was based
on forged documents handed to the U.S. from Britain whose source
was the Italian intelligence service. Italian intelligence bought
the forged documents from a corrupt Niger embassy official in
Rome. Forged documents are not an excuse for being deceived by
bad intelligence when a very competent inspection team had already
reported that Iraq did not pose a nuclear threat. It is incumbent
on the U.S. to carefully verify the credibility of a source before
making important decisions based on that intelligence.
In Bush's State of the Union address on
January 28, 2003, he claimed that "the British Government
has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities
of uranium from Africa." In fact, this claim had already
been invalidated when Joseph Wilson, former American Ambassador,
was assigned by the CIA to investigate this claim. He filed a
report with the CIA and State Department repudiating any Niger
uranium claims. In a Washington Post article, Wilson claims that
"it really comes down to the administration misrepresenting
the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for
going to war."
Colin Powell's remarks to the Security
Council were crammed with lies. Ignoring all the Blix inspection
team's data, he chose to base his report on sources which were
highly inferior to the competent on-site work of the inspectors.
The tail was clearly wagging the dog. Washington decided to bomb
\Iraq and to produce information in order to "manufacture
consent" for war.
p289
... the Bush administration linked al Qaeda to Iraq. According
to Washington, the attack on Iraq was part of the war on terrorism.
The propaganda was so effective that at one point a majority of
Americans believed that Iraq was behind 9/11. The linkage was
as spurious as was the claim about WMD.
Any claims about a connection between
a! Qaeda and Iraq ignore the fact that al Qaeda is an extremely
rigid religious organization that condemns the "infidel"
Ba'ath Party of Saddam Hussein as an aggressively secular organization.
p290
The theory of a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda was to a
large extent based on a British government public dossier on Iraq.
In his February 5 presentation to the Security Council, Powell
referred to "the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed...
which describes in exquisite detail deception activities."
It was described as a fine example of the analytical work of M16,
the British spy agency.
... The British intelligence agency had,
in fact, produced a report, which was ignored by Tony Blair because
it contradicted his and President Bush's position. According to
the M16 document there was no evidence of any links between Al
Qaeda and Iraq.
The Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, a non-partisan Washington research centre, released a report
on January 10, 2004, which destroyed both justifications for the
"war" on Iraq, WMD and links to al Qaeda. According
to an article in The Globe and Mail:
there is no firm evidence that the former
Iraqi leader was cooperating with the al-Qaeda network and that
Iraq presented an immediate threat to the United States, to the
Middle East or to global security... Iraq's nuclear program has
been suspended for many years and the country's chemical-weapons
production capabilities have been "effectively destroyed
It is very likely that intelligence officials were pressured
by senior administration officials to conform their threat assessments
to pre-existing policies . ... "We had over 1000 people a
day search for months, and we found nothing." ("U.S.
exaggerated Iraq threat, report says", January 10, 2004,
p. All)
All the evidence supporting the position
of the Bush administration in its campaign against Iraq was either
grossly distorted or defective. The most reliable sources of information
were overlooked because their conclusions interfered with the
grand schemes of the Bush administration. According to Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber in Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses
of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq:
Graham [Bob Graham, U.S. Senator] who
chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, was so baffled by the
contradictory assessments of Iraq coming from different agencies
that in July 2002 he asked the CIA to come up with a report on
the likelihood that Saddam Hussein would use weapons of mass destruction.
When asked this question directly, a senior CIA intelligence witness
responded that the likelihood was "low" for the "foreseeable
future." Like many of the analyses that conflicted with the
drive for war, this statement j from the CIA went largely unreported.
p292
On Thursday March 20, 2003, President Bush announced his intention
use force against Iraq.
... The United States launched the war
with its "shock and awe" strategy which meant a massive
high-tech, air strike against Baghdad. When originally coined
by Harlan K. Uliman, a defence strategist, it meant a strategy
"aimed at influencing the will, perception, and understanding
of an adversary rather than simply deploying military capability."
Ullman told CBS reporter David Martin that:
You take the city down, you get rid of
their power, water. In 2, 3, 4, 5, days they are physically, emotionally,
and psychologically exhausted.
A Pentagon official remarked that "there
will not be a safe place in Baghdad." It is clear that the
real purpose of "shock and awe" was to destroy as much
of the Iraqi leadership and army as possible as well as defence
installations which would interfere with "coalition"
ground troops taking over the country. The strategy was to launch
300 to 400 cruise missiles on the first day of the operation then
another 300 to 400 on the second day. That is more than all the
cruise missiles launched in the 1991 bombing of Iraq. Former UN
Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday has accused the U.S.
"...of proceeding with plans to annihilate Iraqi society."
Following the "shock and awe"
operation, a massive force of American, British, and Australian
forces marched through Iraq relatively unimpeded and took control
of most of the country. On May 1, 2003, President Bush announced
that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." Bush
also boasted that the war was "one of the swiftest and most
humane military campaigns in history." Well, for once at
least, he was half right. The war was anything but humane. Body
counts are important in order to understand the extent of the
atrocities. An organization called "Iraq Body Count"
maintains an up-to-date count of Iraqi deaths based solely on
credible news sources and on November 3, 2003, they reported that
there had been a minimum of 7,960 deaths and a maximum of 9,792
deaths.
p293
Numerous non-military objects were deliberately targeted including
electrical distribution facilities, three media facilities, civilian
telecommunication facilities, government buildings, roads, and
bridges.
The most savage executioners of innocent
people were two types of "time bombs" dropped on Iraq
by American forces. One time bomb was depleted uranium weapons.
The effects of these weapons may not surface for up to ten years
and will create radioactive hot spots in Baghdad and other cities
and towns. Radiation levels in Baghdad have been measured at up
to 1,900 times higher than normal background radiation. High radiation
levels can cause cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle
pain, neurological damage, mood disturbances, lung and kidney
damage, autoimmune deficiencies, miscarriages, maternal mortality,
and genetic birth defects. Iraq's National Ministry of Health
organized two international conferences and offered detailed epidemiological
studies which indicate a six-fold increase in breast cancer, a
five-fold increase in lung cancer, and a 16-fold increase in ovarian
cancer. According to the Seattle PostIntelligencer, August 4,
2003:
The Pentagon and the United Nations estimate
that the U.S. and Britain used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing
shells made of depleted uranium during attacks on Iraq in March
and April-far more than the 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War.
The second type of "time bomb"
was cluster bombs, which has a failure rate of up to 16%. This
leaves unexploded small bomblets, which easily explode on contact.
British and American forces used cluster bombs frequently, dropping
some 13,000 bombs containing nearly two million bomblets, in populated
areas.
p294
All the evidence leads to the conclusion that neither WMD nor
Iraqi support for terrorist groups was the real motive for the
American decision to wage "war" against Iraq. The most
damning evidence that the above motives were irrelevant is the
date when plans to attack Iraq were first formulated. A major
initiative to toughen American policies towards Iraq sprang from
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a private think-tank
formed by a group of prominent neoconservatives in 1997 including:
* William Kristol-former Chief of Staff
to Vice President Quayle;
* Elliot Abrams-former Reagan Assistant Secretary of State;
* Jeb Bush-Governor of Florida;
* Dick Cheney-Vice President under George Bush;
* Newt Gingrich-former House Speaker;
* Jeanne Kirkpatrick-White House advisor under Reagan and Bush;
* Lewis Libby-Cheney's Chief of Staff;
* Richard Perle-Defense Department in Reagan era;
* Donald Rumsfeld-Secretary of Defense under George Bush;
* Paul Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld's deputy.
PNAC is a non-profit educational organization
whose goal is to promote American global leadership. The aims
of the organization are to increase defence spending significantly
in order to carry out America's global responsibilities and to
accept responsibility for America's "unique role for preserving
and extending an international order friendly to our security,
our prosperity, and our principles." The aims are cleverly
crafted to soften the real intent of PNAC which, according to
Rahul Mahajan in Full Spectrum Dominance, is "maintaining
and extending U.S. world dominance." Sheldon Rampton and
John Stauber, in Weapons of Mass Deception, remark that PNAC's
aims were "criticized overseas as a blueprint for U.S. domination."
p296
PNAC members hold important positions in the Bush administration
and have considerable influence in the shaping of foreign and
defence policy. Their determination to overthrow the regime of
Saddam Hussein became a priority for Washington. Not only did
Bush's brain trust favor regime change but other influential organizations
such as the CLI, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Washington
Institute for Middle East Policy, the Middle East Forum, the Hudson
Institute, and the Hoover Institute were also in favour of the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Members of these groups frequently
appeared on forums on ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox promoting the necessity
to wage war against Iraq. They testified before Congressional
committees and appeared at gatherings in Washington. It would
not be possible for President Bush to be unaware of the agenda
of his brain trust and all these other influential organizations.
His subsequent statements and actions corroborate the hypothesis
that President Bush was determined to change the leadership in
Iraq. The issues of WMD and Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda were easier
rationales to sell to the American public than regime change and
had the added advantage of instilling fear in the American public
for the purpose of winning support for military action. Paul Wolfowitz,
Rumsfeld's deputy, confessed that "we settled on one issue,
weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone
could agree on." (Vanity Fair, May 28, 2003)
p297
The strongest evidence that Bush lied about attempts to avoid
war was his decision to sign a top-secret directive on September
17, 2001, ordering the Pentagon to begin planning "military
options" for an attack on Iraq. (ZNET, Lies and More Lies,
September 22, 2003) All his talk about inspections and WMD was
completely fraudulent. In fact, serious planning for the "war"
against Iraq began in August 2002, with preparations to deploy
forces, construct staging areas, and stockpile weapons. According
to Michael Klare, a strategic analyst, all "the administration's
supposed diplomatic activities regarding Iraq in the fall of 2002
and early 2003 were merely a smokescreen." (Rahul Mahajan,
Full Spectrum Dominance) To weaken any Iraqi defence capability,
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld expanded the area that was covered
by the no-fly-zones to include command-and-control centres and
defence systems. The attack on Iraq was in the advanced planning
stage in the summer of 2002. There is simply no doubt that President
Bush was completely aware of these plans and would have approved
them before members of his administration could proceed.
p298
The sanctions imposed on Iraq caused so many deaths and so much
suffering that they constituted a crime against humanity despite
the apparent authorization by the United Nations. The sanctions
were not designed to starve the Iraqi people or deprive them of
clean water and medical supplies. United Nations Resolution 687
specifies exemptions from the sanctions which include "materials
and supplies for essential civilian needs and any further findings
of humanitarian needs by the committee." These exemptions
were perverted by the United States through the use of their veto
on the Sanctions Committee. Over a million Iraqis died as a result
of the sanctions. The only explanation for the use of the U.S.
veto to deprive the Iraqis of the necessities of life was that
the American administration was hoping to encourage the Iraqi
people to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein without the need
for direct American intervention. The United States wanted a friendly
government in a weakened Iraq and control of Iraqi oil.
The sanctions violated the following international
laws and protocols:
* Geneva Conventions, Protocol I, Part
IV, Section I, Chapter III, Article 54-Starvation of civilians
as a method of warfare is prohibited;
* International Conference on Nutrition,
World Declaration on Nutrition, FAO/WHO, 1992-We recognize that
access to nutritionally adequate and safe food is a right of each
individual. We affirm... that food must not be used as a tool
for political pressure;
* UN General Assembly Resolution 44/215
(Dec. 22, 1989)- Calls upon the developed countries to refrain
from exercising political coercion through the application of
economic instruments with the purpose of inducing changes in the
economic or social systems of other countries;
* Constitution of the World Health Organization,
1946-The enjoyment of the highest standard of health is one of
the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction
of race, religion, political belief, economic, or social condition.
There is no justification in international
law for the American declaration of "war" against Iraq.
As demonstrated earlier, Security Council resolutions pertaining
to Iraq did not authorize the use of force and required that noncompliance
with UN Resolutions by Iraq be discussed in the Security Council.
In the original drafts of Resolution 1441, the United States proposed
a clause that would extend no-fly zones over sites to be inspected
and apply the use of force in these zones if necessary but the
proposal was defeated. The United Nations Charter's provision
in Chapter VII, Article 51, that a nation may use force to defend
itself "if an armed attack occurs" clearly does not
apply. There was no armed attack against the United States and
the Charter does not authorize the use of force for preemptive
or preventive strikes. Therefore, the "war" against
Iraq was illegal and led to the violations of the following international
laws:
United Nations Charter
Article 2
3. All members shall resolve their disputes peacefully.
4. All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force.
Article 33
1. The parties to a dispute shall seek a solution through negotiation,
mediation, or arbitration.
Article 37
1. Should the parties fail to resolve the dispute as described
in Article 33, they shall refer it to the Security Council.
2. The Security Council shall decide what action to take.
Article 42
Should all measures to maintain peace
fail, the Security Council shall decide what action to take. Geneva
Conventions
Article 51
1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy
protection from military operations.
4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited
such as:
(a) those which are not directed at
a specific military objective;
(b) those which do not discriminate between military and non-military
targets.
p309
One possible explanation for the behaviour of presidents is that
they have psychopathic tendencies. Characteristics that lead to
a positive diagnosis include a remarkable disregard for the truth,
the inability to accept blame, lack of remorse, shame, or guilt,
lack of empathy, lack of conscience, and socially predatory behaviour.
p307
Dr. Robert D. Hare, one of the foremost specialists in psychopaths
... explains that
"...psychopaths show a stunning
lack of concern for the devastating effects their actions have
on others. Often they are completely forthright about the matter,
calmly stating that they have no sense of guilt, are not sorry
for the pain and destruction they have caused, and that there
is no reason for them to be concerned."
p309
Psychopaths seem to completely lack the ability to empathize wit
others often resulting in very callous behaviour. Unable to empathize
with the pain and suffering of others, they are able to exercise
power without regard for the anguish of others and them rationalize
their behaviour.
p310
According to George W., in a rare yet accurate self-assessment,
".. you know I could run for governor but I am basically
a media creation. I've never done anything ... I've worked for
my dad. I worked in the oil business."
p315
The psychopath cannot accept responsibility for his self-destructive
behaviour or for the harm he inflicts on others. He will usually
deny categorically responsibility for his actions and will transfer
the blame elsewhere.
p318
... any president engaged in lying and empire-building must have
some of the traits of a psychopath ... To murder innocent people
in order to aggrandize the American Empire would be extremely
difficult if not impossible for someone who feels empathy, remorse
and guilt and who is incapable of lying. It might even be suggested
that having at least some psychopathic traits is a qualification
for the job. What this means is that no person in either the Democratic
or Republican Party could be a serious contender for their party's
nomination if they were not prepared to maintain and expand the
American Empire. The imperatives of empire have become larger
than any one person, even the President. His job is to lie and
serve the empire.
Lying
for Empire
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