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26 March 2002
Iraq’s
Weapons
US/UK Lies And
Distortions
A Voices
in the Wilderness UK briefing
US/UK Propaganda To Undermine Public
Opposition
The Prime Minister seems determined
to support an illegal war on Iraq led by the United States, despite
public opinion - 51 per cent of people oppose war against Iraq
(and only 35 per cent would support one). (Guardian, 19
Mar. 2002, p. 1) War propaganda designed to create public acquiescence
in the war will play on our fears about weapons of mass destruction.
Blair Goes Further Than Bush
Or Cheney
On 11 Mar. 2002, ‘Mr Blair was more hawkish than Mr Bush, declaring
emphatically that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD):
"There is a threat from Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction
he has acquired. It is not in doubt."’ (Guardian,
12 Mar. 2002, p. 1) This is particularly interesting since the
10-page briefing document circulated by Jack Straw to sceptical
Labour backbenchers at a private meeting on 12 Mar. acknowledged
that ‘there is no firm evidence that President Saddam Hussein
has weapons of mass destruction at present’. (The Times,
13 March 2002)
Likewise a new British Joint Intelligence
dossier on Iraq will apparently ‘focus on Saddam’s attempts to
acquire weapons of mass destruction, but there is said to be little
new or surprising evidence in this area.’ According to a senior
Foreign Office official, "It will say what you would expect
it to say: this is a man who is politically unpredictable, capable
of doing bad things to his neighbours and to his own people. We
have known that for a long time."
‘Blair has encouraged expectations
among MPs and cabinet colleagues that [this] intelligence dossier
would provide fresh support for action to overthrow the Iraqi
dictator. But there is little new information worth sharing
or publishing, according to insiders.’ (Sunday Times,
10 Mar. 2002, p. 2)
Potential Marriage
‘Mr Blair pointed out that as early as September 14 he had spoken
of the threat of countries "trading" in such weapons’
(Times, 12 Mar. 2002, p. 1), but where’s the evidence of
Iraq "trading" in weapons of mass destruction? US Vice-President
Cheney has focused attention on the "potential marriage"
between terrorist groups and those states with weapons of mass
destruction. (Times, 12 Mar. 2002, p. 5) So far no evidence
has been produced that Iraq has ‘traded’ - or might ‘trade’ -
in WMD.
Iraq Was Qualitatively
Disarmed By 1998
Scott Ritter, the former Marine who resigned from the UN weapons
inspection agency UNSCOM because it was not pursuing Iraqi weapons
programmes aggressively enough, suggests that instead of trying
to verify the destruction of all Iraqi weapons and equipment related
to weapons of mass destruction – "quantitative disarmament"
– the UN should focus on ‘the more important task of monitoring
Iraq to ensure that its dismantled weapons programs are not reconstituted’,
or "qualitative disarmament".
Ritter wrote in Arms Control
Today (June 2000 – hereafter ACT) that by 1998, Iraq
‘no longer possessed any meaningful quantities of chemical or
biological agent, if it possessed any at all, and the industrial
means to produce these agents had either been eliminated or were
subject to stringent monitoring’. Ditto Iraq’s nuclear and ballistic
missile capabilities. (ACT)
How the US reacted.
According to Ritter ‘By the end of
1998, Iraq had, in fact, been disarmed to a level unprecedented
in modern history’ and ‘as long as monitoring inspections remained
in place, Iraq presented a WMD-based threat to no-one’ (ACT).
it is worth recalling how the US Government responded to this
achievement: they chose first to subvert UNSCOM by infiltrating
it with members of its intelligence agencies and then - with Britain
- to destroy it by launching an illegal military assault against
Iraq, knowing full well that this would terminate inspections.
Clearly concern over Iraq’s WMD capabilities is not driving
policy.
Since 1998?
If Ritter is correct, is there any
evidence that Iraq has reconstituted its weapons capabilities
since Dec. 1998, when UN weapons inspectors were pulled out on
US instruction, as a precursor to the Operation Desert Fox bombing
raids? Hans Blix, head of UNMOVIC, the new UN weapons inspection
agency which has replaced UNSCOM, has said he ‘does not accept
as fact the US and UK’s repeated assertions that Baghdad has used
the time to rebuild its weapons of mass destruction’: ‘"It
would be inappropriate for me to accept and adopt this position,
but it would also be naïve of me to conclude that there may
be no veracity – of course it is possible, I won’t go as far as
saying probable," Mr Blix said.’ (Financial Times,
7 Mar. 2002, p. 20)
Ballistic Missiles
UN Security Council Resolution 687
banned Iraq from possessing ballistic missiles with a range of
over 150 kilometres, because they might carry weapons of mass
destruction. In Dec. 1992, UNSCOM reported that ‘All ballistic
missiles and items related to their production and development…
have been destroyed.’ Much has been made of Iraq’s (thwarted)
attempts since 1991 to acquire missile guidance and control equipment
yet Ritter points out that, ‘these covert procurement efforts,
though illegal, were in support of a permitted missile system,
the 150-kilometer-range Al Samoud’. (Ritter, ACT)
Nuclear Weapons
The head of German intelligence, August
Hanning, claims, "It is our estimate that Iraq will have
an atomic bomb in three years." (New Yorker, 25 Mar.
2002, p. 75) No evidence is provided. On the other hand,
a British intelligence report, ‘not yet complete’ (it appears
to be the same Joint Intelligence Committee report already referred
to) concludes that, ‘The status of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme
remains a mystery to Western Intelligence agencies’. (Times,
14 Mar. 2002, p. 17)
According to Ritter, the ‘massive infrastructure’
Iraq had built up in its nuclear weapons programme ‘had been eliminated
by 1995’ by the IAEA. Even if some components have been retained,
‘it would be of no use to Iraq given the extent to which Iraq’s
nuclear program was dismantled by the IAEA’. (ACT)
Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle
East programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
concludes that ‘Iraq does not have the capacity to build nuclear
weapons’: ‘She suggests that the emphasis now on Saddam’s nuclear
ambitions is dictated by Washington’s plans for a pre-emptive
strike on Iraq.’ (Guardian, 15 Mar. 2002, p. 16)
Chemical Weapons
Ritter concedes that problems remain
regarding VX nerve agent and mustard gas loaded onto 155mm artillery
shells. He notes that VX mass-production equipment turned over
to UNSCOM in 1996 was never actually used, and argues that the
lack of any evidence of VX production found during UNSCOM’s ‘numerous
inspections’ of possible storage and production sites ‘minimizes
the likelihood that Iraq maintains any significant stockpile of
VX weapons.’
As for the mustard gas artillery shells,
750 shells are unaccounted for. Ritter argues that ‘A meaningful
CW attack using artillery requires thousands of rounds,’ ‘a few
hundred 155mm mustard shells have little military value for use
on the modern battlefield’, and ‘cannot be viewed as a serious
threat’. (Ritter, ACT)
Chemical weapon production equipment
could be easily distributed throughout Iraq’s commercial
chemical-related facilities but according to Ritter, manufacturing
chemical weapons ‘would require the assembling of production equipment
into a single integrated facility, creating an infrastructure
readily detectable by the strategic intelligence capabilities
of the United States’, and ‘the CIA has clearly stated on several
occasions since the termination of inspections in Dec. 1998 that
no such activity has been detected.’ (Ritter, ACT)
Biological Weapons
For Charles Duelfer, former deputy
chair of UNSCOM, ‘The biological issue is the biggest issue and
least understood.’ Iraq has mobile laboratories capable of producing
such weapons ‘in large quantities.’ Ritter, on the other hand,
argues that unaccounted for stocks of chemical and biological
weapons "would no longer be viable": ‘Weapons built
before the Gulf war that slipped through the Unscom net would
by now have passed their sell-by date.’ (Guardian, 5 Mar.
2002, p. 16) ‘Contrary to popular belief, BW cannot simply be
cooked up in the basement; it requires a large and sophisticated
infrastructure, especially if the agent is to be filled into munitions.
As with CW, the CIA has not detected any such activity concerning
BW since UNSCOM inspectors left Iraq.’ (Ritter, Arms Control
Today, June 2000)
No Evidence
The head of the UN weapons inspectorate,
Hans Blix, does not believe the available evidence proves the
US/UK case regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. British
intelligence apparently has no new evidence. Even if it were true
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, this would not justify
a pre-emptive war. David Albright, former International Atomic
Energy Agency inspector, remarks, ‘The evidence produced so far
is worrying. It is an argument for getting the inspectors back
in as fast as possible, but not for going to war.’ (Observer,
17 Mar. 2002, p. 15) There is no evidence concerning the supply
of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.
An Offer Rejected
On the other hand, Baghdad has offered
to allow in British weapons inspectors, an offer that has been
rejected and ignored (apart from a buried note in the Guardian,
4 Mar. 2002, p. 2). Baghdad will permit inspections if
‘the locations to be searched are identified and a timetable is
set up and respected.’ (FT, 19 Mar. 2002, p. 11) These
offers should be explored, not ignored.
Britain and the US reject such conditions,
or any negotiation. ‘Key figures in the White House believe that
demands on Saddam to re-admit United Nations weapons inspectors
should be set so high that he would fail to meet them unless he
provided officials with total freedom.’ (Times, 16 Feb.
2002, p. 19) A US intelligence official has said the White House
‘will not take yes for an answer’. (Guardian, 14
Feb. 2002, p. 1)
Unproven allegations about Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction are being used to undermine public
opposition to an illegal war.
Voices in the
Wilderness UK breaks the economic sanctions on Iraq. For
further information on Iraq go to the Voices
website.
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