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[Note: this is a long post, but I've tried to break it up for easy reading, and I promise it's worth your while.]
First: weapons inspectors were spying on Iraq:
The original article is now gone from the Guardian website (that's normal purging of old articles, by the way), but there's a quote at Medialens:
"American espionage in Iraq, under cover of United Nations weapons inspections, went far beyond the search for banned arms and was carried out without the knowledge of the UN leadership, it was reported yesterday. An investigation by the Washington Post found that CIA engineers working as UN technicians installed antennae in equipment belonging to the UN Special Commission (Unscom) to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military." (Julian Borger, 'UN "kept in dark" about US spying in Iraq', The Guardian, March 3, 1999)
Both Medialens and Fair.org have recently objected to that apparent vanishing of this story from major newspapers. See here and here.
No-Fly Zones:
Globalpolicy.org says: "In April 1991, claiming a false authority under Security Council Resolution 688, the US, UK and France began to patrol the skies over northern Iraq, excluding Iraqi aircraft from this zone. The same powers started to enforce a second “no fly” zone in southern Iraq a few months later."
More here - with links.
See also John Pilger's website: "Last August, the defence minister John Spellar described the no-fly zones over Iraq as "international zones, designed by the international community". This is false. Imposed and enforced only by the United States and Britain, these zones have never been ratified by the United Nations and have no basis in international law."
HunterWolf: One might argue the sanctions were caused not by the US or the UN, but by Hussein refusing to acknowledge the UN's legal demands for regular and thorough weapons inspection.
This has been argued a great deal. It's odious, however, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is that it's the old playground favourite: now look what you made me do! You wouldn't give me your pocketmoney, so I had to break your face open. Second, if you want to get into blame here, the western powers - with special mention to the US and UK, as ever, but closely followed by France, Germany, and every other idiot - created and supplied Saddam Hussein for years.
Anyone suggesting that the Iraqis are being unreasonable about the length of time necessary for the US to sort out the occupation (and do remember that we and they were told repeatedly that it would months rather than years: Washington Post", MSNBC) should understand that the tyrant who has just been removed was our gift to the Iraqi people, pure and simple, and a triumph of our diplomatic and espionage efforts during the Cold War. If the Iraqis feel that we've stuck our noses into their lives enough, this might just be why.
Or it could be that, if the West really gave a damn about the suffering of common Iraqis, our governments would not have done their best to wreck the 'Oil For Food' programme. Two successive UN humanitarian coordinators for Iraq quit in protest, and wrote about the situtation: "The most recent report of the UN secretary-general, in October 2001, says that the US and UK governments' blocking of $4bn of humanitarian supplies is by far the greatest constraint on the implementation of the oil-for-food program. The report says that, in contrast, the Iraqi government's distribution of humanitarian supplies is fully satisfactory (as it was when we headed this program). The death of some 5-6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US and UK governments' delayed clearance of equipment and materials is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad."
HunterWolf: I'm a liberal Democrat who does NOT like Bush but thinks that the war was pretty justified, since Hussein really never complied with the UN mandate in full, and he could have avoided it by not putting up such resistence in following the rules of the inspections to the letter.
You're far from unique. However, look a little deeper and your position may change. Take biological weapons, for example, which scare me spitless and did the same to the UN when Powell pointed out how many gallons of Iraqi Anthrax were not accounted for. The redoutable Scott Ritter speaks: "How can Iraq have viable stockpiles of anthrax? They cannot. So for the U.S. and others, at this point in time, to be focused on 25,000 liters of unaccounted for anthrax is absurd in the extreme, because those 25,000 liters cannot physically exist today. Liquid bulk anthrax deteriorates after 3 years."
Many of the justifications for the war are extremely shaky at best. The humanitarian one that Hussein was (and is) a monster has always seemed to me the strongest, but that is not a legal ground for invading a country. Never mind that he's our monster... But in any case, the human price may turn out to be very much higher - not just in Iraq, but elsewhere in the region and the world. Recall that one of Osama Bin Laden's reasons for attacking the WTC was the US troops in Saudi Arabia - which are now, ironically, being withdrawn. Certainly, it has distracted from an increasingly pathetic situation in Afghanistan, much like the one which allowed the Taliban to come to power in the first place. It may also have started a new WMD arms race, as smaller nations seek to produce a force which will deter any invasion.
The US soldiers who fired into the crowd are part of a far larger picture of mishandling, neglect, incompetence and even deception in which our governments are thoroughly implicated. There will be 'blowback', and it may be very painful indeed. |
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