by Janet Jagan
I could hardly believe my eyes when I viewed US President George W Bush on
TV looking bewildered and vulnerable - a sharp difference from his usual
blustering cowboy style of address. He said: “I want to know the facts about
weapons of mass destruction.”
So Mr Bush now wants to know the facts about weapons of mass destruction (WMD)!
But he was the master - the man who knew so positively about Saddam
Hussein’s stockpile of WMD that he thought it necessary to go to war to
prevent the tyrant from using them.
He spoke so positively about the threat when he went to the US Congress to
announce his decision to invade Iraq - for that reason. He never gave as the
reason to go to war as “regime change” or that Saddam was such a wicked
dictator that he had to go. No. The reason for going to war was to protect the
world from Saddam’s anticipated release of WMD.
Now the President has called for an inquiry about intelligence reports on Iraq
and WMD. But watch that inquiry! The Report cannot come out before this
year’s presidential elections!
Poor Colin Powell! He was inveigled into going to the United National Security
Council and risk his good name by insisting in the strongest language that the
US had to go to war in Iraq because of the threat of WMD. He used chapter and
verse to try to convince the Security Council of the urgency of dealing with
Saddam before he made use of WMD. There was no time to wait! The UN weapons
inspectors were going too slow, etc, etc. And so the mighty USA and its sole
partner Great Britain refused to be guided by UN advice and rushed off to
war-a war that was ended, but, so far, never ends. In fact, more soldiers have
been killed since the war ended, than during the war!
Now, Mr Bush is suggesting he has bad intelligence. (I wonder if Mr Corbin has
ever considered that the so-called intelligence he has about a phantom gang
might turn out like Mr Bush’s reliance on intelligence from the greatest
intelligence unit in the world. Maybe the English-speaking diplomats should
take note.)
It was Mr Bush who wrongly gave the American people the notion that Saddam
Hussein was responsible for the September 11, 2001 horror. It was not until
fairly recently that he admitted the error, but by that time and now, most
Americans believe it is true. Saddam, as we know, is a cruel tyrant, but
don’t blame him for what he did not do.
Mr Bush’s wonderment about getting the wrong intelligence on WMD came about
because the former Chief US arms hunter Dick Kay gave evidence before a US
Congressional Committee that it was very unlikely that any weapons of mass
destruction would be found because, he believed, there were none. He had
headed a weapons search team of 1400 inspectors in Iraq since May last.
However, in my article in Mirror “Bush Fires Grow” I had pointed out,
before Kay gave his report and resigned, that the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace had concluded that the Bush Administration systematically
misrepresented the threat in Iraq of WMD and that this did not prevent any
immediate threat.
Furthermore, a former Cabinet Secretary, Paul O’Neil had revealed that the
Bush Administration had decided to invade Iraq within days after Bush entered
the White House.
He implied that the Iraq invasion was not because of intelligence reports of
WMD being a threat, but because of a conviction that Saddam was a bad person
who had to go.
But look at all the “bad” persons there are or have been in the world: the
dictators of Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Portugal, the Idi Amins and
the Duvaliers and so many of the past, present and future. Is there to be a
war each time for “regime change”?
Poor Colin Powell again. He said, before Mr Bush started to wonder about wrong
intelligence reports, that he stood behind all the statements he made about
WMD in Iraq, meaning his statement to the UN Security Council. And Ms Rice, Mr
Bush’s advisor, now admits that WMD may never be found.
But how goes it for Prime Minister Tony Blair, recently absolved of blame in
the death of scientist David Kelly? The Hutton report which came out against
the BBC, covers up the UK government involvement in naming Dr David Kelly -
the chief factor, it appears, leading to his suicide. Mr Blair’s close
associates devised the scheme of exposing the name of David Kelly to the
media. The BBC protected his name until after his death. Kelly was accused of
exposing the myth that Blair used in the House of Commons, to justify going to
war, by claiming that WMD could be used in “45 minutes” by Saddam’s
military.
Hundreds of BBC workers have described the Hutton report which cleared Blair,
of “white washing” the Blair involvement. Whatever may be said, PM Tony
Blair is now enmeshed in the massive doubts now spreading, about the use of
the excuse of WMD to invade Iraq. And he, like Bush, is now having an inquiry.
The kindest thing that can be said is that Bush and Blair were given poor
intelligence reports. The reality, however, is that they used the excuse of
going to war in order to prevent Saddam from using weapons of mass
destruction, deliberately, believing that the truth would never come out.
But the moment of truth has arrived!
