War Handwavium

Here’s the history. What is the lesson it teaches?

1991-04-03: After Iraq is kicked out of Kuwait, UN Resolution 687 is passed. It requires that Iraq disarm all of its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Sanctions from Resolution 661 are linked to Iraq disarmament. The Oil-For-Food program is also a part of this resolution.

1991-05-20: Even though UN Resolution ties sanctions to disarmament, Bush Sr. states “At this juncture, my view is we don’t want to lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.” James Baker, Secretary of State: “We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.”

[http://www.accuracy.org/article.php?articleId=44]

By the year 2000, estimates are that sanctions against Iraq caused the additional deaths of approximately one million Iraqi civilians.

[http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9908/06/iraq.sanctions/]

1991-1998: Scott Ritter served as United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. Ritter claims that the CIA and British Intelligence had infiltrated UNSCOM and was using weapons inspections as a means to gain intelligence information for overthrowing Saddam. This is later confirmed.

1991-2003: Operation Rockingham, involving departments from the UK intelligence establishment – MI6, MI5, GCHQ and defence intelligence, cherry-picked intelligence from UN inspections. It received hard data, but had a preordained outcome in mind. It only put forward a small percentage of the facts when most were ambiguous or noted no WMD… It became part of an effort to maintain a public mindset that Iraq was not in compliance with the inspections.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/nov/21/davidkelly.media

1996-1998: UN weapons inspector, American Bill Tierney, spied for the Americans while working in Iraq. Tierney stated he gave the Pentagon targets for military action when he was a member of an inspection team between 1996 and 1998.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20030225093525/http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12304324&method=full&siteid=50143]

[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Tierney]

1998-01-xx: Iraqi officials stops Ritter’s inspection team from continuing inspections. They claim that the inspection teams contain US spies who are gathering information from inspections sites to be used for future attack plans. There are US spies in the inspection teams, they are relaying site information to the US, and the US will end up using this information by the end of the year for selecting targets in Operation Desert Fox.

Scott Ritter later explains his experience of sanctions against Iraq and the inspections for WMD disarmament during the 1990’s: “the American policy was regime change. At first they wanted to be passive, we’re just going to contain Saddam through economic sanctions, and he’s going to collapse of his own volition in six months. That failed. We’re going to put pressure on the Iraqis, and we’re going to get some Sunni general to apply the 75-cent solution–the cost of a 9 mm bullet put in the back of Saddam’s head–and the Sunni general will take over. If you want proof positive about the corrupt nature of our regime-change policy, understand this, it wasn’t about changing the regime. It wasn’t about getting rid of the Baathist party or transforming Iraq into a modern democracy back in the early 1990s. It was about getting rid of one man, Saddam Hussein. And if he was replaced by a Sunni general who governed Iraq in the exact same fashion, that was okay. And that shows the utter hypocrisy of everything we did.”  …  “every time a UN weapons inspector went into Iraq–somebody with a blue hat–they weren’t viewed by the Iraqis as somebody who was trying to disarm Iraq, they were viewed by the Iraqis as somebody trying to kill their President, and they were right.”

[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter/2]

1999: Scott Ritter, writes book “Endgame: Solving Iraq Problem”, in it he rejects the push for regime change and overthrowing Saddam. Instead, he calls for a return to normalized relations with Iraq and inspections to verify abandonment of their WMD program.

2000: Scott Ritter, films documentary, “Shifting Sands: The truth about UNSCOM and disarming Iraq”. In it, he argues that Iraq is a “defanged tiger”, that inspections were successful in eliminating significant Iraqi WMD capabilities.

2002: Scott Ritter writes book, “War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want you to KNow”. In it, he claims that as of 1998, Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed, 90-95% of Iraqi’s WMD’s have been verifiably eliminated.

2002-10-16: “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002″ is passed by US Senate and House. It authorizes: “the President to  strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq”

2002-11-08: UN passes Resolution 1441, calling for immediate and comlete disarmament of Iraq, demanding declare all WMD’s, and requiring that Iraq submit to inspections. The Resolution does not authorize the use of force if Iraq fails to comply. Automatic triggers with respect to the resolution have been removed from the resolution before it is approved. Another UN Resolution is needed to approve the use of force.

2003-01-09: Hans Blix reports to UN that he has found no “smoking gun” so far while inspecting Iraq.

2003-01-27: UN press release states “It would appear that Iraq had decided in principle to provide cooperation on substance in order to complete the disarmament task through inspection.” After 60 days of work, 106 sites have been inspected.

2003-02-14: Hans Blix reports to UN that they have inspected 300 sites without restrictions in 11 weeks. No WMD’s found.

2003-03-07: Hans Blix reports to UN that Iraqis are cooperating with inspections and that they have found no evidence of mobile biological labs. Blix estimates that inspections should be completed in a few months.

2003-03-17: Bush orders the invasion of Iraq.

2003-10-03: The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), headed by American David Kay, was tasked with searching for WMDs. The survey ultimately concluded that Iraqi production of WMD ceased and most stockpiles of WMD’s were destroyed in 1991 by US bombardment during the first Gulf War and by UN Weapons Inspectors during the 90’s.

[http://www.slate.com/id/2094415/]

So, the facts of history say that Iraq’s WMD program had ceased and most stockpiles had been destroyed either during the bombardment of 1991 or during UN Weapon inspections in the 90’s. Scott Ritter who was in charge of inspections during the 90’s writes a number of books in 2000 to 2002 reporting that Iraq is 90-95% disarmed.  Hans Blix who is in charge of inspections in 2003 reports full cooperation and that inspections should be done in a few months.

 Once it is confirmed by multiple sources that Iraq is completely disarmed, THEN THE US INVADES.

Those are the facts of history.

The lesson one can extract from those facts? Well, there are a number to be sure. But the one that keeps coming up is a simple lesson: “Disarmament is for Suckers”. If you disarm, if inspections over and over prove that you’ve disarmed, then we will invade you.

Disarmament is for Suckers.

If a sovereign nation is facing demands for inspections, facing demands to disarm, facing the pressure of economic sanctions to disarm, they would have to be a fool to ignore the facts of history and the lesson it teaches them.

Glen Greenwald has an excellent article about the recent death of Bruce E. Ivins, one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, and how it relates the the anthrax scare of 2001. You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html

The gist of it appears to be that the anthrax scare was, at the very least, Ivins own personal attempt to link Iraq to the 9/11 attacks. The anthrax letters all came with a letter saying some variation of the following:

09-11-01

This is next.

Take Penacilin Now

Death to America

Death to Israel

Allah is Great

 Worst case, however, the anthrax letters were part of a larger government attempt to “Tonkin” the country into attacking Iraq for 9/11.  The Washington Post’s columnist, Richard Cohen, in an article had stated “I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official” Cohen was warned, by someone in the government, to get Cipro before the anthrax attacks had started.

The implications of this whole mess deserve a war-handwavium entry or two. What I wanted to point out right now was a bit about John McCain’s reaction back in October 2001 when the anthrax scare was going full throttle. McCain appeared on the David Letterman Show on 18 October 2001.

LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?

MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine …. I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.

LETTERMAN: Oh is that right?

There was no indication that the anthrax used in these attacks had come from Iraq. Ever. John McCain had zero evidence to support this at the time. And now as more information keeps coming out about Bruce E. Ivins, it is now known that all the anthrax used in the attacks came from a US Army bioweapon research facility. Towards the end of the interview, McCain not only beats the war drum for Iraq, but reveals his idea of foreign diplomacy.

“The crunch time will be if – and emphasize if – we have to go after Iraq.  … World power politics is very interesting. People are very friendly when they know you’re the most powerful kid on the block.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/01/mccain-anthrax-iraq/

Not only was McCain wrong about the anthrax being from Iraq, not only did he have zero evidence to link it with Iraq, not only does he beat the war drum to invade Iraq, but he shows that his view of diplomacy is little more than war or the threat of war.

Three days later in an interview with Tim Russert, McCain and Joe Lieberman are again trying to connect Iraq with not only 9/11 but also bin Laden and al Queda.

LIEBERMAN:  There is some evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein may have had contact with bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network, perhaps even involved in the September 11 attack.

Lieberman is wrong on all three counts. Later in the interview:

MCCAIN: Recently, in Rio, I believe, an envelope was received, which gives me the idea that perhaps this is an international organization and not one within the United States of America.

McCain is wrong here too. Later on in the same interview:

RUSSERT: Would you have any problem expanding President Bush’s orders to the CIA to go after Osama bin Laden to include Saddam Hussein?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I leave that to the president. But as a matter of principle and morality, of course not.

RUSSERT: Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: I think Joe’s right.

McCain also puts in some suck-up time to President Bush Jr.

MCCAIN: I think the president is doing a great job in leading America and making us aware of the challenge we face.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/nbctext_102101.html 

This country can’t survive another four years of a war-mongering president at the helm. There will be nothing left of America but a smoldering ruin.