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Iraq: Reason Why We Must Act
The Freedom Institute ^ | 03-10-2003 | Jonathan Williams

Posted on 3/10/2003, 7:45:33 AM by lethbridge_east

On Friday March 7th the United Nations reached the beginning of the biggest crisis in its nearly 60 year history. As the USA accompanied by the ever more hawkish UK entered in the second and final resolution of the newest battle over Iraq. We could be looking at a war in a little over a weeks time thanks to that second resolution.

(Excerpt) Read more at freedominstitute.ca ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iraq; saddam; wmd

On Friday March 7th the United Nations reached the beginning of the biggest crisis in its nearly 60 year history. As the USA accompanied by the ever more hawkish UK entered in the second and final resolution of the newest battle over Iraq. We could be looking at a war in a little over a weeks time thanks to that second resolution.

After the statements of British Foreign Minister Jack Straw on Friday it is obvious that we are now at a point where you would fish or cut bait. We will act together or alone but make no mistake we will act was the tone of his speech.

It would be very surprising to see either the Russians or Chinese at this point pull out a veto but the French still are a major concern. It is apparent for all the resistance of the wobbly 6 nations not standing with either side they will probably fall in the lap of the USA without a major French effort. The question then is what will the French do?

History of Iraq

At the end of the first World War the Turkish Ottoman Empire had fallen. With the break up of the "Old Man" of Europe the British and the French started to create the Middle East that is mostly recognizable today. Iraq was in fact was a creating of the British. An artificial construct in the manner of all empires it basically took three main competing groups and stuck them all in the same country.

There are two major Islamic sects: Sunni and Shiite. The two groups are very similar, although the Shiites exalt their Imams as a line of inspired teachers. The two sects have also had sharp political differences. The split stems from the early days of Islam and arguments over Mohammed's successors as caliph or leader.

Sunni comprise about 85 percent of all Muslims. Most of the Arab nations are Sunni in belief and are the ruling minority of Iraq

Shiite are the second-largest sect. Iran is only major country with a Shiite Majority in power. Southern Iraq however have a large majority of Shiites who during the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war rebelled against Saddam only to be brutally repressed in what one official in the Bush government would call "not one of their proudest moments".

Kurds make up a large minority of the northern and oil rich part of Iraq. They are an ethnic minority as opposed to a religious one and have been brutally repressed by the Iraqis and Turks on various occasions because they basically straddle the border of the two countries.

That simple make up of three different ideals has meant that the Iraq mentality has become slowly one of repression by the state. The dominate Baath party came to power in the fifties due in large part of heavy nationalist Arab sentiment around the Suez Crisis leading to the relatively Western friendly Hashemite monarchy being overthrown. A bloody revolution of 1958 brought the military to power and as they did started to remake the ideals of Iraq. Then, in 1968, the Iraqi Baath party, fashioned after the fascist and communist parties of Europe, seized power.

Professor Salim Mansur of the University of Western Ontario describes the Baath party in the following way:

Baath, meaning rebirth, is an Arab nationalist party founded by two Damascene, Michel Aflaq, a Christian, and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a Sunni Muslim. In the 1940s, they propounded a highly emotional brand of Arab nationalism, sprinkled with socialist ideas borrowed from Marx and a mixture of readings of European thinkers such as Nietzsche, Sorel and Lenin. The rhetoric of Arab unity, as an expression of Arab discontent with the map of the Middle East, found home in the politics of the Baath party.

One more person found a home in this party. One Saddam Hussein. The former strongman slash functionary became President of Iraq in 1979 as Iraq's ethnic enemy Iran became controlled by the Shiite Cleric Ayatollah Khomeini. With Khomeini in Iran Husseins overall goal of Middle Eastern dominance and influence was being ruined. Khomeini began to spread his reach by influencing the Militants in the PLO and other groups and in so doing started to threaten Saddam.

For this reason and the fact that Saddam must have been nervous having so dominate a Shiite state on his borders trying to foment militant feelings within Iraq's dominate Shiites. It became reason enough for war.

During this period leading into 1980 the concerns of the West started grow as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan were coming under the influence of the USSR. With that the old policy of supporting our bastards started to form in western minds and that those particular bastards formed in two men who would create so much trouble later Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden in a lesser role of course in Afghanistan helping the Muslim rebels.

Hussein himself started to receive help from various sources but in the mean time he killed off most of his possible rivals by killing 500 of his own parties leaders. The French started to supply Nuclear power to the Iraqis in the beginning of the eighties. Also the French provided some of their F1 Mirage fighters.

From the Germans Hussein received most of his chemical agents, from mustard gas to Sarin. Also from the Germans he received much of his Chemical making plants for producing more of the agents.

The USA and the UK provided some of the biological agents and most of his beginning computer technology. The Russians and Chinese provided most of the weapons.

This armed Saddam to fight the Iranians but it also gave him the impetus to use these weapons on his own people. To disastrous effect. 300,000 to 500,000 people were killed in the Iran - Iraq war some of the mustard gas was used on Iranian Soldiers when things got tight for the Iraqis.

In 1988 Saddam decided to use these weapons on his own people as he attacked the Kurdish town of Halabjah. With Chemical weapons in tow he destroyed most of the town and wiped out most of the populous with his chemical weapons.

The only thing that stopped his Nuclear experimentation was a well timed air strike from the Israeli military in 1981. They flattened the plant.

Persian Gulf War

With a active force of nearly 500,000 troops at the end of the Iranian war the Iraqis were by far the biggest military in the Arab world. A ripple of fear began from his neighbours. He in the end tried to extort "protection" out of Kuwait and when that failed decided to invade to control more oil reserves and gain a larger access to the Persian Gulf ports.

The War that would follow after his invasion came because Saddam did not believe that America would try to save Kuwait and his already determined victory would create a larger sphere of influence in the Middle East where so much time is taken up hating Israel and all the other states. He miscalculated of course in what has been a catalog of mistakes when estimating the USA.

Within one month the Iraqi military was all but destroyed. Most of its fighting power reduced to rubble. If not for the decision to stop as a part of the UN resolution demanded the USA and its broad base of allies could have finished Saddam right then and there. Instead they tried to foment an internal rebellion without any firm backing of military support which created a massive failure as the Iraqis used their helicopter force to horrid effect.

Explains then-National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft."I suggested to Secretary Cheney and to Gen. Powell that we rescind Gen. Schwartzkopf's permission. (To allow these helicopters to fly) They said it would be a serious thing to do. It would undermine his command over his forces and so on -- so I didn't pursue it. It was a mistake..."

Weapons Inspections

At the end of the war the ceasefire included steps for Iraq to totally disarm particularly of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This was supposed to be done when the UN inspectors started to do this in Security resolution 687. Some early success by the Inspectors in 1991 but after a few years of early success the Iraqi authorities began to lead the inspectors on a marry dance of hampering them.

Eventually after 7 years the Iraqis forced out the inspectors in 1998. Since that time Iraq has not changed their tactics of bait and switch. Offer gains at right times to avoid trouble but not enough to actually comply with any of the resolutions passed over the years.

Now with 275,000 troops in the Persian Gulf once again poised to strike and a deadline of March 17th looming Iraq continues to avoid mentioning anything of WMD other than to say, hey we do not have them go somewhere else. Since 1991 France has been the leading player in this play seeking to offer easing or wholesale dropping of sanctions to the UN only to have the USA step in. France of course got control of the Iraqi oil production and distribution for the food for oil programs.

In the meantime Iraq continued to search for Nuclear power and in 1998 UNSCOM predicted that Iraq had built at least three nuclear bombs but had not got the fissable material to actually create the bomb into an actual object of destruction. Some suspicion was focused in on the deal done by a Pakistani group offering help in constructing the bomb through money and support.

Iraq also had approached Siemens the German electronics giant for triggers which were called Lithotripters which could feasibly used in creating a bomb. This according to the big anti war opponent and former weapons inspector Scott Ritter in 1999 Senate Committee meeting. Siemens denies selling any to Iraq.

What has gone on is containment has not worked as proven by a continuing of investment in WMD by Hussein. Inspectors who could not find any nuclear program in the eighties until the Israelis blew it up are suddenly expected to find all the WMD and contain Hussein at the same time.

Since 9/11

With with the focus on the highjackers in 2001 the Czech BIS (intelligence service) came forward to point out that they had observed a meeting with Mohammed Atta (lead Al Queda Highjacker) and Iraqi Counsel Al-Ani. Thus a link between the Iraqis and Al Queda was pointed out. On November 20th a story ran in the New York Times debunking this story but the BIS have stood by it and eventually the writer of the story printed a retraction.

Also Walter Pincus a writer for the Washington Post said that senior White House officials said that there was no evidence that Atta left the USA in April but these were countered by the Czech government who pointed to the question of whether Atta would have used his own passport during that period. No White House or government official has ever gone on record debunking the story.

Also Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz denied the meeting took place but put up the caveat, "Even if such an incident had taken place it doesn't mean anything."

Since that period of question which even as late as May 2002 the Czech BIS who claimed to monitor the meeting reiterated that the meeting did take place. But rather than a meeting arranging 9/11 it could have been to destroy Radio Free Europe offices in Prague.

Shortly after these meeting in April 2001 Al-Ani was expelled from the Czech republic politely accused of spying.

So an independent source from the CIA and FBI confirms a link with the Iraqis and Al-Queda and yet not one person believes it because two American reporters disputed it one of which retracted their opinion.

The fact that Saddam has supported the families of suicide bombers is in no doubt though as a method of encouraging terror. There is real evidence of collusion between the two sides and certainly as both sides were campaigning against the USA in the same period there would certainly be consideration of working together. If Hitler and Stalin could work together in 1939 to 40 what is so shocking or startling that these two forces could not work towards their common goal together?

The truth is the smoking gun is the one that Saddam has used so often on his own people and Kuwait. He is a terrible dictator, he has successfully avoided inspections from 1991 to 1998 when the UN acknowledged that he had WMDs still. He fooled Blix over the Nuclear capacity he had in the eighties. Certainly he was not a fool and the calculated and Machiavellian performance of complying when reports were due to go to the UN and the heat was on is not true compliance.

The time has come, the man is a menace he has killed over 1 million people in his reign of terror in 25 years and it is time it ended.

1 posted on 3/10/2003, 7:45:34 AM by lethbridge_east
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To: lethbridge_east
BTTT
2 posted on 3/10/2003, 7:55:36 AM by Tamzee (There are 10 types of people... those who read binary, and those who don't.)
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To: lethbridge_east
If the US backs down on this, it'll be a disaster......Saddam will make sure of it.

He's goin' down.

3 posted on 3/10/2003, 7:59:36 AM by FreeCanuckistan
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To: lethbridge_east
Khomeini had spent 15 years in Iraq while exiled from Iran, then he went to France later on. Hussein didn't get sour on Khomeini until after the Shah was ousted and after Khomeini ousted the shah's sucessor and turned on the red Tudeh party.
4 posted on 3/10/2003, 8:07:11 AM by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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