Iraq mission was founded on truth

Stop the beat-up -- the Bush-Howard case for war with Saddam Hussein was strong and accurate

THE legal case for war against Iraq was strong. It remains as strong as ever, despite the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found and despite the huge beat-up about what George W. Bush and John Howard had to say about uranium from Africa.

The legal case was straightforward. Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The Security Council authorised the use of force against it (Resolution 678). In 1991 the Security Council agreed to a ceasefire on condition that Iraq accepted destruction of its WMD (Resolution 687). Iraq did not comply with those ceasefire conditions. In the words of Resolution 1441 of 2002, Iraq failed to provide ``an accurate, full, final and complete disclosure as required by Resolution 687 of all aspects of its programs to develop WMD''.

Hans Blix, the UN Security Council weapons inspector from 2002-2003, recorded in his reports to the Security Council that Iraq had failed to account for its possession of the nerve agent VX, 6500 chemical bombs, at least 8500 litres of anthrax, 650kg of bacterial growth media, and 1000 tonnes of chemical agents. And these, he said, were only examples of ``many proscribed weapons and items not accounted for''.

It is this decade-long failure to account for its destruction of WMD that is the fundamental breach of ceasefire conditions that justified in 2003 the resumption of the military action originally authorised in 1990 by Resolution 678. It is argued by some lawyers that this is a ``legalistic and technical'' justification of the war in Iraq. The last time I looked the law was by definition ``legalistic''. And more often than not it is a great deal more technical than this relatively uncomplicated case.

What about the failure to find any WMD since the war? Strictly speaking that is not relevant to the legal duty of Iraq, which was to account for WMD it alleged it had destroyed. As Blix himself pointed out, this is not a matter of proving a negative. ``Iraq has all the archives of the government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports of how they have been used. It should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports on production and losses of material.'' And if Iraq had in fact dismantled all its WMD programs as required, why on earth did it not account for that destruction, and thus avoid attack?

But if you think this is too technical and legalistic a response, let me refer you to an article of July 2, 2003 by Rolf Ekeus. Ekeus, chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, was the UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-97.

Ekeus said that it is entirely to be expected that weapons have not been found. Because of the relatively low quality and instability of Iraq's chemical and biological materials, he says Iraq tended not to put them together as weapons until they were about to be used. It would blend its chemical weapons work and material with ``ordinary civilian production facilities and activities''.

Ekeus said: ``This combination of researchers, engineers, know-how, precursors, batch production techniques and testing is what constituted Iraq's chemical threat -- its chemical weapon. The rather bizarre political focus on the search for rusting drums and pieces of munitions containing low-quality chemicals has tended to distort the important question of WMD in Iraq and exposed the American and British administrations to unjustified criticism.''

Ekeus says that Iraq is still a ``republic of fear'' and will be until Hussein and his sons are apprehended and that is why ``few if any of those involved in the weapons program will provide information on their activities. The risk of terrible revenge against oneself or one's family is simply too great.''

Ekeus ended with the following. ``This is enough to justify the international military intervention undertaken by the US and Britain. To accept the alternative -- letting Hussein remain in power with his chemical and biological weapons capability -- would have been to tolerate a continuing destabilising arms race in the gulf, including future nuclearisation of the region, threats to the world's energy supplies, leakage of WMD technology and expertise to terrorist networks, systematic sabotage of efforts to create and sustain a process of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the continued terrorising of the Iraqi people.''

Ekeus, remember, is the opposite of a right-wing hard-line warrior. He is a former Swedish diplomat, is head of a famous Peace Research Institute, and all his instincts are against war.

But what about the alleged misleading by Howard and Bush over the uranium from Africa? It is not surprising that many are not prepared to accept their denials. Howard's record of breaches of solemn undertakings and his performance on the children overboard affair mean that the term ``Honest John'' no longer springs to the lips of any Australian. Bush is once again ruining a strong case by the blundering incompetence of his administration. Anyone who persists in retaining a Defence Secretary as erratic, vain, intolerant of disagreement and besotted by the press as Donald Rumsfeld really cannot complain.

But the truth has to be given its due. Both Bush and Howard, in their speeches, were accurate. They did not refer to the forged documents about uranium from Niger. Rather, according to a statement from the Office of National Assessments on July 10, they were referring to additional British intelligence about uranium from Africa, intelligence by which the British continue to stand. On this occasion at least, Bush and Howard are being given a bum rap.

Based on thorough analysis, the [International Atomic Energy Agency] has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents -- which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger -- are in fact not authentic. We have concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded.

-- UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei's report to the UN Security Council, quoted by the BBC on March 7

The intelligence documents, given to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, indicated that Iraq might have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the agency said they were ``obvious'' fakes.

CIA officials now say they communicated significant doubts to the administration about the evidence backing up charges that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa for nuclear weapons, charges that found their way into President Bush's state of the union address, a State Department ``fact sheet'' and public remarks by numerous senior officials. That evidence was dismissed as a forgery early this month by UN officials investigating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The Bush administration does not dispute this conclusion.

The intelligence officials offered a tantalising coda for conspiracy-mongers. They said the ``crude forgery'' received by UN weapons inspectors suggesting the Iraqis were trying to buy uranium from Niger as part of their nuclear program was originally put in intelligence channels by France. The officials wouldn't speculate on French motives.

Seems to me the soviets and the demoncrats suffer from a long term memory loss. Does anyone besides me remember how Saddam launched scuds at Israel during the Gulf war? Was it his intent then to destroy the citizens of Israel with all that he had available to him?

My recollection is that we placed patriots in Israel to prevent his scuds from killing folks. Then Saddam gave it his best shot with all he had and failed. We made a peace agreement with him which included inspectors in Iraq to prevent him from acquiring WMDs. You know, to keep tabs on a tryant. But then, a little later, he threw the inspectors out and nothing was done about it til Bush saw the light after 911. Clinton didn't have the balls to do what needed to be done when the inspectors were thrown out. The UN didn't have the balls to do what needed to be done when the inspectors were thrown out. Only dubya had the balls to do what needed doin. And no, even he didn't grow them til after 911. But once he did, all hell broke loose and a monster reaping havoc upon the worlds' stage has been silenced...and soon to be slain if not already.

I understand that you people are all patriots, and that you all support Bush. I still think that Bush's biggest intention there is to control the oil flow. Its all money.

We paid a severe price on 911. As it turns out, in this case, the initiating WMDs amounted to a case of box cutters. All that aside, I don't associate control of oil with 911. Nor do I associate the march to Baghdad with the control of oil no more than I consider the fight in Chechnya to be about oil.

I am convinced that the removal of the tyrant in Baghdad was necessary...since had Saddam had the ability during the Gulf war, he would have been dropping those scuds on American soil as well as in Israel.

Was our involvement in Kuwait about oil? I believe it played a major role. However, preventing a tyrannical aggressor from invading his neighbors to control their oil fields had to be considered and was. As a result, Saddam and his bandits were sent home to lick their wounds. In the end, there was a condition for peace...that being among other things, UN inspectors in Iraq preventing Saddam from building WMDs. Subsequently, the tyrannt in defiance of the world thru them out and no one did a damn thing about it until now.

Will we now find WMDs? We know for fact Saddam had them because he used them on the Kurds and no one did a damn thing about that either til now.

Like we found the tyrannical sons, we will eventually find Saddam and his WMDs. At the same time, I believe it necessary to find Saddam for closure. But I don't believe it necessary to find WMDs to support what we did, although I remain convinced, based on the tyrannts history, they are there somewhere or have been shipped to a neighboring ally. Time will tell.

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