Blix Suspects There are No Weapons of Mass Destruction

As my 10-year-old child would say-Uh Duh!!!!!!!!!!

This was such a blatant lie it simply mind boggles one. We can rest assured that if any WMD are found, they will have been planted by a CIA or Israeli agent.

To Find the WMD and details:
CLICK HERE > http://www.msnbc.com/news/wld/graphics/strategic_israel_dw.htm
One of the reasons we went to war was to free the Iraqi people from Saddam...
Should we not now free the Palestinian People from the brutal Occupation and Oppression that has lasted over 30 years???
For Peaceful Solution to this horrific Problem:
CLICK HERE > http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64554&group=webcast

There is a more sinister reason so much injustice can be perpetrated against Arabs and the Arab world.

There is an enormous amount of racist hatred towards Arabs in this country -- it is out in the open, not hidden at all. It's a hatred which goes far beyond hatred of any other ethnicity and actually preceded 9-11. The hatred, however, is based on illusions of what people think they know but they have actually been deceived.

The news media and Hollywood have woven lies and have defamed Arabs to an unrecognizable degree. There is no counterbalancing force in the mainstream and alternative medias barely touch on the subject.

Somehow, Americans have got to be made aware that what they see in the news or in the movies is a carefully crafted image of Arabs by people with an agenda to promote.

I believe this hatred goes far beyond any other form of racism in this country and if not confronted could end up allowing the US public to accept the nuclear bombing of an Arab city by the US or Israel based on some pretext. In fact, given the current climate, I'd expect to hear chearing from some corners if such a thing were to occur.

Even fair-minded people often succumb to this prejudice without even realizing it. How else to explain how easily many are willing to make compromise on principles of justice and equality in dealing with Palestinians (the Occupied) against their Israeli Occupiers. There were no such comprises made in demanding equal rights for black South Africans for instance.

Noam Chomsky has discussed this before and here is one thing he had to say in an essay addressing a questioner asking about Arab "anti-Semitism:"
'Western anti-Arab racism is so extreme that it often isn't even concealed, because it isn't noticed; it's like the air we breathe. For example, a western "secular hero" like Irving Howe is highly praised for urging that Israel send settlers to the "underpopulated Galilee" -- underpopulated because it has too many Arab citizens and too few Jews. That shows what a passionate advocate of a just peace he is. Again, try an experiment: suppose someone were to call for more settlement of white Christians in "underpopulated New York City," which has too many Jews and Blacks. And there are much more extreme cases; I've sampled some of them in "Necessary Illusions." None have any impact, because of the extreme racism of the intellectual culture, Arabs being probably the last "legitimate" targets.'
http://www.zmag.org/forums/chomarb.htm

Or take another example, it's been pointed out that more people died in Iraq due to US sanctions (it's really unfair to call them UN sanctions), than due to the use of all Weapons of Mass Destruction ever. (see this talk: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/05/1614424.php )

The first to die were people with chronic illnesses like diabetes who could no longer get there medicine. The estimates in Iraq are (from UNICEF, 1996) 500,000 children under the age of five had died solely because of sanctions from 1991 to 1996. Another 1,000,000 civilians over the age of five also succumbed. When asked about whether this policy was worth the 500,000 children under the age of five killed, Madeleine Albright answered "we believe it is worth it." And this comes from someone who said that three out of four of her granparents died in the Holocaust -- proving that some people learned nothing from that horrible crime against humanity.

And that's not even discussing the bombardment of Iraq in a conflict which could have been (should have been) solved diplomatically. After all, Israel was still in Lebanon at the time and at when they left in the year 2000 had killed 45,000 Lebanese and Palestinians (20,000 in the summer of 1982 and another 25,000 during the course of their occupation -- "The Fateful Triangle," Noam Chomsky). By comparison, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was benign. Or, how about the bombing of the Amerriya bomb shelter which burned 500 Iraqis alive -- the most common reactions I saw in the states was either "Oh Well" or "it was a suicide" or some combination. In other words, absolutely no recognition of their humanity! (Again, except for a certain segment of the population).

Moreover, apart from a handful of activists, most Americans similarly did not care about the fate of Iraqis. Or that before the first Gulf war, Iraq was on its way to becoming a First World country. Or that Israel has robbed and killed and continues to rob and kill Palestinians with our decisive support (diplomatic, military, and economic) without which none of this would be possible. And again Americans (with the exception of a few) aren't bothered by it. In fact, many supported this crap and made excuses for it. You can just imagine a German Nazi making excuses for or denying the Holocaust.

Thus, when something like 9-11 finally comes, no one understands why this could happen ("understanding" remember, is different from condoning, e.g. the CIA undoubtedly understood the reasons behind the attacks).

end the occupation free iraq
send bush adn cronies to war crimes tribunal

Mass destruction abounds and it comes from us

How interesting! What a weasel!

Changed his tune from last November when he said,"Iraq must present convincing evidence to support its claim that it has no weapons of mass destruction, chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix has said.

“The production of mustard gas is not exactly the same as production of marmalede," Blix said on Monday after briefing the United Nations Security Council on preparations for inspections which are to resume this week for the first time in four years. “You expect those who produce chemical weapons to keep track. It is in their own interests to do so,” Blix told reporters.

“They provided a lot of figures to UNSCOM in the past,” he went on, referring to the now defunct arms inspectorate withdrawn four years ago.

"These figures do not give a full account and if they want to be believed they had better provide a better account," he added.

Last week, Blix and an advance party spent two days in Baghdad laying the ground for inspections under council Resolution 1441, which gives his team greater powers than before.

Blix said he told the council that "the most important thing" was for Iraq to make a full declaration of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes, as required by the resolution. The resolution gave it until December 8 to do so.

Sorry, but alot of you were duped by Hussein's clever manipulation of the media. Hussein would demand that hospitals retain the bodies of infants and toddlers up to a month, until the numbers were sufficiant to have a "dead baby parade" to make it look like all those babies died in one day.

CNN wrote in the NYT about how they only reported what the regime wanted (in order to maintain an office there) and Al Jazz was outed by spy documents found in regime offices that showed 3 reporters & 2 photograpers were paid off & working for Hussein's regime.

And as far as the UN sanctions:

Saddam's parades of dead babies are exposed as a cynical charade
(Filed: 25/05/2003)


UN sanctions did not kill the hundreds of infants displayed over the years - it was neglect by the former regime, Iraqi doctors in Baghdad tell Charlotte Edwardes.

The "baby parades" were a staple of Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine for a decade. Convoys of taxis, with the tiny coffins of dead infants strapped to their roofs - allegedly killed by United Nations sanctions - were driven through the streets of Baghdad, past crowds of women screaming anti-Western slogans.

The moving scenes were often filmed by visiting television crews and provided valuable ammunition to anti-sanctions activists such as George Galloway, the Labour MP, who blamed Western governments for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.

But The Telegraph can reveal that it was all a cynical charade. Iraqi doctors say they were told to collect dead babies who had died prematurely or from natural causes and to store them in cardboard boxes in refrigerated morgues for up to four weeks - until they had sufficient corpses for a parade.

Many of the children died, they say, as a result of the Iraqi government's own neglect as it lavished funds on military programmes and Saddam's palaces in the knowledge that it could blame sanctions for the lack of medicines and equipment in hospitals and clinics.

"We were not allowed to return the babies to their mothers for immediate burial, as is the Muslim tradition, but told they must be kept for what became known as 'the taxi parade'," said Dr Hussein al-Douri, the deputy director of the Ibn al-Baladi hospital in Saddam City, a Shia district in eastern Baghdad.

"The mothers would be hysterical and sometimes threaten to kill us, but we knew that the real threat was from the government."

Asked what would have happened if he had disobeyed the orders, Dr al-Douri replied: "They would have killed our families. This was an important event for the propaganda campaign."

Dr al-Douri, who has worked for 10 years as a paediatrician, said the parades were orchestrated by officials from the ministries of health, information and intelligence.

He said: "All 10 hospitals in Baghdad were involved in this and the quota for the parade was between 25 and 30 babies a month, which they would say had died in one day.

"We had to tell the babies' families that it was a government order and that they would be paid to keep quiet. The reward was sometimes in money, the equivalent of $10 per baby, or in food: rice, sugar and oil."

The government then ordered members of the Iraqi Women's Federation, an organisation funded by the regime, to line the streets of Baghdad and wail and beat themselves in mock grief.

"They portrayed an image of mothers in mourning for their recently dead children," he said. "It was too dangerous not to follow the orders. We were very afraid. The families were afraid, too."

Dr al-Douri showed The Telegraph the morgue where babies' bodies would be stored in cardboard boxes before being transferred to wooden coffins carrying their names and sometimes photographs.

Dr Amer Abdul al-Jalil, the deputy resident at the hospital, said: "Sanctions did not kill these children - Saddam killed them. The internal sanctions by the Saddam regime were very effective. Those who died prematurely usually died because their mothers lived in impoverished areas neglected by the government.

"The mortality rate was higher in areas such as Saddam City because there was no sewerage system. Infectious diseases were rampant.

"Over the past 10 years, the government in Iraq poured money into the military and the construction of palaces for Saddam to the detriment of the health sector. Those babies or small children who died because they could not access the right drugs, died because Saddam's government failed to distribute the drugs. The poorer areas were most vulnerable."

He added: "We feel terrible that this happened, but we were living under a regime and we had to keep silent. What could we do?"

Nobody doubts that Hussein, the US' long-time ally, was a brutal despot and liar.

The fact, though, remains that conditions got horribly worse for the average Iraqi in the 90s. The independent variable wasn't Hussein--who was a despicable scum through the 80s and an erstwhile compatriot of the US.

The independent variable was the unrelenting war waged against Iraq by the US--sanctions, deliberate destruction of Iraq's water treatment facilities, use of depleted-uranium munitions, bombing of civilians, massacre of retreating conscripts from Kuwait etc etc--which by your own admission, didn't crimp Hussein's life-style one iota.

"Former UN chief weapons inspector Richard Butler said there is no doubt Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction..."I am astonished at the nonsense taking place about whether or not Iraq has a weapons of mass destruction program. It does. That's beyond doubt. Anyone with any expertise in the field knows that," Butler told British Broadcasting Corp radio.

Butler was the head of the team of UN weapons inspectors who were withdrawn from Iraq in 1998.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/27/1043534004077.html

Regarding Hussein regime's ties to al-Quaida:

Yossef Bodansky was director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the author of eight books on the subject, and has been the U.S. Congress' foremost expert on terrorism. In his book, "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," Bodansky shows in great detail how Saddam has supported al-Qaida for over a decade. Bodansky names names, dates, times and places for that support.

What kind of support?

On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 hijackers commandeered four planes without guns – using only box cutters. Those carefully choreographed terror attacks required a lot of training and practice. Well guess what, it's been widely reported now that Saddam Hussein provided terrorists a Boeing 707 fuselage in which to practice airline hijackings. Commercial satellite photos show the body of a Boeing 707 at Salman Pak, where the Iraqis maintain terrorist training camps. Iraqi defector Sabah Khalifa Alami says Iraqi intelligence trained groups at Salman Pak on how to hijack planes without weapons.

Am I saying Saddam trained the 9-11 hijackers? Not necessarily. But I am saying he's training other terrorists to do the same thing – and perhaps worse.

It seems Saddam just loves suicide bombers. He boasts about supporting Palestinian suicide bombers, giving $25,000 to each family of a "martyr" who manages successfully to vaporize himself while murdering dozens of Israeli men, women and children in pizza parlors, or on board buses like the one in Haifa last week. Then there are the dozens – sometimes hundreds – of wounded in these horrific attacks. Those who don't die are frequently filled with dozens of pieces of shrapnel, and recovery for them is long, difficult and painful. Saddam supports these mass murderers financially, and brags about it.

Remember Abu Nidal, the most notorious terrorist of the 1980s? He made his home in Iraq until a few months ago, when Hussein had him murdered.

And, did you know this, you who still insist Saddam has never attacked the United States in any way? As the Boston Globe reported: "The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center ... a decade ago had several Iraqi fingerprints on it."

Referring to the recent capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the No. 3 man in al-Qaida, sometimes referred to as al-Qaida's "CEO," the Globe reported: "U.S. intelligence sources associate Mohammed with the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, the killing of French naval technicians in Karachi, the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia, and the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl."

Mohammed is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the acknowledged mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and of plots to plant explosives on 11 U.S. airliners in Asia and to fly a plane into CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

"There are unnerving similarities between Mohammed's interest in using cyanide derivatives in terrorist attacks and his nephew [Ramzi Yousef's] attempt to vaporize cyanide in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center," reported the Globe. "That operation a decade ago had several Iraqi fingerprints on it. Yousef entered this country on an Iraqi passport. His No. 2 man then, Abdul Rahman Yasin, is an Iraqi who returned to live in Baghdad after the operation. And it is likely that the false identity papers Yousef used to obtain a Pakistani passport in New York in the name of Abdul Karim Basit – the passport he used to flee after the bombing – were falsified in Kuwait during Saddam Hussein's occupation of that country."

Maybe some readers are a little hazy on the first World Trade Center attack 10 years ago. It killed six people and injured about 1,000. An expert on the Iraq-terror connection, Laurie Mylroie, wrote the book, "Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War against America." In it, Mylroie says the bomb was designed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower and envelop the scene in a cloud of cyanide gas. It failed – but had it succeeded, the destruction to the twin towers would have been total, resulting in much greater loss of life than even Sept. 11's catastrophe, since there would have been no time to exit the towers, and the cyanide gas would have wreaked who knows how much more destruction.

Hussein is complicit, says Mylroie. And he is harboring a wanted terrorist, Abdul Yasin, one of several suspects who got away. Recently, Hussein offered to give up Yassin to the U.S. – the man the FBI wants most in connection with that attack.

Do you get it? For all these years, Saddam Hussein has been protecting Yasin – the man who actually mixed the bomb that exploded in the basement of New York City's World Trade Center in 1993.

By the way, how did we respond to the first World Trade Center attack? We didn't. We treated it like just one more crime. That shows how much good is accomplished by a weak response to terrorism – eight years later they came back and finished the job. So much for looking the other way and burying your head in the sand.

The evidence continues to pile up that Saddam Hussein's regime is tied to al-Qaida. Citing Pentagon officials, reporter David Rose wrote in both Vanity Fair and the United Kingdom's Evening Standard recently that CIA reports of Iraqi-al-Qaida cooperation number nearly 100 and extend back to 1992.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31500

Nessie - who is misleading who...

And this makes it true, why?

... where are the weapons of mass destruction? where's the evidence? where's the beef?

it's fine if people want to claim it exists. you can scream and shout about it to your heart's content. but if you're going to scare people with the threat of it, if you're going to start a war based on it, if you're going to kill so much as ONE american and ONE iraqi because of it, YOU BETTER PRAY IT EVEN EXISTS, AND YOU BETTER SHUT YOUR TRAP, CUT THE SPIN, AND GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR AND FIND IT. a war based on a lie is a terrible, terrible act.

and believe me, articles like the one below do not help you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2942978.stm

Aaron,

Did you read the article I posted about how he got the media to inflate the number of dead by his sick "dead babies parade"? Doesn't that make you question the numbers of 'deaths' associated with the UN sanctions? But that retoric is so hard to give up; it sounds so good and giving it us doesn't jive with your agenda. (US always bad)

And WHY were there UN (not US) sanctions? Because Hussein invaded Kuwait in '91 (so I need to give you websites?) and was told to allow weapons inspectors confirm destruction of his weapons, because of his history of lying & committing atrocities. He did not comply, so there were UN sanctions imposed.

As to the US involvement with Iraq in the '80's - yes it occured, yes it was a big mistake. However, the biggest mistake US made was in '91 by not following through and removing Hussein, because of other Arab countries sensibilites. Bush Sr encourgaged the Shites and the Kurds to rise up, and than failed to back them. Hussein mass murdered them. That accounts for the increase in deaths during that period of the '90's. Hussein became even more brutal, and he had his two psychopath sons come to age and help him.

And yes Hussein's regime was responsible for mass murders - see http://hrw.org/editorials/2003/iraqmassgraves.htm

So why is it a "war crime" for the US to right a wrong and remove such a regime? Here's what Amnesty International said about life in Iraq.

"The systematic torture and climate of fear that have prevailed in Iraq for so many years must be brought to an end. The continuing scale and severity of human suffering must not be allowed to continue."

I don't know where they are now. I do know they existed. I pray that Hussein did not get them out of the country and hand them over to terrorist organizations.

Another question to ask is if Iraq had destroyed them, why didn't they give that information to the UN weapons inspectors instead of sending them on a wild goose chase?

It is a war crime to attack a nation that has not attacked your own. By definition, this is a war of aggression. It matters not whether the victem country was lead by a good guy or a bad guy.

Which brings up an interesting point. Did you condemn Saddam when he was a US ally, and you own tax money financed his WMDs? If so, prove it. Cite URLs. Include date stamps.

<the Pentagon reports...>

<mohammed joe blow sayeth...>

<Laurie Mylroie hallucinated...>

<U.S. Congress' foremost expert on terrorism drooled...>

How many of your sources get paid to come up with this shit? How many have or had a private stake in pushing Hussein conspiracy theories?

Sounds like you've gone to Laurie Mylroie Institute of Advanced Husseinology. Listen, Doreen, you're virtually the only person who still takes her ideas seriously. You know how many neo-conservative jack-asses would have loved to sight her book to support an invasion? You no how many did? I can't think of any.

And sighting the Pentagon as a credible source on Hussein is simply laughable. (Perhaps you should take SFC's advice on the other thread and view every statement from it with extreme skepticism). You talk as if the war to depose Hussein hasn't already occured. How many WMD did they find? (Kenneth Adelman, one of the big neo-conservative creeps that pushed the war and predicted that WMD's would be found within five days, now avers that Hussein sought to make adversaries think he had WMD as an elaborate ruse to seem stronger than he was! Talk about Orwellian double-speak!)

And as to al-Qaeda, prior to the US invasion, Powell attempted to connect Hussein and it by virtue of the existence of ONE MAN who allegedly is linked to some group that is allegedly linked to al-Qaeda. If the evidence of a connection between al-Qaeda and Hussein were so strong, wouldn't he have laid it out for us? What's even funnier is that this ONE MAN was (allegedly) involved with some shady organization operating IN THE US CONTROLLED SECTOR of northern Iraq! And not only that, it's main state benefactor wasn't Hussein--whom it opposed--but the governement of Qatar!

Keep trying, Doreen. You're actually quite amusing.

Because that would void the contracts (*IT'S ALL ABOUT THE OIL!!!!*) that France and Germany had in place for when the sanctions lifted.

Ask yourselves this - if Saddam didn't have WMD, WHY IN THE HELL WOULD HE PLAY LIKE HE DID WITH THE DAMN INSPECTORS!

"I don't have any WMD - take off the sanctions!"

"Let in the UN inspectors, and let us make sure."

"No, unless there are limits set. We have to know where they're going, when they're going to be there, and our men have to drive them."

"WTF? Bub - this is a HELL of a way to prove you don't have any WMD!"

"But I don't have any WMD!"

"Then allow us unfettered access, and we'll remove the sanctions, because if you don't have them, then we can remove the sanctions!"

"But.. that means I won't be able to keep my people on a tight leash with food controls, and witholding medicine, right?"

"Umm... yes, because there won't be any sanctions imposed on importing and exporting."

"I don't have any WMD, and I won't allow inspectors!!!"

"So we leave the sanctions in place?"

"We won't allow inspectors on soveriegn Iraqi Territory!"

"Though you say people are dying from starvation because of the sanctions?"

"We have no WMD, and demand you drop the sanctions now!"

"Let us inspect to make sure you don't have WMD, and we'll lift the sanctions."

"No! We will allow NO inspectors on Iraqi soil!"

See where this is going? If Saddam didn't have WMD, and the sanctions were lifted through inspection, then people could have gotten out... and Saddam's control would have been broken.

Oh, and who should have deposed Saddam? Anyone but the US, of course. Never mind that no other country COULD do the job, and the UN wouldn't even try.

Diplomacy failed. They tried it for 12 years.

It took much less than 12 weeks to bring down a tyrant that 12 years of sanctions only strengthened.

Hussein's regime has been tied to al-Qaida (see my prior post); therefore it is a terrorist nation subject to reprocussions stemming from the al-Qaida attacks on the US.

And as for my non-support of Hussein in the '80's - you want me to provide proof!?! LOL!!! Really now! Like I want to prove anything to you - but you wouldn't believe it anyhow!! Besides, I didn't have a home computer until '89! Get real!

If you want to find a breeding ground for al-Qaeda i suggest you take a look at Iraq and Bosnia, not a few years ago, but TODAY.

"Which brings up an interesting point. Did you condemn Saddam when he was a US ally, and you own tax money financed his WMDs? If so, prove it. Cite URLs. Include date stamps. "

Pre-internet?

Oh, that's right. The Internet's probably been around forever, at least in your experience...

You ask for sources, I give you multiple sources - and not just from the 'establishment', (God knows Al Jazz speaks only the truth, eh :-) but from Human Rights watch & Amnesty International, and various non-US publications...but to you they all lie. And you, of course, are the only one who can dissern the truth, right Aaron? Sounds mighty closed-minded to me.

And you resort to name calling - which is usually the mark of someone who cannot argue their point. Sad, and rather 6th graderish of you.

So tell me, does your agenda (US bad) mean so much to you that you were willing to be blinded to the millions of Iraqis who were slaughtered or tortured by Hussein?

How sad.

Go to thomas.loc.gov and look up the congressional record for 1988-89. Search keyword "Iraq." You'll see prominent conservative polititians (including Jesse Helms) condeming Saddam as a war criminal.

Where was the damn code pink/black blockheads then?

where are the WMD's? where is the evidence?

you can blabber and huff and puff all day long until you're blue in the face, but until there is evidence, there is nothing. everthing else, all the damn analysis, who said what, who thinks this or that, blah blah fucking blah, is that much more irrelevent and beside the point.

YOU SAID THERE ARE WEAPONS. YOU SAID THE ENTIRE WORLD SHOULD BE TERRIFIED OF THE WEAPONS. YOU LAUNCHED A WAR BECAUSE OF THE WEAPONS. SO DAMMIT, WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS.

FIND THE EVIDENCE OR SHUT THE FUCK UP.

That we went about things all wrong.

"... shut the fuck up."

Heh. Sure, kid.

Just a couple of questions, for you to think on...

If Saddam didn't have WMD, why did he fight inspections so hard? Couldn't have been he WANTED the sanctions continued so he'd have control over his people, could it?

Just think about it. Ask yourself why he'd do that to his own people.

Question authority, kid. Question ALL authority -even those who tell you they're questioning the system.

Aaron hallucinated...

Laurie Mylroie is the publisher of Iraq News; Adjunct Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and a consultant to the Defense Department on terrorism.

Dr. Mylroie is the author of Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America (American Enterprise Institute Press, 2000). Recently published in paperback, as The War Against America (HarperCollins, 2001). Mylroie's previous book, co-authored with Judith Miller, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, was a number one New York Times bestseller, and was translated into 13 languages.

Dr. Mylroie received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and her B.A. from Cornell University. She was an Assistant Professor in Harvard's Political Science Department, before becoming an Associate Professor in the Strategy Department at the U.S. Naval War College. Subsequently she was a member of the staff of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She also served as advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign and she has worked as a consultant on terrorism to ABC News, the BBC, and Newsweek.

Her articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Jane's Intelligence Review, The National Interest, The New Republic, and Newsweek, as well as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, among others.

Presently, Dr. Mylroie also serves on the Editorial Board of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin and on the board of advisors of the security firm Genii International.

"YOU LAUNCHED A WAR BECAUSE OF THE WEAPONS."

Bullcrap. You didn't listen to Bush. The day the war started, he stated clearly that this war is a continuation of the 1991 war, after continued violations of the armistice. The armistice to end the '91 war is null and void, and the war is back on. Blocking weapons inspectors is merely one of many violations -- the one YOU continue to harp on.

Bitter that Saddam is not still in power, or what? He is (or was) a war criminal, and this is how you deal with war criminals.

The point is that Iraq was not willing to allow verification that he didn't have the WMD!! If there were no weapons, he fooled the UN, the Brits, the US, and Hans Blix. Why was Blix there playing cat and mouse if there were no WMD. Iraq was required to show where and when the known WMD were destroyed- they did not do so. They were required to allow unfettered inspections of their declared sites- they did not do so.
If there were no WMD, then Saddam played the stupidest game of chicken in history. The free world should never suffer a madman to develop, or plausibly develop such weapons.
The WMD are probably in a deep hole in the desert, or were transported to Syria. I personally hope they are in Syria, which will give us reason to depose that thugocracy as soon as possible.

Surely you jest!

"That 's the way to deal with war criminals".

So who picks and chooses who are, or are not, "war criminals" ? I didn't see the US or UK (or both) rush out to remove Shamir, Begin, and Sharon, and if these were/are not war criminals I know not who might be.

Another example. Well, look at Idi Amin? Nice person. An arm here, a leg there, we've all seen the pictures. There are others. There will always be others.

We can say (and certainly it has been said worldwide), that Bush/Blair are war criminals. So why are we not demanding UN inspectors remove the arsenol of WMD of those countries. God knows they have "them". And as we've seen they are not afraid to use them.

I really fail to see what the problem is here. There was a terrorist attack on a soverign nation. Civilians, soldiers, and the military (such as it was after the first Gulf War) were destroyed. The US is "rebuilding" the country with huge contracts awarded to its friends by taking Iraqi oil for profit.

That pretty well says it all.. It says everything for me anyway. Hypocrisy and blatant lying do not sit too well with me.

" . . . you didn't listen to Bush".

Ah, but no one listens to Bush.

>If Saddam didn't have WMD, why did he fight inspections so hard? Couldn't have been he WANTED the sanctions continued so he'd have control over his people, could it?<

so... anyways... where are the WMD's then?

>Bullcrap. You didn't listen to Bush. The day the war started, he stated clearly that this war is a continuation of the 1991 war, after continued violations of the armistice. The armistice to end the '91 war is null and void, and the war is back on. Blocking weapons inspectors is merely one of many violations -- the one YOU continue to harp on.<

so... anyways... where are the WMD's?

oh wait. i see, you're gonna change the goal posts. weapons were a major issue the day before the war started, but then, suddenly, then day the war started and everyday after, the weapons weren't an issue anymore. i see, so the war didn't have anything to do with weapons of mass destruction, it didn't have have anything to do with disarming saddam hussein of the weapons president george w. bush II, vice president richard cheny, secretary of state colin powell, and secretary of defense donald rumsfeld assured us he did have, it was merely a continuation of the first gulf war, because somehow kuwait was still not free. i get it now...

>Bitter that Saddam is not still in power, or what? He is (or was) a war criminal, and this is how you deal with war criminals.<

yeah, good one. tell me again what this has to do with finding the WMD's?

so... anyways... where are the WMD's?

>If there were no WMD, then Saddam played the stupidest game of chicken in history. The free world should never suffer a madman to develop, or plausibly develop such weapons.<

so... anyways... where are the WMD's then?

>The WMD are probably in a deep hole in the desert, or were transported to Syria. I personally hope they are in Syria, which will give us reason to depose that thugocracy as soon as possible.<

so... anyways... where are the WMD's then?

- - - - -

maybe if you yap some more, your yapping will find the weapons?

all you gotta do is find the weapons.

but you haven't. and if you can't...

"Hypocrisy and blatant lying do not sit too well with me."

That's nice - then explain your other statement:
"We can say (and certainly it has been said worldwide), that Bush/Blair are war criminals. So why are we not demanding UN inspectors remove the arsenol of WMD of those countries. God knows they have "them". And as we've seen they are not afraid to use them."

If you are talking about nuking Japan in the '40's - get over it. Japan sure has - it is a close ally of the US, since the US rebuilt them and they are much better off than pre-WWII. Otherwise, you are full of bullshit - name those sources of US using WMD!

So it's okay for Hussein to murder & torture MILLIONS of Iraqis? How high in the Baath party were you?

Doreen, you're obviously under the influence of large-doses of talk-radio. You say that the US didn't take out Hussein in 91 out of deference to the sensibilities of other Arab nations. Let me ask you: did the US massacre retreating Iraqi conscripts from Kuwait because allowing them to live would have offended the Arabs? No, you idiot. The US knew that they were de-stabilizing force and wanted them dead, in the process doing Hussein, its long-time ally, a huge favor--WHILE simulaneously allowing Hussein to smash uprisings against his regime. The US wanted Hussein to retain power because he served as the perfect punching bag and pretext for US machinations, while continuing to provide stability in the region.

To "Free Thinker": I don't care how many corporate lie-sheets have published Myorile's writings, nor am I impressed by the fact that she's in the employ of the American Enterprise Institute. As to her compatriot, Judith Miller of the NYTimes, well, she's just as much of a delirious and brazen liar and propagandist as Myorile. Before the war, Miller regaled us with endless stories about Iraq's WMD's and sinister global-dominating aspirations. The sources for her "exclusive" coverage invariably were, and still are, Chalabi cronies whose exact identity were/are rarely revealed (how convenient!). Finally, her flacking has even pissed off one of her "fellows" at the Times:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/27/1053801397576.html

Someone calling him/herself 'duh' says:

<Go to thomas.loc.gov and look up the congressional record for 1988-89. Search keyword "Iraq." You'll see prominent conservative polititians (including Jesse Helms) condeming Saddam as a war criminal.>

Whatever a few conservatives may have said on the Congressional Record (a great place to "stand up for freedom" for posterity's sake, while running no risk of intruding on strategic imperatives), this fact is clear as day: The United States government, under Bush and Reagan, backed Hussein until he invaded the Kuwaiti Corporation--when, suddenly and oh so coincidentally, it became scandalized by Hussein's human rights record.

A 1994 investigation by the Senate Bank Committee found that U.S. companies had been licensed by the Commerce Department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including precursors of anthrax and botulism. The report also noted the exports included plans for chemical and biolgical warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment.

Yet even after Saddam began gassing his own people in Northern Iraq, the flow of goods continued. In November 1989, Bush approved $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq in 1990, and from July 18, 1989, to Aug. 1, 1990, the U.S. approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales.
"Only on Aug. 2, 1990, did the Agriculture Department officially suspend the (loan) guarantees to Iraq -- the same day that Hussein's tanks and troops swept into Kuwait," a Los Angeles Times expose on Feb. 23, 1992, noted.

Of course, there's nothing unusual about the US ruling class aiding despots that further its interests. American jingoists never seem to care about the despots that the US allies itself with--unless, post facto, they're commanded to "care" as a means of garnering support for a new bombing campaign. Tell us about the US' relationship with the House of Saud, guys. Or its alliance with the tyranny in Uzbekistan or Pakistan or Morocco or Egypt or....i'm waiting.

"oh wait. i see, you're gonna change the goal posts. weapons were a major issue the day before the war started, but then, suddenly"

Suddenly you try and tell us what you think we said. The fact is, the issue all along was noncompliance with SCRs that ended the '91 war and kept our troops from marching into Baghdad. The armistice was violated, the war is back on. That is probably the only international law with extensive and consistent precedent in the real world.

"So who picks and chooses who are, or are not, "war criminals" ? I didn't see the US or UK (or both) rush out to remove Shamir, Begin, and Sharon, and if these were/are not war criminals I know not who might be."

Name one sitting leader responsible for 2 million deaths, as Saddam is, or one sitting leader who ordered WMDs used on civilians. You can argue who did what, but Saddam outdid them all.

"Ah, but no one listens to Bush."

Yet you are happy to tell us what Bush thinks, wants, and will do, without listening in the first place.

Besides, everyone on indymedia said the CIA would plant WMDs. So, perhaps you should ask yourselves where they are.

No, actually I was thinking closer to Viet Nam. Haven't we been told over and over by everyone and anyone that the US used nuclear weapons in Viet Nam???

If "anyone and everyone" is incorrect, please advise.

Oh, Free Thinker, please! I am not even on a card. Excuse me while we giggle here. Cards. I wonder which of the great thinkers in the Admin came up with that little gimmick?

One thing I will say, Free Thinker, is that I am in a perpetual state of disbelief.

Really now, name calling is so childish! LOL!!

In '91 the Americans killed the Iraqis fleeing Kuwait who did not surrender. That's what happens when you encounter a superior force. Where is your indignation about the invasion of Kuwait & the atrocities againts the Kuwait people? I know, it doesn't fit your agenda - US only does bad things.

As far as your rantings on Judith Miller & Laurie Mylroie;
the fact that they are world acclaimed experts in their fields, and their years of study and experience wouldn't matter to you - you only believe what fits in with your agenda - US bad about everything. Besides, their experience and background means nothing to one such as yourself who more than WSJ, the NYT, Washington Post, ABC, CNN, and so on.

Just wondering, where were you published?

I'm sorry Aaron, you have talked much, but still haven't answered why the world should have continued to ignore the MILLIONS of Iragi murders and tortures inflicted on them by the Hussein regime.

"No, actually I was thinking closer to Viet Nam. Haven't we been told over and over by everyone and anyone that the US used nuclear weapons in Viet Nam???

If "anyone and everyone" is incorrect, please advise. "

What!!??? Who told you this??? And you believed them??? What made you think this??? Because the US is to blame for all the horrors of the world??

And you did not answer my question - how are Bush & Blair war criminals for stopping the MILLIONS of Iraqis who were murdered or tortured?

The Vietnam War is an excellent example of working through the UN. It was a UN action, upheld by the security council. Breaking from the UN is a good thing.

Too bad your street parties did NOTHING to advance the cause of world peace. Ineffectual bafoons.

Jesus. Who's teaching you history? You ought to ask for a refund, and fast before they make off with everyone's money. I've NEVER seen any references to nukes being used in Viet-Nam - even on the most hard-core anti-nuke sites.

where are the WMD's?

>Suddenly you try and tell us what you think we said. The fact is, the issue all along was noncompliance with SCRs that ended the '91 war and kept our troops from marching into Baghdad. The armistice was violated, the war is back on. That is probably the only international law with extensive and consistent precedent in the real world.<

so all that talk of weapons wasn't real. powell didn't give a speech before the united nations listing various weapons programs. and the fact that it was saddam's possible possession of banned weapons, or his inability to account for banned weapons, or his inablity to prove that these banned weapons were destroyed, the very weapons that account for his non-compliance with the armistice, is somehow is supposed to mean the WEAPONS WEREN'T the real issue all along? you mean the evidence the whole case of non-compliance rests on isn't the real issue? wow. that's some new thinking. suddenly evidence isn't important.

"it's not whether the defendant physically possess's a gun on his person or not. the defendant's guilt is based on fact the defendant did not comply with rules against possession."

"what? look, i'm sorry, but how do you determine possession based non-compliance if you haven't proved or determined the defendant actually possessed the weapon in question? how can you make a non-issue out of physical evidence, when the entire legal mechanism rests on physical evidence? you're making absolutely no sense at all."

"it's a special new tactic. i'm afraid i'm not allowed to explain it's logic at all."

so... anyways... where are the WMD's?

Disarmament treaties do not work that way. There has not been a single disarmament treaty which reads, "You must prove that I have not complied." or "We'll tell you we disarmed, and you trust us okay?" Not one disarmament treaty in history has worked that way. In fact, it was that kind of thinking that led to Germany's and Japan's illegal military buildup prior to WWII. Now you are mad because we did not fall for it again!

Imagine if SALT II was worded that way. The cold war would still be on.

Likewise, since Saddam wanted to play that way, the gulf war is still on. Well, now it's over.

what exactly is non-compliance based on then?

where are the weapons of mass destruction?

Saddam Hussein is NOT responsible for millions of deaths - where are you people getting your information? Amnesty International as well as the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders are all organizations which at one time or another documented human rights abuses in Iraq and tried to have something done about them ,only to be ignored for years by the US. Even by the estimates of the human rights organizations the numbers are in the thousands not millions, even with the casualties of the Iran/Iraq war the numbers do not reach the estimates claimed by the war's defenders on this site. Although thousands are bad enough, inflating statistics and lying only reduces your credibility and therfore your whole argument.
Aaron , I don't know why you bother but keep up the good work.

Rather than accept facts and figures produced by Amnesty International, the Red Cross, and Doctors without Borders (why would these organizations lie about something so horrific?) some people on this board prefer to inflate the numbers in a tragic attempt to justify this so-called "war".

Aaron, keep up the good fight. You have something your detractors don't have, and that's a brain!

what do you do?

http://www.kloognome.com/archives/000946.php

Imagine you're driving along the highway, doing 70MPH. You crest a small rise, and see a human figure lying in the road in front of you. What do you do?

Do you swerve to miss? Even if it puts you, your passengers, and those in other cars in danger?

Do you steer straight ahead, running over the figure?

I bet you'd swerve. I would.

Now, let's say you swerve, come to a stop, and go back to check on the person. It turns out it's an inflatable doll. Running over it wouldn't have hurt anyone or your car.

In hindsight, was swerving a mistake? If you had gasped, "Oh my god, somebody's in the road!" to your passengers, were you a liar?

My answers are no, and no.

Now let's look at a real-world situation: Iraq. The best information available to the public -- and apparently that available to the government -- was that Iraq had a WMD program. They blocked inspectors, plaid word games in their declarations, and informants blew the lids off of major programs -- nuclear and biological -- that the inspectors didn't know existed.

The Ba'ath government acted like it had something to hide right up to the last minute. Hell, they may have believed they really had something to hide. Their allies -- the French, Germans, and Russians, among others -- acted like there was something being hidden. Not even the French would claim Iraq had no WMD program.

The Ba'ath government threatened to use WMD. They threatened the Kuwaitis, the Iranians, the Israelis, the Turks, the Saudis; everyone they bordered or could have reached. At times they appeared to want people to believe they had a WMD program, while simultaneously denying they had one.

Saddam's ties to terrorist groups are indisputable. While he may not have posed a conventional military threat, and was years away from having a ballistic missile capable of reaching us, the ties to terrorist groups gave him another option.

The threat Saddam posed was not a political question -- Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, saying:

There are, of course, other important elements of U.S. policy. These include the maintenance of U.N. Security Council support efforts to eliminate Iraq's prohibited weapons and missile programs and economic sanctions that continue to deny the regime the means to reconstitute those threats to international peace and security.

For over a decade it wasn't a question of the existence of Iraq's WMD programs, but rather what to do about it.

Finally we took action. We removed Saddam and his Ba'ath party. In the immediate aftermath we haven't found tons and tons of WMD, but rather a few elements of a small, furtive program.

The figure in the road was apparently a rubber doll.

But so what? Unless you believe there has been a grand conspiracy running since the Gulf War, involving Republican and Demcratic administrations, the British Labour party, the UN Security Council, and thousands of others, the fact is everyone knew Iraq had a WMD program. The evidence pointed there; based on what we knew that program existed.

If Bush lied about this, so did Clinton. So did Blair. So did Chirac. So did Scot Ritter before his change of heart.

We did the right thing. The information we used to reach our decision may not have been complete, but based on what we had it was the right thing.

Just like swerving to not run over a rubber doll.

And nothing to worry about. Not worth bothering with, and certainly not worth deposing Saddam for.

Especially if the US does it.

Yep, real clear now...

How about checking out this website...
Horrible to say, the numbers are not inflated.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T29865CB4


An end to the family business of tyranny,

Sulaiman al-Hattlan

The Daily Star, 5/27/03

A few hours after the war in Iraq began March 20, a Saudi friend called me in Washington: “You are lucky you are in the US, you can demonstrate against the war,” he exclaimed. I replied: “You are lucky not to be in the US, you don’t have to look for excuses not to protest the war.”
Many fellow Arabs and other international friends expected me to rally against the war. I was ambivalent about the war because I have known since my days as a young reporter who frequently visited Baghdad in the late 1980s that even Saddam Hussein’s death would not have liberated Iraqis from his tyranny.
Politics in Iraq, as elsewhere in the Arab world, is a family business. Qualifications are irrelevant. Blood relationships reign supreme.
Ironically, while millions of Iraqis at home and in exile celebrate their freedom, the broader Arab world is crying for the “dignity” of Iraqis under the “US occupation” – as if it weren’t shameful enough that they had ignored the daily humiliation of Iraqis during 30 years of Saddam Hussein’s brutal occupation.
The entire country of Iraq had been controlled as the private property of Saddam Hussein and his family. Either of his sons, Odai or Qusai, was prepared to inherit his father’s dictatorship. In Basra, Nassiriyah, Najaf, and other towns and cities, millions had no voice in national politics. Politics had been the affair only of the gangs in Baghdad. I saw a devastated, deprived and depressed nation. And what I saw there could doubtless be observed in any other Arab country.
It is time for Arab intellectuals to say publicly what they have long been acknowledging privately: Arab leaderships have failed their people and dragged them from one defeat to another, from one humiliation to another and from one misery to another. A few of us recognize this reality, and thus have been marked as “Americanized,” “Westernized” and “secular,” labels that Arab regimes use to discredit our voices.
The future, in the Arab world, has always been God’s business. But this hasn’t taken us anywhere. Look at our social failures: Severe gender segregation and the lack of respect for women have created paralyzed societies. The practice of art and music has become a sin in many Arab countries. The educational system has produced thousands of fanatics and has become a source of ignorance rather than knowledge. As a result, young Arabs today live under a siege of political, social and religious taboos.
We must let go of this distorted version of history, which glorifies only what our ancestors contributed to the ancient world’s civilizations and blames our current problems on the influence of outsiders. Instead, we have to focus on today’s reality of economic challenges, poverty, lack of freedom and, indeed, lack of hope.
On the eve of this war, my friend on the other side of the Atlantic was very angry.
“The dignity of Iraqis is slaughtered live on the screen,” he said. I should have asked: “What about the ‘dignity’ of Iraqis during the past 30 years under Mr. Hussein’s brutality? What about the ‘dignity’ of more than 3 million Iraqis in exile? What about the ‘dignity’ of millions of Iraqi soldiers who have been killed and maimed by Mr. Hussein’s wars?”
Today, the good news is that Saddam Hussein is gone. Still, that is just the beginning. Young educated Arabs must fight for their right to participate in reforming their countries. The monopoly of family politics in the Arab world must end.
To survive, we must encourage self-criticism, rewrite our educational system and open doors for genuine debates about the critical issues that our societies have long avoided.
Unless we begin an authentic dialogue about what really went wrong in our political and social experience during the past century or so, the other Saddams in our societies – corrupt political and educational systems – will continue to produce disastrous results.
Saddam Hussein’s downfall is not a defeat for the Iraqi people. It could well be Arabs’ challenge to a first step toward an understanding of today’s reality and tomorrow’s potential.

Sulaiman al-Hattlan is a columnist for the Saudi daily
Al-Watan and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. He wrote this commentary for The DAILY STAR

And note this article does not mention the millions that Hussein sent to their death in wars he started, or all those who suffered torture under his regime...

http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.baghdad06may06,0,6197413.story?coll=bal-news-nation

Hussein's deadly sweeps took in mothers, sisters, too
Female victims of regime in unexpected numbers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Todd Richissin
Sun Foreign Staff
Originally published May 6, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The sister he has never seen is the one Ali Hussain Mohamed misses the most. He misses his other sister, too, of course, and his mother, taken away with her in the dark of night 21 years ago.

"But the new sister," he explains, "I want to hold her and tell her she is in the arms of her brother. I want her to know we have suffered with her."

Mohamed's mother, Hadiya Saied, was 40 years old when Saddam Hussein's police came to their home in the neighborhood called Dialah and arrested her and his 13-year-old sister, Jinan. The sister he has never seen was born to his mother while she was in prison. Her name is Aliay.

According to government files, the mother was executed in prison and the girls died there, too. But because their bodies have not been found, Mohamed and his family continue to hope.

The missing family members have, in some ways, been part of Iraq's forgotten story. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are searching for their brothers, their sons, their fathers, made to disappear by Hussein's secret police in a reign of terror that has been well-documented and has received renewed attention because of a number of mass graves discovered in the Iraqi desert.

But there is also an unknown but sizable number of people who know firsthand that Hussein's brutality did not discriminate based on gender, and they are looking for their sisters, their daughters, their mothers.

Citizen groups that have recovered government files documenting the executions of Iraqis during Hussein's rule are still sifting through millions of documents trying to provide answers to families searching for their loved ones.

Human rights groups estimate up to 300,000 Iraqis disappeared over the past 23 years, the vast majority of them men and teen-age boys.

But as the extent of Hussein's brutality becomes clearer with each passing day, with each discovery of mass graves, with every tour of his execution chambers, volunteer investigators say that more women than expected are among the dead.

"We have almost 5 million files to go through, so I cannot tell you precisely how many women were killed," says Satlar Jabar, an information manager for the Committee to Free Prisoners, which has been posting the names of the documented dead on walls around Baghdad. "I can say positively that already we have more than dozens and we still have a lot of work to do."

The committee is operating out of a house of a former Hussein body guard, and it is one of the sadder sites in a city filled with misery. For nearly two weeks, volunteers have placed the names of the missing on the walls of the house and on its fence, and swarms of people have scanned them, looking for news on family members that have not been seen for years and even decades.

That is where Mohamed was this week, going through each tattered piece of paper, seeing if he can find the names of his mother and his two sisters.

Their abduction fit a pattern described for years by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In many cases, Hussein's police, unable to locate men they wanted for whatever reason, instead took female family members. According to the humanitarian groups, some of the women were raped in front of video cameras and the tapes were sent to family members and others. Some women were imprisoned, tortured and released. Others have never been heard from again.

In the case of Mohamed's family, police were looking for a male cousin, accusing him of being part of the banned Al-Dawa party. When they could not find him -- he had fled to Syria and then to Iran -- the police took his pregnant mother and his sister.

"My sister was a school student," Mohamed says. "How could they imprison a school student?"

He did not know the whereabouts of his mother and sister for six months. He searched the prisons, paid bribes to guards and, finally, located them in a prison in Baghdad's Zafrani district.

"We were so glad they were alive," he says. "We thought, could even Saddam keep a mother and her daughters in prison?"

The answer, as he found out, is that the government did keep such people in prison, and in some cases it executed them. When Mohamed returned to the prison a week later, his mother and sister were gone.

From that point, toward the end of 1982, the family has been searching. In 1995, when Hussein granted amnesty to a limited number of prisoners, the family had as much hope as they had since the arrests.

They were counting on seeing the mother, who would by then have been 53, the 13-year old, who would have been 25, the baby they had never seen, who would have been 13.

With no idea where the women were being held, the family waited to be contacted. The wait stretched on. Two weeks went by without a word.

The family filed a report with the government. Two months later, a member of Hussein's secret police arrived at their house.

"He had certificates for all of their deaths," Mohamed says. "They said, 'Don't try to find their graves, don't talk about them.'" The mother had been executed, according to the paperwork. No cause of death was reported for the girls, only that they were dead.

The family held onto hope. Mohamed says that Hussein's police often falsely reported deaths to try to break families down, to create enough strife within them that they would turn in the person originally sought.

On the walls of the committee, though, he found his mother's name and those of his two sisters. They were buried near Abu Ghraib prison, according to their files, but when he went to the graveyard, there was no record of them there.

"So we still hope," he says. "Maybe there is another file that says they are alive."

If they are, the mother would now be 61; the 13-year-old would be 35; the baby would be 21.

-- Why would these organizations lie about something so horrific?

The evidence is often not clear and these people often do not have information on numbers however they feel that they have to give a number. therefore they extrapolate. they often have a feeling that underestimation is a greater crime than overestimation or maybe they have a political objective.

Anyway the result is that some person from the red cross gives a number and it becomes quoted a million times around the world. actually he had no idea and was taking a wild guess probably rounded up by several people in the chain that got it to our media with numberous double countings.

May 22, 2003
U.N. Vote on Iraq Ends Sanctions and Grants U.S. Wide Authority
By FELICITY BARRINGER


NITED NATIONS, May 22 — Nearly seven weeks after Baghdad fell to American-led forces, the United Nations Security Council voted overwhelmingly today to end nearly 13 years of sanctions on Iraq, capping the swift military triumph with a significant diplomatic victory.

The resolution offered by the United States, Britain and Spain, which passed by a 14-to-0 vote, gives an international legal standing to the coalition forces' broad authority over the management of Iraq, over the formation of a new Iraqi government and over billions of dollars in annual oil revenues. It allows the exports of Iraqi petroleum products to resume and grants legal immunity for such sales until Dec. 31, 2007.

With the exception of a continuing arms embargo, the resolution ends an era of United Nations intervention in Iraq that began with the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Since then, the Security Council has passed 65 separate resolutions designed to contain Saddam Hussein's aggression, to prevent Iraq's development and deployment of unconventional weapons, and to feed the Iraqi people.

This week, Security Council members agreed to authorize the broad mandate sought by the United States after American concessions over the last week. The resolution calls on Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a special representative who now will have independent, though limited, authority to consult with Iraqi political factions as he works with American and British forces to form a new government.

The United Nations will also have a seat, along with international financial organizations, on an advisory board that will monitor the coalition-controlled Development Fund for Iraq. And within a year, the Security Council can revisit these issues.

At the Security Council meeting today, the chair reserved for Syria, the sole Arab member of the council, remained empty during the vote. Afterward, Fayssal Mekdad, the charge d'affaires of the Syrian mission here, said that Syria's request for extra time to deliberate had been ignored. Council members had waited for the Syrians for half an hour before the president, Pakistan's envoy, Munir Akram, called the vote.

After the 14 hands were raised around the horseshoe-shaped council table, John D. Negroponte, the United States ambassador, was the first envoy to speak to his colleagues, drawing a direct link between today's decision and the war, which many council members strongly opposed.

"The liberation of Iraq has cleared the path for today's action," he said, condemning Mr. Hussein's government as a state "unwilling adequately to feed its people, a state in which critical infrastructure projects were left to languish while luxurious palaces were built, and a state in which free political expression was cruelly repressed and punished."

He barely mentioned the issue of weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be discovered by American and British forces in Iraq.

Ambassadors from France, Russia and Germany all indicated their reservations about the resolution, but they said it was an adequate compromise that reflected the obligations of the United States and Britain as occupying powers under international treaties. Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, the French envoy, told his colleagues that the resolution "provided a credible framework within which the international community will be able to lend support for the Iraqi people."

The German ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, told reporters after the meeting, "The war that we did not want, and the majority of the council did not want, has taken place." But, he continued, "we cannot undo history. We are now in a situation where we have to take action for the sake of the Iraqi people."

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mr. Annan, the secretary general, said: "We should all be gratified that the council has come together to chart the way forward in Iraq. As you know, I have always held that the unity of this council is the indispensable foundation for effective action to maintain international peace and security and international law."

Mr. Annan said he would name a special representative "without delay." The Bush administration has made clear it would prefer to have Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, in the job. But it is unclear whether Mr. de Mello would accept the post, and some diplomats have suggested it would be best to have an Arabic speaker.

All the council ambassadors, with the exception of the absent Syrians, showed palpable relief at the end to the bitter dissension that culminated in the United States, Britain and Spain withdrawing their resolution to authorize military action in Iraq.

The resolution's adoption "will contribute to restore the necessary unity of purpose of the Security Council, unity which was bruised by division over the question of Iraq," said the Angolan ambassador, Ismael Gaspar Martins.

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, whose relationship with fellow Europeans was battered after Britain joined the United States in its war, said today that the vote marked "a very important day in the U.N. because the international community has come back together."

And in Paris, the spokeswoman for President Jacques Chirac of France said Mr. Chirac spoke by phone with President Bush today, their first contact in more than a month.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, visiting Paris, called France's support today "a step in the right direction."

But, Mr. Powell added, "Does it mean that the disagreements of the past are simply totally forgotten? No."

Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced it was pulling back on some joint military activities.

Today's resolution, designated Security Council resolution 1483, allows for the possibility of the return of United Nations weapons inspectors, and the Untied States has already signaled its willingness to have inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency return to Iraq in the wake of the looting of a nuclear research center at Tuwaitha.

The United States remains opposed to the return of the United Nations' chemical, biological and missile inspection teams led by Hans Blix, even though Sir Jeremy Greenstock, made it clear in interviews on Wednesday and today that Britain has no objection to their return.

The resolution's grant of immunity on the sale of petroleum products through 2007 will allow whatever Iraqi government emerges time to restructure some $400 billion in debt accumulated during Mr. Hussein's reign.

Under the terms of the resolution, the oil-for-food program that has provided basic sustenance for more than 60 percent of the Iraqi population will be phased out over six months. During that time, Mr. Annan can complete the purchase of food and health-related and industrial products currently under contract, setting priorities that best meet the Iraqi people's needs.

When the program is concluded, the unspent portion of the $13 billion in its account will be transferred to the new Development Fund for Iraq, under the control of the the American-led coalition. In addition, $1 billion of that money will be transferred immediately to the new Development Fund, which is based at the central bank in Baghdad.

Blix is a sad case. He had the opportunity to make a strong statement before the war and did not. He tried to play both sides.

In addition, the Iraqis were clearly not compling with the UN resolution. This lack of cooperation encouraged Blix to take this waffling position throughout the months his team was in Iraq.

where are the weapons of mass destruction?

'The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax; enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.'

- President George W. Bush II, State of The Union Address, January 29, 2003.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/

yes, those weapons. where are they? the president must have thought they were important BEFORE the war. he must have felt the threat of the weapons was a major reason for the war, if he bothered to outline them in his speech.

so now, AFTER the war, how can the weapons suddenly not be an issue? i sense weasels out there, trying to say after the fact that the war has nothing to do with weapons.

the very same weasels who attacked anyone who didn't want a war for putting america at risk. after being brow beaten time and time again during debate after debate with the whole, "how can you put america at risk you traitor", after being told of mushroom clouds over D.C., and iraqi drones and missiles releasing clouds of anthrax, after hearing all that, well, dammit, you've had your war, NOW SHOW ME THE GODDAMN WEAPONS.

i don't give a shit about the u.n. i don't want to hear about saddam's horrible human rights record, because #1, it IS horrible, and #2, i don't dispute it, and #3, it doesn't have one fucking thing to do with the weapons. changing the subject is stupid. it's just irrelevant, futile. save it for a different discussion.

you and your president are going to be held to your words. you find the weapons or you shut up. you find the weapons or you admit you were wrong about them.

Check out this site

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/international/worldspecial/29LABS.html

... are NOT weapons.

SHOW ME THE WEAPONS.

In it you quoted Bush:"From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them. "

These are some of the WMD you are ranting about!!

So I guess you need follow your own advice and shut the fuck up, eh?

Oh, and here is another quote for you to contemplate:

"Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success."
--Brian Adams

tell me how a lab, by itself, can kill people.

don't lecture me about patience prick. just show me the weapons.

And let me know if any of these words are too big for you to understand:

"For instance, the officials said they judged that each trailer could brew enough germs to produce, with further processing, one or two kilograms of dried agent each month.

While seemingly a small amount — a kilogram is 2.2 pounds — that weight in dangerous germs could cause major havoc if cast to the wind or into a subway. By comparison, the anthrax-tainted letters that killed 5 people and put 30,000 Americans on preventive antibiotics in 2001 each contained about a gram of dried anthrax spores. So the mobile factories, in theory at least, could make quantities of deadly agents up to thousands of times greater.

"If you're looking at kilograms," an official at the briefing said, "you're talking about thousands of people."

So that's why they are WMD - shit for brains!

oohhh nooo! i'm sorry. your final anwer is incorrect.

no matter how many weapons labs are found in iraq, no matter how much anthrax they produce, weapons labs are not weapons of mass destruction, and they will never kill a single person.

remeber, anthrax is what kills people, not the labs that make it.

thanks for playing.

next question: where are the weapons of mass destruction?

Since you seem stuck in a loop -

Did you read your own post? In it you quoted Bush

"From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them. "

Why ask about this if you don't want the answer?

I know, you really don't care - you just want to play with yourself and rant over and over again...

Have fun! And do follow your own advice - to shut the fuck up, eh?

Game over.

yes, a lab is evidence of a bio-logical weapons program.

SO WHERE ARE THE BIO-LOGICAL WEAPONS THE LAB MADE.

>25,000 liters of anthrax;<

where are they?

>38,000 liters of botulinum toxin<

where are they?

>500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent,

where are they?

>30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents<

where are they?

>had an advanced nuclear weapons development program<

where are the weapons? who gives a shit about programs.

>a design for a nuclear weapon<

where are the weapons? who gives a shit about designs.

>sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa<

well, did they get it? where is it?

SHOW ME THE WEAPONS.

because he's stuck in a loop, baby.....

Oh, hell, it's not even worth parodying.

Question: If SADDAM did NOT have weapons - WHY DIDN'T HE LET IN THE INSPECTORS TO PROVE IT?

Why the head games?

Why did he dick around for 12 YEARS?

Why didn't he let the UN inspectors have the access they needed to lift the sanctions?

Why did Saddam fight UN inspections for over a decade, if he didn't have WMD?

Why did he demand the sanctions be lifted without proof, when he KNEW it wouldn't happen?

(Because he knew the sanctions wouldn't be lifted, and he could continue raping the country blind? Nah. He LOVED his people. Often, hard, and without any lube whatsoever.)

Damn, Sam - start using that chunk o' fluff between your ears for something other than a 10 second tape loop. I know it's painful, but THINK about the ENTIRE scenario here - not just about what the US was doing, but what Saddam was doing - and WHY he was doing it.

Think about Saddam's motivation - how did he profit from keeping the sanctions going?

The British are already lining up for the pleasure of making Tony (poodle) Blair walk the political plank for what is an obvious lie to justify an illegal war.
The specific statement made by both Bush and Blair was that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be launched within 45 minutes. It's been 45 days since the end of the invasion of a sovereign state, and not a shred of evidence to support any of the pathetic excuses for the destruction of a civilization given by Bush for his careless and avaricious destabilization of the world community.
Too bad the American people and congress didn't have the brains or the balls of the British.

>Damn, Sam - start using that chunk o' fluff between your ears for something other than a 10 second tape loop. I know it's painful, but THINK about the ENTIRE scenario here - not just about what the US was doing, but what Saddam was doing - and WHY he was doing it.

Think about Saddam's motivation - how did he profit from keeping the sanctions going?<

don't you get it? can't you fathom what i am saying?

everything you just said about saddam's motives DOESN'T MEAN SHIT. it doesn't matter. all of your words have not found the weapons. arguing to me about saddam's motives won't find the weapons. you could write a one hundred page essay about saddam's motivations, and where you think he's hiding them. guess what? SO FUCKING WHAT. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU SAY.

SHOW ME THE WEAPONS.

i am going to keep repeating it until you put up or shut up. i am going to hold the president of the united state to his words. is it annoying you? i don't give a fuck o.k.? there was a war, remember? saddam was dangerous because he had weapons of mass destruction. we had to get him before he used them. there was fighting. thousands of iraqi's died. some 150 americans died. were they fighting because of a lie? did they die because of a mistake?

FIND THE FUCKING WEAPONS.

Pmd's? PROGRAMS of mass destruction? NO. Lmd's? LABS of mass destruction? NO. WEAPONS. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. YOU SAY HE HAS THEM. SO FIND THEM GODDAMN IT.

You are right no weapons of mass destruction were found. They might never be found or they may never have existed. We can hang our hats on that. I mean what are a few piddely mass graves and some severed ears.....come on wehere's the WMD!!!!!!

You're not the only one feeling this way.

According to today's edition of the UK Independent, the people in Tony Blair's government are gettting PRETTY UPSET about the whole damn lie and are demanding answers. Meanwhile, the man who would be King, is in the Basra congratulating the UK soldiers for their role in an unjustified attack.

It will be most interesting to see what transpires on that scene too.

"don't you get it? can't you fathom what i am saying?

everything you just said about saddam's motives DOESN'T MEAN SHIT. it doesn't matter. all of your words have not found the weapons. arguing to me about saddam's motives won't find the weapons. you could write a one hundred page essay about saddam's motivations, and where you think he's hiding them. guess what? SO FUCKING WHAT. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU SAY."

Neither does what you say. You won't even consider my question, will you? Why would Saddam stall off any inspections? What did it get him to do a head fake like this?

He didn't have WMD, he could have opened up and proved it!

HE WOULD NOT!

He could have gotten the UN sanctions dropped at ANY TIME in the last 12 years, if he'd let the inspectors work!

HE WOULD NOT!

HE WOULD NOT COOPERATE WITH THE UN TO GET THE SANCTIONS DROPPED!

And you won't even ask yourself WHY? You don't CARE why he held Iraq hostage? It doesn't hold ANY interest for you at all?

The history of this whole mess doesn't matter to you?

I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall here, or someone with their fingers stuck in their ears who's going "LALALALALA! SHOW ME THE WMD! LALALALALA! I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE! LALALALA!"

This shit didn't just happen overnight!

You familiar with the phrase "suicide by cop"? That's what Saddam committed - just as much as if a policeman shoots a kidnapper holding a gun to the head of a victim, only to find out afterward that it was a realistic replica. The kidnapper ACTED like it was a real gun - maybe it wasn't, but the police HAVE to proceed as if the kidnapper IS going to shoot the victim.

If they don't - and the gun is real, and the victim dies - you blame the cop.

If they do, and the gun is fake and the kidnapper is shot - you blame the cop.

Either way, you blame the cop - right?

So - either way you'd blame the US, no matter what the outcome.

Leave Saddam in power, you could blame the US for the sanctions.

Leave Saddam in power, and if he developed WMD and spread them around, you could blame the US for that.

Take out Saddam, and you blame the US for being imperialistic.

If WMD are found, you can discount it because they must have been planted by the US.

If WMD aren't found, you can blame the US for starting a war.

Thank you for helping me see your thought process here. You've managed to create a nice little pocket universe where nothing the US can do is right, and nothing any other country does is wrong - no matter what.

And I'll leave you to it.

There is no proof whatsoever that Saddam is dead. There is abundant proof that thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead and that Iraq has been occupied by a foriegn invader.

Saddam is dead.
you have seen the footage of trucks full of money heading out of Iraq

when you find Saddam and his buddies
you will find the W.M.D.'s
he valued them more than his people. the wmd's had most likely left before the war started. and are in hiding but not in iraq.

"Saddam is dead.
you have seen the footage of trucks full of money heading out of Iraq"

Yeah, right to Washington DC. I loved the photo I saw of one of our boys, fists full of cash, grinning from ear to ear. Too bad he didn't get to keep it; better him than Cheney and Rumsfeld.

"when you find Saddam and his buddies
you will find the W.M.D.'s
he valued them more than his people. the wmd's had most likely left before the war started. and are in hiding but not in iraq."

Yes, the WMDs are hiding in the Bushes. We can't find them because they are too wiley for us. Does anyone else think of Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny when reading about the search for "WMDs"?

Where are you wascally warheads? I'll get you wascals!

He claimed that Saddam committed suicide. Specifically, the Iraqi regime is dead. Pay attention.

finding someone with a videocam to make inspirational tapes for Iraq, it would seem. Letters - hell, that can be spoofed. Tapes? Same, with editing software. With video, it's a bit harder - but still, no video or recent tapes?

He could be alive, but with his ego? Doubtful...

Same thing with Osama - nobody's got a camcorder and a blank tape? Smuggle the tape out of Afghanistan to Paris, and you'd have a hell of a news coup.

But it's real quiet.

Too quiet.

(Off in the distance, Coyote howls...)

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002




Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

George W. Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002




If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.

Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002




We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003




Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

George W. Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003




We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.

Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003




We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.

George W. Bush
Radio Address
February 8, 2003




So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not.

Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003




Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

George W. Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003




Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.

Ari Fleisher
Press Briefing
March 21, 2003




There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.

Gen. Tommy Franks
Press Conference
March 22, 2003




I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.


Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman
Washington Post, p. A27
March 23, 2003




One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.

Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press Briefing
March 22, 2003




We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Donald Rumsfeld
ABC Interview
March 30, 2003




Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.

Neocon scholar Robert Kagan
Washington Post op-ed
April 9, 2003




I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found.

Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
April 10, 2003




We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.

George W. Bush
NBC Interview
April 24, 2003




There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Donald Rumsfeld
Press Briefing
April 25, 2003




We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.

George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 3, 2003




I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.

Colin Powell
Remarks to Reporters
May 4, 2003




We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Donald Rumsfeld
Fox News Interview
May 4, 2003




I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program.

George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 6, 2003




U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction.

Condoleeza Rice
Reuters Interview
May 12, 2003




I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden.

Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
May 13, 2003




Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.

Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
May 21, 2003




Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction.

Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
May 26, 2003




They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.


Donald Rumsfeld
Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations
May 27, 2003




For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.

Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003

http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=71083&group=webcast

great. fine. SO FIND THE WEAPONS THEN. don't keep talking about them. what good is talking about weapons if you can't find them?

Even if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it would not have justified a military assault which left perhaps 10,000 civilians dead (gunned down in their cars or bombed -- see http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0522/p01s02-woiq.html and http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ ).

The pigs that run this country are all about censorship and brainwashing! They're nothing at all like say, those of us who volunteer our time and efforts to run this San Fancisco based IMC. We're fair and balanced. Not like that bullshit Fox News you idiots all fill up on everynight! Bill O'reilly sux.

The likes of Helen Keller would be able to dance circles around you intellectually.

anon is watching.....

I will say one thing for you! You sure do your research.

Now if the Administration had done theirs, there would not be thousands of Iraqi people murdered, a country destroyed, and the US government's friends making millions "restructuring".