http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/jan99petras.htm
Who's Lying to Who in the Gulf?
By James Petras, Z Magazine, 01/1999
The Clinton-orchestrated worldwide military campaign to bomb Iraq
has created one of the broadest coalitions in recent history.
European Social Democrats and Middle Eastern Sheikdoms; Chinese
and Russian ex-Communists join with free marketeers in Latin
America to echo Washington's rhetoric. The list is long and the
military threats are real--echoed in the United Nations by the
U.S. messenger, Kofi Annam. The world's most august institutions
seem to have lent their authority as well as the prestige of most
of the world's leaders to President Clinton's campaign to end "the
threat" of Saddam Hussein.
But what is the reality of the threat? After seven years of United
Nations inspections and inspectors, including CIA operatives,
nothing has been discovered. Since the end of the Gulf War,
Washington has charged that Hussein possesses the capacity to
launch weapons of massive destruction. First, the U.S.
surveillance airplanes covered Iraqi airspace taking detailed
aerial photographs. Nothing turned up. But Washington then claimed
the secret weapons were hidden...someplace. The U.S. insisted on
UN inspectors on the ground with unlimited rights to inspect every
crevice and cage, building and laboratory. The inspection team
included U.S. intelligence agent Scott Ritter and Butler, a
pro-U.S. cold warrior from Australia. Every building, basement,
toilet, and outhouse was inspected for secret weapons for seven
years. Nothing was turned up. Washington insisted that the
presidential palace be inspected--including the shelter where
Hussein fled to avoid U.S. bombing attempts. After initial
resistance to revealing the areas of presidential security, the
Iraqis consented. Nothing was found: no deadly weapons, no germs,
no poison gases. Washington then lined up some pseudo scientists
to testify that traces of anthrax were found. Objective studies in
Switzerland disproved Washington's claim.
Not finding any evidence of lethal weapons of mass destruction did
not lead Clinton to reject the hypothesis, instead he insisted
that not finding anything was proof that Hussein was cleverly
hiding the weapons. The inspection had to continue, along with the
embargo and the punishing of the Iraqi people. The charges were no
longer that hidden weapons were discovered. Instead the new
charges were the capability to produce weapons. Any scientist
became suspect, every laboratory a "potential" center of germ
warfare--even if there was no evidence that any deadly weapons
were produced in the past or the present.
The failure to demonstrate a clear and present danger led Clinton
to introduce the ambiguous language of "potential threat" and
military "capability." In other words, any pharmaceutical firm
producing antibiotics could be a "potential" source of dangerous
weaponry and the "inspections" could continue. Washington invented
the concept of "dual capability"--civilian scientists or
laboratories which were engaged in research were a "potential
source of germ warfare." So as evidence failed to materialize, the
net was thrown wider, the inspections became more intensive and
never ending. Clinton's threat to bomb is not directed against any
threat or even any weapon. It is directed against Iraqi
weapon-making capacity.
The U.S. representative Ritter, distrusting the UN inspectors,
launched unannounced "surprise visits," forcing his way into
strategic defense areas. Nothing was found.
To follow the logic of the U.S. argument, any educated Iraqi, any
scientific laboratory and military installation is suspect, and
reason to continue the search for the missing secret deadly
weapons. This charade would be laughable if it were not so tragic:
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have died from
malnutrition due to the embargo. Washington has already
effectively destroyed not just Iraq's military capabilities but
its economy and capacity to feed its people. Clinton's war threats
and demands for inspection can never be satisfied because they do
not deal with tangible military realities but with political
power. Washington needs to invent the Hussein threat to justify
its massive military presence in the Gulf and the need to be the
undisputed owner and boss of the Gulf's energy resources as well
as those in the ex-USSR "republics." Washington invents the threat
of Hussein to justify "inspections" that provide information that
could be used to assassinate and overthrow his regime and replace
him with a pliant U.S. client.
The Iraqis accepted in good faith the United Nations inspection
with the idea of getting a clean bill of good behavior and an end
of the economic embargo. The inspections have continued now for
seven years.
Whenever the Iraqis open laboratories for inspection, Clinton
claims that there are "hidden laboratories." Whenever inspectors
visit factories, Washington insists there are underground
factories. Whenever the inspectors visit desert military bases,
the inspectors claim there are "other hidden bases." Only the more
they look, the more they confirm the Iraqi position; what you see
is what you got.
It is time for public opinion to put an end to this outrageous
farce before more innocent Iraqis are killed because Clinton,
Berger, Cohen, and Albright do not want to admit that their policy
was based on deception and false accusations in defense of
imperial power. Washington's "final solution" is to return Iraq to
a traditional society of merchants and nomads--thus eliminating
any "military capability" of its "dual purpose" modern economy and
scientific establishment.
While Washington claims to seek to "deter" the aggression of
Saddam, the U.S. Congress has allocated $100 million to finance
his opposition and the U.S. politicians openly call for his
assassination--a policy pursued by the CIA for over a decade.
Ground inspection and military violations of air space are clearly
gross violations of Iraqi national sovereignty. The primacy of
U.S. control over Iraqi defense, economic systems, and scientific
research are a flagrant return to colonial rule. The U.S. support
of Israeli nuclear and biological weaponry is in flagrant contrast
with its attempt to brand Iraq a "potential biological weapons
producer."
Washington's success in dictating the policies of Iraq encourages
it to intervene with impunity in the rest of the world. Vice
president Gore and Albright's gross partisan intervention in
Malaysian politics during the ASEAN conference is only the latest
example. Yesterday it was Iraq, today it is Malaysia, tomorrow it
could be Europe. What is at stake with inspections in Iraq is
nothing less than the very existence of national sovereignty.
