|
CounterPunch
March 10,
2003
CounterPunch Diary
What
Will the US Find If It Invades Iraq? It'll Find What It Wants
To, Silly; Booze and Cigarettes in the White House?; A Kirkpatrick
Haunting
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Does anyone seriously believe that in the event
of US invasion, "discovery" of Saddam's Weapons of
Mass Destruction won't be long delayed? The stakes are simply
too high. It won't take much: a blueprint or two, a few canisters
noisily identified as chemical or biological agents, a "facility"
for production of nuclear munitions.
CounterPunch has heard unconfirmed stories
of preliminary manufacture of the necessary smoking guns that
can be deployed by undercover teams as US troops advance, and
then dramatically disclosed to the hungry press. For those who
entertain doubts about the likelihood of the US or its ally Britain
to manufacture necessary "evidence", consider the recent
explicit charge of forgery leveled by Mohammed Elbaradei, the
chief UN inspector looking for evidence of nuclear capability
in Iraq.
Here's the relevant passage, from his
testimony on behalf of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency
before the UNSC last week:
"With regard to uranium acquisition,
the I.A.E.A. has made progress in its investigation into reports
that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger in recent years.
This investigation was centered on documents provided by a number
of states that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq
for the sale of uranium between 1999 and 2001.
"The I.A.E.A. has discussed these
reports with the governments of Iraq and Niger, both of which
have denied that any such activity took place. For its part,
Iraq has provided the I.A.E.A. with a comprehensive explanation
of its relations with Niger and has described a visit by an Iraqi
official to a number of African countries, including Niger, in
February 1999, which Iraq thought might have given rise to the
reports.
"The I.A.E.A. was able to review
correspondence coming from various bodies of the government of
Niger and to compare the form, format, contents and signature
of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related
documentation. Based on thorough analysis, the I.A.E.A. has
concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these
documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium
transaction between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic.
We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations
are unfounded."
Now the documents that Elbaradei labels
as forgeries were part of a dossier prepared by British intelligence
services and given by Britain to the UN and to the US last year.
Here's what Ray Close, a former CIA officer
with particular experience in the Middle East, (see
his detailed commentary on this site) concludes:
"Quite clearly, the more one thinks
about this intrigue, the more obvious it becomes that someone
was responsible for a deliberate intelligence disinformation
campaign targeting the United Nations with an aim toward padding
the evidence supporting an American-British invasion of Iraq.
That is a world-class criminal act, a felony of historic proportions,
by any definition. We should not let it be swept under the carpet."
So we have been warned, and may confidently
expect the requisite discoveries to be made in Iraq, in the likely
event of attack.
The Spaniel
Press
Across the past few weeks the Bush/Powell
rationales for attacking Iraq for possessing Weapons of Mass
Destruction has been spectacularly demolished, not least by UN
inspectors Elbaradei and Blix. It has become surreal to follow
the determination with which most of the mainstream US press
ignores these demolitions, not least the important piece by John
Barry in Newsweek detailing the debriefing of Saddam's son-in-law
Kemal when he defected in the mid-1990s when he defected with
profuse documentation of Saddam's destruction of biological and
chemical stocks.
Incidentally, our position is that possible
possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq is not the
issue, and has no merit as a rationale for attack, any more than
possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons should
be a basis for attacking North Korea, or India, Pakistan, or
Israel, or other members of the "club".
We watched Howard Dean last Sunday twist
and turn last Sunday as a sullen Tim Russert battered him for
refusing to issue outright endorsement for Bush's war. Dean held
on, and from his performance we reckon he'll doing well in the
battle for the Democratic nomination. But in fact the line separating
his from the White House line is scarcely visible. (We also listened
incredulously as the supposed "liberal" Dean proclaimed
his support for a balanced budget amendment and all but conceded
he favored raising the retirement age to 70. Assuredly, he's
a worthy neoliberal successor to BC.
Talking of liberal attacks on Bush's
rationales for war, over the weekend we ran on this site Perry Anderson's attack on the liberals
from the London Review of Books. Now, our old friend PA, editor
of New Left Review, is a very smart fellow, but though we thought
his views deserved a wider airing than that afforded by the London
Review of Books we were disappointed.
Anderson instructed the antiwar movement
that if it is to have staying power it has to get beyond "the
fixations of the fan club, the politics of the spectacle, the
ethics of fright". This seems to us an excessively patronizing
and wrong-headed assessment of where this huge antiwar movement
is. It starts from something unaddressed by Anderson, to wit,
that many millions of people have been declaring that it's wrong
to drop high explosive on people in the interests of rearranging
the strategic furniture. It has been powered by a sense of the
extreme vulnerability of the White House's case.
Anderson's defense of the White House's
case is very disingenuous, as
Michael Neumann outlines in his riposte on this site today.
What particularly depressed us was Anderson's sense of audience
and occasion. Was this the moment to have a jousting match with
wrong-headed liberals, with a parting wave to the worldwide antiwar
movement to the effect that there is a truly radical case to
be made against the war, but that the Editor hasn't the time
or space to make such a case at this time. We recall a time when
Anderson was fond of saying that 9/11 was a media blip on the
radar screen like the death of Diana. It hasn't been like that.
The administration has encountered huge obstacles to its plans.
The antiwar movement already has changed the political temperature,
and Anderson should have allowed himself more time to speak constructively
to this huge popular movement.
Booze and
Cigarettes in the White House?
It was a nice coincidence to turn from
the stories of Stalin's death being hastened by doses of rat
poison to George Bush's recent press conference, if only because
Stalin's regime is usually, and correctly associated with the
absolute repression of dissent in the press. We haven't got to
Stalin's 100 percent success rate yet. Sun day's New York Times
came out against the war, as did George Bush 1. But there were
portions of the recent press conference which surely would have
made the Georgian tyrant nod in approval, as Bush worked his
way through a list of approved questioners, wincing out his formulaic
replies.
But even some of the President's most
servile admirers, like Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, were
forced to admit that Bush's performance was scarcely his finest
hour, despite the admiring flackery in the press in the days
after it. Particularly effusive was Felicity Barringer in the
New York Times last Sun day, who reported in awed tones that
as the deadline for his press conference approached, the commander
in chief suddenly told his chief aide, Andrew Card, that he wanted
to be alone for ten minutes. Why? Was in a moment's private consultation
with the Big Fellow? Or maybe a quick dram of some distilled,
90 percent proof Weapon of Private Destruction, probably vodka,
tucked away in a cabinet that escaped the vigilance of Laura.
The First Lady, we learn, does not include
herself in the spartan, booze-free regime imposed on her husband.
Though she apparently makes flying visits to the White House
kitchen to ensure that no wine goes into the Boeuf Bouguignon,
she herself enjoys a margarita from time to time. Nor is tobacco
a stranger to her. CounterPunch hears that she has a tacit arrangement
with the White House press corps that she will not be photographed
with a cigarette in hand or dangling from her lovely lips. In
an earlier time the press was famously careful to shield FDR's
occupancy of a wheel chair from the public, preferring to concentrate
on his jaunty cigarette in its long holder.
Those Security
Council Vetoes in 1956
So as we head down to the wire, and that
upcoming vote in the Security Council, who remembers that there
was another time when France, along with Britain, exercised
a veto at a crucial moment of invasion of a middle eastern country.
Yes, you've guessed it: 1956 and the invasion of Egypt by Britain
and France, a venture frowned upon by the Eisenhower administration,
which wanted to make it clear that the region was now under its
supervision. Read this important public letter to the peace movement
by Ken Coates, of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation:
"Dear Friend,
"Is the United Nations finished
if Britain and America launch a unilateral war against Iraq,
in defiance of the will of the Security Council? Already there
are dark voices suggesting that this must be the case, and the
Foreign Secretary has tried to argue that it is impossible to
oppose the United States in the modern world, because "the
United States has a quarter of the world's wealth, the world's
GDP, and it has stronger armed forces than the next twenty-seven
countries put together. So its predominance is huge."
"Things are actually worse than
Jack Straw says, because the United States is also basing its
actions on a quite explicit military doctrine, known as 'Full
Spectrum Dominance', and determined to assert hegemony over "land,
sea, air and space" as well as information. Nonetheless,
there are precedents for dealing with arbitrary action, and there
are legal ways of challenging what the Prime Minister calls
'unreasonable' vetoes.
"In 1956, Egypt nationalized the
Suez Canal, and was promptly invaded by Britain, France and Israel.
President Eisenhower insisted that the invasion should cease,
and tabled resolutions in the Security Council to this effect.
France and Britain vetoed them. At that point, the United States
appealed to the General Assembly of the United Nations, and proposed
a resolution calling for a cease-fire, and withdrawal of the
invading forces. In emergency session the General Assembly upheld
the resolution, and Britain and France withdrew from Egypt almost
immediately.
"The 1956 decision was made under
the procedure which is known as 'Uniting for Peace'. It is specifically
designed to deal with the problem of impasse in the event of
a stalemate brought about by vetoes, "reasonable" or
not. This procedure has been invoked ten times, most frequently
at the behest of the United States. Jeremy Brecher of the Pittsburgh
Law School has been circulating a proposal for a 'Uniting
for Peace' resolution which Governments can submit to the
General Assembly. It declares that unauthorized military action
when taken outside the Security Council's remit is contrary to
the United Nations Charter, and therefore to international law.
"We think it is urgently necessary
for peace movements everywhere to support the Brecher initiative,
calling on Governments to invoke these procedures so that the
General Assembly can insist that it still regards the UN as a
viable institution and is determined to uphold its authority.
Yours sincerely,
Ken Coates
Chairman, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
112 Church Street, Matlock, DE4 3BZ UK
Harkin:
"We Wuz Duped"
Frist: "We Wuz Hacked"
Tom Harkin, US senator from Iowa, proclaims
that he was "duped" by George Bush. This surely furnishes
grounds from a recall movement in Iowa. A man capable of being
duped by George Bush is surely inadequate as a representative
of the people of that fine state.
Meanwhile Bill Frist, US Senate Majority leader, has acted swiftly
to suppress the embarrassment of declining public approval for
Bush's war. Frist's website has long been carrying an online
poll. Last week, this poll suddenly disclosed 65 percent opposition
in the Volunteer State
to war on Iraq. Frist ordered the poll to be taken down, explaining
to the world that the site had been "hacked". Meanwhile
Tennessee's Bureau of Investigation is busy interviewing antiwar
protesters in an obvious drive to intimidate dissent.
But even Tennessee, homeport for cop
dog killers, pales in comparison to what's been going on in Idaho.
The following letter is chilling testimony to the campaign of
fear and intimidation on university campuses.
State Terror
in Idaho
From: Prof. Elizabeth Brandt at University
of Idaho School of Law:
"Well, yesterday was an exciting
day in my small town. The FBI flew in 120 agents, fully armed
in riot gear, on two C-17 military aircraft (I think -- they
were BIG planes) to Moscow Idaho (population 17,000 +/-) to arrest
one Saudi graduate student for visa fraud. The raid went down
in University of Idaho student housing at 4:30 a.m. in the morning,
terrorizing not only the suspect's family (he lived in student
housing with his wife and three elementary school age children)
but also the families of neighboring students who were awakened
by the shouting and lights and were required to remain in their
homes until after 8:30 a.m.
"At least 20 other students who
had the misfortune to either know the suspect or to have some
minor immigration irregularities were also subjected to substantial,
surprise interrogations (4+ hours) although none were detained
or arrested yesterday. Now, however, a witch-hunt for additional
unamed suspects who supposedly helped the guy who was arrested
is on.
"The INS and FBI are working together
using Gestapo tactics to question the students -- threatening
their immigration status (and hence their education) if they
don't answer questions which are really aimed at the criminal
investigation. They have also threatened their partners and
spouses with perjury charges if they don't talk. I
spent yesterday working with our immigration clinic director
and local criminal defense attorneys to organize legal representation
for the students who are being swept into the hunt for co-conspirators.
We have reached out to our entire area (40 -mile radius) to
find enough attorneys. Now I'm working on getting resources and
support to them. The Saudi government is providing financial
support. Reading about this stuff is one thing. Having
it in your backyard is another. The international students at
the University of Idaho are terrorized and scared.
Elizabeth Barker Brandt
Professor,
University of Idaho College of Law
Life After
Death: New Evidence
It Can't Be, It Is
It's Jeanne Kirkpatrick
Now this. CounterPunch hears that the
administration is wheeling out Jeanne Kirkpatrick to head up
the US delegation to the upcoming session of the UN commission
on human rights. Just another way to say Screw You to the rest
of the world. With Israel & the Occupied Territories likely
to be a major focus of the session, her selection is especially
telling.
Yesterday's
Features
The Black Commentator
All
About Clarence
Ben Granby
Nightmare
in Rafah
Fidel Castro
Bush's
War on the Dark Corners of the World
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Riding
the Tiger in India: Will the World's Largest Democracy Become
a Religio-Fascist Purgatory?
Linda Heard
Make Way for Reality Politics
Alex Lynch
Tragedy of the Ridiculous War
Paul D'Amato
Obey
the US or Pay the Price
Ron Jacobs
Peace Treaties, Nukes and North Korea
Shulamit Aloni
Murder
Under the Cover of Rigtheousness
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
Take a Bite Out of Phil Knight's Bottom Line: Buy No Sweat Apparel!
March 8 /
9, 2003
Edward Said
Who's
In Charge?
Bruce Jackson
Elegy
for Two Giraffes and a Zebra
Perry Anderson
The Casuistries of Peace and
War
Joanne Mariner
Patriot
Act II's Attack on Punishment
William Lind
A Warning from Clausewitz on 4th Generation Warfare
Sam Husseini
Why
So Long for Iraq to Comply? Follow the Policy
Forrest Hylton
Business as Usual in Bolivia?
David Lindorff
Race and the Death Penalty in Pennsylvania
Ben Tripp
Is There
a Eurologist in the House?
Anthony Gancarski
W's Personal Jesus
Jon Elmer
An Interview with William Blum
Douglas Valentine
The Clash of the Icons
Norman Madarasz
Radical Politics and the Writer:
Maurice Blanchot
Gordon Solberg
There's
Got to be a Better Way
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Engel, Bernard
Weekend Website
The
White House
February 28,
2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet
the New Yorker's Chief Hack: Jeffrey Goldberg
Saul Landau
Now
It's Personal
Michael Neumann
A Plea for Hysteria
Karima Bennoume
The UN: Tool for Peace or War?
The Black
Commentator
The Rev. Sharpton and the Soul of the Democrats
Jennifer Loewenstein
Don't Turn Off the War
Richard Levins
Cuba's Biological Weapons: Why the World Needs More of Them
M. Shahid Alam
Is This a Clash of Civilizations?
Clay Conrad
Juries
and Judges: What's Relevant?
Ben Tripp
Speaking in Tongues: a Guide to Gibberish in the Age of Bush
Eliot Katz
To Declare Preemptive War is to Declare a Bankrupt Imagination
Kurt Nimmo
Paying Through the Nose to Kill Iraqi Kids
Matt Vidal
George W. Bonaparte
Mark Zepezauer
Why the Right Hates America
Mickey Z.
The Anti----War Talk I Never Gave
Jerry Kroth
Jung and the Space Shuttle Revisited
Shyam Oberoi
Chronicle of a War Foretold
Ron Jacobs
What If the Firebombing of Baghdad Were a Nightclub Fire?
Poets' Basement
Eliot Katz and Jim Cohn
Website of
the Weekend
Defense
Tech
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|