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CounterPunch
February
6, 2003
Responding to Colin Powell
Is This All
You've Got to Show Us?
by RAHUL MAHAJAN
If one believes everything Colin Powell said to
the Security Council yesterday, one's first response ought to
be that there's no reason to fight a war, since U.S. surveillance
capabilities are so awesome that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) can easily be found. And one's first question should be
why has the United States for over two months withheld this apparently
so damaging evidence from those weapons inspectors, who could
have verified conjectures and destroyed WMD stocks and production
facilities.
If indeed the evidence presented is of
the character claimed by Powell, then the United States has chosen
to sabotage UN Security Council Resolution 1441, clause 10 of
which "Requests all Member States to give full support to
UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including
by providing any information related to prohibited programmes."
The actual evidence may not even warrant
that conclusion. What Powell served up to the Council was a sorry
mess of fuzzy aerial photographs of buildings, a cute "organizational
chart" of supposed al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, a couple
of tape recordings that are capable of multiple interpretations
and, as before, a large number of undated reports by unnamed
Iraqi defectors.
Given the history of U.S. government
use of disinformation to drum up support for war, from relatively
subtle measures like doctoring satellite photos to convince the
Saudi government that Iraq was massing troops for an invasion
of Saudi Arabia in 1990 to incredibly crude ones like the continuing
claims by officials from George W. Bush on down that Iraq "expelled"
weapons inspectors in 1998 (as covered in the press at the time,
the inspectors were withdrawn at the behest of the United States),
a skeptic need not actually accept any of the evidence as presented.
Even so, it's useful to go through it.
Evidence about
Iraq and al-Qaeda
The weakest part of the whole presentation,
and the most important, was the claims trying to link Iraq with
al-Qaeda operations. In the past, the link depended on the claims
about one man, Mohammed Atta, meeting with Iraqi intelligence
in Prague (we've since found out that he was almost certainly
in the United States at the time of the alleged meeting); now
it depends on one man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Al-Zarqawi is apparently a high-level
operative of an Islamist group called Ansar al-Islam, which is
operating in northern Iraq (currently an autonomous region with
a provisional Kurdish government that is aligned with the United
States). Although there is no evident link between this organization
and the Government of Iraq (GOI), Powell claims that the GOI
has a high-level agent in Ansar, who "offered al-Qaida safe
haven"--although apparently few if any accepted the offer,
since the supposed presence is in the part of Iraq not controlled
by the GOI. The full extent of the connection between al-Zarqawi
himself and the GOI is apparently that he got medical care in
a hospital in Baghdad, hardly an indication of high-level Iraqi
complicity in terrorist attacks against American targets.
There is no attempt to link Ansar itself
to the 9/11 attacks. In fact, while apparently the mere presence
of al-Zarqawi, a subordinate in Ansar, in Iraq is sufficient
reason for war, the head of Ansar, known as Mullah Krekar, is
living unmolested in Norway, and the United States has not even
made an extradition request. Krekar denies any connection of
Ansar with al-Qaeda.
Powell also claims that one al-Qaeda
detainee has told them that Iraq provided information about biological
and chemical weapons to al-Qaeda members. Given the condition
al-Qaeda detainees are being held in and the obvious incentives
for them to tell a story the U.S. government wants to hear, this
is very far from being actual evidence. The claim also flies
in the face of common sense. Saddam Hussein has always been seen
by al-Qaeda as an enemy and has himself seen Islamists as the
biggest internal threat to his rule. To give them the ability
to make chemical or biological weapons, weapons he sees as essential
to the survival of his regime (many analysts think the primary
reason the United States didn't implement "regime change"
in 1991 was the threat that the GOI would use its stocks of chemical
weapons in self-defense), potentially destabilizes his own rule.
Evidence about
Iraq's WMD
The heart of the presentation, however,
was claims about Iraq's violation of UNSCR 1441 and about its
attempts to acquire WMD. This included evidence like a photograph
of a shed and a truck next to a bunker, followed by a claim that
such a configuration of truck and shed (the truck is apparently
a "decontamination" truck) is an infallible indicator
that the bunker has chemical weapons in it, and even a photograph
of what an Iraqi UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) "would look
like."
Powell claimed that Iraq was reviving
attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon, telling us that two out
of three elements were in hand. The third element, fissile material,
is and has always been the stumbling block. According to Powell,
"we have more than a decade of proof that he [Hussein] remains
determined to acquire nuclear weapons," but no acknowledgment
that in more than a decade he has been entirely unable to do
so.
Nor was there acknowledgment of the assessment
that Mohammed el-Baradei, chief of the IAEA team charged with
Iraq's nuclear disarmament, delivered to the Council:
"No evidence of ongoing prohibited
nuclear or nuclear-related activities S has been detected to
dateS Nor have the inspections thus far revealed signs of new
nuclear facilities or direct support to any nuclear activity.
The IAEA expects to be able, within the next few months, barring
exceptional circumstances and provided there is sustained proactive
cooperation by Iraq, to provide credible assurance that Iraq
has no nuclear weapons programme."
He also resurrected claims that Iraq's
attempts to acquire certain aluminum tubes show that it is trying
to make centrifuges for production of fissile material, disputing
the IAEA's conclusion that those tubes are better suited to conventional
artillery.
Most of the other "evidence"
was unsourced or from one of the legion of defectors that has
always conveniently cropped up when the United States has needed
them.
The most compelling evidence was audio
recordings of two conversations apparently showing Iraqi attempts
to conceal evidence from inspectors. It's not possible to know
whether the tapes are real, whether they are recent or from the
previous inspection regime, or what exactly they are referring
to. Forgetting all of these caveats, it's quite likely that the
Iraqis are trying to hide not actual WMD but minor things that
didn't make it into the December 7 declaration (for example,
the empty chemical munitions that were recently discovered) and
are trying to eliminate those discrepancies surreptitiously instead
of letting the inspectors find them.
In the whole presentation, there was
no acknowledgment of the true state of affairs regarding chemical
and biological weapons, as concluded by the UNSCOM inspectors
in 1998 and confirmed by UNMOVIC more recently. That is simply
this:
There are records of how much in the
way of chemical agents, biological growth medium, and other components
Iraq imported from Western firms (particularly American and German
ones). There is evidence of how much inspectors destroyed. There
are Iraqi claims about how much was used in the war with Iran
and how much was unilaterally destroyed by them. Iraq is unable
to produce sufficient evidence for the inspectors to match up
those different numbers. So there is some discrepancy in terms
of chemical munitions--for example, Iraq claims 550 mustard-filled
shells were lost after the Gulf War, but it can't prove this.
There is discrepancy in terms of biological growth medium and
if you take this discrepancy and make the entirely unrealistic
stipulation that Iraq's fermenters were constantly and continually
used for all these past years, you can get high numbers for the
amounts of biological agents like anthrax that Iraq theoretically
might have.
These discrepancies are enough that inspectors
could not close the book on chemical or biological weapons (although
they essentially did on nuclear weapons). They presumably owe
at least in part to the fact that Iraq, after undergoing eight
years of war with Iran, the most devastating air bombardment
in history in the Gulf War, and twelve years of crippling sanctions,
doesn't have all of its records nicely intact.
Is there an
Iraqi threat?
It is undoubtedly true that in the past
Iraq went to considerable lengths to avoid cooperating with inspections.
It's possible that that is happening again--some of Powell's
evidence might be real.
But missing from the entire presentation
was any serious talk about a threat posed by Iraq, either to
the United States or even to any country in the region. Mere
possession of WMD, even if established, is not exactly evidence
of aggressive intent. And in fact Iraq has been the recipient
of aggression frequently since the Gulf War (bombings by the
U.S. and U.K., periodic invasions in the north by Turkey, virtual
Kuwaiti annexation of Iraqi land in the south), but has not itself
seriously threatened any.
The evidence about Iraq's intent to attack
seems to run something like this--Saddam "gassed his own
people" in 1988, therefore there is an imminent threat that
he will attack us in 2003. The imminent threat is not, however,
so severe as to keep us from having a full year of warmongering
and bellicose rhetoric before we actually attack.
This conveniently ignores the central
fact about Hussein's record of aggression. Without exception,
his worse crimes were committed with full U.S. support, both
material and diplomatic. The war on Iran, the massacre of Kurds
in the Anfal campaign of the late 1980's, even the bloody suppression
in 1991 of the "Iraqi intifada" all involved explicit
measures of support from the United States--providing military
intelligence, approving export of chemical and biological agents,
providing "agricultural" credits, disarming rebels,
and much more. The invasion of Kuwait was done in the deliberately
fostered belief that the United States would not mind. Without
U.S. support, Hussein knows well that he can only be a threat
to his internal political enemies.
Powell did not deal with these facts,
but essentially admitted the lack of any evidence of a real Iraqi
threat when he fell back on the "pre-emption" argument--"should
we take the risk that he will not someday use these weapons at
a time and a place and in a manner of his choosing, at a time
when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?"
Of course, in the absence of concrete evidence, any country can
make this argument against any other, which is why "pre-emption"
is clearly not consistent with international law.
What if Iraq
isn't cooperating?
If Iraq is not cooperating fully with
inspections right now, it's important to understand why. The
first round of weapons inspections started to fall apart in 1998
for one reason--the United States refused to commit to lifting
the sanctions once Iraq was disarmed. This refusal was an abrogation
of its own commitment under UNSCR 687.
This time, it's even worse. The United
States is steadily bombing Iraq, in an escalating pattern that
is no longer even vaguely linked to enforcement of the illegal
"no-fly zones" but is clearly part of the suppression
of air defense with which U.S. wars begin. It is building a massive
military presence in the Gulf. And it is declaring openly, to
all with the ears to hear it, that it will go to war with Iraq
no matter what Iraq does, whether the Security Council is with
it or against it.
In fact, at least one columnist, Bill
Keller ("What to Expect when you're Inspecting," New
York Times, November 16, 2002) has pointed out that inspections
are a wonderful prelude to war because they "can significantly
diminish Saddam's arsenal," thus making it easier for the
United States to fight without fear of retaliation and because
"inspections immobilize Iraq while we deploy."
So Iraq is in the bizarre position of
being called on to disarm while being attacked by another country,
and then being reviled by the "international community"
for partial compliance.
It is becoming increasingly likely that
the United States will obtain a Security Council resolution authorizing
war. And if it does, its main argument will be that it must go
to war with Iraq to uphold international law. It's important
to understand ahead of time just how obscene that argument is.
It's not just because the United States has systematically undermined
international law with regard to Iraq, by refusing to acknowledge
the basis (disarmament) for lifting the sanctions, by committing
repeated acts of illegal aggression against Iraq (like the Desert
Fox bombing), and by deliberately making the sanctions bite Iraqi
society as hard as possible for purely political reasons (see
"Economic sanctions as a weapon of mass destruction,"
Joy Gordon, Harper's, November 2002). It's not just because the
United States enforces a double standard, in which itself and
favored allies are exempt from legal requirements while states
it decided to target are not.
It's because this war is a violation
of the ultimate international law. It is a "crime against
peace," a war of aggression. It was decided on long ago
in the White House, and the only reason other countries may vote
in support of it is the repeated statements that the war will
happen whether they want it or not. It is the United States holding
not just Iraq but the entire world hostage.
Rahul Mahajan
is a member of the Nowar Collective (www.nowarcollective.com).
He is author of "The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism"
(April 2002, Monthly Review Press) and the forthcoming "The
U.S. War on Iraq: Myths, Facts, and Lies." He can be reached
at rahul@tao.ca
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