End the Iraq War
Tod Landis
July 6, 2003

After the Persian Gulf War, the United States urged the UN to keep the sanctions against Iraq in place.  We were told this was necessary because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.   Those sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.  One way the sanctions killed, for example, was by denying sick children medicine.  

We are learning that the Bush administration faked some of the evidence it provided the UN and Congress when it made the case for carrying out the most recent military attacks against Iraq.  These attackes have cost about 200 Americans their lives and killed thousands more Iraqis.  As at least one Congress member said recently:  it looks like the Bush administration "cooked the books" on Iraq.

We also know that statements made on the floor of Congress during the debate on the Iraq war resolution were misleading or simply wrong.   For example, during the debate, it was suggested that Iraq was connected to 9/11, to the anthrax attacks, and to the Washington DC sniper.   These allegations are all untrue.  

The Bush administration also alleged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the inclination to use them against us.  

But Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.  In fact, Americans had evidence that the Iraqi nuclear weapons program hand been disbanded in 1994.  Now we're told that nuclear weapons would be associated with telltale signatures that we could identify, if they were present, and we haven't found them.  

Apparently when Iraq told us they had taken steps to cooperate with UN inspectors searching for chemical and biological weapons, they really had, which is consistent with what those weapons inspectors told us, when they returned from Iraq.  

In short:  the US is now waging war against Iraq based on a set of lies.  

Looking back at the last ten years, the years since the Gulf War, we see the potential for Iraqi attacks against the United States, but the real missile and bombing attacks carried out against Iraq by the United States and Israel.  We see sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and, finally, we see the occupation.  We see the transfer of ownership of fabulous oil reserves from the Iraqi government to an entity created by the United States, and we see certain well connected corporations among the first companies to benefit from the new arrangement.

The simplest explanation for the set of facts before us, is that our government's purpose, all along, has been to occupy Iraq and take over its oil, water, and other resources,  at great cost to American taxpayers, but with great benefit for certain corporations.  Where was Congress?  How could it permit this to happen?  

Congress should act, now, to end the Iraq war, and to investigate the relationships between our elected officials and the corporations who are benefitting from this war.
 

Links and newspaper articles
"Ten Applling Lies We Were Told About Iraq", by Christopher Scheer,
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16274

from newspaper article "Rumsfeld Estimates US Monthly Costs in Iraq at $3.9 Billion"
NY Times, July 9, 2003:

WASHINGTON, July 9 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld estimated today that the cost of United States operations in Iraq were $3.9 billion a month — a figure considerably higher than previous estimates — as he testified today before senators who want other countries to absorb more of the coalition's human and financial costs.

from newspaper article "In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue",
Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2002:
A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza
for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals
between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling
world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of
the Iraqi opposition.

from Representative John Conyer's statement on Iraq:
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_iraq.htm
In March, the UN Security Council panel on the humanitarian situation in Iraq reported, "the gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated." UNICEF still stands by their astounding estimate of about 5000 children dying every month. This is despite the Oil-for-Food deal, which allows Iraq to sell oil and through the UN, purchase food.
from a statement by Dennis Halliday, Former Director of the UN Iraq Program, 1999:
Back in 1990 economic sanctions were seen, I believe, as a good alternative  to military activity and force.

Since then, however, they've been sustained now for what over nine years, they have had an impact on Iraq   which is, in the the view of many of us, genocidal, in   the sense that economic sanctions on top of the damage done by the Americans and others in the Gulf war has led to the death of possibly one or one and a half million Iraqi people and particularly children.  So the maintenance of these economic sanctions breached the Geneva  Conventions on Warfare, because, as we all know, civilians are not to be targeted in war nor in economic sanctions programs.
from Congressional Research Service Issue Brief 
81050:  War Powers Resolution: Presidential Compliance

On June 6, 1994, President Clinton reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency had effectively disbanded the Iraqi nuclear weapons program at least for the near term, and that the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq had reduced Iraq's ability to produce chemical weapons. But, he said, the process was not complete and continued vigilance was necessary because of the belief that Saddam Hussein was committed to rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction programs. The United States would insist on a "sustained period of complete and unquestionable compliance with the monitoring and verification plans."

Note the date:  As of June 6, 1994, the Iraqi nuclear weapons program had been disbanded and the ability to produce chemical weapons had been reduced.  Why then did the Clinton administration, and then the Bush administration, retain the sanctions that were killing 5000 Iraqis a month?

from "The Road Ahead in Iraq--and How to Navigate It"
by L. Paul Bremer III, NY TImes OpEd,  July 13, 2003
Our economic reform plan will entail a major shift of capital from the value-destroying state sector to private firms.
"Value-destroying" ?!  Aren't bombs "value destroying"?   


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