'Admitting, once and for all' Musa Keilani

Opinion, October 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

'Admitting, once and for all'

Musa Keilani

Jordan Times, Sunday, October 5, 2003

MANY IDEAS have been cited as reasons for the US failure to locate Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction despite nearly six months of search conducted by a team of 1,400 experts in postwar Iraq. In a legal context, the Bush administration and the United Nations might need such an explanation in order to address the questions raised by the international community.

However, we in this part of the world, do not need explanations, since we knew from the word go that it was not concern over weapons of mass destruction that prompted the US and its ally, the UK, to go to war against Iraq and topple Saddam in April.

One does not have to look too far to substantiating the belief that the US had its own agenda, that had little to do with Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, except as concern over how strongly he would resist the invasion of his country. But then, the unholy US-British alliance had every bit of military information they needed to have before they launched the war.

The way the alliance side-stepped the UN Security Council and went ahead with its plans, despite calls for more time to detect the alleged Iraqi arsenal of weapons, clearly indicated that there was nothing that would have stopped the alliance from invading and occupying Iraq.

Now they have done it and the entire exercise of continued hunt for weapons in Iraq and various theories being put forward is a charade aimed at somehow propping up a screen to counter international scepticism.

However, one of such theories is alarming and has sinister dimensions in order to further the US objective in the region — targeting other countries which do not kowtow to US dictats.

That theory says that Saddam could have possessed weapons of mass destruction and moved them outside the country just before the war. That definitely implies a Syrian connection, as it is inconceivable that Saddam moved his alleged weapons to Iran in view of the nature of relations between Baghdad and Tehran.

However, the argument that Syria agreed to house the alleged weapons holds little water. The Syrian leadership always knew that it was one of the American targets in the area, if only because of its refusal to sign over its rights over the Golan Heights to Israel and because of its support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Israel's occupation.

We could easily see that the US is slowly tightening pressure on Syria and has left the door open for military action against the Syrians, citing the alleged presence of Saddam's weapons on Syrian territory. Again, under that scenario, the obvious question that might come up is: What happened to Iraq's arms that are supposed to have been stored in Syria? Numerous ideas would be cited at that point, perhaps including the theory that Syria moved the alleged weapons to Lebanon. It is open to question whether that would mean the Americans setting their gunsights on Lebanon, with the hidden agenda of demolishing the Hizbollah and other groups which refuse to uphold American interests as their priority.

Another interesting theory provided by weapons inspector David Kay for his team's failure to uncover any weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq is that Saddam's scientists were fooling Saddam himself — and were simply too afraid to tell him he did not possess any weapons.

What we fail to understand, in any case, is why the US, with its most advanced spying technology supported by satellite information and images, could not keep track of the alleged weapons and come to the conclusion that Iraq did not have any to start with. Then again, the obvious answer is: revealing to the world that Saddam did not have any weapons of mass destruction would have done away with the only plausible reason that Washington could have cited to support its invasion of Iraq.

And now the explanation is switching tracks. US President George Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell are contending that a vial of botulinum bacteria that Kay's team found in Iraq is one strong piece of evidence of Saddam's weapons intent. The keyword here is intent — not possession.

We also fail to find any ground for Bush's assertion that the Kay report “states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts and advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles.”

Again, it is a question of using selected words and information, without referring to any timeframe, in order to suit American intentions and purposes. Kay's report clearly states that the vial of botulinum bacteria had been stored for safekeeping in an Iraqi scientist's refrigerator since 1993 and that the inspectors found no evidence it had been used in a weapons programme during the last decade. Also rejected was the claim that Saddam had bought a semi-refined form of uranium from Niger or anywhere else.

It is indeed frustrating to go any further in debating the Iraqi WMD question since none of the US theories touch the truth. We could only wish that Washington would abandon its transparent efforts to come up with lame explanations and unfounded claims and admit, once and for all, that the US wanted to invade and occupy Iraq, WMD or no WMD, and challenge the world to do something about it.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).