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CounterPunch
February
6, 2003
General Powell at the UN
Spiel, Stunts
and Special Effects
by LINDA HEARD
We knew in advance that Secretary of State Colin
Powell did not have the infamous 'smoking gun, we knew that Powell
would not provide solid proof that Saddam Hussein was developing
weapons of mass destruction, but we did expect that Powell would
present convincing evidence to the UN Assembly.
In reality, Powell's presentation, although
professionally delivered, highlighted the fact that America's
claims are 'long on volume but short on fact'.
The eagerly awaited presentation was
a mishmash of hearsay, dubious communications intercepts, mysterious
sources and secondhand reports from defectors and detainees.
The latter would no doubt say that the moon was made of Feta
cheese, if that would help their case.
Powell kicked off with audio intercept
of a conversation between a Republican Guard and an officer in
the field where the guard asks his subordinate to clear out the
scrap before destroying the message. We were later treated to
another snippet on similar lines relating to nerve gas.
Given that we know that the Bush administration
is determined to effect regime change, and is willing to go it
alone if necessary, we can hardly be expected to take these intercepts
at face value.
Anybody who lives in the Arab world would
have his suspicions about the first recording. It does not sound
like an authentic exchange between two Arabs of differing status.
Where was the elaborate greeting ritual, and how did the junior
soldier dare to omit calling his superior by a respectful title,
instead of just answering 'na'am, or 'ok'. He even came across
as surly.
Amer Al Sa'adi, Saddam Hussein's chief
scientific advisor, derided the presentation as being "a
typical American show complete with stunts and special effects.
The Secretary of State condemned the
high level committee set up by Iraq to monitor the inspectors.
In light of the fact that several UNSCOM weapons inspectors admitted
to being American spies, why wouldn't Iraq be cautious about
allowing foreigners to run around its country unfettered, especially
on the brink of a possible war?
"Orders were issued to Iraq's security
organizations to hide all correspondence with the Organisation
of Military Industrialization," said Powell. He said that
Hussein's son had ordered the removal of illicit weapons from
the Iraqi president's palaces. He talked about material, which
has been concealed in scientists home, as well as items in cars,
which drive perpetually around the countryside.
Amer Al-Saadi, countered by saying that
Hans Blix had jumped the gun talking about the document found
in the scientist's home. He said that the document was not classified,
as Blix had first supposed, and that a copy of this research
document had been given to a representative of the IAEA Gary
Dillon after a conference on laser technology on September 26,
1984. In any case, the academic paper was authored by the scientist
in whose house it was found, he said.
Satellite photographs
Powell said that he found satellite imagery
hard to interpret. Don't we all? A photograph of a munitions
facility in Al-Taji, taken before the latest inspections, showed
decontamination vehicles driving around what he Secretary said
were four active chemical munitions bunkers.
Just before inspections began, Powell
said, the vehicles were nowhere to be seen, and the bunkers had
been cleaned out. We are left to wonder why the satellite didn't
later capture the current locations of these vans, and how every
trace of chemicals could have been so completely eliminated from
those bunkers.
The inspectors have such sophisticated
state-of-the-art testing equipment that for Iraq to have removed
every single trace of illicit materials, we must surely regard
its technical expertise with awe.
America and Britain have shown us numerous
satellite photographs before in relation to Iraq. On many of
these occasions, Iraq immediately took reporters to the sites
photographed, and each and every time they found nothing, except
such innocuous items as baby milk and sugar.
The misinterpretation of satellite imagery
triggered the US bombing of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility
in the Sudan, depriving the population from essential medicines.
Shortly after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
in 1990, Colin Powell produced satellite photographs, which he
said proved that Iraqi troops and tanks were amassing on the
border with Saudi. The Russians double checked this claim and
pronounced it spurious. Once the war was over, Powell admitted
his 'mistake'.
U2 spy planes
Powell accused Baghdad with refusing
to allow the inspectors' request for American U2 spy planes to
patrol the Iraqi skies. Baghdad is under threat of war. Which
country in its right mind would agree to its enemies' planes
circling overhead at a time like this?
However, Al Sa'adi said that the Iraqi
government did not object to the U2 flights, in principle, but
couldn't be held responsible for their safety as long as British
and American planes were dropping bombs over the so-called Iraqi
no-fly zones. He said that he wanted the flyovers to cease prior
to any U2 flights because he was concerned that the US could
shoot down one of their own airplanes and blame it on Iraq as
a pretext for war. He said that there was already a precedent
for this kind of behavior on the part of the US, citing an incident
involving the sinking of a ship during the war in Vietnam.
Al Qaeda connection
As the editor of the Arabic daily Al
Quds, Abdel Bari Atwan says, 'the link with Al Qaeda is very
weak. The Secretary said these links (between Al Qaeda and Iraq)
started in 95, so why didn't Saddam pass his nerve gases to Al
Qaeda then? If Al Qaeda had been handed these devastating weapons
from Saddam Hussein they would have used these on September 11
and not aircraft."
Bari Atwan said that Osama bin Laden
once offered his services to the Saudi government to eliminate
Saddam Hussein and was very angry at being turned down. Given
their widely differing ideologies - Saddam Hussein a secular
leader and Osama bin Laden an extremist Wahhabi, who has called
Hussein 'an apostate' it is hardly unlikely that they would now
be working together.
As for Abu Musab Zarqawi, an alleged
Al Qaeda affiliate, he is based in Powell's own words in North
Western Iraq. This is Kurdish territory protected by the United
States and crawling with US special services and CIA personnel.
Why doesn't America go after him instead of blaming Saddam Hussein?
It didn't shirk from assassinating 'terrorists' in Yemen recently
by bombing their vehicle.
He said that Zarqawi spent some time
in a Baghdad hospital and was soon followed by Al Qaeda militants
who are allowed to come and go as they please. Couldn't we say
the same thing about London, Paris, Milan, and yes, even Washington?
Powell's linkage of the Iraqi regime
with Al Qaeda was blatantly disingenuous, designed to sway public
opinion in favor of military action.
Iraq's UN ambassador said that just a
few days ago the CIA reported that there are no verifiable significant
links between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda. The British
intelligence community concurs.
Another psychological ploy used by Powell
was his focus on Iraq's anthrax. He stressed that one teaspoon
of dry anthrax could cause havoc as it did in Washington when
the Senate had been closed down for weeks. He didn't say in so
many words that the anthrax attacks in the U.S. had anything
to do with Iraq, but the implication was there, again, for the
benefit of a public weaned on sound bites.
Al Sa'adi said that Iraq's weapons teams
had never perfected the science of drying anthrax and they had
only ever had liquid quantities, which could not be weaponized.
He said that Iraq had destroyed its VX gas but could not prove
this. He added that in any case, even if they still had it would
have expired by now and no longer be lethal.
The Secretary cast suspicion upon a consignment
of aluminum tubes imported into Iraq. These are the same tubes
that IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei had investigated at length and
which he declared, during his earlier presentation to the Assembly,
as having been used to manufacture short-range ballistic missiles,
not fissionable material.
The once dove turned hawk, didn't shrink
from vilifying Saddam Hussein on a personal level citing 'his
contempt for the truth' and 'his utter contempt for human life'.
He knew that the unsubstantiated claim that Hussein's weapons
scientists had experimented on death row prisoners would evoke
horror and serve to further demonize the Iraqi leader.
We heard again the old refrain of how
Hussein used mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds. Powell
neglected to mention that the Kurds were at that time attempting
to overthrow the Baghdad regime.
The Iraqi ambassador to the UN claimed
that the CIA had verified years ago that Iraq didn't have that
a chemicals with the same chemical fingerprints as those used
against the Kurds in Halabja.
The Secretary talked about how chemical
weapons had been used on another nation (Iran), but failed to
say, that at that time Hussein had been the blue-eyed boy of
Washington. America supplied Iraq not only with weapons but also
with technical know-how during the Iran/Iraq War.
Al Sa'adi was dismissive of Powell's
claim that Iraq had pronounced many Iraqi scientists as 'deceased'
while they were still walking around. He challenged Powell to
produce these individuals if, as he says, they were still alive,
and called the American contention 'ridiculous' in these days
of DNA testing.
As for Iraq's refusal to allow scientists
to be interviewed by the inspectors without a minder, Al Sa'adi
reiterated that it has always been up to the scientists to agree
to be interviewed privately. On Thursday, during a press conference,
Al Sa'adi announced that various scientists have now shown their
willingness to submit to private interviews and an interview
was ongoing as the conference progressed.
So which side do we believe? Both sides
have a vested interest and so we should leave the final analysis
in the hands of Blix and ElBaradei. After all, they are the UN
appointed experts. There are two questions that bother me in
the meantime. Why did the US come up with this so-called 'evidence'
at the eleventh hour? And why is the Bush administration in such
an indecent hurry to hurl the entire Gulf region into turmoil?
The patience of the self-style 'Patient
Man' George W Bush appears to be running out but not because
the inspections aren't succeeding. The American President wants
to launch a preemptive attack before the mercury rises; the home
grown, grass-roots anti-war movement gets out of control, and
before the greenback and the markets sink to even greater lows.
What Powell failed to mention was the
horrendous human tragedy that would be suffered by the Iraqi
people if he gets his wish. Aid agencies envisage over half-a-million
displaced persons, as well as food shortages and high civilian
death tolls.
"When we confront a regime that
harbours ambitions for regional domination... unless we act we
are confronting an even more frightening future," warned
Powell. Detractors of American hegemony in the region and beyond
may well be thinking the very same thing about his own.
Linda Heard
is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be reached
at: freenewsreport@yahoo.com
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