-Caveat Lector-
That is what POC has been saying all along. Judas Blix played his part.
How could he have done more to foster uncertainty and bring it on?
Z
<http://www.geocities.com/partyofcitizens>
Citizens for the "inherent dignity and worth of the human person"
Quoted words from UDHR/CAT
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004, Bill Shannon wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Scott Ritter: If you had seen what I have seen
> The inspection process was rigged to create uncertainty over WMD to bolster
> the US and UK's case for war
> 10 October 2004
> It appears that the last vestiges of perceived legitimacy regarding the
> decision of President George Bush and Tony Blair to invade Iraq have been
> eliminated with the release this week of the Iraq Survey Group's final
> report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The report's author, Charles
> Duelfer, underscored the finality of what the world had come to accept in
> the 18 months since the invasion of Iraq - that there were no stockpiles of
> WMD, or programmes to produce WMD. Despite public statements made before the
> war by Bush, Blair and officials and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic
> to the contrary, the ISG report concludes that all of Iraq's WMD stockpiles
> had been destroyed in 1991, and WMD programmes and facilities dismantled by
> 1996.
> Duelfer's report does speak of Saddam Hussein's "intent" to acquire WMD once
> economic sanctions were lifted and UN inspections ended (although this
> conclusion is acknowledged to be derived from fragmentary and speculative
> sources). This judgement has been seized by Bush and Blair as they scramble
> to re-justify their respective decisions to wage war. "The Duelfer report
> showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the UN
> oil-for-food programme to try to influence countries and companies in an
> effort to undermine sanctions," Bush said. "He was doing so with the intent
> of restarting his weapons programme once the world looked away." Blair, for
> his part, has apologised for relying on faulty intelligence, but not for his
> decision to go to war. The mantra from both camps remains that the world is
> a safer place with Saddam behind bars.
> But is it? When one examines the reality of the situation on the ground in
> Iraq today, it seems hard to draw any conclusion that postulates a scenario
> built around the notion of an improved environment of stability and security
> Indeed, many Iraqis hold that life under Saddam was a better option than
> the life they are facing under an increasingly violent and destabilising
> US-led occupation. The ultimate condemnation of the failure and futility of
> the US-UK effort in Iraq is that if Saddam were released from his prison
> cell and participated in the elections scheduled for next January, there is
> a good chance he would emerge as the popular choice. But while democratic
> freedom of expression was a desired outcome of the decision to remove Saddam
> from power, the crux of the pre-war arguments and the ones being
> reconfigured by those in favour of the invasion centre on the need to
> improve international peace and security. Has Saddam's removal accomplished
> this?
> To answer this question, you have to postulate a world today that includes
> an Iraq led by Saddam. How this world would deal with him would be
> determined by decisions made by the US, Britain and the international
> community in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. One
> of the key historical questions being asked is what if Hans Blix (who gives
> his own view, right) had been given the three additional months he had
> requested in order to complete his programme of inspection? Two issues arise
> from this scenario: would Blix have been able to assemble enough data to
> ascertain conclusively, in as definitive a fashion as the Duelfer ISG report
> a finding that Saddam's Iraq was free of WMD, and thus posed no immediate
> threat; and would the main supporters of military engagement with Iraq, the
> US and Britain, have been willing to accept such a finding?
> The answer to the first point is that Blix and his team of inspectors were
> saddled with a complicated list of "cluster issues", ironically assembled by
> Duelfer during his tenure as head of the UN weapons inspectors, that would
> have needed to be rectified for any finding of compliance to be made. These
> clusters" postulated the need for Iraq to prove the negative, something that
> is virtually impossible to do. We now know that Iraq's WMD were destroyed in
> 1991. The problem wasn't the weapons, but verification of Iraq's
> declarations. The standards of verification set by Duelfer-Blix were
> impossible for Iraq to meet, thus making closure on the "cluster" issues
> also an unattainable goal. This situation answers the second point as well.
> Since the inspection process was pre-programmed to fail, there would be no
> way the US or the UK would accept any finding of compliance from the UN
> weapons inspectors. The inspection process was rigged to create uncertainty
> regarding Iraq's WMD, which was used by the US and the UK to bolster their
> case for war.
> It appears that there was no way short of war to create an environment where
> a finding of Iraq's compliance with its obligation to disarm could be
> embraced by the US and British governments. The main reason for this was
> that the issue wasn't WMD per se, but Saddam. The true goal wasn't
> disarmament, but regime change. This, of course, clashed with the principles
> of international law set forth in the Security Council resolutions, voted on
> by the US and UK, and to which Saddam was ostensibly held to account.
> Economic sanctions, put in place by the UN in 1990 after Saddam's invasion
> of Iraq and continued in 1991, linked to Saddam's obligation to disarm, were
> designed to compel Iraq to comply with the Security Council's requirements.
> Saddam did disarm, but since two members of that Security Council - the US
> and the UK - were implementing unilateral policies of regime change as
> opposed to disarmament, this compliance could never be recognised. Sadly,
> when one speaks of threats to international peace and security, history will
> show that it was the US and Britain that consistently operated outside the
> spirit and letter of international law in their approach towards dealing
> with Saddam.
> This blatant disregard for international law on the part of the world's two
> greatest democracies serves as the foundation of any analysis of the
> question: would the world be better off with or without Saddam in power? To
> buy into the notion that the world is better off without Saddam, one would
> have to conclude that the framework of international law that held the world
> together since the end of the Second World War - the UN Charter - is
> antiquated and no longer viable in a post-9/11 world. Tragically, we can see
> the fallacy of that argument unfold on a daily basis, as the horrific
> ramifications of American and British unilateralism unfold across the globe.
> If there ever was a case to be made for a unified standard of law governing
> the interaction of nations, it is in how we as a global community prosecute
> the war on terror. Those who embrace unilateral pre-emptive strikes in the
> name of democracy and freedom have produced results that pervert the concept
> of democracy while bringing about the horrific tyranny of fear and
> oppression at the hands of those who posture as liberators.
> If Saddam were in power today, it would only have been because the US and
> Britain had altered course and joined the global community in recognising
> the pre-eminence of international law, and the necessity of all nations to
> operate in accordance with that law. The irony is that had the US and
> Britain taken this path, and an unrepentant Saddam chosen to defy the
> international community by acting on the intent he is alleged to have
> harboured, then he would have been removed from power by a true
> international coalition united in its legitimate defence of international
> law. But this is not the case. Saddam is gone, and the world is far worse
> for it - not because his regime posed no threat, perceived or otherwise, but
> because the threat to international peace and security resulting from the
> decisions made by Bush and Blair to invade Iraq in violation of
> international law make any threat emanating from an Iraq ruled by Saddam
> pale in comparison.
> Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq (1991-1998) and the author of
> 'Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwha
> www.ctrl.org
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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