Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, letter to UN
September 20, 2002
Secretary General Kofi Annan
United Nations New York, NY
Dear Secretary General Annan,
George Bush will invade Iraq unless restrained by the United Nations. Other
international organizations-- including the European Union, the African
Union, the OAS, the Arab League, stalwart nations courageous enough to speak
out against superpower aggression, international peace movements, political
leadership, and public opinion within the United States -- must do their
part for peace. If the United Nations, above all, fails to oppose a U.S.
invasion of Iraq, it will forfeit its honor, integrity and raison d'etre.
A military attack on Iraq is obviously criminal; completely inconsistent
with urgent needs of the Peoples of the United Nations; unjustifiable on any
legal or moral ground; irrational in light of the known facts; out of
proportion to other existing threats of war and violence; and a dangerous
adventure risking continuing conflict throughout the region and far beyond
for years to come. The most careful analysis must be made as to why the
world is subjected to such threats of violence by its only superpower, which
could so safely and importantly lead us on the road to peace, and how the UN
can avoid the human tragedy of yet another major assault on Iraq and the
powerful stimulus for retaliatory terrorism it would create.
1. President George Bush Came to Office Determined to Attack Iraq and
Change its Government.
George Bush is moving apace to make his war unstoppable and soon. Having
stated last Friday that he did not believe Iraq would accept UN inspectors,
he responded to Iraq's prompt, unconditional acceptance by calling any
reliance on it a "false hope" and promising to attack Iraq alone if the UN
does not act. He is obsessed with the desire to wage war against Iraq and
install his surrogates to govern Iraq by force. Days after the most
bellicose address ever made before the United Nations -- an unprecedented
assault on the Charter of the United Nations, the rule of law and the quest
for peace -- the U.S. announced it was changing its stated targets in Iraq
over the past eleven years, from retaliation for threats and attacks on U.S.
aircraft which were illegally invading Iraq's airspace on a daily basis. How
serious could those threats and attacks have been if no U.S. aircraft was
ever hit?
Yet hundreds of people were killed in Iraq by U.S. rockets and bombs, and
not just in the so called "no fly zone," but in Baghdad itself. Now the
U.S. proclaims its intentions to destroy major military facilities in Iraq
in preparation for its invasion, a clear promise of aggression now. Every
day there are threats and more propaganda is unleashed to overcome
resistance to George Bush's rush to war. The acceleration will continue
until the tanks roll, unless nonviolent persuasion prevails.
2. George Bush Is Leading the United States and Taking the UN and All
Nations
Toward a Lawless World of Endless Wars.
George Bush in his "War on Terrorism" has asserted his right to attack any
country, organization, or people first, without warning in his sole
discretion. He and members of his administration have proclaimed the old
restraints that law sought to impose on aggression by governments and
repression of their people, no longer consistent with national security.
Terrorism is such a danger, they say, that necessity compels the U.S. to
strike first to destroy the potential for terrorist acts from abroad and to
make arbitrary arrests, detentions, interrogations, controls and treatment
of people abroad and within the U.S. Law has become the enemy of public
safety. "Necessity is the argument of tyrants." "Necessity never makes a
good bargain."
Heinrich Himmler, who instructed the Nazi Gestapo "Shoot first, ask
questions later, and I will protect you," is vindicated by George Bush. Like
the Germany described by Jorge Luis Borges in Deutsches Requiem, George Bush
has now "proffered (the world) violence and faith in the sword," as Nazi
Germany did. And as Borges wrote, it did not matter to faith in the sword
that Germany was defeated. "What matters is that violence ... now rules."
Two generations of Germans have rejected that faith. Their perseverance in
the pursuit of peace will earn the respect of succeeding generations
everywhere.
The Peoples of the United Nations are threatened with the end of
international law and protection for human rights by George Bush's war on
terrorism and determination to invade Iraq.
Since George Bush proclaimed his "war on terrorism," other countries have
claimed the right to strike first. India and Pakistan brought the earth and
their own people closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since October
1962 as a direct consequence of claims by the U.S. of the unrestricted right
to pursue and kill terrorists, or attack nations protecting them, based on a
unilateral decision without consulting the United Nations, a trial, or
revealing any clear factual basis for claiming its targets are terrorists
and confined to them. There is already a near epidemic of nations
proclaiming the right to attack other nations or intensify violations of
human rights of their own people on the basis of George Bush's assertions of
power in the war against terrorism. Mary Robinson, in her quietly courageous
statements as her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ended, has
spoken of the "ripple effect" U.S. claims of right to strike first and
suspend fundamental human rights protection is having.
On September 11, 2002, Colombia, whose new administration is strongly
supported by the U.S., "claimed new authority to arrest suspects without
warrants and declare zones under military control," including "[N]ew powers,
which also make it easier to wiretap phones and limit foreigners' access to
conflict zones...allow security agents to enter your house or office without
a warrant at any time of day because they think you're suspicious." These
additional threats to human rights follow Post-September 11 "emergency"
plans to set up a network of a million informants in a nation of forty
million. See, New York Times, September 12, 2002, p. A7.
3. The United States, Not Iraq, Is the Greatest Single Threat to the
Independence and Purpose of the United Nations.
President Bush's claim that Iraq is a threat justifying war is false. Eighty
percent of Iraq's military capacity was destroyed in 1991 according to the
Pentagon. Ninety percent of materials and equipment required to manufacture
weapons of mass destruction was destroyed by UN inspectors during more than
eight years of inspections. Iraq was powerful, compared to most of its
neighbors, in 1990. Today it is weak. One infant out of four born live in
Iraq weighs less than 2 kilos, promising short lives, illness and impaired
development. In 1989, fewer than one in twenty infants born live weighed
less than two kilos. Any threat to peace Iraq might become is remote, far
less than that of many other nations and groups and cannot justify a violent
assault. An attack on Iraq will make attacks in retaliation against the U.S.
and governments which support its actions far more probable for years to
come.
George Bush proclaims Iraq a threat to the authority of the United Nations
while U.S.-coerced UN sanctions continue to cause the death rate of the
Iraqi people to increase. Deaths caused by sanctions have been at genocidal
levels for twelve years. Iraq can only plead helplessly for an end to this
crime against its people. The UN role in the sanctions against Iraq
compromise and stain the UN's integrity and honor. This makes it all the
more important for the UN now to resist this war.
Inspections were used as an excuse to continue sanctions for eight years
while thousands of Iraqi children and elderly died each month. Iraq is the
victim of criminal sanctions that should have been lifted in 1991. For every
person killed by terrorist acts in the U.S. on 9/11, five hundred people
have died in Iraq from sanctions.
It is the U.S. that threatens not merely the authority of the United
Nations, but its independence, integrity and hope for effectiveness. The
U.S. pays UN dues if, when and in the amount it chooses. It coerces votes of
members. It coerces choices of personnel on the Secretariat. It rejoined
UNESCO to gain temporary favor after 18 years of opposition to its very
purposes. It places spies in UN inspection teams.
The U.S. has renounced treaties controlling nuclear weapons and their
proliferation, voted against the protocol enabling enforcement of the
Biological Weapons Convention, rejected the treaty banning land mines,
endeavored to prevent its creation and since to cripple the
International Criminal Court, and frustrated the Convention on the Child and
the prohibition against using children in war. The U.S. has opposed
virtually every other international effort to control and limit war, protect
the environment, reduce poverty and protect health.
George Bush cites two invasions of other countries by Iraq during the last
22 years. He ignores the many scores of U.S. invasions and assaults on other
countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas during the last 220 years, and
the permanent seizure of lands from Native Americans and other nations --
lands like Florida, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Puerto Rico,
among others, seized by force and threat.
In the same last 22 years the U.S. has invaded, or assaulted Grenada,
Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and others directly, while supporting assaults and invasions
elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
It is healthy to remember that the U.S. invaded and occupied little Grenada
in 1983 after a year of threats, killing hundreds of civilians and
destroying its small mental hospital, where many patients died. In a
surprise attack on the sleeping and defenseless cities of Tripoli and
Benghazi in April 1986, the U.S. killed hundreds of civilians and damaged
four foreign embassies. It launched 21 Tomahawk cruise missiles against the
El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in August 1998, destroying the
source of half the medicines available to the people of Sudan. For years it
has armed forces in Uganda and southern Sudan fighting the government of
Sudan. The U.S. has bombed Iraq on hundreds of occasions since the Gulf War,
including this week, killing hundreds of people without a casualty or damage
to an attacking plane.
4. Why Has George Bush Decided The U.S. Must Attack Iraq Now?
There is no rational basis to believe Iraq is a threat to the United States,
or any other country. The reason to attack Iraq must be found elsewhere.
As governor of Texas, George Bush presided over scores of executions, more
than any governor in the United States since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976 (after a hiatus from 1967). He revealed the same zeal he
has shown for "regime change" for Iraq when he oversaw the executions of
minors, women, retarded persons and aliens whose rights under the Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations of notification of their arrest to a
foreign mission of their nationality were violated. The Supreme Court of the
U.S. held that executions of a mentally retarded person constitute cruel and
unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
George Bush addresses the United Nations with these same values and
willfulness.
His motives may include to save a failing Presidency which has converted a
healthy economy and treasury surplus into multi-trillion dollar losses; to
fulfill the dream, which will become a nightmare, of a new world order to
serve special interests in the U.S.; to settle a family grudge against Iraq;
to weaken the Arab nation, one people at a time; to strike a Muslim nation
to weaken Islam; to protect Israel, or make its position more dominant in
the region; to secure control of Iraq's oil to enrich U.S. interests,
further dominate oil in the region and control oil prices. Aggression
against Iraq for any of these purposes is criminal and a violation of a
great many international conventions and laws including the General Assembly
Resolution on the Definition of Aggression of December 14, 1974.
Prior regime changes by the U.S. brought to power among a long list of
tyrants, such leaders as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo, Pinochet in
Chile, all replacing democratically elected heads of government.
5. A Rational Policy Intended to Reduce the Threat of Weapons of Mass
Destruction in The Middle East Must Include Israel.
A UN or U.S. policy of selecting enemies of the U.S. for attack is criminal
and can only heighten hatred, division, terrorism and lead to war. The U.S.
gives Israel far more aid per capita than the total per capita income of sub
Sahara Africans from all sources. U.S.-coerced sanctions have reduced per
capita income for the people of Iraq by 75% since 1989. Per capita income in
Israel over the past decade has been approximately 12 times the per capita
income of Palestinians.
Israel increased its decades-long attacks on the Palestinian people, using
George Bush's proclamation of war on terrorism as an excuse, to
indiscriminately destroy cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza and
seize more land in violation of international law and repeated Security
Council and General Assembly resolutions.
Israel has a stockpile of hundreds of nuclear warheads derived from the
United States, sophisticated rockets capable of accurate delivery at
distances of several thousand kilometers, and contracts with the U.S. for
joint development of more sophisticated rocketry and other arms with the
U.S.
Possession of weapons of mass destruction by a single nation in a region
with a history of hostility promotes a race for proliferation and war. The
UN must act to reduce and eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, not
submit to demands to punish areas of evil and enemies of the superpower that
possesses the majority of all such weapons and capacity for their delivery.
Israel has violated and ignored more UN Resolutions for forty years than any
other nation. It has done so with impunity.
The violation of Security Council resolutions cannot be the basis for a
UN-approved assault on any nation, or people, in a time of peace, or the
absence of a threat of imminent attack, but comparable efforts to enforce
Security Council resolutions must be made against all nations who violate
them.
6. The Choice Is War Or Peace.
The UN and the U.S. must seek peace, not war. An attack on Iraq may open a
Pandora's box that will condemn the world to decades of spreading violence.
Peace is not only possible; it is essential, considering the heights to
which science and technology have raised the human art of planetary and
self-destruction.
If George Bush is permitted to attack Iraq with or without the approval of
the UN, he will become Public Enemy Number One -- and the UN itself worse
than useless, an accomplice in the wars it was created to end. The Peoples
of the World then will have to find some way to begin again if they hope to
end the scourge of war.
This is a defining moment for the United Nations. Will it stand strong,
independent and true to its Charter, international law and the reasons for
its being, or will it submit to the coercion of a superpower leading us
toward a lawless world and condone war against the cradle of civilization?
Do not let this happen.
Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark
