IRAQ NEWS
July 25, 2002
News Alert: This may be one of our Best Chances to Stop an Invasion of Iraq!
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is planning to hold hearings on President Bush's war plans for Iraq. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday July 31 and Thursday August 1st, just before Senate takes summer recess. These hearings will be the first public congressional debate on President Bush's war plans for Iraq. Unfortunately, the hearings could be used to further war plans by only calling pro-invasion witnesses or by those present asking only superficial questions. In order to ensure fair and balanced hearings, Congress needs to hear from you.
We urge you to write to your representatives and to you local papers. (We suggest you write your representatives at their local offices.) As we approach the twelve-year anniversary of the first time a UN member state invaded another UN member state (i.e. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), we must ensure the U.S. does not repeat history. Ensuring fair and balanced hearings and a genuine debate in the Senate is a good place to start. Feel free to use the following talking points in your letters.
Talking Points
Iraq and the Weapons of Mass Destruction:
- While it is clear that Iraq attempted to subvert and circumvent weapons inspections, Iraq also complied with hundreds of extensive weapons inspections. According to former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) chief inspector Scott Ritter, "[F]rom a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed... The chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless." [Boston Globe op-ed (3/9/00)]
- The US is not really interested in weapons inspections. People forget that the Iraqi accusations that UNSCOM was spying on the Iraqi government turned out to be true. The U.S. infiltrated and subverted the mission of the international inspectors, and then used the Iraqi government’s protests against that subversion as an excuse to bomb the country. The U.S. itself destroyed weapons inspections in Iraq, and used the expected dramatic standoffs as a reason to unleash the deadly ‘Desert Fox’ bombing.
- Contrary to popular belief, Iraq never kicked out the weapons inspectors. Richard Butler, the head of UNSCOM, pulled the inspectors out of Iraq in anticipation of the 1998 U.S. Desert Fox bombing campaign. It was only as a result of these bombings that the Iraqi government subsequently refused to allow inspectors to return to the country.
- UN Security Council Resolution 687 calls for regional disarmament throughout the Middle East, not just in Iraq. We can call on our government to stop ignoring the fact that Iraq’s disarmament was intended to be part of a broader dismantling of arms in the whole Middle East region. The US can begin good-faith negotiations with the Iraqi government to return weapons inspectors to Iraq in the context of this regional call for disarmament.
- The US supplied Iraq with most of its weapons during the 1980’s. Just one day before Iraq invaded Kuwait, then-President George Bush approved and signed a shipment of advanced data transmission equipment to Iraq. The United States and Britain were the major suppliers of chemical and biological weapons to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, in which the United States supported both sides with weapons sales.
- There is no credible evidence whatsoever that Iraq had any connection to the September 11 attacks on the US. If one holds al-Qaeda responsible for the September 11 attacks, then there is no justification to turn next toward Iraq.
- Civilians will be the ones to continue to suffer under an attack on Iraq, not Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, the war against the Iraqi people did not end with the cessation of military attacks in 1991, but continues to this day with a suffocating blockade that has already claimed over one million civilian lives, the vast majority of whom are children and the elderly. More than 500,000 toddlers and infants have died due to the consequences of the sanctions. Including the 50,000 adult deaths caused by sanctions every year, Iraq now has a mortality rate of over 200 people every day [UNICEF August 1999; UNICEF, April 1998.]
- A military operation to topple the Iraqi regime will surely plunge Iraq into a civil war. In the absence of any meaningful political alternative for Saddam Hussein (as well as the lack of any powerful or popular opposition group), the most likely scenario will be an endless cycle of violence and bloodshed among different religious and ethnic groups (Shiites in the South, Sunnis in the middle and Kurds in the northern part of the country).
- The war against Iraq will have an immediately destructive impact on the whole region and can potentially lead to a military standoff between Iraq’s neighbors. While the fundamentalist Iran will do anything to bring the Iraqi Shiites into power, the nightmare of having another Islamic Republic in the region will cause Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan to counter Tehran’s attempt. Also Turkey might want to take advantage of the vacuum of power and annex the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, a move which will put the NATO member at verge of war with neighboring Iran (which has a sizable Kurdish population) as well as Arab countries (who can not tolerate the partition of an Arab nation).
- In a time of unprecedented financial crisis, the Bush administration is spending billions of dollars in bribes to Iraq’s neighbors to use their territory for yet another devastating war in the Middle East. According to recent reports, Turkey "probably would allow" the U.S. to launch a war on Iraq from Turkish bases. However, Turkey wants Washington to forgive $5.5 billion in military debt and speed up the delivery of more than $228 million in fresh cash. Turkey may also demand billions more to pay for lost business with Iraq.
- Targeting another Muslim country will portray the US as an interventionist and expansionist country and cause a new wave of anti-American and anti-Western sentiments among Arabs and Muslims. This will in turn help the Muslim extremists receive more sympathy and support from the average person in the Middle East and eventually make future attacks against United States interests and its regional allies quite likely.
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