[Peace-discuss] [Fwd: FW: Labour Party - UK Counter - Dossier Released (fwd)]

[Alfred Kagan]

>
>
>Here it is:
>   The counter to Blair.
>If you don't get the http let me know.
>
>
>---------- Forwarded Message ----------
>Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 12:01 PM -0400
>From: sk5 at duke.edu
>To: literature at duke.edu
>Subject: FYI: Labour Party - UK Counter - Dossier Released
>
>Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 02:46:29 EDT
>From: Roland Shepard
>
>Labour Party Counter-Dossier released
>
>September 21, 2002
>
>The Labour Party members who oppose Tony Blair on the war have released
>their "counter-dossier," written by Alan Simpson, MP, Chair of Labour
>Against War and Dr. Glen Rangwala, lecturer in politics at Cambridge
>University.  We received a pre-release copy, which was changed to address
>the It was released this week and we have posted it at our website
>http://www.traprockpeace.org. Please copy and distribute widely.
>
>The counter-dossier is a definitive statement against going to war with
>Iraq.  It was written as a formal statement of the Labour Party "rebels" to
>rebut Tony Blair's arguments for joining the US in this war.  Tony Blair is
>going to release his dossier in support of going to war against Iraq at 8 am
>(London time) on Sept 24th.  He is giving MPs precious little time to
>consider it as debate starts that very day.  The counter-dossier provides
>the foundation for those in the Labour Party who oppose the war.
>
>This is a great document of historical significance. it contains bold truth
>that has not been widely reported in the US media, such as the fact that the
>US and UK blocked condemnation of Iraq's known chemical weapons attacks at
>the UN Security Council. No resolution was passed during the war that
>specifically criticised Iraq's use of chemical weapons, despite the wishes
>of the majority to condemn this use.
>
>This authoritative document needs to be widely distributed to members of
>Congress and to the US media.
>
>Sunny Miller, Executive Director
>Charlie Jenks, President of the Core Group
>Traprock Peace Center
>103A Keets Road
>Deerfield, MA 01342
>413 773-7427
>http://www.traprockpeace.org
>  www.traprockpeace.org
>
>Together We Explore Nonviolence, Foster Community, Work to end war,
>Promote Communication &Â Take Initiatives on Environmental and Justice
>issues (Reprinted with Kind Permission of Dr. Glen Rangwala)
>
>The dishonest case for war on Iraq
>
>by Alan Simpson, MP - Chair of Labour Against the War
>and Dr Glen Rangwala - Lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, UK.
>Â
>There is no case for a war on Iraq. It has not threatened to attack the US
>or Europe. It is not connected to al-Qa'ida. There is no evidence that it
>has new weapons of mass destruction, or that it possesses the means of
>delivering them.
>Â
>This pamphlet separates the evidence for what we know about Iraq from the
>wild suppositions used as the pretext for a war.
>Â
>1. THREAT
>
>For there to be a threat to the wider world from Iraq's weapons of mass
>destruction, there need to be two distinct components: the capability (the
>presence of weapons of mass destruction or their precursor elements,
>together with a delivery system) and the intention to use weapons of mass
>destruction. Â
>Most of the discussion on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction from British
>and American governmental sources has focused on Iraq's capabilities.
>However, a more fundamental question is why the Iraqi regime would ever use
>weapons of mass destruction. There are three aspects to this:
>Â
>a.       External military use.
>Â
>The US administration has repeatedly stated that Iraq is a "clear and
>present danger" to the safety and security of ordinary Americans. Yet the
>Iraqi leadership have never used weapons of mass destruction against the US
>or Europe, nor threatened to. Plans or proposals for the use of weapons of
>mass destruction by Iraq against these countries have never been
>discovered, and in their absence can only be presumed to be non-existent.
>Â
>Iraq would face with massive reprisals if its leadership ever ordered the
>use of weapons of mass destruction on the US or Europe. It is difficult to
>imagine circumstances in which the Iraqi regime would use these weapons
>directly against any western country. The only conceivable exception would
>be if the Iraqi leaders felt they had nothing left to lose: that is, if they
>were convinced of their own imminent demise as a result of an invasion.
>Weapons of mass destruction were not used by Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War,
>despite having both a much more developed capacity than it holds at present
>(see below) and the routing of its army. The best way to avoid prompting
>Iraqi leaders to use any non-conventional capacity would be to refrain from
>invading Iraq or attempting to assassinate or depose its rulers. Â
>The only occasion on which the Iraqi government used weapons of mass
>destruction against another country was against Iran from 1981/82 to 1988.
>The use of mustard agents had a devastating impact on Iranian troops in the
>first years of the war, and the civilian death toll from the use of sarin
>and tabun numbers in the thousands. However, it should be noted that the
>use of chemical weapons was undertaken with the compliance of the rest of
>the world. The US Secretary of State acknowledged that he was aware of
>reports of Iraqi use of chemical weapons from 1983, and a United Nations
>team confirmed Iraqi use in a report of 16 March 1984. Nevertheless, the US
>administration provided "crop-spraying" helicopters to Iraq (subsequently
>used in chemical attacks on the Kurds in 1988), gave Iraq access to
>intelligence information that allowed Iraq to "calibrate" its mustard
>attacks on Iranian troops (1984), seconded its air force officers to work
>with their Iraqi counterparts (from 1986), approved technological exports
>to Iraq's missile procurement agency to extend the missiles' range (1988),
>and blocked bills condemning Iraq in the House of Representatives (1985)
>and Senate (1988).
>Â
>Most crucially, the US and UK blocked condemnation of Iraq's known chemical
>weapons attacks at the UN Security Council. No resolution was passed during
>the war that specifically criticised Iraq's use of chemical weapons, despite
>the wishes of the majority to condemn this use. The only criticism of Iraq
>from the Security Council came in the form of non-binding Presidential
>statements (over which no country has a veto). The 21 March 1986 statement
>recognised that "chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi
>forces against Iranian forces"; this statement was opposed by the United
>States, the sole country to vote against it in the Security Council (the UK
>abstained).
>Â
>In summary, Iraq has never used chemical weapons against an external enemy
>without the acquiescence of the most powerful states. It has done so only in
>the knowledge that it would be protected from condemnation and
>countermeasures by a superpower. There is no reason to suspect that the
>Iraqi leadership now places any military gains it might achieve through the
>use of chemical weapons above its desire to form international alliances
>with major powers.
>Â
>Further reading: "U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq,
>1980 - 2 August 1990", www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html
>Â
>(b) Arming terrorists
>Â
>One prospect raised by President Bush in his State of the Union address of
>29 January was that hostile countries such as Iraq could supply non-state
>organisations with weapons of mass destruction, to use against the US: Â
>"By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and
>growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the
>means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to
>blackmail the United States."
>Â
>The State Department's annual report on terrorism, released on 30 April
>2001, stated that the Iraqi regime "has not attempted an anti-Western
>terrorist attack" since 1993. The small paramilitary groups that Iraq
>supports, such as the Arab Liberation Front (in Palestine) and the
>Mujahidin e-Khalq (for Iran), have no access to Iraq's more advanced
>weaponry, let along weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, these groups
>have never carried out attacks on the US or Europe, and have little if any
>supporting infrastructure in those countries. The Iraqi regime has no
>credible links to al-Qa'ida, either in the perpetration of the 11 September
>attack, or in the presence in eastern Iraqi Kurdistan (controlled by the
>US-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, not the Iraqi government, since
>1991) of Ansar al-Islam. This group is an off-shoot of the US-backed
>Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan which has taken funds and arms from
>Iran and (reportedly) from al-Qa'ida.
>Â
>The Iraqi regime has not been shown to have any intention of attacking the
>Western world, and it knows that it would be subject to massive reprisals if
>it did so. In summary, Iraq has shown no indication that it would be willing
>to use terrorists to threaten the outside world with weapons of mass
>destruction.
>Â
>Further reading: "Did Mohamed Atta Meet an Iraqi Spy in Prague?", at
>slate.msn.com/?id=2070410
>Â
>(c) Internal repression by the Iraqi military
>Â
>As part of the Anfal campaign against the Kurds (February to September
>1988), the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons extensively against its own
>civilian population. Between 50,000 and 186,000 Kurds were killed in these
>attacks, over 1,200 Kurdish villages were destroyed, and 300,000 Kurds were
>displaced. The most infamous chemical assault was on the town of Halabja in
>March 1988, which killed 5,000 people. Human Rights Watch regards the Anfal
>campaign as an act of genocide.
>Â
>The Anfal campaign was carried out with the acquiescence of the West.
>Â
>Rather than condemn the massacres of Kurds, the US escalated its support for
>Iraq. It joined in Iraq's attacks on Iranian facilities, blowing up two
>Iranian oil rigs and destroying an Iranian frigate a month after the Halabja
>attack. Within two months, senior US officials were encouraging corporate
>coordination through an Iraqi state-sponsored forum. The US administration
>opposed, and eventually blocked, a US Senate bill that cut off loans to
>Iraq. The US approved exports to Iraq of items with dual civilian and
>military use at double the rate in the aftermath of Halabja as it did
>before 1988. Iraqi written guarantees about civilian use were accepted by
>the US commerce department, which did not request licenses and reviews (as
>it did for many other countries). The Bush Administration approved $695,000
>worth of advanced data transmission devices the day before Iraq invaded
>Kuwait.
>Â
>As for the UK, ten days after the Foreign Office verbally condemned the
>Halabja massacre, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry rewarded
>Iraq by extending £400 million worth of credits to trade with Iraq.
>Â
>The Iraqi regime has never used chemical weapons in the face of formal
>international opposition. The most effective way of preventing any future
>use against Iraqi civilians is to put this at the top of the human rights
>agenda between Iraq and the UN. The Iraqi regime's intentions to use
>chemical weapons against the Kurds will not be terminated by provoking a
>further conflict between the Iraqi state and its Kurdish population in
>which the Kurds are recruited as proxy forces. The original repression of
>the Kurds escalated into genocide in response to Iran's procurement of the
>support of the two main Kurdish parties for its military efforts from 1986.
>This is essentially the same role that the US sees for the Kurds in its
>current war preparations.
>Â
>Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction are a false focus if the concern
>is with regional security. Chemical weapons were not used for Iraqâ??s
>invasion of Kuwait. A peaceful Gulf region can be achieved only through
>building political links between Iraq and its neighbours. This is why the
>Arab states of the Middle East have started to reintegrate Iraq into
>regional networks and purposeful dialogue. Their interests are ill-served
>by attempts to turn the countries of the Gulf against each other once again.
>Â
>Further reading: Dilip Hiro, "When US turned a blind eye to poison gas", at:
>www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,784125,00.html
>Â
>2. NUCLEAR
>Â
>In 1998, when the US ordered UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq, it was
>widely accepted the Iraq's nuclear capacity had been wholly dismantled. The
>International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), charged with monitoring Iraq's
>nuclear facilities after the Gulf War, reported to the Security Council from
>8 October 1997 that Iraq had compiled a "full, final and complete" account
>of its previous nuclear projects, and there was no indication of any
>prohibited activity. The IAEA's fact sheet from 25 April 2002, entitled
>"Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Programme", recorded that "There were no
>indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the
>production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical
>significance."
>Â
>In recent months, however, the UK government has put primary emphasis on
>Iraq's alleged nuclear programme. UK ministers have made three major claims:
>Â
>a.       That Iraq was within three years of developing a nuclear
>bomb in 1991.
>Â
>This could be true. Uranium was imported from Portugal, France, Italy and
>other countries; uranium enrichment facilities operated at Tuwaitha,
>Tarmiya, and Rashidiya, and centrifuge enrichment facilities were being
>built at al-Furat, largely with German assistance. Theoretical studies were
>underway into the design of reactors to produce plutonium, and laboratory
>trials were carried out at Tuwaitha. The main centre for the development of
>nuclear weapons was al-Atheer, where experiments with high explosives were
>carried out. However, IAEA experts maintain that Iraq has never had the
>capacity to enrich uranium sufficiently for a bomb and was extremely
>dependent on imports to create centrifuge facilities (report of the Center
>for Strategic and International Studies, 28 June 2002). If this is so, Iraq
>may have only been close to developing a bomb if US and European assistance
>had continued to the same extent as before.
>Â
>In the Gulf War, all Iraq's facilities capable of producing material for a
>nuclear programme and for enriching uranium were destroyed. The IAEA
>inspected and completed the destruction of these facilities, with the
>compliance of the Iraqi government. From 1991, the IAEA removed all known
>weapon usable materials from Iraq, including 22.4kg of highly enriched
>uranium. The IAEA left 1.8 tonnes of low-grade uranium in heavyweight sealed
>barrels at the Tuwaitha facilities. This uranium has remained untouched by
>the Iraqis, and is inspected annually by experts from the IAEA, who have
>confirmed that the seals had never been tampered with. The remaining
>facilities at Tuwaitha and buildings at al-Atheer were destroyed by the IAEA
>by 1992.
>Â
>b.      That Iraq could make a nuclear device "within three years"
>without foreign assistance.
>Â
>This claim, repeated by a UK Foreign Office minister, derives from a
>statement from the head of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in
>February 2001 that Iraq could enrich its own uranium and construct its own
>nuclear device in three to six years. This claim was backed up by a
>statement from the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control that Iraq's
>only uranium extraction facility at al-Qaim has been rebuilt (it had been
>destroyed in 1991). If Iraq was again extracting uranium, then it could
>reasonably be presumed that it was intending to enrich and weaponise it.
>The allegation about Iraq's extraction of uranium, however, seems to be
>wrong.
>Â
>Since the emergence of these claims, a number of journalists have visited
>al-Qaim and have found it in a state of disrepair. Paul McGeough, the
>much-respected Middle East correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, wrote
>on 4 September 2002 that the site appeared to be a "near-vacant lot ... as
>the result of a clean-up supervised by the [IAEA]". Reuters reporters have
>confirmed the same impression. If Iraq was hiding its nuclear extraction
>facilities every time a journalist visits, this would beg the question of
>when any extraction could actually take place.
>Â
>If Iraq has no operating facilities to extract uranium, and if it continues
>to refrain from accessing the low-grade uranium sealed at Tuwaitha, then
>there is no way it could produce a nuclear device without foreign
>assistance. Â
>Furthermore, enriching uranium requires substantial infrastructure and a
>power supply that could be easily spotted by US satellites. No such
>information has been provided. Over the past year, US and UK sources have
>made much of the fact that Iraq has attempted to import specialized steel
>and aluminium tubes that could be used in gas centrifuges that enrich
>uranium. According to the Washington Post (10 September 2002), such tubes
>are also used in making conventional artillery rockets, which Iraq is not
>prohibited from developing or possessing under UN resolutions. As David
>Albright, former IAEA inspector in Iraq and director of the Institute for
>Science and International Security, told the Washington Post, "This is
>actually a weak indicator for suggesting centrifuges -- it just doesn't
>build a case. I don't yet see evidence that says Iraq is close."
>Â
>c.       That Iraq could have a nuclear bomb "within months" if
>fissile material is acquired from abroad. Â Even the US Department of
>Defense recognises that claims about Iraq's imminent production of a
>nuclear bomb are not credible: "Iraq would need five or more years and key
>foreign assistance to rebuild the infrastructure to enrich enough material
>for a nuclear weapon" (January 2001 intelligence estimate). However, the
>International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) managed to hit the
>headlines in September 2002 by claiming that Iraq "could assemble nuclear
>weapons within months if fissile material from foreign sources were
>obtained." This claim is no more than a tautology.
>Â
>If Iraq could import the core material for a bomb, then it would have a
>bomb. Obtaining the fissile material is the most difficult part of
>constructing any nuclear device, and there are no signs that Iraq has
>attempted to obtain any such material from abroad. According to the Nuclear
>Control Institute (nci.org/heu.htm), "With bomb-grade, high-enriched
>uranium (HEU), a student could make a bomb powerful enough to destroy a
>city". Unless we are to stop any students of physics from entering Iraq,
>the best control on the circulation of fissile material would be to invest
>resources into safeguarding Russia's nuclear material. We would then need
>to complete a fissile-material cut-off treaty as agreed by the UN General
>Assembly in 1993. Â
>On 7 September 2002, Tony Blair and George Bush proclaimed that commercial
>satellite photographs showing new buildings near a facility that had been
>part of Iraq's nuclear programme before 1991 were "proof" of Iraqi
>intentions. By contrast, a spokesperson from the IAEA - which had provided
>the pictures months earlier - said: "We have no idea whether it means
>anything. Construction of a building is one thing. Restarting a nuclear
>program is another."
>Â
>Further reading:
>Â
>IAEA's fact sheet from 25 April 2002, entitled "Iraq's Nuclear Weapons
>Programme" www.iaea.org/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/nwp2.html
>Â
>Garry Dillon (IAEA Action Team in Iraq: Director of Operations from January
>1994, head from June 1997), "The IAEA Iraq Action Team Record: Activities
>and Findings ", in Iraq: A New Approach (Carnegie Endowment for
>International Peace, August 2002), at www.ceip.org/files/pdf/Iraq.Report.pdf
>Â
>3. CHEMICAL and BIOLOGICAL
>Â
>Allegations about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons fall into three
>categories:
>Â
>*Â Â Â Â Â Â  that Iraq has retained weapons that were produced before 1991.
>*Â Â Â Â Â Â  that Iraq has kept or rebuilt facilities since 1998, which are
>allegedly producing or able to produce new chemical or biological agents
>that can subsequently be weaponised; and
>*Â Â Â Â Â Â  that Iraq could threaten other countries by delivering these
>agents, by missile or through other means.
>Â
>Â
>(a) Retained stocks? Up to 1998, a substantial part of the work of the
>weapons inspectors in Iraq was to track down chemical and biological agents
>that Iraq produced before their entry in 1991, and to check the
>documentation that showed how much of each agent Iraq had manufactured.
>However, the amount Iraq is thought to have produced in the 1980s was found
>to be greater than the quantity that Iraq or the inspectors verified as
>having destroyed. The discrepancy between the two levels is the amount that
>remains - in the inspectors' language - "unaccounted for".
>Â
>The levels of agents that are unaccounted for in this way is large: 600
>metric tonnes of chemical agents, such as mustard gas, VX and sarin; and
>extensive amounts of biological agents, including thousands of litres of
>anthrax as well as quantities of botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, and gas
>gangrene, all of which had been weaponised before 1991. But the fact that
>these quantities are unaccounted for does not mean that they still exist.
>Iraq has never provided a full declaration of its use of chemical and
>biological weapons against Iran in the 1980-88 war, and destroyed large
>quantities of its own stocks of these weapons in 1991 without keeping
>sufficient proof of its actions.
>Â
>In some cases, it is quite clear that the stocks no longer exist in usable
>form. Most chemical and biological agents are subject to processes of
>deterioration. A working paper by the United Nations Special Commission on
>Iraq (Unscom) from January 1998 noted that: "Taking into consideration the
>conditions and the quality of CW-agents and munitions produced by Iraq at
>that time, there is no possibility of weapons remaining from the mid-1980's"
>(quoted in Ritter, Arms Control Today, June 2000). Many other chemical or
>biological warfare agents have a shorter shelf life. The sarin produced by
>Iraq in the 1980s was found to have up to 40% impurities, entailing that it
>would deteriorate within two years. With regard to biological weapons, the
>assessment by Professor Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and
>International Studies should be taken seriously: "The shelf-life and
>lethality of Iraq's weapons is unknown, but it seems likely that the
>shelf-life was limited. In balance, it seems probable that any agents Iraq
>retained after the Gulf War now have very limited lethality, if any" (Iraq's
>Past and Future Biological Weapons Capabilities, 1998, p.13).
>Â
>There are two potential exceptions for materials that would not be expected
>to have deteriorated if produced before 1991. Mustard gas has been found to
>persist over time, as shown when Unscom discovered four intact
>mustard-filled artillery shells that would still have constituted a viable
>weapon. Unscom oversaw the destruction of 12,747 of Iraq's 13,500 mustard
>shells. The Iraqi regime claimed that the remaining shells had been
>destroyed by US/UK bombardment. This claim has not been verified or
>disproved. However, as former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter notes, "A
>few hundred 155 mm mustard shells have little military value on the modern
>battlefield. A meaningful CW attack using artillery requires thousands of
>rounds. Retention of such a limited number of shells makes no sense and
>cannot be viewed as a serious threat."
>Â
>The other potential exception is VX nerve agent. It became clear to Unscom
>during the 1990s that Iraq had succeeded before 1991 in producing stabilised
>VX in its laboratories - that is, VX agents that would not deteriorate over
>time. However, to produce significant stocks of VX requires advanced
>technology that Iraq did not have. Iraq did have some elements of the
>production equipment for developing VX on a large scale. Unscom tested this
>equipment before destroying it in 1996, and found that it had never been
>used. This would indicate that Iraq, despite its attempts before 1991, had
>never succeeded in producing VX on a significant scale.
>Â
>(b) Re-built facilities? If the stocks that Iraq had produced before 1991
>are no longer a credible threat, then what of the facilities that Iraq may
>still have to produce more weapons of mass destruction? The major
>facilities that Iraq had prior to 1991 have all been destroyed. The
>Muthanna State Establishment, Iraq's main plant for the production of
>chemical warfare agents, was destroyed partially through aerial bombardment
>and partly under Unscom supervision. Al-Hakam, Iraqâ??s main biological
>weapons facility that was designed to make up to 50,000 litres of anthrax,
>botulinum toxin and other agents a year, was destroyed in May-June 1996.
>Â
>However, US and UK officials have claimed that new plants have been built
>since 1998. Among the allegations are that two chemical plants that were
>used to produce weapons before 1991 have been rebuilt at Fallujah; further
>chemical and biological weapons sites have been partially constructed at
>Daura and Taji; and that "mobile biological production laboratories" have b
>een deployed that would be able to circumvent any inspectors who are
>re-admitted into Iraq. It has also been claimed that other existing civilian
>facilities have been partially converted so as to be able to produce agents
>for weapons of mass destruction.
>Â
>These allegations are difficult to assess. Even the IISS study of September
>2002 - edited by Gary Samore who had been a senior member of President
>Clinton's staff and thus involved two years before in the making of the
>allegations - concluded that the claims about mobile laboratories were "hard
>to confirm". Much of the information comes from individuals who claim to
>have been scientists employed by the Iraqi government but who have now
>"defected" to Europe or the US. The US has offered financial rewards to
>scientists who defect, as well as guarantees of asylum. As a result, many
>of the claims may be exaggerated, highly speculative or simply concocted.
>US State Department officials have often mentioned that they do not take
>verbal information obtained from defectors seriously; it may be more
>plausible to assume that their information is publicised more as part of
>attempts to win support for a war than to make a realistic assessment of
>Iraqi weapons development. Â
>The Iraqi government has invited journalists to visit some of the sites that
>the UK and US have mentioned. For example, journalists who visited the Taji
>warehouse in mid-August - which the US claimed days before was a major
>biological weapons facility - found only "boxes of powdered milk from Yemen,
>Vietnam, Tunisia and Indonesia and sacks of sugar imported from Egypt and
>India", according to the Reuters correspondent. The visiting journalists are
>not weapons inspectors, and do not have the resources to monitor facilities
>for chemical agents or radiation; but they are able to ascertain if major
>new production facilities have been constructed. Now that the Iraqi Foreign
>Minister has made an unconditional offer to the UN to readmit weapons
>inspectors (on 16 September), allegations about the production of new
>facilities can be checked. However, the British Foreign Secretary and the
>White House have both disparaged the Iraqi offer, even though it could lead
>to the verified disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Â
>(c) Delivering an attack? Possession of chemical or biological agents is not
>enough to threaten another country, even if the Iraqi regime desired to.
>British and American claims about possession have therefore been linked to
>allegations that Iraq could fire these agents on missiles, which could even
>reach Europe.
>Â
>The first problem with this claim is the very low number of longer range
>missiles that Iraq might have. According to Unscom, by 1997, 817 out of
>Iraq's known 819 ballistic missiles had been certifiably destroyed. On the
>worst-case assumption that Iraq has salvaged some of the parts for these
>missiles and has reconstructed them since 1998, even Charles Duelfer -
>former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, deputy head of Unscom and
>strong proponent of an invasion of Iraq - has provided an estimate of only
>12 to 14 missiles held by Iraq. Even under this scenario, it is difficult
>to see Iraq posing a threat to the rest of the world through its missiles.
>Furthermore, biological weapons cannot be effectively disbursed through
>ballistic missiles. According to the IISS, much of the biological agent
>would be destroyed on impact and the area of dispersal would be small. For
>example, if anthrax is filled into missile warheads, up to 95% of the
>content is not dispersed (according to the Director of Intelligence of the
>US Joint Chiefs of Staff: www.bt.usf.edu/reports/Anthraxthreat.pdf).
>Â
>British ministers have made much of the claim that Iraq has experimented
>with using small Czech-built L-29 training jets as remote-controlled
>drones, which could deliver chemical and biological weapons. Such drones
>were apparently spotted at Iraq's Talil airbase in 1998. A British defence
>official invoked the possibility that if these drones were flown at low
>altitudes under the right conditions, a single drone could unleash a toxic
>cloud engulfing several city blocks. He labelled them "drones of death".
>The hyperbole is misleading: even if Iraq has designed such planes, they
>would not serve their purpose, as drones are easy to shoot down. A simple
>air defence system would be enough to prevent the drones from causing
>damage to neighbouring countries. The L-29 has a total range of less than
>400 miles: it would be all but impossible to use it in an attack on Israel.
>The only possibility for their use against western targets would be their
>potential deployment against invading troops.
>Â
>Further reading: Scott Ritter (former head of Unscom's Concealment Unit), "
>The Case for Iraq's Qualitative Disarmament", from Arms Control Today (June
>2000), at www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_06/iraqjun.asp
>Â
>5. CONCLUSION
>Â
>Many of the assessments of Iraq's development of biological, chemical and
>nuclear weapons are based largely on a hypothetical analysis of what could
>be done by the Iraqi regime if it was determined to produce these weapons.
>Using worst-case scenarios, they present Iraq's potential activities - such
>as importing fissile material or producing anthrax spores - as an immediate
>threat. Whilst such assessments may be valuable in order to understand the
>range of possibilities, they do not provide any evidence of Iraq's weapons
>of mass destruction or the Iraqi regime's intention to use them. As Hans
>Blix, executive chairman of Unmovic - the new UN weapons inspection body -
>said on 10 September, there is much that is unknown about Iraq's
>programmes, "but this is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass
>destruction. If I had solid evidence that Iraq retained weapons of mass
>destruction or were constructing such weapons I would take it to the
>Security Council." Â
>You cannot launch a war on the basis of unconfirmed suspicions of both
>weapons and intentions. It would be better to take up Iraq's unconditional
>offer of 16 September to allow inspectors to return, and to reject the plans
>for an invasion to achieve "regime change".
>Â
>The US and UK policy has been to provide disincentives to Iraqi compliance
>rather than incentives. The UK has refused to rule out its support for
>"regime change" even if a full weapons inspections system is in place:
>Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has only said that the possibility of an
>invasion "recedes" in such circumstances. Senior members of the present US
>administration have been more forthright: Vice-President Cheney labelled the
>return of weapons inspectors to Iraq as counterproductive in his Nashville
>speech of 26 August. Inspections would be counterproductive to US war plans,
>but would also serve to discover - and if necessary, constrain - Iraq's
>weapons programmes.
>Â
>If the Iraqi regime is led to believe that the US has made an invasion
>inevitable, it will have no reason to cooperate with weapons inspectors. As
>Hans Blix said on 18 August, "If the Iraqis conclude that an invasion by
>someone is inevitable then they might conclude that it's not very meaningful
>to have inspections."
>Â
>The Iraqi regime also has a clear disincentive if it believes that the
>weapons inspectors will - like their predecessors in Unscom - collect
>information that the US government would use to plot its overthrow. That
>Unscom was engaged in such actions is now beyond doubt. Its executive
>director from 1991 to 1997, Rolf Ekéus, said on 28 July that the US tried
>to gather information about Iraq's security services, its conventional
>military capacity and even the location of Saddam Hussein through the
>supposedly impartial weapons inspections programme. It is not hard to guess
>why the US wanted such information.
>Â
>Iraq has repeatedly asked for a clear timetable for the lifting of economic
>sanctions to be coupled with the weapons inspections system. This is not an
>unreasonable demand: in fact, it was the agreement made in the ceasefire
>that ended the Gulf War, and which the US in particular has done so much
>since 1991 to obscure. The ceasefire agreement - Security Council
>Resolution 687 - lays out the elements of a political solution: an
>independent weapons inspectorate, an end to the threat of war, a clear
>timetable to lifting economic sanctions, and the creation of a weapons of
>mass destruction free zone in the Middle East (entailing the need for the
>end of Israel's nuclear arsenal).
>Â
>On each of these four points, the US in particular stands in clear violation
>of the terms of the agreement.
>Â
>The consequences of that violation have been apparent in the deterioration
>of the weapons inspections system. Garry B. Dillon, the Director of
>Operations of the IAEA Action Team in Iraq from January 1994, and its head
>from June 1997, characterised Iraq's compliance with the nuclear
>inspectorate from late 1991 to mid-1998 as "essentially adequate" (in the
>paper cited above). Dillon concludes that "Iraqâ??s motivation to cooperate
>was shattered by the statement [by the then-US Secretary of State Madeleine
>Albright] that, regardless of Iraqâ??s compliance, the embargo and the
>sanctions would not be lifted as long as President Saddam Hussein remained
>in power". Backing a "carrot and stick" approach to Iraq, Dillon argues
>that "the carrot should represent a tangible benefit, not merely the
>withholding of the stick. Indeed, during 1998, Iraq repeatedly claimed that
>'the light at the end of the tunnel had gone out.'" Â
>If the US and UK re-engage with the political process that was laid out in
>the ceasefire resolution, Iraq will once again be provided with reasons to
>cooperate with the weapons inspectorate. That possibility, which will remove
>the need for instigating a humanitarian crisis inside Iraq and instability
>in the region, should not be dismissed lightly.
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Important Link: Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq - a must see website that
>has lead the campaign against sanctions in the UK. CASI aims to raise
>awareness of the effects of sanctions on Iraq, and campaigns on humanitarian
>grounds for the lifting of non-military sanctions. The site includes an
>excellent lising of links to campaign groups.
>(413) 773-7427; fax - (413) 773-7507; traprock at crocker.com
>For more information and updates to calendar, contact us.
>Return to Peace Center Home Page
>
>To unsubscribe send email to: listserv at yorku.ca with one line in the text
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>http://listserv.yorku.ca
>
>
>
>
>
>---------- End Forwarded Message ----------


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu