[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:10038] Focus on Iraq: Powell's UN speech dissected

[Alfred Kagan]

>Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 00:43:39 -0500
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>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:10038] Focus on Iraq: Powell's UN speech dissected
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>>Focus on Iraq: Powell's UN speech dissected
>>
>>By Ali Abunimah
>>
>>The Electronic Intifada
>>5 February 2003
>>
>>url: http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1140.shtml
>>
>>US media had suggest that Secretary of State Colin Powell was
>>playing down what he would present to the UN Security Council
>>about Iraq's alleged deceptions, weapons of mass destruction, and
>>  support for terrorism, so that when he made his revelations, they
>>  would have all the greater impact. Having heard Powell's
>>presentation, it is now clear he was playing things down because
>>his hand was in fact so weak.
>>
>>Powell's multi-media presentation was a rag-bag of old
>>allegations, which the United States has been making for years,
>>some of them based on information Iraq has itself provided to UN
>>inspectors. Other claims were based on audio recordings and
>>satellite images, and still more were based on unverifiable
>>claims from unidentified human witnesses and "defectors." Powell
>>all but admitted the weakness of his case by continually saying
>>"these are facts, not assertions," at moments when he was
>>providing the most sensational yet least supported claims. He
>>also resorted to the comic book tactic of calling Saddam Hussein
>>an "evil genius" for having succeeded in hiding what the US says
>>is a vast arsenal, not only from UN inspectors, but from the
>>world's only super power. Let's look more closely at some of the
>>"new" elements in the American case for an immediate attack on
>>Iraq:
>>
>>The Audio Tapes
>>
>>Powell played what he said were intercepted conversations between
>>  Iraqi officers who were discussing ways to conceal prohibited
>>materials from UN inspectors. None of the three recordings, if
>>real, amounted to a "smoking gun." If they were real, they could
>>be incriminating in a certain context, but they could also have
>>been taken out of a context in which they were entirely innocent.
>>
>>The evidentiary value of the alleged recordings is close to nil.
>>First, the recordings could easily have been faked, as the United
>>  States has a history of doing. In 2001, US public radio's "This
>>American Life," broadcast recently declassified tapes from a
>>clandestine radio station set up by the CIA in the 1950s to help
>>provoke a coup against the democratically-elected government of
>>Guatemala. The radio station, which broadcast completely fake
>>"opposition" voices, is credited with helping bring a repressive
>>American client regime to power. (Program broadcast on 30
>>November 2001. See www.thislife.org for details.)
>>
>>More directly related to current events, New York's Village Voice
>>  newspaper reported late last year how, during the 1990s, a
>>Harvard graduate student celebrated for his convincing
>>impersonation of Saddam Hussein was hired by the high-powered, US
>>  government-linked public relations firm, the Rendon Group, to
>>make fake propaganda broadcasts of Saddam's voice to Iraq. The
>>student received three thousand dollars a month for his troubles.
>>  "I never got a straight answer on whether the Iraqi resistance,
>>the CIA, or policy makers on the Hill were actually the ones
>>calling the shots," the report quotes the ersatz Saddam saying,
>>"but ultimately I realized that the guys doing spin (sic) were
>>very well funded and completely cut loose." ("Broadcast Ruse: A
>>Grad Student Mimicked Saddam Over the Airwaves," The Village
>  >Voice, 13-19 November 2002)
>>
>>In 1990, another Washington public relations firm, hired by
>>Kuwait, helped win support for the first Gulf War by fabricating
>>claims, presented to Congress, that Iraqi troops threw Kuwaiti
>>babies out of incubators. (see "The Lies We Are Told About Iraq,"
>>  The Los Angeles Times, 5 January 2003)
>>
>>Those taken in by that deception, will want to be more skeptical
>>this time around. It also doesn't help US credibility that the
>>Pentagon has repeatedly over the past two years stated that it
>>would use deception and black propaganda to achieve its policy
>>goals.
>>
>>Satellite Imagery
>>
>>Powell relied on satellite images in order to support the claim
>>that Iraq is still producing and hiding chemical weapons. He
>>said, for instance, that some of the images he showed were of the
>>  Iraqis "sanitizing" the "Al-Taji chemical munitions storage site"
>>  before UN inspectors arrived
>>
>>Again, it is impossible to tell if the satellite photos displayed
>>  by Powell are real, fake, old or new. But even if they are real,
>>current photos of Iraq, they are by themselves of no conclusive
>>value. The New York Times reported that American officials
>>recently gave the UN inspectors satellite photos of "what
>>American analysts said were Iraqi clean-up crews operating at a
>>suspected chemical weapons site." But when the inspectors went to
>>  the site, they "concluded that the site was an old ammunition
>>storage area often frequented by Iraqi trucks, and that there was
>>  no reason to believe it was involved in weapons activities."
>>("Blix Says He Saw Nothing to Prompt a War," The New York Times,
>>31 January 2003)
>>
>>For all we know the incident referred to in The New York Times is
>>  probably the same used goods Powell tried to sell to the Security
>>  Council. Only the inspectors can tell us otherwise.
>>
>>Mobile Units
>>
>>Powell claimed, based on uncorroborated hearsay from "defectors,"
>>  that Iraq has an elaborate system of mobile laboratories used for
>>  producing biological weapons. With no hard evidence, Powell was
>>reduced to displaying "artists impressions" of what these
>>laboratories supposedly look like, a tactic routinely used by
>>American supermarket tabloids to produce pictures to accompany
>>the latest stories of landings and abductions by space aliens.
>>
>>In an interview with The New York Times, Hans Blix, the chief UN
>>weapons inspectors in Iraq, denied US claims that the inspectors
>>had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicit
>>materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery
>>("Blix Says He Saw Nothing to Prompt a War," The New York Times,
>>31 January 2003). Blix , who unlike the United States, has
>>hundreds of staff on the ground in Iraq, is in a much better
>>position to know than Powell.
>>
>>Iraq's links with Al-Qaida
>>
>>Powell claimed that Iraq has close links with Al-Qaida and based
>>this largely on the alleged movements of the threateningly
>>unshaven gentleman Abu Musab Zarqawi. Prior to Powell's
>>presentation, The Washington Post noted that Zarqawi, a
>>Jordanian, "appears to be the only individual named so far to
>>make the link to Iraq after more than a year of major
>>investigations in which 'a good deal of attention has been paid
>>to what extent a connection may exist between al Qaeda and
>>Iraq,'" ("U.S. Effort to Link Terrorists To Iraq Focuses on
>>Jordanian," The Washington Post, 5 February 2003)
>>
>>To make up for the flimsiness of the case, Powell resorted to
>>building Zarqawi up into a frightening figure in exactly the way
>>the US in previous years built up Usama Bin Laden. It seems that
>>Usama, who is still on the loose, and who did not feature as a
>>topic of Mr. Powell's address, has been replaced in American
>>affections.
>>
>>Powell claimed that Zarqawi (who has now been promoted by the
>>Americans to the status of "The Zarqawi Network," complete with
>>flow charts) was training terrorists in a poison-making camp in
>>northern Iraq. Powell skipped dismissively over a very pertinent
>>fact. Since the 1991 Gulf War, northern Iraq has been out of the
>>control of Saddam Hussein's government.
>  >
>>The United States and United Kingdom have been cruelly bombing
>>the illegally-declared northern and southern "no-fly zones" for
>>twelve years, largely to limit the influence of Iraq's government
>>  to the center of the country. Northern Iraq has been ruled by
>>competing Kurdish factions with United States backing. Since the
>>1991 Gulf War, the CIA has been operating freely in northern
>>Iraq, and the United States recently acknowledged that its
>>special forces are operating in that part of the country. Powell
>>showed what he said was a satellite photo of the "terrorist
>>camp." If the United States knows where such a camp lies, and has
>>  forces in the region, why has it not bombed it or attacked it, as
>>  it has bombed so many other installations in northern Iraq? An
>>attack on a "terrorist" installation in northern Iraq requires
>>anything but an invasion of the entire country. Furthermore, if
>>the camp even exists, why would the United States give its
>>occupants notice that it knows where it is, rather than just
>>taking it out, as, say, it took out a car load of alleged
>>"terrorists" in Yemen last year? It just doesn't add up.
>>
>>That the US is claiming that Al-Qaida-linked terrorists are
>>operating in the part of Iraq not controlled by Saddam Hussein
>>rather undermines the argument that Saddam is backing such
>>people. Powell's only answer to this major problem in his case
>>was to offer more unsubstantiated claims that one of Saddam's
>>secret agents is in charge of the whole operation.
>>
>>In the days prior to Powell's presentation, numerous reports
>>appeared in the American and British press that senior
>>intelligence officials from the FBI, CIA and even the Israeli
>>Mossad maintain there is no evidence to tie Iraq to Al-Qaida in
>>any meaningful way. The BBC reported on 5 February that a top
>>secret, official British intelligence report given to Prime
>>Minister Tony Blair and leaked to the BBC states that there are
>>no current Iraqi links with al-Qaida. The BBC added that the
>>intelligence document "said a fledgling alliance foundered due to
>>  ideological differences between the militant Islamic group and
>>the secular nationalist regime." ("UK report rejects Iraqi
>>al-Qaeda link," BBC News Online, 5 February 2003)
>>
>>At the present time, it appears that there is a much stronger
>>case on US-Al-Qaida links dating back to the days when the Reagan
>>  Administration helped recruit men from all over the Arab and
>>Muslim world to join what it called the "Afghan freedom
>>fighters," than anything to incriminate Iraq. Mr. Powell said not
>>  a word about that.
>>
>>Underlining the weakness of the Anglo-American case, UK Foreign
>>Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC before Powell's address, that
>>he had "seen no evidence which directly links Iraq to al-Qaeda,
>>but I would not be surprised if it exists." Is this the sort of
>>shabby thinking on which decisions about war and peace are made?
>>More importantly, the Pentagon has brushed aside the lack of
>>evidence, and, to the dismay of senior CIA and FBI officials, has
>>  exaggerated evidence for purely ideological and political
>>purposes. It is the result of these political deceptions, not
>>evidence, that was presented to the Security Council by Mr.
>>Powell.
>>
>>Even if there were evidence of an Al-Qaida connection, the US
>>claims that it wants to go to war to enforce UN resolutions. But
>>no UN resolutions regarding Iraq say anything about Al-Qaida.
>>Hence, even the attempt by the US to link Iraq to Al-Qaida must
>>be interpreted as an act of desperation by an administration that
>>  knows it has not made its case on alleged weapons of mass
>>destruction.
>>
>>Iraq and the United States
>>
>>Closing his speech, Powell sought to "remind" the Security
>>Council that Saddam has been a horrible monster for more than two
>>  decades. He cited Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Kurds in
>>  1988 as "one of the twentieth century's most horrible
>>atrocities." He forget to mention, however, that at the time the
>>United States, which was supporting Saddam in his war with Iraq,
>>instructed its diplomats to implicate Iran. Powell also forgot to
>  > mention that among the long history of cooperation between the
>>United States and Saddam Hussein's Iraq were the several meetings
>>  that once and future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held with
>>Saddam at the request of President Reagan, one of them on the
>>same day that Iraq was reported to be using chemical weapons
>>against Iran.
>>
>>Nor did Powell point out that the same sort of satellite evidence
>>  that he now uses to indict Iraq was once gladly handed over to
>>Saddam by the United States to help Iraq deafeat Iran. And in
>>claiming that there is not a frightening disease in the
>>pharmacology that Iraq is not capable of creating, Powell forgot
>>to mention that the seed stock to make anthrax, E. Coli, botulism
>>  and other biological agents was exported to Iraq from a company
>>based near Washington, DC, called the American Type Culture
>>Collection, under contracts approved by the United States
>>Goverment in the 1980s. These sales continued even after Iraq was
>>  reported to have used chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians.
>>  (see Iraq Under Siege, South End Press, 2000, p.39)
>>
>>Powell also sought to "remind" the Security Council about Iraq's
>>horrible human rights record. He failed to explain, however, when
>>  the United States found its consicence on this matter which never
>>  troubled it in all the years that it was allied with Saddam. Such
>>  naked cynicism may yet fool some in an American public whose
>>knowledge of history is notoriously shallow, and whose mass media
>>  scarcely dare challenge any administration's foreign policy, but
>>it will not fool anyone else.
>>
>>Powell was also cynical to criticize Saddam Hussein for allegedly
>>  supporting Palestinian groups. Whether this was simply an attempt
>>  to grasp at further "evidence" is unclear. There are no known
>>links at all between Palestinian groups fighting Israel's
>>repression and Al-Qaida, despite the Sharon government's attempts
>>  to manufacture them for American consumption. What is certain,
>>however, is that in the Arab world, the attempt to use any
>>alleged support for the Palestinian cause as a justification to
>>invade Iraq can only further alienate and inflame public opinion.
>>
>>Conclusion
>>
>>Taken together, the smorgasbord of old allegations, show-and-tell
>>  and hearsay that Powell presented would fall disasterously short
>>of proving a case against an accused person in an American court
>>of law, where the standard of proof must be "beyond a reasonable
>>doubt." The flashy presentation did not conceal holes in the
>>American case that a U.S. Navy battlegroup could sail through
>>with room to spare. The Americans have argued that the Security
>>Council is not a court of law, and that the standards of proof
>>are different, and need not be beyond a reasonable doubt. But
>>early in his presentation Powell himself used judicial language
>>when he claimed that Iraq had earlier been "found guilty" of
>>"material breaches" by the Security Council.
>>
>>The American legal system, often held as an example to the world,
>>  applies such strigent standards in order to protect a single
>>accused person from being wrongly denied his freedom or life. If
>>the United States attacks Iraq, not one accused person, but
>>thousands of innocent people may lose their lives. The United
>>Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that 600,000
>>people may be forced to flee their homes, and millions more may
>>well be exposed to hunger, illness, danger and chaos for years to
>>  come. Is all of this worth it, when, as France's President Chirac
>>  once again underlined on 4 February, that a perfectly viable,
>>non-violent alternative exists? In response to a reporter's
>>question about criticisms that one hundred UN inspectors cannot
>>possibly disarm a country the size of Iraq, Chirac pointed out
>>that the first inspection regime destroyed more Iraqi weapons
>>than all of the deadly American firepower directed at that
>>country in 1991 and since. The solution to any shortage of
>>resources, if the inspectors should complain of one (so far they
>>have not), said Chirac, is to increase those resources.
>  >
>>Powell said that by passing Resolution 1441 putting in place the
>>inspections last November, the Security Council has given Iraq a
>>"last chance" to disarm. It appears that it was the United States
>>  that had a last chance to convince the world that what is needed
>>instead is a US-led invasion of Iraq that could devastate the
>>whole region for years to come.
>>
>>The early indications, judging from the speeches of the Chinese,
>>Russian, French and other foreign ministers seated around the
>>Security Council table, are that the world remains convinced that
>>  inspections should be given a chance to work, Iraq, which
>>presents no immediate threat to anyone, should urgently do
>>everything possible to cooperate, and as President Chirac said,
>>"war is always the worst solution."
>>
>>Let us hope that someone in Washington is listening.
>>
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>
>Chuck0
>
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-- 


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