[Peace-discuss] Randall Cotton's commentary

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

I wish to commend Mr. Cotton for an excellent commentary on the ongoing Gulf 
War 2. He is absolutely correct that President Bush's justification for a 
pre-emptive invasion that Iraq (1) possessed stockpiled WMDs, (2) was an imminent 
threat, (3) was exporting terrorism, and (4) was building nuclear weapons were 
known to be invalid but administration officials ordered the attack anyway in 
violation of our own and international laws. The Law of Land Warfare (U.S. 
Department of Defense publication) does not permit an unprovoked attack against 
another nation even for humanitarian purposes.  CIA, UN, and DOD experts had 
refuted Bush's claims as used to justify an attack but President Bush ignored 
these admonitions in order to implement long standing invasion plans.  Mr. 
Cotton's concerns regarding  the increasing casualty count are valid. Current 
Department of Defense reports give a U.S. casualty count of over 13,000 KIA, WIA, 
and DNBI with daily increases. The estimated Iraqi death count is well over 
10,000 civilians and that does not include  thousands of military personnel who 
died during the invasion. The numbers of Iraqi's who have been injured or made 
ill exceeds 1 million.  The VA confirmed combined Persian Gulf Wars U.S. 
casualty count now exceeds 240,000 injured or ill and over 13,000 dead. That is an 
unaccceptable cost for control of oil resources.  The U.S. coaltion was the 
only group who used and continues to use uranium weapons that are classified as 
illegal WMDs by the United Nations. The environmental air, water, soil, and 
food contamination within Iraq and the Persian Gulf region is extensive as 
reported by the UN and other agencies. Today U.S. officials refuse to comply with 
their own existing medical care and environmental remediation requirements.  
The recent directive by Brigadier General Richard Ursone; Assistant Surgeon 
General, U.S. Army; not to provide thorough medical care to our miltary personnel 
upon re-deployment in violation of congressional and Department of Defense 
requirements (DD Form 2796: Post Deployment Health Assessment) is just one more 
example of callaous disregard for the health and safety of our own troops. 
Even though the Geneva Convention requires that the occupying power (U.S.) 
provide medical care for all Iraqi citizens DOD officials refuse to do so. We, the 
U.S., destroyed Iraq's medical system.  While Saddam and his staff were brutal 
this brutality has been overshadowed by 13 years of U.S. imposed sanctions, 13 
years of continuous U.S. bombing, and the long planned U.S. invasion and 
overthrow of Saddam in order to control oil resources. My comments are based on my 
own experience as a military officer and conversations with senior command 
and governmental offficials. I was involved since 1990 through 2001 and up to 
today (3/25/04)  in all aspects of military planning and operations for Gulf War 
1 and Gulf War 2- the 2003 invasion of Iraq, even though we knew Iraq did not 
possess WMDs and was not an imminent threat to any nation.  Mr. Cotton has 
done a great service to all who heard his comments and I hope that all listeners 
take heed.  If you have any questions please call me at 643-6205. For 
additional  information please see www.sftt.org and www.traprockpeace.org and 
www.unobserver.org

thank you, 

Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D. 
Vietnam War and Gulf War 1 combat veteran
Rantoul
   

Mr. Cotton's comments follow: 

"Do you remember the old justifications for invading Iraq? The claim that
they had a nuclear weapons program? That they had stockpiled weapons
of mass destruction? That Saddam was working with Al Qaeda? And the
insinuation that Iraq had something to do with 9/11?  Now, President Bush
has finally abandoned them all. Most folks listening to *this* broadcast
have probably learned by now that these claims are increasingly seen as
fraudulent and that even the Administration can see they're crumbling away.

So as belief that the war in Iraq was justified erodes in America and
the body count rises daily, our President now claims his purpose was
a humanitarian one - to save the world from Saddam Hussein, who, as he
tirelessly points out, killed countless Iraqis, invaded other countries
and used chemical weapons on his own people. This is all true, but Saddam
did nearly all his killing, invading and gassing more than ten years ago
when conditions were very different - in particular, the U.S. supported
him politically, financially and militarily, helping *enable* Saddam to
accomplish his worst atrocities. The administration always conveniently
ignores the fact that since the first Gulf War in 1991, conditions changed
dramatically for Saddam. He no longer enjoyed the support of the U.S. or
any other country and in 2003 before the war, even Saddam knew that any
such misbehavior on his part would likely seal his own doom. At that time,
there was no discernable prospect of Saddam committing mass atrocities or
invading anyone. Although Saddam's regime was always brutally repressive,
by the time the U.S. invaded Iraq, Saddam's most horrible atrocities
and his foreign invasions were historical data points far more than
contemporary dangers. A Human Rights Watch report released in January
addressed this by saying:

"The Bush administration cannot justify the war in Iraq as a humanitarian
intervention... Saddam Hussein's atrocities should certainly be punished,
and his worst atrocities, such as the 1988 genocide against the Kurds,
would have justified humanitarian intervention then. But such interventions
should be reserved for stopping an imminent or ongoing slaughter. They
should not be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in
the past."

Meanwhile, the most reliable estimates of innocent civilians killed in
this war range above 10,000. In particular, a detailed accounting by the
research group "Iraq Body Count" estimates civilian deaths as high as
10,430. And now, media reports say the country may be edging toward civil
war. Perhaps the administration could point to some individuals in Iraq
that they saved from the hands of Saddam, but given the damage we've done,
any claim that the people of Iraq as a whole will ultimately be better off
is, at best, conjecture. A guess. A hunch. An increasingly implausible
hunch. And you cannot justify starting a war that kills thousands of
innocents based on a hunch. What if your hunch is wrong?"