[Peace] Rushing to War With Iraq (fwd)

Wed Jul 31 22:36:13 CDT 2002

Forwarded by Paul Patton.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 30 Jul 2002 19:30:36 -0000
From: "Wes Boyd, MoveOn.org"
    <moveon-help-661-55226-i7E4CXADBYqn2YzaaP1L4w at list.moveon.org>
To: Paul Patton <ppatton at uiuc.edu>
Subject: Rushing to War With Iraq

Dear friend of MoveOn,

The Bush Administration is planning a war on Iraq.  Troop
deployments indicate that it could come in October; a "surprise
attack" could come even sooner.  The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee is holding hearings this week to determine whether a
military campaign to oust Saddam Hussein is necessary, but they
appear to be a whitewash -- none of the people asked to testify are
likely to argue against a war.  Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials continue to hone a war plan
that will require up to a quarter million troops.

The Bush Administration contends that a war on Iraq is needed
because Saddam Hussein possesses or is intent on acquiring weapons
of mass destruction.  But former Marine and UNSCOM weapons
inspector Scott Ritter argues that the war is a product of domestic
politics; along with other UN officials he maintains that Iraq's
major weapons have been successfully eradicated.  In response to
questions about the basis for an Iraq campaign from our NATO
allies, Secretary Rumsfeld replied that "absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence." These are hardly solid grounds on which to
wage a war that will likely:

 * Cost thousands of American soldiers' lives;

 * Kill many more Iraqi civilians, both through direct combat and
   through the eradication of crucial infrastructure;

 * Further destabilize the Middle East;

 * Alienate America's closest allies, almost all of whom (except
   Great Britain) oppose an attack;

 * Commit the military to a three-to-five year stay while Iraq rebuilds; and

 * Cost in the tens of billions in taxpayer dollars.

The Senate hearings may be the last public forum in which serious
questions can be raised about this upcoming conflict.  Please call
your Senators at the numbers below.  Make sure each staffer you talk
to knows that you're a constituent, and that you understand the
Senate has begun hearings on Iraq.  State your deep concern and ask
your questions.  Ask if you will be receiving a written response from
your Senator.

Here are some sample questions.  Your own words are always best.

- What is the concrete evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass
  destruction?

- How long will American troops be in Iraq?  What's the
  objective?  What's the plan to get out?

- Do the State Department and Secretary of State Colin Powell
  support this war?  What about the top military brass?

- Why don't our allies support this war?

- If we attack, will Iraq find new allies in the region?

- How many Americans will die in such a war?  Iraqis?

- How much money will such a war cost?

- Why is America now attacking without explicit provocation?

- President Bush is seen by people in other countries as
  pursuing a strange vendetta.  Is the Bush administration
  pulling our country into a family grudge match?

You can reach your Senators at:

   Senator Richard J. Durbin
   DC Phone:    202-224-2152
   Local Phone: 217-492-4062

   Senator Peter G. Fitzgerald
   DC Phone:    202-224-2854
   Local Phone: 217-492-5089

You can also call the members of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.  Their numbers are:

Chair Joseph Biden (D-DE) 202-224-5042
Ranking Member Jesse Helms (R-NC) 202-224-6342
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) 202-224-3553
Christopher Dodd (D-CT) 202-224-2823
Bill Nelson (D-FL) 202-224-5274
Richard Lugar (R-IN) 202-224-4814
Sam Brownback (R-KS) 202-224-6521
John Kerry (D-MA) 202-224-2742
Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) 202-224-4524
Paul Wellstone (D-MN) 202-224-5641
Chuck Hagel (R-NE) 202-224-4224
Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) 202-224-3224
Gordon Smith (R-OR) 202-224-3753
Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) 202-224-2921
Bill Frist (R-TN) 202-224-4944
George Allen (R-VA) 202-224-4024
Russ Feingold (D-WI) 202-224-5323
John Rockefeller (D-WV) 202-224-6472
Michael Enzi (R-WY) 202-224-3424

Once you've made your call, please let us know by going to:

  http://www.moveon.org/callmade_iraq.html?id=661-55226-i7E4CXADBYqn2YzaaP1L4w

Please call today.  This week's hearings may be the last chance for
a serious national conversation on the consequences of a war on Iraq.

Sincerely,

--Wes Boyd
  MoveOn.org
  July 30, 2002

P.S. The following article describes a speech by Scott Ritter, the
weapons inspector mentioned above.  Ritter's paid his dues, and
he's not a typical peacenik. His arguments about Iraq deserve some
serious attention.  There are some thought-provoking news clips
after the article, as well.

The Coming October War in Iraq
By William Rivers Pitt
Reprinted from http://www.truthout.com/docs_02/07.25A.wrp.iraq.htm

Wednesday, 24 July, 2002

Room 295 of the Suffolk Law School building in downtown Boston was
filled to capacity on July 23rd with peace activists, aging
Cambridge hippies and assorted freaks. One of the organizers for
the gathering, United For Justice With Peace Coalition, handed out
green pieces of paper that read, "We will not support war, no
matter what reason or rhetoric is offered by politicians or the
media. War in our time and in this context is indiscriminate, a war
against innocents and against children." Judging from the crowd,
and from the buzz in the room, that pretty much summed things up.

The contrast presented when Scott Ritter, former UN weapons
inspector in Iraq, entered the room, could not have been more
disparate. There at the lectern stood this tall lantern-jawed man,
every inch the twelve-year Marine Corps veteran he was, who looked
and spoke just exactly like a bulldogging high school football
coach. A whistle on a string around his neck would have perfected
the image.

"I need to say right out front," he said minutes into his speech,
"I'm a card-carrying Republican in the conservative-moderate range
who voted for George W. Bush for President. I'm not here with a
political agenda. I'm not here to slam Republicans. I am one."

Yet this was a lie - Scott Ritter had come to Boston with a
political agenda, one that impacts every single American citizen.
Ritter was in the room that night to denounce, with roaring voice
and burning eyes, the coming American war in Iraq. According to
Ritter, this coming war is about nothing more or less than domestic
American politics, based upon speculation and rhetoric entirely
divorced from fact. According to Ritter, that war is just over the
horizon.

"The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to
have 20,000 Marines deployed in the (Iraq) region for ground combat
operations by mid-October," he said. "The Air Force used the vast
majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in
Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money
and told Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS
satellite kits, that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets
while the planes fly away, by September 30, 2002. Why? Because the
Air Force has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready
for combat operations in Iraq by mid-October."

"As a guy who was part of the first Gulf War," said Ritter, who
indeed served under Schwarzkopf in that conflict, "when you deploy
that much military power forward - disrupting their training
cycles, disrupting their operational cycles, disrupting everything,
spending a lot of money - it is very difficult to pull them back
without using them."

"You got 20,000 Marines forward deployed in October," said Ritter,
"you better expect war in October."

His purpose for coming to that room was straightforward: The Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Democrat Joe Biden, plans
to call a hearing beginning on Monday, July 29th. The Committee
will call forth witnesses to describe the threat posed to America
by Iraq. Ritter fears that much crucial information will not be
discussed in that hearing, precipitating a war authorization by
Congress based on political expediency and ignorance. Scott Ritter
came to that Boston classroom to exhort all there to demand of the
Senators on the Committee that he be allowed to stand as a witness.

Ritter began his comments by noting the interesting times we live
in after September 11th. There has been much talk of war, and much
talk of war with Iraq. Ritter was careful to note that there are no
good wars - as a veteran, he described war as purely awful and
something not to be trivialized - but that there is such a thing as
a just war. He described America as a good place, filled with
potential and worth fighting for. We go to just war, he said, when
our national existence has been threatened.

According to Ritter, there is no justification in fact, national
security, international law or basic morality to justify this
coming war with Iraq. In fact, when asked pointedly what the
mid-October scheduling of this conflict has to do with the midterm
Congressional elections that will follow a few weeks later, he
replied, simply, "Everything."

"This is not about the security of the United States," said this
card-carrying Republican while pounding the lectern. "This is about
domestic American politics. The national security of the United
States of America has been hijacked by a handful of
neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to
pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day
we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively
as a nation."

Ritter was sledding up a pretty steep slope with all this. After
all, Saddam Hussein has been demonized for twelve years by American
politicians and the media. He gassed his own people, and America
has already fought one war to keep him under control. Ritter's
presence in Iraq was demanded in the first place by Hussein's
pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass
destruction, along with the ballistic missile technology that could
deliver these weapons to all points on the compass.

According to the Bush administration, Hussein has ties to the same
Al Qaeda terrorists that brought down the World Trade Center. It is
certain that Hussein will use these terrorist links to deliver a
lethal blow to America, using any number of the aforementioned
weapons. The argument, propounded by Bush administration officials
on any number of Sunday news talk shows, is that a pre-emptive
strike against Iraq, and the unseating of Saddam Hussein, is
critical to American national security. Why wait for them to hit us
first?

"If I were an American, uninformed on Iraq as we all are," said
Ritter, "I would be concerned." Furthermore, continued Ritter, if
an unquestionable case could be made that such weapons and
terrorist connections existed, he would be all for a war in Iraq.
It would be just, smart, and in the interest of national defense.

Therein lies the rub: According to Scott Ritter, who spent seven
years in Iraq with the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams performing
acidly detailed investigations into Iraq's weapons program, no such
capability exists. Iraq simply does not have weapons of mass
destruction, and does not have threatening ties to international
terrorism. Therefore, no premise for a war in Iraq exists.
Considering the American military lives and the Iraqi civilian
lives that will be spent in such an endeavor, not to mention the
deadly regional destabilization that will ensue, such a baseless
war must be avoided at all costs.

"The Bush administration has provided the American public with
little more than rhetorically laced speculation," said Ritter.
"There has been nothing in the way of substantive fact presented
that makes the case that Iraq possesses these weapons or has links
to international terror, that Iraq poses a threat to the United
States of America worthy of war."

Ritter regaled the crowd with stories of his time in Iraq with
UNSCOM. The basis for the coming October war is the continued
existence of a weapons program that threatens America. Ritter noted
explicitly that Iraq, of course, had these weapons at one time - he
spent seven years there tracking them down. At the outset, said
Ritter, they lied about it. They failed to declare the existence of
their biological and nuclear programs after the Gulf War, and
declared less than 50% of their chemical and missile stockpiles.
They hid everything they could, as cleverly as they could.

After the first lie, Ritter and his team refused to believe
anything else they said. For the next seven years, the meticulously
tracked down every bomb, every missile, every factory designed to
produce chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry. They went to
Europe and found the manufacturers who sold them the equipment.
They got the invoices and shoved them into the faces of Iraqi
officials. They tracked the shipping of these materials and
cross-referenced this data against the invoices. They lifted the
foundations of buildings destroyed in the Gulf War to find wrecked
research and development labs, at great risk to their lives, and
used the reams of paperwork there to cross-reference what they had
already cross-referenced.

Everything they found was later destroyed in place.

After a while, the Iraqis knew Ritter and his people were
robotically thorough. Fearing military retaliation if they hid
anything, the Iraqis instituted a policy of full disclosure. Still,
Ritter believed nothing they said and tracked everything down. By
the time he was finished, Ritter was mortally sure that he and his
UNSCOM investigators had stripped Iraq of 90-95% of all their
weapons of mass destruction.

What of the missing 10%? Is this not still a threat? Ritter
believes that the ravages of the Gulf War accounted for a great
deal of the missing material, as did the governmental chaos caused
by sanctions. The Iraqis' policy of full disclosure, also, was of a
curious nature that deserved all of Ritter's mistrust. Fearing the
aforementioned attacks, Iraq instituted a policy of destroying
whatever Ritter's people had not yet found, and then pretending it
never existed in the first place. Often, the dodge failed to fool
UNSCOM. That some of it did also accounts for a portion of that
missing 10%.

Ritter told a story about running down 98 missiles the Iraqis tried
to pretend never existed. UNSCOM got hold of the documentation
describing them, and demanded proof that they had, in fact, been
destroyed. He was brought to a field where, according to Iraqi
officials, the missiles had been blown up and then buried. At this
point, Ritter and his team became "forensic archaeologists,"
digging up every single missile component they could find there.

After sifting through the bits and pieces to find parts bearing
serial numbers, they went to Russia, who sold Iraq the weapons in
the first place. They cross-referenced the serial numbers with the
manufacturer's records, and confirmed the data with the shipping
invoices. When finished, they had accounted for 96 of the missiles.
Left over was a pile of metal with no identifying marks, which the
Iraqis claimed were the other two missiles. Ritter didn't believe
them, but could go no further with the investigation.

This story was telling in many ways. Americans mesmerized with
stories of lying Iraqis who never told the weapons inspectors the
truth about anything should take note of the fact that Ritter was
led to exactly the place where the Iraqis themselves had destroyed
their weapons without being ordered to. The pile of metal left over
from this investigation that could not be identified means Iraq,
technically, could not receive a 100% confirmation that all its
weapons were destroyed. Along with the other mitigating factors
described above, it seems clear that 100% compliance under the
UNSCOM rules was impossible to achieve. 90-95%, however, is an
impressive record.

The fact that chemical and biological weapons ever existed in the
first place demands action, according to the Bush administration.
After all, they could have managed to hide vast amounts of the
stuff from Ritter's investigators. Iraq manufactured three kinds of
these nerve agents: VX, Sarin and Tabou. Some alarmists who want
war with Iraq describe 20,000 munitions filled with Sarin and Tabou
nerve agents that could be used against Americans.

The facts, however, allay the fears. Sarin and Tabou have a shelf
life of five years. Even if Iraq had somehow managed to hide this
vast number of weapons from Ritter's people, what they are now
storing is nothing more than useless and completely harmless goo.

The VX gas was of a greater concern to Ritter. It is harder to
manufacture than the others, but once made stable, it can be kept
for much longer. Ritter's people found the VX manufacturing
facility that the Iraqis claimed never existed totally destroyed,
hit by a Gulf War bomb on January 23, 1991. The field where the
material they had manufactured was subsequently buried underwent
more forensic archaeology to determine that whatever they had made
had also been destroyed. All of this, again, was cross-referenced
and meticulously researched.

"The research and development factory is destroyed," said Ritter.
"The product of that factory is destroyed. The weapons they loaded
up have been destroyed. More importantly, the equipment procured
from Europe that was going to be used for their large-scale VX
nerve agent factory was identified by the special commission -
still packed in its crates in 1997 - and destroyed. Is there a VX
nerve agent factory in Iraq today? Not on your life."

This is, in and of itself, a bold statement. Ritter himself and no
weapons inspection team has set foot in Iraq since 1998. Ritter
believed Iraq technically capable of restarting its weapons
manufacturing capabilities within six months of his departure. That
leaves some three and one half years to manufacture and weaponize
all the horrors that has purportedly motivated the Bush
administration to attack.

"Technically capable," however, is the important phrase here. If no
one were watching, Iraq could do this. But they would have to start
completely from scratch, having been deprived of all equipment,
facilities and research because of Ritter's work. They would have
to procure the complicated tools and technology required through
front companies, which would be detected. The manufacture of
chemical and biological weapons emits vented gasses that would have
been detected by now if they existed. The manufacture of nuclear
weapons emits gamma rays that would have been detected by now if
they existed. We have been watching, via satellite and other means,
and we have seen none of this.

"If Iraq was producing weapons today, we would have definitive
proof," said Ritter, "plain and simple."

And yet we march to war, and soon. A chorus of voices was raised in
the room asking why we are going. What motivates this, if not hard
facts and true threats? According to Ritter, it comes down to
opportunistic politics and a decade of hard anti-Hussein rhetoric
that has boxed the Bush administration into a rhetorical corner.

Back in 1991, the UN Security Council mandated the destruction of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions were placed upon Iraq
to pressure them to comply. The first Bush administration signed on
to this, but also issued a covert finding that mandated the removal
of Saddam Hussein. Even if all the weapons were destroyed, Bush Sr.
would not lift the sanctions until Hussein was gone.

Bush Sr., and Clinton after him, came to realize that talking about
removing Hussein was far, far easier than achieving that goal.
Hussein was, and remains, virtually coup-proof. No one could get
close enough to put a bullet in him, and no viable intelligence
existed to pinpoint his location from day to day. Rousing a
complacent American populace to support the massive military
engagement that would have been required to remove Hussein by force
presented insurmountable political obstacles. The tough talk about
confronting Hussein continued, but the Bush and Clinton
administrations treaded water.

This lack of results became exponentially more complicated.
Politicians began making a living off of demonizing Hussein, and
lambasting Clinton for failing to have him removed. The roots of
our current problem began to deepen at this point, for it became
acceptable to encapsulate a nation of 20 million citizens in the
visage of one man who was hated and reviled in bipartisan fashion.
Before long, the American people knew the drill - Saddam is an evil
threat and must be met with military force, period.

In 1998, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Iraqi
Liberation Act. The weight of public American law now demanded the
removal of Saddam Hussein. The American government went on to use
data gathered by UNSCOM, narrowly meant to pinpoint possible areas
of investigation, to choose bombing targets in an operation called
Desert Fox. Confrontation, rather than resolution, continued to be
the rule. By 1999, however, Hussein was still in power.

"An open letter was written to Bill Clinton in the fall of 1999,"
said Ritter, "condemning him for failing to fully implement the
Iraqi Liberation Act. It demanded that he use the American military
to facilitate the Iraqi opposition's operations inside Iraq, to put
troops on the ground and move on up to Baghdad to get rid of
Saddam. Who signed this letter? Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz,
Richard Armitage, Robert Zoellick, Richard Perle, and on and on and
on."

The removal of Saddam Hussein became a plank in the GOP's race for
the Presidency in 2000. After gaining office, George W. Bush was
confronted with the reality that he and many within his
administration had spent a great amount of political capital
promising that removal. Once in power, however, he came to realize
what his father and Clinton already knew - talking tough was easy,
and instigating pinprick military confrontations was easy, but
removing Hussein from power was not easy at all. His own rhetoric
was all around him, however, pushing him into that corner which had
only one exit. Still, like the two Presidents before him, he
treaded water.

Then came September 11th. Within days, Bush was on television
claiming that the terrorists must have had state-sponsored help,
and that state sponsor must be Iraq. When the anthrax attacks came,
Bush blamed Iraq again. Both times, he had no basis whatsoever in
fact for his claims. The habit of lambasting Iraq, and the
opportunity to escape the rhetorical box twelve years of
hard-talking American policy, were too juicy to ignore.

The dearth of definitive proof of an Iraqi threat against America
began to go international. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld appeared
before NATO not long ago and demanded that they support America's
looming Iraq war. Most of the NATO nations appeared ready to do
so - they trusted that America's top defense official would not
come before them and lie. But when they tried to ask questions of
him about the basis for this war, Rumsfeld absolutely refused to
answer any of them. Instead, he offered this regarding our utter
lack of meaningful data to support a conflict: "The absence of
evidence is not the evidence of absence."

Scott Ritter appeared before NATO some days after this at their
invitation to offer answers to their questions. Much of what he
told them was mirrored in his comments in that Boston classroom.
After he was finished, 16 of the 19 NATO nations present wrote
letters of complaint to the American government about Rumsfeld's
comments, and about our basis for war. American UN representatives
boycotted this hearing, and denounced all who gave ear to Ritter.

Some have claimed that the Bush administration may hold secret
evidence pointing to a threat within Iraq, one that cannot be
exposed for fear of compromising a source. Ritter dismissed this
out of hand in Boston. "If the administration had such secret
evidence," he said, "we'd be at war in Iraq right now. We wouldn't
be talking about it. It would be a fait accompli." Our immediate
military action in Afghanistan, whose ties to Al Qaeda were
manifest, lends great credence to this point.

Ritter dismissed oil as a motivating factor behind our coming war
with Iraq. He made a good defense of this claim. Yes, Iraq has the
second-largest oil reserves on earth, a juicy target for the
petroleum-loving Bush administration. But the U.S. already buys
some 68% of all the oil produced in Iraq. "The Navy ships in the
Gulf who work to interdict the smuggling of Iraqi oil," said
Ritter, "are fueled by Iraqi oil." Iraq's Oil Minister has stated
on camera that if the sanctions are lifted, Iraq will do whatever
it takes to see that America's oil needs are fulfilled. "You can't
get a better deal than that," claimed Ritter.

His thinking on this aspect of the coming war may be in error. That
sort of logic exists in an all-things-being-equal world of politics
and influence, a world that has ceased to exist. Oil is a coin in
the bargaining, peddled as influence to oil-state congressmen and
American petroleum companies by the Iraqi National Congress to
procure support for this baseless conflict. Invade, says the INC,
put us in power, and you will have all you want. There are many
ruling in America today, both in government and business, who would
shed innocent blood for this opportunity.

Ritter made no bones about the fact that Saddam Hussein is an evil
man. Like most Americans, however, he detests being lied to. His
work in Iraq, and his detailed understanding of the incredible
technological requirements for the production of weapons of mass
destruction, leads him to believe beyond question that there is no
basis in fact or in the needs of national security for a war in
Iraq. This Marine, this Republican who seemed so essentially
hawkish that no one in that Boston classroom would have been
surprised to find wings under his natty blue sportcoat, called the
man he cast a Presidential vote for a liar.

"The clock is ticking," he said, "and it's ticking towards war. And
it's going to be a real war. It's going to be a war that will
result in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans
and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. It's a war that is going
to devastate Iraq. It's a war that's going to destroy the
credibility of the United States of America. I just came back from
London, and I can tell you this - Tony Blair may talk a good show
about war, but the British people and the bulk of the British
government do not support this war. The Europeans do not support
this war. NATO does not support this war. No one supports this
war."

It is of a certainty that few in the Muslim world support another
American war with Iraq. Osama bin Laden used the civilian suffering
in Iraq under the sanctions to demonstrate to his followers the
evils of America and the West. Another war would exacerbate those
already-raw emotions. After 9/11, much of the Islamic world
repudiated bin Laden and his actions. Another Iraq war would go a
long way to proving, in the minds of many Muslims, that bin Laden
was right all along. The fires of terrorism that would follow this
are unimaginable.

Scott Ritter wants to be present as a witness on Monday when the
Foreign Relations Committee convenes its hearing, a hearing that
will decide whether or not America goes to war in Iraq. He wants to
share the information he delivered in that Boston classroom with
Senators who have spent too many years listening to, or
propounding, rhetorical and speculative fearmongering about an
Iraqi threat to America that does not exist. Instead, he wants the
inspectors back in Iraq, doing their jobs. He wants to try and keep
American and Iraqi blood from being spilled in a military exercise
promulgated by right-wing ideologues that may serve no purpose
beyond affecting the outcome of the midterm Congressional elections
in November 2002.

"This is not theory," said Ritter in Boston as he closed his
comments. "This is real. And the only way this war is going to be
stopped is if Congress stops this war."

[William Rivers Pitt is a teacher from Boston, MA. His new book,
'The Greatest Sedition is Silence,' will be published soon by Pluto
Press.]