The anti-war folk who claim that we went into Iraq on a lie might have more credibility if they were not the ones vociferously claiming that if we went near Saddam Hussein he would most likely unleash his WMD on Israel. Did Bush and Blair lie? Think back to the time, virtually everybody believed they had WMD - they didn’t believe that Saddam was going to invade Kuwait until it became obvious to everyone (the Americans did nothing to prevent it) - a presumption of innocence would have been foolish and, indeed, dangerous, particularly with Saddam’s track record of genocide. In 1991 Israel was a target of Iraqi scud missiles - Israel did not retaliate.
The provenance of much of these missing WMD was the A Q Kahn network in Pakistan whose huge acquisition was paid for by the blank cheque that America gave them to combat the Russians (much of which was spent building up the Taliban). Incidentally America has been continuing to fund them in their attempts to pretend that the Taliban are their enemy and always have been. You don’t have to look very far to find these things out, these are all provable facts.
Also you don’t have to look very hard to read the works of several people who served under Saddam and openly testify that he had WMD - the most comprehensive of which is the testimony by Georges Hormiz Sada a retired general officer of the Iraqi air force a born-again Christian. He has had a book published (Saddam’s Secrets) in which he talks about Saddam’s plans to destroy Israel, his attempts to control the Arab world and how he aspired to command and occupy much more of it. Mr Sada also talks about his own role in supervising the removal of WMD to Damascus in Syria because Saddam was worried that the Western troops would find them. There have been many other sources which expose Saddam’s complex concealment plans, and the media have nothing credible to say on this.
Even if it does turn out that there never were any WMD (although that seems highly unlikely - probably more likely that we will never find them) it was universally accepted at the time that he did have them. Who in their right mind would risk such a blithe approach to something so serious? A chasm of tautology yawns at the feet of those who wish to have it both ways with their gross rhetorical and argumentative excess. Of course this path will never be a smooth one - the horrors of Abu Gharib should tell us that, it is extremely difficult to ask people to clothe themselves morally if those who are making the insistence are naked themselves, but on this point of WMD we do know, although we haven’t perhaps been able to prove comprehensively, that Saddam Hussein’s plans for WMD and the rest of the Middle Eastern region were enough to send a huge wave of foreboding across the waters. We also know, and now have provable evidence, that Saddam Hussein was in the process of buying nuclear missiles in Syria from none other than egregious rogue from North Korea - Kim Jong Il.
You might also like to know that Saddam once had a reactor but Israel blew it up - we knew he was trying to acquire them but we couldn’t prove it unless we went in. This whole legality factor is thrown in by the anti-war faction to help build up their weak (now moribund) case for objection. If there are still people who feel vindicated by their anti-war protestations back in 2003/4, I am certain that time will vindicate those who had confidence all along that this was the right thing to do.
A stable and democratic Iraq will have a reverberating effect on the rest of the Middle East too (one can hope), it will put pressure on Baathist Syria to democratise, and also give stimulus to the reform movement in Iran (with a little coercion from the West). Perhaps we can even hope for radical changes in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and, yes, Israel too. Incidentally, would Gadaffi have capitulated as he did in surrendering his arsenal to the US if he didn’t think that Libya might be next?
There is, of course, a question that ought to be tackled - why weren’t the WMD found?
The Iraqi government did present an inventory to the UN stating which weapons they did have, none of which have been found since the invasion - so that’s not a substantive case for arguing that they never were there. As the old maxim goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
1. If the Iraqi government destroyed the WMD that would have been a breach of the UN resolution.
2. We do know now, which we wouldn’t have known without the intervention, that Saddam had a nuclear centrifuge - or at least it was in its incipient stages, which was found by US troops thanks to compliant scientists.
3. It could be that the bombing of Baghdad under the Clinton presidency destroyed more than we realise (or indeed in the early stages of bombing in 2003 under Bush). The consequences of which could be that Saddam had been lying about what he really did have, so the Arab world still saw him as a formidable force in the region. Another interesting theory is that Saddam’s own scientists were lying to him - there was nothing in the realm of torture and humiliation that Saddam did not try, perhaps they were too scared to tell him that the weapons had been destroyed.
Moreover, there has of course been emergent information recently about a plutonium-producing reactor in Syria which had been hit following Israel’s air-strike; it was a reactor being built by the Syrians with the help from expert North Korean engineers. Now this incriminates North Korea and makes the culpable for their actions in securing nuclear knowledge to rogue leaders. It is quite worrying that America seems so impotent in the face of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation, and that they have faced no penalties for their criminal activities. And here of course we have the most trenchant argument against reticence when it comes to nuclear weapons in the international community. The much derided doctrine of pre-emption still stands over counter-arguments – and it is supported by the realisation that once a country acquires nuclear capacity it is that much harder to do very much about it. Any exaggeration regarding Saddam’s capability does not detract from the fact that inaction would have been too risky, and any misjudgement on the subject of WMD should not make our case against murderous fanatics any less urgent.
Don’t get too comfy in your armchairs - it looks like we are going to go through the same thing with Iran soon enough. One thing that seems self-evident is this: a fanatical Islamic theocracy with a mission to restore the caliphate and exterminate Israel and other ‘infidels’ must never be allowed to acquire thermonuclear weapons – and I must be pushing at an open door when I say this.
Also you don’t have to look very hard to read the works of several people who served under Saddam and openly testify that he had WMD - the most comprehensive of which is the testimony by Georges Hormiz Sada a retired general officer of the Iraqi air force a born-again Christian. He has had a book published (Saddam’s Secrets) in which he talks about Saddam’s plans to destroy Israel, his attempts to control the Arab world and how he aspired to command and occupy much more of it. Mr Sada also talks about his own role in supervising the removal of WMD to Damascus in Syria because Saddam was worried that the Western troops would find them. There have been many other sources which expose Saddam’s complex concealment plans, and the media have nothing credible to say on this.
Even if it does turn out that there never were any WMD (although that seems highly unlikely - probably more likely that we will never find them) it was universally accepted at the time that he did have them. Who in their right mind would risk such a blithe approach to something so serious? A chasm of tautology yawns at the feet of those who wish to have it both ways with their gross rhetorical and argumentative excess. Of course this path will never be a smooth one - the horrors of Abu Gharib should tell us that, it is extremely difficult to ask people to clothe themselves morally if those who are making the insistence are naked themselves, but on this point of WMD we do know, although we haven’t perhaps been able to prove comprehensively, that Saddam Hussein’s plans for WMD and the rest of the Middle Eastern region were enough to send a huge wave of foreboding across the waters. We also know, and now have provable evidence, that Saddam Hussein was in the process of buying nuclear missiles in Syria from none other than egregious rogue from North Korea - Kim Jong Il.
You might also like to know that Saddam once had a reactor but Israel blew it up - we knew he was trying to acquire them but we couldn’t prove it unless we went in. This whole legality factor is thrown in by the anti-war faction to help build up their weak (now moribund) case for objection. If there are still people who feel vindicated by their anti-war protestations back in 2003/4, I am certain that time will vindicate those who had confidence all along that this was the right thing to do.
A stable and democratic Iraq will have a reverberating effect on the rest of the Middle East too (one can hope), it will put pressure on Baathist Syria to democratise, and also give stimulus to the reform movement in Iran (with a little coercion from the West). Perhaps we can even hope for radical changes in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and, yes, Israel too. Incidentally, would Gadaffi have capitulated as he did in surrendering his arsenal to the US if he didn’t think that Libya might be next?
There is, of course, a question that ought to be tackled - why weren’t the WMD found?
The Iraqi government did present an inventory to the UN stating which weapons they did have, none of which have been found since the invasion - so that’s not a substantive case for arguing that they never were there. As the old maxim goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
1. If the Iraqi government destroyed the WMD that would have been a breach of the UN resolution.
2. We do know now, which we wouldn’t have known without the intervention, that Saddam had a nuclear centrifuge - or at least it was in its incipient stages, which was found by US troops thanks to compliant scientists.
3. It could be that the bombing of Baghdad under the Clinton presidency destroyed more than we realise (or indeed in the early stages of bombing in 2003 under Bush). The consequences of which could be that Saddam had been lying about what he really did have, so the Arab world still saw him as a formidable force in the region. Another interesting theory is that Saddam’s own scientists were lying to him - there was nothing in the realm of torture and humiliation that Saddam did not try, perhaps they were too scared to tell him that the weapons had been destroyed.
Moreover, there has of course been emergent information recently about a plutonium-producing reactor in Syria which had been hit following Israel’s air-strike; it was a reactor being built by the Syrians with the help from expert North Korean engineers. Now this incriminates North Korea and makes the culpable for their actions in securing nuclear knowledge to rogue leaders. It is quite worrying that America seems so impotent in the face of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation, and that they have faced no penalties for their criminal activities. And here of course we have the most trenchant argument against reticence when it comes to nuclear weapons in the international community. The much derided doctrine of pre-emption still stands over counter-arguments – and it is supported by the realisation that once a country acquires nuclear capacity it is that much harder to do very much about it. Any exaggeration regarding Saddam’s capability does not detract from the fact that inaction would have been too risky, and any misjudgement on the subject of WMD should not make our case against murderous fanatics any less urgent.
Don’t get too comfy in your armchairs - it looks like we are going to go through the same thing with Iran soon enough. One thing that seems self-evident is this: a fanatical Islamic theocracy with a mission to restore the caliphate and exterminate Israel and other ‘infidels’ must never be allowed to acquire thermonuclear weapons – and I must be pushing at an open door when I say this.
No comments:
Post a Comment