A must read
DEADLY COST OF A DEADLY ACT
by Robert Fisk, «The Independent», London, 18/12/98
WE ARE now in the endgame, the final bankruptcy of Western policy towards Iraq, the very
last throw of the dice. We fire 200 cruise missiles into Iraq and what do we expect? Is a
chastened Saddam Hussein going to emerge from his bunker to explain to us how sorry he is?
Will he tell us how much he wants those nice UN inspectors to return to Baghdad to find his
"weapons of mass destruction"? Is that what we think? Is that what the Anglo-American
bombardment is all about? And if so, what happens afterwards? What happens when the
missile attacks end - just before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, because, of course, we
really are very sensitive about Iraqi religious feelings - and Saddam Hussein tells us that the UN
inspectors will never be allowed to return? As the cruise missiles were launched, President
Clinton announced that Saddam had "disarmed the [UN] inspectors", and Tony Blair -
agonizing about the lives of the "British forces" involved (all 14 pilots) - told us that "we act
because we must". In so infantile a manner did we go to war on Wednesday night. No policies.
No perspective. Not the slightest hint as to what happens after the bombardment ends.
With no UN inspectors back in Iraq, what are we going to do? Declare eternal war against
Iraq? We are "punishing" Saddam - or so Mr Blair would have us believe. And all the old
cliches are being trundled out. In 1985, just before he bombed them, Ronald Reagan told the
Libyans that the United States had "no quarrel with the Libyan people". In 1991, just before he
bombed them, George Bush told the Iraqis that he had "no quarrel with the Iraqi people". And
now we have Tony Blair - as he bombs them - telling Iraqis that, yes, he has "no quarrel with
the Iraqi people". Is there a computer that churns out this stuff? Is there a cliche department at
Downing Street which also provides Robin Cook with the tired phrase of the American
Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, about how Saddam used gas "against his own people"?
...For little did we care when he did use that gas against the Kurds of Halabja - because, at the
time, those Kurds were allied to Iran and we, the West, were supporting Saddam's invasion of
Iran.
The lack of any sane long-term policy towards Iraq is the giveaway. Our patience - according
to Clinton and Blair - is exhausted. Saddam cannot be trusted to keep his word (they've just
realised). And so Saddam's ability to "threaten his neighbours" - neighbours who don't in fact
want us to bomb Iraq - has to be "degraded". That word "degraded" is a military term, first
used by General Schwarzkopf and his boys in the 1991 Gulf war, and it is now part of the
vocabulary of the weak. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction have to be "degraded". Our
own dear Mr Cook was at it again yesterday, informing us of the need to "degrade" Saddam's
military capability. How? The UN weapons inspectors - led for most of the time by Scott Ritter
(the man who has admitted he kept flying to Israel to liaise with Israeli military intelligence),
could not find out where Saddam's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons were hidden.
They had been harassed by Iraq's intelligence thugs, and prevented from doing their work.
Now we are bombing the weapons facilities which the inspectors could not find. Or are we?
For there is a very serious question that is not being asked: if the inspectors couldn't find the
weapons, how come we know where to fire the cruise missiles? And all the while, we continue
to impose genocidal sanctions on Iraq, sanctions that are killing innocent Iraqis and - by the
admission of Mr Cook and Mrs Albright - not harming Saddam at all. Mrs Albright rages at
Saddam's ability to go on building palaces, and Mr Cook is obsessed with a report of the
regime's purchase of liposuction equipment which, if true, merely proves that sanctions are a
total failure. Mr Cook prattles on about how Iraq can sell more than $10bn (=A36bn) of oil a
year to pay for food, medicine and other humanitarian goods. But since more than 30 per cent
of these oil revenues are diverted to the UN compensation fund and UN expenses in Iraq, his
statement is totally untrue.
Dennis Halliday, the man who ran the UN oil-for-food programme in Baghdad, until he realised
that thousands of Iraqi children were dying every month because of sanctions, resigned his post
with the declaration that "we are in the process of destroying an entire society. it is illegal and
immoral." So either Mr Halliday is a pathological liar - which I do not believe - or Mr Cook has
a serious problem with the truth - which I do believe.
Now we are bombing the people who are suffering under our sanctions. Not to mention the
small matter of the explosion of child cancer in southern Iraq, most probably as a result of the
Allied use of depleted uranium shells during the 1991 war. Gulf war veterans may be afflicted
with the same sickness, although the British Government refuses to contemplate the possibility.
And what, in this latest strike, are some of our warheads made of? Depleted uranium, of
course. Maybe there really is a plan afoot for a coup d'etat, though hopefully more ambitious
than our call to the Iraqi people to rise up against their dictator in 1991, when they were
abandoned by the Allies they thought would speed to their rescue. Mr Clinton says he wants a
democracy in Iraq - as fanciful a suggestion as any made recently. He is demanding an Iraqi
government that "represents its people" and "respects" its citizens. Not a single Arab regime -
especially not Washington's friends in Saudi Arabia - offers such luxuries to its people. We are
supposed to believe, it seems, that Washington and London are terribly keen to favour the Iraqi
people with a fully fledged democracy. In reality, what we want in Iraq is another bullying
dictator - but one who will do as he is told, invade the countries we wish to see invaded (Iran),
and respect the integrity of those countries we do not wish to see invaded (Kuwait).
Yet no questions are being asked, no lies uncovered. Ritter, the Marine Corps inspector who
worked with Israeli intelligence, claimed that Richard Butler - the man whose report triggered
this week's new war - was aware of his visits to Israel. Is that true? Has anyone asked Mr
Butler? He may well have avoided such contacts - but it would be nice to have an answer. So
what to do with Saddam? Well, first, we could abandon the wicked sanctions regime against
Iraq. We have taken enough innocent lives. We have killed enough children. Then we could
back the real supporters of democracy in Iraq - not the ghouls and spooks who make up the
so-called Iraqi National Congress, but the genuine dissidents who gathered in Beirut in 1991 to
demand freedom for their country, but were swiftly ignored by the Americans once it became
clear that they didn't want a pro-Western strongman to lead them. And we could stop believing
in Washington.
Vice-President Al Gore told Americans yesterday that it was a time for "national resolve and
unity".You might have thought that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor, or that General
MacArthur had just abandoned Bataan. When President Clinton faced the worst of the Monica
Lewinsky scandal, he bombed Afghanistan and Sudan. Faced with impeachment, he now
bombs Iraq. How far can a coincidence go? This week, two Christian armies - America's and
Britain's - went to war with a Muslim nation, Iraq. With no goals, but with an army of platitudes,
they have abandoned the UN's weapons control system, closed the door on arms inspections,
and opened the door to an unlimited military offensive against Iraq. And nobody has asked the
obvious question:what happens next?
Robert Fisk
«The Independent»,
London, 18/12/98
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