Game Over
Bush &
Powell Try To Shut Down The Inspectors
by
ARROW
(Active
Resistance to the Roots of War, UK)
Dissident Voice
February 21, 2003
CO-OPERATION
IS IRRELEVANT
President Bush is determined
to go to war, whatever Baghdad does: 'Saddam Hussein can now be expected to
begin another round of empty concessions, transparently false denials. No doubt
he will play a last minute game of deception. The game is over.' (Telegraph, 7
Feb., p. 1) 'It would not surprise the US if Saddam Hussein pretends all of a
sudden to have a change of heart and allow the U2 to fly or to show up with
some of the weapons he promised he never had,' a White House spokesperson said.
'But it wouldn't change the fact that Saddam Hussein is not co-operating.'
(Times, 7 Feb., p. 1) However much Iraq actually co-operates with the weapons
inspectors, 'Saddam is not co-operating'. In his barnstorming briefing to the
UN Security Council on 5 Feb., Colin Powell said, 'The issue before us is not
how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi
obstruction, but how much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq's
non-compliance before we, as a council, we, as the United Nations, say,
"Enough. Enough".' (Telegraph, 6 Feb., p. 1) The only possible fate
for the inspectors is to be 'frustrated by obstruction'. The US Secretary of
State was more direct earlier: 'The question isn't how much longer do you need
for inspections to work. Inspections will not work.' (Independent, 23 Jan., p.
1)
One aim of the Powell
presentation to the Security Council was to undermine public and international
confidence in the inspection agencies.
THE TAJI FACILITY SHELL GAME
The most striking images
used in the 5 Feb. presentation were of the Taji weapons facility. One
satellite photo from 10 Nov. 2002 shows two shapes by a bunker-one is alleged
to be a decontamination vehicle, and the other a security building for
monitoring leakages from the chemical weapons allegedly stored in the bunker. A
second photo taken on 22 Dec., shows UN weapons inspectors' vehicles approaching
the 'sanitized bunkers'-from which the vehicle and security building seem to
have been removed. Jonathan Ban, a chemical weapons expert at the
Washington-based Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, found the
juxtaposition of the two images 'strange': 'It wasn't clear to me whether the
bunkers that were shown in the second image were the same ones that were shown
in the first. If that is what they are claiming, then I would have liked to see
more detail of the decontamination truck and the security building being moved.
And if they were different buildings, what happened to the active bunkers when
the weapons inspectors showed up? This is something that needs to be explained
better.' (Guardian, 6 Feb., p. 3) Studying the photos, the angle of the access
road behind the bunker, and the presence of trees in the second photo indicate
that the photos actually are of two quite different bunkers. It seems that the
second photo has been chosen because it includes the inspectors' vehicles
driving through the Taji facility-to dramatise their alleged inability to
detect Iraqi deception.
THE AL-MUSSAYYIB
MISDIRECTION
'Mr Powell's case for Iraqi
concealment also relied heavily on interpretation of a second set of satellite
images, which captured the al-Mussayyib weapons facility', allegedly involved
in shipping chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field. 'The
first picture, from May last year, showed a bunker surrounded by what the US
said were three 35-tonne cargo trucks, along with a decontamination
vehicle-strong evidence according to Mr Powell that the site was being used for
chemical or biological weapons activity. A second image, taken two months
later, showed that the entire site [actually only part of the site-ARROW] had
been bulldozed and the earth freshly graded to conceal banned weapons activity
from UN inspection teams. The images were hugely important for the US case,
because, said Mr Powell, an Iraqi human source had confirmed that the chemical
weapons had been removed at that time.' On 13 Dec., inspectors went to al-
Mussayyib and found only ready- to-use pesticides. Jonathan Ban again: 'I find
it very difficult to believe that if there was chemical weapons contamination
in the area that the Iraqis would be able to completely get rid of that
contamination. The image shows that there are some areas of ground on the site
that haven't been graded and I think the inspectors would be able to take
samples from there to prove conclusively whether or not there has been recent
chemical weapons activity.' (Guardian, 6 Feb., p. 3) Sounds like a job for
those inspectors that Mr Powell says are pointless.
US FLOUTS RESOLUTION 1441
UN Resolution 1441, which
Colin Powell exhorts us all to re-read, 'Requests all Member States to give
full support to UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates,
including by providing any information related to prohibited programmes or
other aspects of their mandates'. (Para. 10) The Resolution was passed on 8
Nov. 2002, but these dramatic photos from May, July, Nov. and Dec. 2002 were
not handed over to UNMOVIC- they were kept to be publicly displayed on 5 Feb.
2003. THE MOBILE CONFIDENCE TRICK 'Because Powell's slideshow showed Iraq
giving the UN inspectors the runaround, it also weakened Blix's argument that
more time would bring success. Talking of the 18 lorries that are believed to
be mobile biological weapons factories, Powell asked rhetorically how long it
would take to find even a single one among the "thousands and thousands of
trucks" on Iraq's roads... Blix's report to the UN last week put the US on
the back foot, in arguing that the inspectors deserved more time. Powell's
performance yesterday won back a lot of that ground.' (Times, 6 Feb., p. 15) In
the real world, 'Biowar experts concede that no scheme is too crazy for Saddam.
Still, they say, truck-mounted labs would be all but unworkable. The required
ventilation systems would make them instantly recognizable from above, and they
would need special facilities to safely dispose of their deadly wastes. A
routine highway accident could be catastrophic. And US intelligence, after
years of looking for them, has never found even one.' (Newsweek, 17 Feb., p.
20)
I SAY, I SAY, HEARSAY
Richard Beeston of The Times
observed that, 'most of what General Powell said was open to interpretation.
There was no named high-ranking defector prepared to substantiate the
allegations. There was no visual evidence of soldiers or scientists handling weapons
such as chemical or biological weapons, nor even attempting to conceal huge
items such as Scud missiles.' His colleague Michael Evans noted that there were
'no pictures of the inside' of any of the alleged mobile biological weapons
laboratories, nor 'photographic evidence' of a chemical weapons programme.
(Times, 6 Feb., p. 14) Joseph Cirincione, senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, said, 'We should never go
to war based on a defector's tale. There's a long history of defectors' tales
being erroneous... It is a problem that detectives have all the time; somebody
comes to them hoping to get something in exchange.' (Guardian, 6 Feb., p. 2)
'He barraged the members [of the Security Council] with questions: "Who
took the hard drives? Where did they go? What's being hidden? Why?" Yet he
offered few answers and much speculation.' (Guardian, 6 Feb., p. 1) Egyptian
political scientist Emad Shahin observed wryly, and accurately, 'The speech was
long on accusations, and short on evidence.' (Telegraph, 7 Feb., p. 14)
THE TAPES
Many Western observers were
convinced by intercepted conversations between Iraqi military officials. 'But
doubts remain about the credibility of the tapes, not least because many
observers doubt that senior Iraqi officers would speak so carelessly on open
telephone or radio conversations. The conversations were also open to
interpretation. Jonathan Ban, a chemical weapons specialist said. "For
example, what do they mean by a 'modified vehicle'? That could mean absolutely
anything as could 'prohibited ammo'."
(Guardian, 6 Feb., p. 2)
EVEN THE SPIES REVOLT
Before his speech, it was
reported that Powell 'yesterday appeared to pull back from claims that he would
show the United Nations a link between al- Qaeda and Iraq, amid anger among
Washington's spies over the way intelligence was being distorted to prove the
link existed.' (Telegraph, 4 Feb., p. 13) There is evidence that the supposed
'link' man, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was treated in Baghdad, but there is no evidence
he contacted Iraqi officials: 'The intelligence is practically non-existent',
said one 'exasperated American intelligence source'. The source went on: 'It is
impossible to support the bald conclusions being made by the White House and
the Pentagon given the poor quantity and quality of the intelligence available.
There is uproar within the intelligence community on all of these points, but
the Bush White House has quashed dissent.' The Telegraph commented, 'This could
all be dismissed as a turf war between rival intelligence agencies were it not
for the near unanimity across the British and American intelligence
communities, including the Defence Intelligence Agency analysts whose bosses
produced the line the White House wanted to hear.' (Telegraph, 4 Feb. 2003, p.
13) Despite the uproar, Powell trotted out the Party line.
1998 ALL OVER AGAIN
President Bush famously
said, 'This looks like a re-run of a bad movie and I'm not interested in
watching.' (Guardian, 22 Jan., p. 1) Let's remember that in Dec. 1998 the
inspection agency UNSCOM was driven out by the US, not by Baghdad. UNSCOM chief
Richard Butler records in his memoirs that he was called in by US Ambassador to
the UN Peter Burleigh, and advised to be 'prudent' with the safety of UNSCOM
staff. 'Repeating a familiar script, I told him that I would act on this advice
and remove my staff from Iraq.' (Saddam Defiant, p. 224) UNSCOM withdrew,
creating the right political climate for days of US/UK military strikes, and
leading to the destruction of the agency. The US shut down UNSCOM in 1998 to
pave the way for war. President Bush is trying to re-run this bad movie with
UNSCOM's successor, UNMOVIC. He must be stopped.
ARROW (Active Resistance to the
Roots of War) is a nonviolent direct action affinity group that opposes US/UK
intervention in the Third World. This article originally appeared on February
10, 2003, as WAR PLAN IRAQ Update Number 8. Visit the ARROW website at: http://www.j-n-v.org