e-Borders RSS
The War in Iraq - The Bigger Issues
Saddam falls © Reuters
Here in the UK, the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was the most widely used explanation of why we had to go to war. As Paul Wolfowitz, US Deputy Secretary of Defense explained in a rare moment of candour:
"For reasons that have a lot to do with US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction, as the core reason (for war)".
Now, David Kay, the US official charged with looking for these weapons says: "I don't think they existed". A detailed investigation by the independent Carnegie Endowment came to the same conclusion. And even the US Secretary of State has said that the existence of WMD is an "open question".
Yet all along, Tony Blair has insisted that we were in imminent danger from WMD.
- "Saddam did indeed have weapons of mass destructions and was a threat to the security of the world"
(Tony Blair, 6 June 2003) - "Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction"
(Jack Straw, 2 April 2003)
In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush said the United States had evidence of "weapons of mass destruction related programme activities". This coy and lawyerly formulation is light years from Tony Blair's September 2002 declaration that the Iraqis "are able to deploy these weapons (WMD) within 45 minutes of a decision to do so".
Saddam smashed © Reuters
We were also told that Saddam was an evil and murderous dictator. Indeed he was, but Britain and the US continue to have friendly relationships with evil and murderous regimes around the world. No-one believes Tony Blair is about to invade Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Zimbabwe and the many other countries with tyrannical and undemocratic rulers.
Indeed, during the 1980s, while he was murdering and gassing his own people, Saddam was an ally of the West. In 1987 and 1988, Tony Blair did not take the opportunity to sign parliamentary Early Day Motions criticizing Saddam's human rights abuses and UK arms exports to Iraq.
Finally, it was said that Saddam had ties with terrorists like Al Qaeda. Given that Saddam was an authoritarian socialist and Bin Laden a Muslim fundamentalist, this always seemed unlikely. Unfortunately, 70% of Americans have been persuaded that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, even though no credible evidence has been produced.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has now admitted that coalition forces in Iraq have not discovered "any smoking gun (or) concrete evidence" demonstrating ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. While his allies are rapidly changing their tone Tony Blair refuses to formally admit that there is any room for doubt about the existence of WMD in Iraq.
Our World Our Say believes it is time to call to account the politicians who dragged us into war against the opposition of millions of us.
News Links
- The Guardian - daily updated special reports on Iraq
- Reliefweb - Reports on the reconstruction process in Iraq
- Antiwar.com - A selection of reports from around the world
- Znet - analysis of the situation in Iraq
- Future of Iraq Portal
- BBC - After Saddam: In Depth Report
- Al Jazeera - Iraq under Occupation
- CNN - Special Report: War in Iraq
We hope to regularly update this section, but if you have any suggestions for material not included here, please email us.
