Lies, Ties, and Spies — Summarized
Vol: 19 Issue: 23 Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Dr. Hans Blix, the head of the UNMOVIC inspection team, told the Security Council that the ‘only way’ to ensure Iraq does NOT have weapons of mass destruction is for his people to go back there and see. He said that any other inspection and destruction operation — meaning the United States — would ‘not have international credibility’.
Blix went on to pan the evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell presented at the UN in support of Iraq’s WMD program, saying, “I think it has been one of the disturbing elements that so much of the intelligence on which the capitals Washington and London built their case seems to have been shaky.”
When asked directly if he believed the United States or United Kingdom had deliberately falsified evidence, he said he wouldn’t go ‘that far’ before in the next breath saying exactly that, only by innuendo, rather than by direct accusation.
This whole innuendo thing is part and parcel of the way the UN treats the US in all things. This in particular reminds me of two women gossiping over a fence while they do their laundry. . .”I’m not saying that she did. blah, blah, but it seems awful funny to me”. . .etc.
That’s how Blix couched his charges that America and Britain wanted to go to war so bad they lied about it just to get the chance.
We have heard about the alleged contract between Iraq and Niger about the import of some 500 tons of uranium, Blix told the BBC. When the IAEA got the contract they had no great difficulty in finding out that this was falsified. I think that is very, very disturbing. Who falsified this? And is it not disturbing that the intelligence agencies that should have all the technical means at their disposal did not discover that this was falsified? Blix also directly accused Washington of mounting a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign to undermine UNMOVIC’s pre-war efforts. He added that US officials had tried to smear him in the run-up to the war by leaking false stories that the UN withheld details of Iraqi weapons.
Secretary Powell presented a considerable amount of evidence, not the least of which would be the photos of tens of thousands of bodies we know Saddam had already killed using weapons of mass destruction, both during its war with Iran and later against Iraqi Kurds and Shi’ites.
With the mountains of evidence that was being combed through, the obstructionist tactics of the UN, together with the covert aid offered Saddam by Germany, Russia and particularly, France, the fact that one falsified report slipped through isn’t all that ‘disturbing.’ Not when stacked up against the mountains of evidence that the world body deliberately covered up and hid from US and UK investigators.
Like all those German chemical suits, French military spare parts and communications equipment and Russian GPS jammers that were kept a secret until coalition forces discovered them during their sweep through Iraq.
But evidently, that’s not important now. What is important to the UN is that the UNMOVIC inspection team is the only ‘credible body’ who can certify Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction.
Assessment:
Confused yet? If, as the UN and Hans Blix maintain, Iraq HAS no weapons of mass destruction, then why would they be insisting the ‘only’ way to be sure would be for UNMOVIC to inspect and certify it now? They seemed pretty sure when Saddam was in power. But now that Washington is temporarily administering Iraq’s transition government, suddenly, they aren’t sure anymore and won’t be until they can get in there and bring their keen senses of observation to the hunt.
Everybody is alleging that somebody else was involved in a cover-up over Iraq. The US blames the Germans, French and Russians for covering up their sanction busting business dealings with Saddam Hussein’s government. The UN is trying to cover up the fact that it is raking in tens of millions in interest from the $12 billion in Iraqi oil money that it wants to keep sitting on.
In return, the left blames the US for covering up the alleged fact that Washington knew that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction but launched the war for economic reasons — to get its hands on Iraqi oil.
Let me try and stop the spin cycle long enough to lay out the case in a logical, linear fashion.
The French, Germans and Russians (who actually profited handsomely from violating UN sanctions) allege the US fabricated evidence so it could profit from Iraq’s oil. Turns out they were all profiting from Iraq’s oil wealth all along and didn’t want to profits to stop rolling in.
The UN accuses the US of fabricating evidence so that it could profit from Iraq’s oil when the UN is the one raking in tens of millions in ‘administration fees’ that it would lose if Iraq’s oil industry were turned back over to the Iraqis.
The media continues to allege that the US invaded Iraq in a war-for-profit, largely giving the European and UN profiteers a pass on their own conduct. And so far, nobody has demonstrated how a war that cost America $75 billion so far is ‘profitable’, whereas the profits raked in by the accusers runs into the billions and billions of dollars.
Eason Jordan, Iraqi bureau chief for CNN, confessed in an op-ed essay in the New York Times that he withheld news of Saddam’s evil in exchange for keeping access to his sources. The devil is always in the details. Snapshots can lie. Repeated photographs of the anti-war protesters suggested they were much more prominent than they were. This, despite the polls that continue to show that a large majority of Americans support the president and American war aims.
Those who did oppose the war are shopping around now for fresh arguments, because it’s impossible not to see the liberation of Iraq as a good thing. “Not to feel relief at the prospect of a world without [Saddam Hussein] is to be possessed of a grudging heart,” writes David Remnick in the New Yorker, a magazine which had predicted a much messier campaign. A week earlier, Hendrik Hertzberg, a zealous anti-war writer, had conceded in the magazine that it was too late to argue against the war, “and it’s too late to accept any outcome that does not involve the fall of Saddam.”
The incredible hubris of the United Nations and old Europe is exceeded only by that of Hans Blix, who is at once claiming Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction while simultaneously saying that Iraq won’t be WMD-free until UNMOVIC says it is.
Meanwhile, the coalition forces do NOT have a track record of profiting from circumventing UN sanctions. The main coalition partners enforced the UN sanctions for twelve years while the anti-coalition profited handsomely.
But the US and UK are the ones getting a black eye for alleged war profiteering for removing Saddam at considerable cost in blood and treasure. And somehow, the anti-coalition has found a way to blame Israel for everything and tie any successful conclusion of the Iraq war to a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
That’s the unspun version — Europe, Russia and the United Nations vs. Israel and the United States over Babylon. If I wanted to summarize the Bible’s outline of future history in a single line, I couldn’t come up with a better one than that.
The Bible also offers a one-sentence summary of what my summary is leading to. “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)
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