Does Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction?

...Scott Ritter, a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq for five years, told me: "By 1998, the chemical weapons infrastructure had been completely dismantled or destroyed by UNSCOM (the UN inspections body) or by Iraq in compliance with our mandate. The biological weapons programme was gone, all the major facilities eliminated. The nuclear weapons programme was completely eliminated. The long range ballistic missile programme was completely eliminated. If I had to quantify Iraq's threat, I would say [it is] zero." - http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/pilger.htm

Iraq kicked out the weapons inspectors, didn't they?

That the UN inspectors were not "expelled", but pulled out after American spies were found among them in preparation for an attack on Iraq, is almost never reported. - http://www.zmag.org/content/MainstreamMedia/pilger_compliantpress.cfm

If Iraq lets the inspectors in, the U.S. will lift the sanctions, right?

Previously the ambiguity in US policy was that key players would not say that if Iraq complied with inspections and was given a clean bill of health, sanctions would be lifted. When Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March 2001 that if Iraq let weapons inspectors in, the US "may look at lifting sanctions," he continued the Clinton administration's strategy of using sanctions as a form of punitive control and containment, rather than enforcement of specific requirements on Iraq. - http://www.zmag.org/content/Iraq/merip_graham.cfm (MERIP Press Information Note 96, "Sanctions Renewed on Iraq," by Sarah Graham-Brown, May 14, 2002.)

...Madeleine Albright has said: "We do not agree that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted." If this means that Saddam Hussein is the target, then the embargo will go on indefinitely, holding Iraqis hostage to their tyrant's compliance with his own demise...." - http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/pilger.htm

What have the sanctions done to Iraqis?

What has transpired in Iraq amounts to a children's holocaust. According to a Harvard study conduced in 1991, in the first eight months of that year 47,000 excess children deaths took place. In 1996, UNICEF put a number on the children dying as a result of the United Nations sanctions regime; it found that 4,500 children were dying every month from preventable hunger and disease. Garfield, in a study of mortality among Iraqi children, found that between 1991 and 1998 at least 100,000 -- but more likely 227,000 excess deaths -- took place, of which three quarters resulted from the consequences of United Nations sanctions. In a 1999 report, requested by the UN Security Council, it was found that in "marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-1991, infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight [of less than 2.5kg] affects at least 23 per cent of all births." The arrested growth of children has become widespread; with the UN secretary general noting, in 1997, that chronic malnutrition has resulted in 31 per cent of children having had their growth stunted, and 26 per cent being underweight. Kofi Annan concluded his report by stating: "one- third of children under five years of age ... are malnourished."

The overall effect of sanctions has been, according to Richard Garfield: "the only instance of a sustained, large increase in mortality in a stable population of more than 2 million in the last 200 years." This should come as little surprise as a UN Development Programme field report stated that "the country has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty." The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has had people on the ground throughout the 1990s, reported in 2000 that "daily life for ordinary Iraqis was a struggle for survival. The tragic effects of the embargo were seen in the steady deterioration of the health system and the breakdown of public infrastructure. Despite the increase in availability of food, medicines and medical equipment, following a rise in oil prices and the extension of the 'oil-for-food' programme, suffering remains widespread." - http://www.zmag.org/content/Iraq/allain_criminalenforcers.cfm

"Thanks to the oil-for-food program, the people of Iraq, especially those in the north, are getting needed foods and medicines” (U.S. State Department, March 2000).

...In March 1999 an expert 'Humanitarian Panel' convened by the Security Council concluded the UN's 'oil-for-food' programme could +not+ meet the needs of the Iraqi people...

The Panel continued:

"Regardless of the improvements that might be brought about - in terms of approval procedures, better performance by the Iraqi Government, or funding levels - the magnitude of the humanitarian needs is such that they cannot be met within the context of [the oil-for-food programme] ... Nor was the programme intended to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people ... Given the present state of the infrastructure, the revenue required for its rehabilitation is far above the level available under the programme." - http://www.zmag.org/content/MainstreamMedia/cohen_reply.cfm

“Iraq is mismanaging the oil-for-food program, either deliberately or through incompetence” (U.S. State Department, March 2000).

...The most recent report ofthe UN secretary general, in October 2001, says that the US and UK governments' blocking of $4bn of humanitarian supplies is by far the greatest constraint on the implementation of the oil-for-food programme. The report says that, in contrast, the Iraqi government's distribution of humanitarian supplies is fully satisfactory...The death of some 5-6,000 children a month is mostly due to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US and UK governments' delayed clearance of equipment and materials is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad.

...the UN, from the secretary general himself down, says that, while the regime could do more, it has not withheld supplies. Indeed, without Iraq's own rationing and distribution system, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, there would have been famine. Halliday and von Sponeck [ former assistant secretary generals of the UN Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck ] point out that the US and Britain are able to fend off criticism of sanctions with unsubstantiated stories that the regime is "punishing" its own people. If these stories are true, they say, why does America and Britain further punish them by deliberately withholding humanitarian supplies, such as vaccines, painkillers and cancer diagnostic equipment?... - http://www.zmag.org/content/MainstreamMedia/pilger_compliantpress.cfm

Is Saddam Hussein connected to al Qaeda?

...Most recently, the FBI itself has raised doubts about the veracity of the story that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. Hence the weapons issue has now taken center stage, with the US invoking UN resolutions and hoping to rally international support on this basis. - http://www.zmag.org/content/Iraq/merip_graham.cfm ( MERIP Press Information Note 96, "Sanctions Renewed on Iraq," by Sarah Graham-Brown, May 14, 2002.)

...The strongest alleged link has been the supposed meeting of Mohammed Atta, the 11 September ringleader, and an Iraqi diplomat expelled from the Czech Republic for spying. The two are meant to have met in Prague in 2001, a 'fact' confirmed by Czech interior minister Stanislav Gross in Oct. 2001. When the Czech police completed their inquiry in Dec. 2001, however, 'Jiri Kolar, the police chief, said there were no documents showing that Atta visited Prague at any time this year [2001], although he had visited twice in 2000'. Another man by the name of Mohammed Atta did visit Prague in 2001, but according to a Czech intelligence source, 'He didn't have the same identity card number, there was a great difference in their ages, their nationalities didn't match, basically nothing. It was someone else.' (Daily Telegraph, 18 Dec. 2001, p. 10) Despite the disintegration of this fable, it continues to circulate and to be repeated as fact. Useful lies can live for a long time. As for any links between Baghdad and al-Qaeda, an anonymous former CIA officer has remarked that, 'The reality is that Osama bin Laden doesn't like Saddam Hussein. Saddam is a secularist who has killed more Islamic clergy than he has Americans. They have almost nothing in common except a hatred of the US. Saddam is the ultimate control freak, and for him terrorists are the ultimate loose cannon.' (Daily Telegraph, 20 Sept. 2001, p. 10) - http://www.zmag.org/content/Iraq/rai_no_justification_for_war.cfm

“Sanctions are not intended to harm the people of Iraq” (U.S. State Department, March 2000).

FACT: Several United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents clearly and thoroughly prove, in the words of one author, “beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country’s water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway” (The Progressive, August 2001).

One document entitled “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities,” [read the document here - http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html] dated January 22, 1991, is quite straightforward in how sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying clean water to its citizens. It explains Iraq’s heavy dependence on the importation of specialized equipment and some chemicals to purify its water. Failing to secure these items (which is nearly impossible to do under the sanctions), the documents adds, will result in a shortage of drinking water and could “lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease” (U.S. Department of Defense, January 1991).

Other DIA documents confirm that the U.S. government was not only aware of the devastation of the sanctions, but was, in fact, monitoring their progress. The first in a lengthy series of documents entitled “Disease Information” is a document whose heading reads “Subject: Effects of Bombing on Disease Occurrence in Baghdad.”[read the document here - http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_0504rept_91.html] The document states, “Increased incidence of diseases will be attributable to degradation of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution, electricity, and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. Any urban area in Iraq that has received infrastructure damage will have similar problems.” The document then itemizes the likely disease outbreaks, noting which in particular will affect children (U.S. Department of Defense, January 1991).

The third document, written March 15, 1991 and entitled “Medical Problems in Iraq,”[read the document here- http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19951016/951016_0me018_91.html] states that diseases are far more common due to “poor sanitary conditions (contaminated water supplied and improper sewage disposal) resulting from the war.” It then cites a UNICEF/WHO report that “the quantity of potable water is less than 5 percent of the original supply,” that “there are no operational water and sewage treatment plants,” and that diarrhea and respiratory infections are on the rise. Almost as a sidenote, it adds “Children particularly have been affected by these diseases” (U.S. Department of Defense, March 1991). - http://zmag.org/ZMag/Articles/nov01lindemyer.htm

“Iraqi obstruction of the oil-for-food program, not United Nations sanctions, is the primary reason the Iraqi people are suffering” (U.S. State Department, March 2000).

FACT: The UN sanctions were levied against Iraq in August 1990 and the oil-for-food program began in December 1996. It is therefore impossible to attribute the suffering of the Iraqi people to the obstruction of a program, which did not exist until six years after the fact. As Halliday explained, the oil-for-food program was set up by the UN Security Council as a response to the humanitarian crisis in Iraq created by the impact of the sanctions. The creation of the program demonstrates that the suffering of the Iraqi people preceded any possible interference. - http://zmag.org/ZMag/Articles/nov01lindemyer.htm

“Saddam Hussein’s repression of the Iraqi people has not stopped” and therefore “lifting sanctions would offer the Iraqi people no relief from neglect at the hands of their government” (U.S. State Department, March 2000).

The U.S. State Department claims that Iraqi authorities routinely practice extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions throughout those parts of the country still under regime control. The total number of prisoners believed to have been executed since autumn 1997 exceeds 2,500” (U.S. State Department, March 2000). Former U.S. Marine and UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter puts this number in context. “The concept of us trying to save the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein is ludicrous. He is a brutal dictator. He may torture to death 1,800 people a year. That’s terrible and unacceptable. But we kill 6,000 a month. Let’s put that on a scale” (June 1999 FOR interview).

The State Department similarly claims that “In northern Iraq, the government is continuing its campaign of forcibly deporting Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern governorates. As a result of these forced deportations, approximately 900,000 citizens are internally displaced throughout Iraq” (U.S. State Department, March 2000). The State Department, however, fails to mention that over four million people-four times the amount of “internal displacements”-have been forced to flee Iraq in search of a better life due to the deplorable conditions of the country as a result of the sanctions (Reuters). - http://zmag.org/ZMag/Articles/nov01lindemyer.htm

The United Nations levied the sanctions against Iraq, so the United States is not to blame.

FACT: Van Sponeck addresses this point head on. “The UN doesn’t impose sanctions. It’s the UN Security Council member governments who come together and impose sanctions… I don’t see the distinction between US sanctions, in broad terms, and what is done and coming out of the Security Council of the UN. The leader in the discussion for the sanctions is the US side and they are the ones, together with the British, that have devised many of the special provisions that govern the implementation of the 986 [oil-for-food] program. They are coming together, in that Security Council of 15 nations and work as a team, and that’s the outcome, but I don’t see a separate US sanction regime that is markedly different from the UN Security Council regime” (The Fire This Time, April 1999). - http://zmag.org/ZMag/Articles/nov01lindemyer.htm