http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=6378
June 21, 2005
What Is Bush's Agenda in Iraq?
by Paul Craig Roberts
For what purpose has President Bush sent 1,741 U.S. soldiers to be
killed in action in Iraq (as of June 19, 2005)?
For what purpose have 15,000-38,000 U.S. troops been wounded, many so
seriously that they are maimed for life?
Why has the U.S. government thrown away $300 billion in an illegal and
pointless war that cannot be won?
These questions are beginning to penetrate the consciousness of
Americans, a majority of whom no longer support Bush's war.
Bush's Iraq war is the first war for which Americans have not known
the reason. The reasons they were given by their president, vice
president, secretary of defense, national security adviser, secretary
of state, and the sycophantic media were nothing but a pack of lies.
The top-secret British government memos leaked to a reporter at the
London Sunday Times make it completely clear that prior to the
invasion President Bush knew that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of
mass destruction.
The memos make it completely clear that Saddam Hussein had no
responsibility whatsoever for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The memos make completely clear that the British government regarded
the invasion of Iraq as a war crime. The memos show the British
government scrambling to find some way of creating "cover" in order to
obfuscate the illegality of the invasion that Prime Minister Tony
Blair had promised Bush to support.
One of the cover plans was itself illegal. According to yet another
leaked top-secret British memo in the Sunday Times on June 19, Bush
decided to sharply increase the U.S. bombings of Iraq in the hopes it
would goad Saddam Hussein into a response that could be used as a
pretext for invading Iraq.
According to the Sunday Times, the British Foreign Office advised the
British Cabinet that legally, "the allies had no power to use military
force to put pressure of any kind on the regime."
The Bush administration falsely claimed that the bombing was legal in
order to enforce compliance with UN Resolutions 688 and 687. However,
the British Foreign Office advised Bush's poodle, Tony Blair, that the
American view "is not consistent with resolution 687, which does not
deal with the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, or with
resolution 688, which was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN
Charter, and does not contain any provision for enforcement."
In his June 18 weekly radio address last Saturday, Bush again lied to
the American people when he told them that the U.S. was forced into
invading Iraq because of the Sept. 11 attack on the WTC. Bush, the
greatest disgrace that America has ever had to suffer, actually
repeated at this late date the monstrous lie for which he is infamous
throughout the world: "We went to war because we were attacked, and we
are at war today because there are still people out there who want to
harm our country and hurt our citizens."
Whoever the "people out there who want to harm our country and hurt
our citizens" might be, they were not Iraqis, at least not until Bush
invaded their country, killed tens of thousands and maimed tens of
thousands more, detained tens of thousands others, destroyed entire
cities, destroyed the country's infrastructure, and created mass
unemployment, poverty, pollution, and disease.
The only reason Iraqis want to harm the U.S. is because George W. Bush
inflicted, and continues to inflict, tremendous harm on Iraqis.
If the Bush administration has its way, the Iraqi insurgents will be
joined by the Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, Egyptians, Pakistanis,
Jordanians, and Palestinians. The "people out there who want to harm
our country and hurt our citizens" will increase exponentially.
In print and on TV, Bush's neocons have made clear their desire to see
the U.S. at war with the entire Muslim world: Today Iraq, tomorrow the
Middle East. That the neocons believe the U.S. can win such a war when
the U.S. cannot even occupy Baghdad or control the road to the airport
indicates a frightening insanity at the center of the Bush
administration and a criminal disregard for the lives of Americans and
Muslims.
The neocons assured Americans that the war in Iraq would be a cakewalk
over in three weeks!
The neocons told us that only 70,000 troops were needed to bring Iraq
to heel!
Neocons fired the top generals who had truthfully told Congress that
several hundred thousand troops, at least, would be needed!
Neocons told Congress that Iraqi oil would pay for the invasion and
that America did not have to worry about the cost! So far, that is a
$300 billion mistake.
And Bush has retained and promoted these morons!
No one has been held accountable for this enormous disaster.
How many more American troops are going to be killed and maimed for
Bush's lies? How many more Iraqi civilians must be killed, maimed, and
locked up?
Bush's Iraq policy is based on lies, and force based on lies cannot
bring democracy to Iraq or any other country.
Bush's lies are discrediting and destroying democracy in America. His
PATRIOT Act alone has done more damage to Americans' freedom than
Osama bin Laden.
Why did Bush invade Iraq? Cynical Americans say the answer is oil. But
$300 billion would have bought the oil without getting anyone killed,
without destroying America's reputation in the world, and without
stirring up countless terrorist recruits for al-Qaeda.
Congress gave Bush the go-ahead for the invasion because Congress
trusted Bush and believed his word that Iraq had fearsome weapons that
would be unleashed on America unless we preempted Saddam Hussein's
attack by striking first. Congress did not give Bush the go-ahead for
initiating a war in order to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and
thousands of American lives "building democracy in Iraq."
Will President Bush ever tell us the real reason why he committed
America's treasure, the lives of American soldiers, and the reputation
of our country to war in Iraq?
Does he even know?
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Harry
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