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Al Jazeera (English)
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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Chomsky on Iraq
(Noam Chomsky, ZNet.com, September 5, 2002)
[Question] Has Saddam Hussein been as evil as mainstream media says? Domestically? Internationally? . . . He is as evil as they come, ranking with Suharto and other monsters of the modern era. No one would want to be within his reach. But fortunately, his reach does not extend very far. . . . Saddam's worst crimes, by far, have been domestic, including the use of chemical weapons against Kurds and a huge slaughter of Kurds in the late 80s, barbaric torture, and every other ugly crime you can imagine. . . . The crimes were well known at once, but of no particular concern to the West. Saddam received some mild reprimands; harsh congressional condemnation was considered too extreme by prominent commentators. The Reaganites and Bush #1 continued to welcome the monster as an ally and valued trading partner right through his worst atrocities and well beyond. . . . Bush authorized loan guarantees and sale of advanced technology with clear applications for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) right up to the day of the Kuwait invasion, sometimes overriding congressional efforts to prevent what he was doing. Britain was still authorizing export of military equipment and radioactive materials a few days after the invasion. . . . That he's a major criminal is not in doubt. That's not changed by the fact that the US and Britain regarded his major atrocities as insignificant in the light of higher "reasons of state," before the Gulf war and even after -- facts best forgotten. [Question] is Saddam Hussein as dangerous as mainstream media says? . . . he can't be anywhere near as dangerous as he was when the US and Britain were supporting him . . . Chances are that the events of Sept. 11 weakened him still further. If there are any links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, they would be far more difficult to maintain now because of the sharply intensified surveillance and controls. . . . That aside, links [to al-Qaeda] are not very likely. . . . The rational conclusion is that Saddam is probably less of a danger now than before 9-11, and far less of a threat than when he was enjoying substantial support from the US-UK (and many others). That raises a few questions. If Saddam is such a threat to the survival of civilization today that the global enforcer has to resort to war, why wasn't that true a year ago? And much more dramatically, in early 1990? . . . We might recall the warning of General Lee Butler, head of Clinton's Strategic Command in the early 90s, that "it is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East, one nation has armed itself, ostensibly, with stockpiles of nuclear weapons, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, and that inspires other nations to do so." He's talking about Israel of course. . . . In early January 1991, Iraq apparently offered to withdraw from Kuwait in the context of regional negotiations on reduction of armaments, an offer that State Department officials described as serious and negotiable. But we know no more about it, because the US rejected it without response and the press reported virtually nothing. . . . It is, however, of some interest that at that time -- right before the bombing -- polls revealed that by 2-1 the US public supported the proposal that Saddam had apparently made, preferring it to bombing. Had people been allowed to know any of this, the majority would surely have been far greater. Suppressing the facts was an important service to the cause of state violence.

posted by LoZo 5:22 PM