Iraq: Actions and Motives

Blair said "I accept full personal responsibility … for any errors that were made." So, will he resurrect the dead Iraqis, restore the infrastructure, pay war reparations and return all the money that has gone ‘missing’ from the oil revenues? It is laughable to suggest that the resignation or sacking of some of the technocrats will be an adequate answer for the crimes. The internal flaws of intelligence are simply irrelevant to the Arab/Islamic world. When a nation commits crimes against other nations it is simply liable.

All these self-investigations and blaming the technocrats for providing poor intelligence is simply a charade to restore some form of credibility. The real accounting should be done by the victims in Iraq but the world is not governed by just principles except that of “might is right”. It is not just Saddam but Blair and Bush should also be on trial for war crimes and genocide. Which is unthinkable just like it would have been unthinkable for the white slave traders to face prosecution for torturing and kidnapping their black subjects from Africa.

No one has yet asked why the intelligence department in the US and in the UK simultaneously made the same error at the same time by providing faulty information? Sane people usually have a motive, so what was theirs? If it was a monumental coincidence and they both erred but errors are the exception not the norm. Hence, errors may have been confined to the odd report but not a general failure as the investigation by Lord Butler showed.

The fig leaf of National Security is used to prevent answers to such questions from emerging. This is a most convenient pretext to hide the real motives. Furthermore, it is an insult to ones intelligence to imply that the decision to launch the war was based on the basis of the intelligence provided. On the contrary it was used to support the premeditated crime against Iraq! As countless number of reports from numerous places including the damming evidence from Richard Clarke, one of Bush’s security advisor clearly showed that the decision to attack Iraq was already decided by Washington.

Action is always preceded by a motivation. The motivation is the final product of the normal thought process synchronised with the basic human desires. The only exceptional case is if the individual is a mentally deranged person lacking the basic mental capacity.

The motive behind the action is always disputed by the criminal who tries to conceal or distort it. Once caught red-handed it becomes difficult to provide a plausible explanation for the crimes and it only becomes embarrassing, assuming the individuals has any sense of honour or integrity.

So, the only recourse left for the criminals is to minimise the liability by claiming that they had committed an error on the basis of being mislead by others and making false assumptions. Which is exactly how the Blair and the Bush regime are being projected as their respective intelligence services are blamed for providing poor intelligence data.

Note, even if all the intelligence were true, the threat was merely assessed on the basis of Iraq’s possession of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). There was clearly no visible indication that Iraq was preparing to mount an attack against anyone. Iraq’s neighbours who were previously its victim certainly did not believe a war was warranted! Furthermore, the threats have to be assessed in the context of examining the balance of military power. Like Goliath and David, the US clearly exceeds Iraq’s military capability by many folds in quantitative and qualitative terms. Collin Powell in fact boasted that Iraq lacked capability even in conventional weapons prior to 9/11 in support of the US-led containment policy towards Iraq from 1991.

In addition, let us not forget what the UN inspectors found just prior to the war. M. ElBaradi clearly certified that Iraq was not developing any Nuclear weapons. In the words of Scott Ritter, the former UN inspector, “qualitative certification” was more or less completed as there were no visible signs of any active WMDs production taking place. These weapons cannot be hidden so easily; Nuclear weapons for example are clearly detectable from satellite pictures due to the radiation and needs a large infrastructure to develop it. Ironically, the figures clearly show that it is the Iraqis who have paid a price from the radiation emitted by the use of Depleted Uranium based weapons. A material used in the production of Nuclear weapons.

However, the quantitative analysis could not be technically certified as every nut and bolt could not be accounted for, particularly pertaining to Biological and Chemical weapons materials supplied in the 1980s. Which had passed its shelf-life anyway and most experts doubted it could be used for producing weapons, hence this technical ‘failure’ in quantitative terms could not be construed as a genuine threat: if peace was the real aim!

So, the intention of disarming Iraq of WMDs from the onset was disingenuous thus many around the world voiced their opposition. All the mass media bias and the constant spin doctoring could not mask what many individuals saw by applying basic common sense. As they say to conceal the truth one needs to produce heaps of lies! Thus there was the 45-minute threat, the Niger connection and the plagiarised dossier that was sexed-up. Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, asked for a redraft of it because it did "nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam".

The economic sanctions that killed half a million innocent Iraqi children according to the reports compiled by the UN agencies was a price worth paying according to the former US Secretary Madeline Albright. Even though Saddam was an unelected dictator but his innocent subjects en masse could be punished for his crimes. Perhaps the doctrine of the original sin, where the humanity continues to pay a price for the sin committed by Adam has influenced such twisted morality! A recent TV documentary (Paying The Price) by John Pillger showed that British and American planes were having pot shots at Iraqis using the self-styled no-fly zone. A vivid example was that of a desolate farm bombed killing families and even the heard of sheep grazing did not escape their wrath!

Therefore, by greater reasoning, a democratic nation should be punished for the wrong doings of its elected leader. Their civilians innocent or guilty could also be targeted or simply be ignored as collateral damages since democratic nations like the US and UK have behaved in this manner. Lets not forget those Iraqis in leadership now apparently provided a good deal of the intelligence and encouragement to the US for attacking Iraq. Yet, they are now suitable to turn the country into a democracy instead of facing the firing squad for their treachery.

Actions of a similar nature can have different motives. A clear example is the Western mass media constantly ranting about the alleged atrocities committed by Saddam, another after thought after the WMD failure. Note the strange appearance of such reports after fifteen years. In any case, true or false, the US motive for stating such thing is not for the love of the Iraqi people but to silence the war critics. Its culture, history and now driven by Capitalist forces does not exactly support its claim of compassion as being a cause for waging this war, particularly bearing in mind its track record of dealing with the non Anglo-Saxon world. The Japanese provided a good testing grounds for the new Atomic bombs, Vietnam for the chemical weapons, Iraq for the new generation of smart weapons and the list! is a very long one.

The numerous pictures, videos, independent reports from the likes of Amnesty International and eye-witness accounts clearly showed the perverted brutality of the US soldiers towards the Iraqi civilian population. Thus, it is not the love of the Iraqi people but the Iraqi oil that has led the US and other vulture like nations to aid her in this imperial conquest to gain a slice of the war booty.

It is even more disgusting to see those Arabs/Muslims ignoring all the facts and many no doubt driven by personal ambitions have adopted the line that US intervention in Iraq was for humanitarian reasons. Those people are either in the new Iraqi government or in distant lands. They should try and convince the relatives of the victims of the recent war if they are really convinced of their claims.

One can also predict the motives from the principles that one holds. The US soldiers have been brought up in a diet of imperialist racist culture, porn, violence and now fuelled by the mass media, which portrays anything Arab/Muslim with disdain. How is that these same people can show any thing other than what was exhibited in Fallujah, Najaf and Abu-Ghraib? M. Moore’s documentary “Fahrenheit 911” showed new footage of US soldiers abusing dead Iraqi corpses and going into battle hyped up by their favourite Music CD encouraging the burning and killing of their intended victims. Actions reflect ones character, values and principles, which exposes their inner motivations no matter how hard one tries to conceal it.