THE SHOW TRIAL OF A FORMER PM:
The Attack on Iraq Was a Just Cause
Tony Blair will be grilled today by a parliamentary committee, putting the former prime minister on the spot to explain the reasoning for going to war against Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the 9-11 atrocities. Earlier, the committee heard provincial barristers testify, using far-flung philosophical arguments to construe a scenario that found the Allied response against war-mongering Iraq as "lacking legal base."
It is clear that the purpose of the inquest is not a truthful reflection on events since 2002 - and before, for that matter - but rather grasping for the only opportunity to besmear the campaign to oust the world's foremost villain in power and to ridicule Allied sacrifices in the military effort.
What was the reasoning behind the prolonged and methodical strategy to eradicate for good Saddam Hussein as a formidable threat to global peace?
World peace was first at stake in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein unleashed a war against neighbouring Iran and invaded oil fields and foreign land. 900,000 Iranians were killed, together with some 600,000 Iraqis; more than half of the casualties were civilians. When the war ended in a stalemate, Saddam shifted his attention to domestic foes, ordering the massacres of tens of thousands of Kurds and Shiites mainly in southern and eastern Iraq. Faced with the mass murders taking place, the UN passed first resolutions to reign in the killing fields in Iraq.
In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, temporarily chasing the rulers out of the country, ruining the economy of what he considered an Iraqi province, killed nearly 4,000 Kuwait citizens and, after being attacked and nearly annihilated by a UN force made up of troops from 82 countries, was forced to abandon Kuwait. Even in retreat Saddam Hussein showed his characteristic ruthlessness: all oil wells of Kuwait were set ablaze, leading to an enormous environmental catastrophe. The sun was obscured for over 60 days, leading to a temperature drop of 8 degrees in the wider Gulf region. The financial damage to Kuwait amounted to $46 billion.
The UN imposed No-Fly zones in northern and southern Iraq to protect the large minorities from routine bombings by Saddam's air force. Limited to ground force, Saddam ordered the use of weapons of mass destruction - mustard and sarin gas - to kill thousands of Kurds and Shiites outside of Baghdad. Internally, Saddam Hussein placed security into the hands of his two sons, who showed even greater ruthlessness and notoriously sadistical brutality against opponents at home and abroad.
All this went on under the nose of UN observers and weapons experts. Each UN resolution to curtail Saddam Hussein and to impose restrictions had been violated by the regime. Saddam Hussein indulged in a cat-and-mouse game with the UN, stalling negotiations, harrassing UN personnel stationed in Iraq, detaining foreigners to use as human shields at military installations against allied bombings, feigning willingness to relent to UN pressure only to turn around and ridicule the West. And there were the daily reminders from the regime, "to use weapons of mass destruction" indiscriminantly in case of attack. Israel - Saddam's pet target - was attacked by 76 missiles at the time of the Kuwaiti liberation in early 1991. At the time Israel refrained from retaliation, in order not to endanger the alliance of 82 nations proceeding against Iraq.
Virtually every day some kingpin of the Iraqi regime came forward with provocations, claiming "thousands of tons of WMDs and the 'progress' in the country's affort to build nuclear weapons." At the UN feverish attempts were under way to make Saddam Hussein accept permanent UN supervision of its weapons build-up. The result was that in 1998 Saddam threw out all UN personnel. The UN "regretted" the lack of co-operation and threatened "most severe consequences."
After the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, Saddam celebrated the events and pronounced his support for al-Qaeda as well as the uprising in the Palestinian territories (each family of suicide bombers killing Israeli citizens in schools, busses, shops and restaurants received $5,000 from the Iraqi leader) and set in motion clandestine trafficking of weapons into the PLO territories. In Saddam's words, his support for al-Qaeda included the provision of safe haven for the deadly terrorist organisation and help in arming the group with WMDs.
These were claims made by Saddam Hussein, not accusations from Western governments. Even though, UN observers recorded and listed some 48,000 tons (!) of weapons stockpiles classified as potentially with mass destruction in nature. The UN in 1996 and 1997 recorded an elaborate programme of Iraq to obtain and build a huge arsenal of weaponry far exceeding the need for self defence. Frequent threats to invade Saudi Arabia coincided with the findings of the UN.
Exasperated by Iraq's resistance and defiance of past UN resolutions, and by the ongoing atrocities against Iraq's minorities, the UN passed in 2002 a final ultimatum in its Resolution #1441, setting an ultimatum to allow UN observers back into the country and to cease all hostilities and observe the 1991 ceasefire agreement or face "grave consequences." The legal base for the attack on Iraq was laid out.
Iraq refused and sent chilling messages to the world. In case of attack, "Iraq would annihilate Israel and set the world ablaze." It was clear that any military strike, now sanctioned by the UN's final Security Council Resolution, must be swift and overwhelming. US President Bush and British PM Tony Blair were the right men to do just that.
Today, in hindsight, the inquest at a Mickey Mouse court in London is a mockery of the grave danger that Saddam Hussein had posed to the world, and whose removal from power was crucial, necessary and compulsory; and in accordance with UN resolutions.
This kangaroo trial in Little Britain would also have found Winston Churchill guilty for attacking Nazi Germany: the Nazi attack on Poland would not have been reason or justification for attack on Germany, reports of mass murder in German concentration camps not enough reason to embark on bombing raids on German cities, Hitler's and Goebbels' inflammatory rhetoric merely delusional and hypothetical war-mongering; Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union not harmful enough for Britain to intervene.
Tony Blair stands tall and on firm legal and moral grounds today. The London kangaroo court is a fallacy, just an embarrassing footnote - a final one - in the saga to cleanse the world of a villain. Thank you, prime minister!
Current Music: SUZANNE VEGA - The Queen and the Soldier
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