The UN, US and Iraq IV

Peace, security, development and social justice are indivisible.

Ladies and Gentlemen, [..]

The improvement of the multilateral system is the necessary counterpart to democratic practice within Nations. Every nation that practices democracy must strive to ensure that in international affairs decision-making is equally open, transparent, legitimate and representative. [..]

In Iraq, the [..] impasse can only be overcome under the leadership of the United Nations. [..] We must not shy away from our collective responsibilities. A war can perhaps be won single-handedly. But peace - lasting peace - cannot be secured without the support of all.

Mr. President, [..]

Let there be no ambiguity on this subject [of the UN and its political authority]. No matter how invaluable its humanitarian work, the United Nations was conceived to do more than simply clear away the rubble of conflicts it was unable to prevent. Our central task is to preserve people from the scourge of war; to negotiate settlements inspired by the principles and objectives of the San Francisco Charter. Let us not place greater trust on military might than on the institutions we created with the light of Reason and the vision of History. [..]

there are equal parts of ideology and culture involved in today's threats to peace as well, that one can only ignore at one's own peril.

White House Hopefuls Slam Bush's UN Speech on Iraq
Tue September 23, 2003 03:48 PM ET
By Patricia Wilson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Too little, too late.

That's how Democrats who want George W. Bush's job summed up the president's address on Tuesday to the United Nations.

Some of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 said Bush wasted an opportunity to bring the international community on board, militarily and financially, in postwar Iraq. Others admired his words but called for action.

"The president's rhetoric is becoming more stirring, but once again he has failed to tell us exactly what role he expects the United Nations to play now and what timetable he envisions for the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people," Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said.

Kerry, and three of his White House rivals -- North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt -- all voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but each has subsequently criticized Bush for failing to have a postwar plan.

A CNN-USA Today Gallup poll released on Tuesday that put Bush's approval rating at 50 percent, the lowest of his presidency, offered Democrats some reason for hope that they might unseat a man the public still sees as a strong leader for his handling of the campaign against terror.

The survey also showed Bush to be more politically vulnerable on issues from the struggling economy to the continued casualties and mounting reconstruction costs in Iraq. The president shrugged off escalating Democratic attacks as 'blips on my radar screen."

"I've got a job to do. I'm occupied," Bush said in an interview with the Fox Broadcast Network aired on Monday.

'I TOLD YOU SO' TONE

Lieberman called Bush's speech an "11th-hour, half-hearted appeal" delivered in an "I told you so" tone that made it more difficult to secure international help in Iraq.

Bush took "too long" to make a compelling case to the United Nations, Gephardt said, and urged the president not to "simply retreat to the White House" but engage in serious negotiations with allies to enhance security, rebuild Iraq and end the U.S. occupation as soon as possible.

Edwards said Bush "missed an opportunity" to bring the international community in by failing to offer them a seat at the table and a meaningful role in decision making.

The U.N. role in Iraq outlined by Bush included helping to develop a constitution, training civil servants and conducting free and fair elections.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, an opponent of the war, called the speech "further proof that the war against Iraq was a complete failure" that had harmed U.S. standing, depleted funds from domestic priorities and distracted from the war on terror.

Another staunch critic who voted against the war, Florida Sen. Bob Graham, accused Bush of trying to force other nations to comply with U.S. demands with his "do it my way or the highway" approach.

"He missed an opportunity once again to unite the world against terrorism and rekindle relationships with our long time allies," Graham said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3495075

Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie that could cost George W. Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them.

A television report by Pilger aired on British screens overnight said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat.

But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities" to attack Iraq and claim control of its oil.

Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.

Pilger claims this confirms that the decision of US President George W Bush - with the full support of British Prime Minister Blair and Howard - to wage war on Saddam because he had weapons of mass destruction was a huge deception.

Excellencies, we have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded. [..]

Now we must decide whether it is possible to continue on the basis agreed then, or whether radical changes are needed. And we must not shy away from questions about the adequacy, and effectiveness, of the rules and instruments at our disposal.

Among those instruments, none is more important than the Security Council itself. [..]

I [have drawn] attention to the urgent need for the Council to regain the confidence of States, and of world public opinion - both by demonstrating its ability to deal effectively with the most difficult issues, and by becoming more broadly representative of the international community as a whole, as well as the geopolitical realities of today.

The Council needs to consider how it will deal with the possibility that individual States may use force "pre-emptively" against perceived threats. Its members may need to begin a discussion on the criteria for an early authorisation of coercive measures to address certain types of threats - for instance, terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction.

And they still need to engage in serious discussions of the best way to respond to threats of genocide or other comparable massive violations of human rights [..]. Once again this year, our collective response to events of this type - in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Liberia - has been hesitant and tardy.

As for the composition of the Council, that has been on the agenda of this Assembly for over a decade. Virtually all Member States agree that the Council should be enlarged, but there is no agreement on the details.

I respectfully suggest to you, Excellencies, that in the eyes of your peoples the difficulty of reaching agreement does not excuse your failure to do so. If you want the Council's decisions to command greater respect, particularly in the developing world, you need to address the issue of its composition with greater urgency.

In order to fulfil the missions entrusted to it and remedy some of its blatant shortcomings, the United Nations must change. Democracy, authority, and efficacy must be our watchwords. [..]

Chief responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security lies with the Security Council. It is therefore essential to its legitimacy that its membership reflect the state of the world. It must be enlarged to include new permanent members, for it needs the presence of major countries. France is thinking, naturally, of Germany and Japan, but also of some leading countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It needs additional elected countries as well, in order to make the Council more representative still. [..]

This reform should be accompanied by a strengthening of the Council's authority. It is the role of the Council to set the bounds to the use of force. No one is entitled to arrogate to himself the right to utilize it unilaterally and preventively. Conversely, in the face of mounting threats, States must have an assurance that the Council has appropriate means of evaluation and collective action at its disposal, and that it has the will to act.

Reform of the United Nations has become an urgent task given the present risks to the international political order. The Security Council must be fully empowered to deal with crises and threats to peace. It must therefore be equipped with the tools for effective action. Above all, its decisions must be seen as legitimate by the Community of Nations as a whole. Its composition - in particular as concerns permanent membership - cannot remain unaltered almost 60 years on. It can no longer ignore the changing world. More specifically, it must take into account the emergence in the international scene of developing countries. [..]

Brazil believes it has a useful contribution to make. [..] Given the support received within South America and beyond, Brazil is encouraged to continue advocating for a Security Council that better reflects contemporary reality. [..]

[T]he General Assembly should not hesitate to take on its responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security. Our organization has shown that there are legal and political alternatives to a veto-induced paralysis and to actions lacking multilateral endorsement.

I respectfully suggest to you, Excellencies, that in the eyes of your peoples the difficulty of reaching agreement does not excuse your failure to do so. If you want the Council's decisions to command greater respect, particularly in the developing world, you need to address the issue of its composition with greater urgency

Annan's quote above, brought by nimh, is heartening. Many of us have said this recently: They must update and act more decisively if they are to remain in any role of consequence.

I was glad to see it.

Also:

Quote:

I respectfully suggest to you, Excellencies, that in the eyes of your peoples the difficulty of reaching agreement does not excuse your failure to do so. If you want the Council's decisions to command greater respect, particularly in the developing world, you need to address the issue of its composition with greater urgency

All in all, good stuff, IMO. But, I don't see that overfed, preening peacock changing its feathers.

Such strikes "could set precedents that result in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," he told the gathering. He underlined that the world should collectively address the threats that prompt pre-emptive action - terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. (from The Guardian.)

Now, I can't speak for all of either The Left or The Right, PDiddie, but I hope most of both realize this real, not a standup routine.

Impatience Over WMD Report

(CBS/AP)

An interim report on the search for Iraqi weapons is due soon, but there are indications the reports findings might be inconclusive.

The Times of London reported this weekend that the report had been postponed because of lack of evidence. But CBS News has learned there is no delay.

The Times reports the decision by Britain and America to delay the report's release comes after efforts by the Iraq Survey Group, a team of 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, to search Iraq for the past four months to uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons ended in failure.

In July, David Kay, the survey group's leader, suggested that he had seen enough evidence to convince himself that Saddam Hussein had had a program to produce weapons of mass destruction. He expected to find "strong" evidence of missile delivery systems and "probably" evidence of biological weapons.

But last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he had met with Kay, and that the onetime weapons inspector had not informed him of any finds.

The United States and Britain invaded Iraq because they believed Saddam's regime was developing nuclear arms as well as chemical and biological weapons. So far, no weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq, nor has any solid new evidence for them been reported by Washington or London.

Last week, in a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief said U.N. inspectors found Iraq's nuclear program in disarray and unlikely to be able to support an active effort to build weapons.

Mohammed ElBaradei reiterated that his experts uncovered no signs of a nuclear weapons program before they withdrew from Iraq just before the war began in March. [..] "No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq," he said.

Former weapons inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that what the U.S. alleged were "unaccountable" stockpiles may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

Saddam ordered chemical attack, inspector to claim

Tuesday August 12, 2003
The Guardian

The former UN inspector hired by the Bush administration to find evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction will claim in a report next month that Iraqi forces were ordered to fire chemical shells at invading coalition troops, according to US reports.

But David Kay, who heads the 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, has admitted he has found no trace of the weapons themselves, and cannot explain why they were never used.

One possibility is that the orders were part of an elaborate bluff, in the hope that they would be intercepted by the US and deter an attack.

According to US officials, all the Iraqi scientists now in custody have insisted that Saddam's arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons was destroyed years before the Iraqi invasion.

The Boston Globe reported that Mr Kay, who was hired by the CIA in June to direct the search, had made the claim in a classified briefing to two Senate committees. [..] "They have found evidence that an order was given," a senior intelligence official said, adding there was no explanation of why the weapons were not used.

After his congressional briefing, Mr Kay told journalists he was making "solid progress", but said he would not make it public until he completed his work and found "conclusive proof". [..]

At the time he was hired by the CIA to direct the hunt for weapons, Mr Kay was working for a hi-tech engineering firm and appearing regularly on television to argue that the Iraqi dictator had a significant arsenal. [..]

After the war he suggested that the weapons had been dumped in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers but no evidence of this was found to back up the allegation. [..]

[T]he Washington Post on Sunday published a three-page investigation on how the administration exaggerated available intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear programme.

"On occasion, administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views," the investigation found.

"The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied." [..]

David Kay's September surprise

WorkingForChange
September 12, 2003
Bill Berkowitz

When the president needed someone to hawk his "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are an imminent threat to homeland security" thesis to the American people, David Kay was the man. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Kay was a ubiquitous presence on the cable news networks, backing the president's assertions. He testified before Congressional committees and had op-ed pieces published in several mainstream dailies. [..]

In early June, Kay temporarily traded in his pundit's garb to hire on as Special Advisor for Strategy in the effort to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Appointed by CIA Director George Tenet, Kay was given the responsibility of "refining the overall approach" for the weapons search. [..]

Kay has had dealings with the CIA before. According to a late June Worldnet.com column by Gordon Prather, a physicist who was the army's chief scientist during the Reagan years, Kay was fired from his position as deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Iraq Action Team in the early 1990s because of his contacts with the U.S. intelligence community. [..]

Kay has also been involved with one of the nation's major defense contractors, serving as a Senior Vice President for the San Diego-based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). [..] According to a mid-August report by Katrin Dauenhauer and Jim Lobe in Asia Times, "Of the six billion dollars it [SAIC] earned in revenue last year, about two thirds came from the US Treasury, mostly from the defense budget."

SAIC [..] has already acquired several reconstruction contracts in Iraq [..]. The company "has been running the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council (IRDC) since the body was established by the Pentagon in February," Dauenhauer and Lobe reported. "SAIC is also a subcontractor under Vinnell Corporation, another big defense contractor that has long been in charge of training for the Saudi National Guard, hired to reconstitute and train a new Iraqi army." And SAIC is also running the recently established Iraqi Media Network (IMN) project, whose charge was to "was to put together a new information ministry, complete with television, radio and a newspaper [..]."

What I do argue is that right or wrong, The US can, and is the sole entity on the planet so capable, successfully prosecute at least it near-to-mid-term agenda. That naturally is perceived as a problem by some, but none can deny that it is real.

The attitude of the world toward Iraq has been "What's in my best interest?" to the near total neglect of "What's in the interest of The Iraqi People" ... so much so that some are unable to conceive that The US has in mind the interest of The Iraqi People.

evidence that Iraq "posessed and concealed" prohibited WMD programs

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/templates/article.asp?NewsID=5298

The Kay Report Comedown
September 02, 2003

The Boston Globe discloses that later this month David Kay, head of the 1200-person Iraq Survey Team, will report that although US troops and experts have been unable to find any hard evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or long-range missiles, they have uncovered a vast conspiracy to deceive United Nations inspectors. According to Globe reporter Bryan Bender, Kay "will build a strong, but largely circumstantial case that Hussein dispersed his weapons programs." Kay will say that he has found evidence of intentions to possibly build such weapons after inspectors left the country.

If the newspaper is correct, the Kay Report will mark the official retreat of US and British pre-war claims. However unintentionally, it will be a direct refutation of official assertions that we had to go to war to prevent Saddam Hussein from using massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and possibly nuclear weapons. Though weapons stocks may still be found, Kay will focus on "dual-use" capabilities that could quickly be reconfigured to manufacture weapons. Though such plans would have been a violation of UN resolutions, this will also be an indication that UN inspections were working. As long as inspectors were in the country, Iraq apparently did not expect to get away with active weapons production.

Pre-war Claims

Before the war, officials spoke repeatedly of imminent dangers. President Bush said that Iraq had stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, warning explicitly in October 2002 in Cincinnati that Saddam Hussein had "more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents" and likely "two to four times that amount." "This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons," he said, "that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions." On December 31, he told reporters ominously, "We don't know whether or not he has a [nuclear] bomb."

CIA Director George Tenet told Congress in February, "we will find caches of weapons of mass destruction, absolutely." He also said then that Saddam's "biological-weapons capability is far bigger that it was at the time of the Gulf War, and he has a chemical-weapons capability that he hasn't declared." Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations on February 5 that "Saddam Hussein retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud-variant ballistic missiles," and that U.S. intelligence had tracked the movement of missile warheads filled with biological agent from outside Baghdad to western Iraq." He repeated in March, "We know that in late January, the Iraqi intelligence service transported chemical and biological agents to areas far away from Baghdad, near the Syrian and Turkish borders, in order to conceal them from the prying eyes of inspectors."

On the eve of the war, President Bush told the nation, "Intelligence fathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

In the early days of the war, officials believed the discovery of weapons caches was imminent. "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them," said General Tommy Franks on March 23. "I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction," said Defense Policy Board Member Ken Adleman on the same day. Two weeks later, Adleman was still confident, saying on April 10, "People will step forward pretty fast [and identify Iraq's weapons stores.] It should be pretty soon, in the next five days."

The Climb Down

By May, officials were lowering expectations, talking of "weapons programs" and "capabilities" not weapons themselves. "In some cases, they'll be larger and smaller parts of, say, the missile and delivery systems. I think we're going to find that they had a weapons of mass destruction program. Now, how it was configured and how they intended to use it is part of the hard work that they're going through right now," said Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone on May 7. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith explained to Congress in June 4, "The Iraqis possessed the capability to use chemical weapons, biological weapons" and "they had a program that was aiming toward the development of nuclear weapons."

The Kay report will apparently try to document this program. There will inevitably be criticism of the report for its lack of independence. There is little doubt that the US would be better served if the assessment had been performed by an objective, international agency and not headed by an advocate of the war and an opponent of continuing the UN inspections. Others will point out that the United Nations never intended to leave Iraq free to pursue new weapons programs. The plan was always to establish an on-site verification and monitoring regime after the initial inspections were completed, as indicated by the inspection team's formal name, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). The larger point, however, may be that Kay will belabor the obvious.

Prior to 2002, many national and international officials and experts believed that Iraq likely had research programs or some stores of hidden chemical or biological weapons and maintained interest in a program to develop nuclear weapons. The debate that began in 2002 was not over weapons, but over war. The issue was whether Iraq's failure to cooperate fully with United Nations inspections and adequately account for its activities posed such a severe threat as to require military invasion and occupation. There the Kay Report may do more harm to the administration's case. Even if it puts the worst spin on all the available evidence, it may still end up showing that that Iraq had far less than anyone imagined, and certainly less than officials claimed.

If all Saddam had were intentions and fragments of programs, there was no need for war in March 2003. Thousands of deaths could have been avoided and the dangerous chaos that now pervades the region could have been prevented.