WMD and The True Basis of Operation Iraqi Freedom

WMD and The True Basis of Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Anti-Americans at home and abroad, confronted with the unmitigated success of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and the resultant liberation of the Iraqi people, refuse to admit that they were wrong in opposing the invasion. Instead, they repetitiously chant their mindless slogan, "Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction?"

This slogan is mindless because it ignores the fact that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) were in fact found both by U.N. inspectors on December 4, 2002 (mustard gas), and by the U.S. army during the first 15 days of the invasion in March and April, 2003. Some of the finds (e.g., of chemicals dumped in the Euphrates River, biochemical warheads, vials of biochemical substances,, etc.) were reported in the media at the time. In April and May, 2003 two [scrubbed down] mobil weapons laboratories were found. Third Infantry Division troops returning from Iraq reported that there were approximately ten confirmed findings of WMD. In addition, the troops also found links to al Qaeda and to the September 11 hijackers.

As to the larger caches, to date "the Kay team has been able to examine only 10 of the 130 known ammo depots in Iraq, some of which are as large as fifty square miles. It would be folly to say on the basis of a less-than-ten-percent sample whether WMD are to be found in the remainder." (Frank Gaffney, October 7, 2003.) Moreover, "In addition to the known depots, there are untold numbers of covert weapons caches around the country." (Ibid.) Inspectors have discovered "over two-dozen secret laboratories" for the production of biological and chemical weapons. (Ibid.) "Kay and his team have ?'discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.'" (Colin Powell, October 7, 2003) Finally, "In addition to discovering work aimed at weaponizing various deadly diseases, the Iraq Survey Group received from an Iraqi scientist [a vial containing] ?'reference strains' for one of the most lethal substances known to man: Botulinum toxin. In short order, with the right equipment and growth material - items Saddam was able to acquire and retain since they were inherently ?'dual use' and could also be used for commercial purposes -- such strains could translate into large quantities of biological agents." (Frank Gaffney, October 7, 2003.) "Kay and his team also discovered documents and equipment [parts of a gas centrifuge system] in scientists' homes that would have been useful for resuming uranium enrichment efforts." (Colin Powell, October 7, 2003.)

The slogan was also mindless for the following reasons:
(1) all concerned (including former President Clinton and leading Democrats - in 1998, the entire Security Council, and the U.S. Senate) admit that Saddam not only had such weapons, but that he used them against the Kurds and the Iranians;
(2) Saddam had gone to great lengths to hide them in a country the size of France;
(3) such weapons can be as small as a suitcase atom bomb or a vial of biochemical material potent enough to wipe out an entire population; [e.g., a scientist's rose bush hid uranium enrichment equipment.]
"Dr. Kay has noted that all of Saddam Hussein's as yet unaccounted for WMD could be stored in a space the size of a two-car garage. According to former Clinton CIA Director R. James Woolsey, his entire suspected inventory of the biological agent anthrax would fill roughly half a standard semi's tractor trailer." (Frank Gaffney, October 7, 2003.)
(4) the appeasers were willing to give U.N. inspectors an infinite amount of time to find them, despite delays, concealment, bribes, and interference on the part of Saddam, in fact some twelve years of delays (1991-2003), including a three year period (1998-2001) when the U.N. inspectors were completely expelled;
(yet the coalition forces were expected to find them immediately even as the war continued to rage and bullets were flying);
(5) the delays which the appeasers demanded, purportedly to give U.N. inspectors "enough time to do their work" in fact gave Saddam additional time to hide the WMDs, to pass them on to Syria (also under a Baath nazi regime), starting in the mid-1990s (per captured scientist), or to al Qaeda terrorists;
(moreover, even were all existing WMD to be destroyed, given the infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) production could be resumed within six months should Saddam, himself the primary WMD, be restored to power.)
(6) under the U.N. inspection process, the burden of proof was on the Saddam regime, but now the appeasers have sought to shift the burden to coalition forces; and
(7) the need to find the WMDs was not by itself the cause of the invasion, although it was a contributing factor, lending greater urgency to the central reasons for the invasion listed below.

What then were the central reasons, any of which in itself was sufficient to justify the invasion of Iraq? It seems to me that they are seven-fold.

Reasons for Invading Iraq

1. To finish the war that Saddam had started in 1991 after his violation of the terms of surrender, thereby causing resumption of the previous state of hostilities.

2. To enforce the terms of U.N. resolutions, especially Security Council Resolution 1441.

3. To successfully prosecute the war on terror against a regime which sought to undermine our efforts against Al Qaeda, and which allies itself with, aids, finances, trains, and harbors terrorists, including al Qaeda.

4. To successfully prosecute the war on terror against a regime which itself participated in aggression against the U.S., including participation in the surprise attack of September 11, 2001.

5. To prevent another (and possibly worse) surprise attack (Sept. 11, 2001) on the U.S. and its allies.

6. To promote peace in the Middle East by securing it against Saddam's expansionist plans for a "Greater Iraq."

7. To liberate the people of Iraq from an oppressive and terrorist regime which committed fiendish tortures and massive genocide, on its own and neighboring populations.

Let us then examine these reasons in greater detail.

Reasons for Invading Iraq

1. To finish the war that Saddam had started in 1991 after his violation of the terms of surrender, thereby causing resumption of the previous state of hostilities.
a. In October, 1994, Saddam sent 60,000 Republican Guard troops towards the Kuwaiti border, but was deterred by the threat of U.S. troops;
b. Between September, 1977 and December, 1998, Saddam caused four international crises by refusing to comply with the terms of surrender (blocking, delaying, and undermining inspections, placing palaces off limits, and refusing to allow American inspectors);
c. In 1998 Saddam expelled the U.N. inspectors who were there to ensure compliance with the terms of surrender and that Saddam did not pose a threat to his neighbors and the free world.
d. Even after U.N. inspections were resumed in 2002, Saddam interfered with the process by concealing and moving weapons and delaying and impeding inspections and interviews with Iraqi scientists.

2. To enforce the terms of U.N. resolutions, especially Security Council Resolution 1441.
a. Unless the U.N. can enforce its resolutions, they are not worth the paper upon which they are written.
b. Saddam's regime engaged in 12 years of noncompliance with 17 U.N. resolutions.
c. The resolutions required disarmament as to offensive weaponry;
d. the burden of proof as to compliance was necessarily on the Saddam regime, for the following reasons:
(1) past violations and evasion;
(2) the 1998 exclusion of inspectors resulting in a period in which weapons could easily be concealed;
(3) a country the size of California, too large to provide any assurance that prohibited weapons had been destroyed;
(4) prohibited weapons (e.g., vials of biochemical substances, suitcase atom bombs) could be extremely small and easily hidden.
e. Saddam engaged in "material breaches" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441.
(1) fired missiles at U.S. planes patrolling the no-fly zones (an outright act of aggression);
(2) failed to account for all biochemical substances (VX gas (3.9 tons), mustard gas, nerve gas (4 tons), anthrax (8.5 tons), sarin gas, botulism, etc.) that UN inspectors had found prior to their 1998 exclusion;
(3) interfered with UN interviews of Iraqi scientists;
(4) covered up possession of banned intermediate range missiles (Scuds, al-Samoud II, etc.).
(5) delayed U.N. inspections at suspect sites while contents were removed by the back door (revealed by satellite photos)

3. To successfully prosecute the war on terror against a regime which sought to undermine our efforts against Al Qaeda, and which allies itself with, aids, finances, trains, and harbors terrorists, including al qaeda.
a. during the Afghanistan war, Saddam sought to undermine our alliance with nearby Arabic and Islamic countries (e.g., Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) against Al Qaeda. His strategem was to finance the recruitment of Palestinian children to blow themselves up in Israel in order to cause Israel to retaliate and thereby unify Arabs and Moslems against Israel's ally America;
b. like the Taliban regime which was targeted because it harbored the Al Qaeda terrorists, the Saddam regime similarly harbored Al Qaeda terrorists (in Ansar al Islam, Baghdad, and Salmon Pak);
c. in the greater context of the war against terror, the Saddam regime financed and trained terrorists of various terrorist organizations, e.g., Hamas and Al Qaeda.

4. To successfully prosecute the war on terror against a regime which itself participated in aggression against the U.S., including participation in the surprise attack of September 11, 2001.
a. After the Persian Gulf war, Saddam Hussein viewed his expulsion from Kuwait as only a temporary set-back in a continuing war with America; in 1991 his news agency carried the threat that "the American arena will not be excluded from the operations and explosions of the Arab and Muslim mujahedin and all the honest strugglers in the world";
b. On Friday, February 26, 1993, the second anniversary of the U.S. liberation of Kuwait, two Iraqi agents Ramzi Yousef (the mastermind) and Abdul Rahman Yasin, along with others, organized the first attack (by bombing) of the World Trade Center, the symbol of world capitalism and of the U.S. economy;
c. in April, 1993 the Saddam regime attempted to use a car bomb to assassinate former President George Herbert Walker Bush, the man who had foiled his 1991 expansionist ambitions, during the latter's visit to Kuwait;
d. The Saddam regime appears to have participated in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City;
(1) Ramzi Yousef (the mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center) was among former Iraqi soldiers who met with Terry Nichols in the Phillipines to provide the latter with bomb-making expertise;
(2) Hussain Hashem Al Hussaini, a Palestinian with a tatoo proclaiming past service in Saddam's Republican Guard, appears to have been the "John Doe # 2" seen in the company of confessed bomber Timothy McVeigh a few days before the attack.
e. the Saddam regime participated in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon;
(1) Saddam trained the al Qaeda terrorists in the art of hijacking planes at Salman Pak using a Boeing 707 plane fusilage later found by U.S. troops, telling the recruits that the targets were U.S. installations around the world;
(2) Saddam maintained contacts (through Iraqi intelligence) with at least 4 of the September 11 hijack conspirators, including their leader Mohammed Atta (the others being Marwan al-Shehri, Ziad Jarrah, and Yusuf Galan);
(3) In early September, 2001, shortly before the September 11 attacks, Saddam placed his troops on the highest state of alert and with his family retreated into heavily fortified bunkers in Tikrit, evidently fearing retaliation for the imminent attack on the U.S.;
(4) In the days following September 11, anthrax letters were mailed, anthrax being a bioweapon used by Saddam;
(5) In November, 2001, bin Ladin was proclaimed Iraq's "Man of the Year," but an official poem gave Saddam the credit for the attack by the four hijacked planes;
(6) During Operation Iraqi Freedom, troops found murals in Nasiriya (by marines on March 26, 2003) and in Baghdad (by the Third Infantry on April 13, 2003) at Iraqi military centers depicting the World Trade Center at the awful moment of attack, the former showing Iraqi planes as the perpetrators and the latter depicting Saddam celebrating along side of the burning twin towers;
d. on October 28, 2002, the al-Zarqawi network, a Baghdad-based al-Qaida cell, allied to Saddam, assassinated Laurence Foley, a U.S. diplomat in Jordan;
e. even during the U.N. inspections, before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Saddam regime continuously attacked U.S. planes monitoring the "no-fly" zones.

5. To prevent another (and possibly worse) surprise attack (Sept. 11, 2001) on the U.S. and its allies.
a. Available intelligence made it clear that al Qaeda was aggressively searching for weapons of mass destruction such as a "dirty bomb" which uses conventional explosives to spew radioactive material
b. Furthermore, it was obvious to all concerned that the one country that might be tempted to make weapons of mass destruction available to terrorist groups was Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
(1) Since the 1970s when Saddam first emerged as the strongman of the Middle East, he had devoted enormous resources towards acquiring chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons;
(2) Saddam had a record of using such weapons against his own people in Kurdistan in 1998, and against Iranians;
(3) Saddam had a record of working with terrorist groups, such as Hamas in Israel and al Qaeda in the Sudan.
c. In sum, Saddam's willingness to use his nonconventional weapons arsenal coupled with Al Qaeda's desperation to acquire such weapons required removal of the threat posed by Saddam.

6. To promote peace in the Middle East by securing it against Saddam's expansionist plans for a "Greater Iraq."
a. In July 1968 Saddam was part of a Baath (i.e., National Socialist) party military coup in Iraq; in July, 1979, Saddam purged his Baath party rivals and became Iraq's unqualified dictator; Saddam saw himself as a modern day Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who conquered Jerusalem in 587 B.C., destroyed the Jewish Temple, and forced the Jews into exile by the rivers of Babylon;
b. A 1990 letter written by Saddam's son Uday reveals "his father's plans to create a greater Iraq that includes Kuwait, Palestine and Arabstan, a region of Iran historically controlled by Baghdad." (Time Magazine, 4/13/03.) The term "Palestine" has been applied to both the territory of present-day Israel and Jordan (the latter being ruled by the Hashemite family which once ruled both Jordan and Iraq);
c. A painting on display in Baghdad showed Saddam's prospective "liberation" of Jerusalem;
d. Pursuant to his "Arabstan" ambition, in September, 1980, Saddam launched an eight year war against neighboring Iran, resulting in the death of one million people and the ruin of both economies;
e. In 1991 Saddam invaded Kuwait and then launched an attack on Saudi Arabia before being pushed back by coalition forces; Scuds were fired at both Saudi Arabia and Israel;
f. In October, 1994, Saddam sent 60,000 Republican Guard troops towards the Kuwaiti border, but was deterred by the threat of U.S. troops;
g. Saddam proceeded to build up his troops and an arsenal of weaponry disproportionate to those in other Middle Eastern countries;
h. Saddam has financed homicide bombings in Israel by rewarding Palestinian families who encourage their children to blow themselves up in order to kill Israeli civilians.

7. To liberate the people of Iraq from an oppressive and terrorist regime which committed fiendish tortures and massive genocide, on its own and neighboring populations.
a. As summarized by Human Rights Watch, "In addition to abuses particularly aimed at the Kurds and Shi'a Muslims, the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein have suffered a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including political imprisonment, torture, and summary and arbitrary executions. In addition, a ubiquitous network of sequrity services and informants has suppressed independent civilian institutions and terrorized the Iraqi population into virtual silence. Torture techniques have included hangings, beatings, rape, and burning suspects alive. Thousands of Iraqi detainees have died under torture."
b. According to that same source, "[t]here have also been a staggering number of 'disappearances' - believed to range between 250,000 - 290,000. In addition to the 50,000 - 70,000 Shi'a cases described above, and the 100,000 Kurdish victims," there have been other "disappearances."
c. During Saddam's ongoing "Arabization" campaign (1968-1977 and after the Gulf War), ethnic minorities, including over 120,000 Kurds, Turcomans and Assyrians were forcibly expelled from their homes in the oil-rich region of Kirkuk and neighboring towns and villages. Arab families were brought in from southern Iraq and resettled in the lands and homes of those evicted.
d. As to the Kurds, "between 1977 and 1987, some 4,500 - 5,000 Kurdish villages were systematically destroyed and their inhabitants forcibly removed and made to live in 'resettlement camps.'" During the "Anfal" campaign, "more than 100,000 Kurds, mostly men and boys, were trucked to remote sites and executed." Use of chemical weapons against the Kurds commenced in the spring of 1987 and reached a peak in March, 1988, some 3,200 - 5,000 Kurds being murdered in gas (hydrogen cyanide) attacks in the town of Halabja alone;
e. During the onset of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), thousands of Shi'a Muslims were arrested. Many of these were tortured and executed while others disappeared. In addition over half a million Shi'a were expelled to Iran, except for 50,000 - 70,000 men and boys who were imprisoned indefinitely, in the most part unaccounted for.
f. Starting in 1983-1984, during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam made extensive use of chemical weapons. Mustard gas and the nerve agents tubun and sarin were used to kill some 20,000 Iranians.
g. In 1990-1991, Iraq occupied Kuwait, systematically committing gross human rights abuses against the people of Kuwait. Hundreds were killed, thousands detained, and there were countless acts of rape, assault, theft, torture, summary executions, and "disappearances."
h. After the Gulf War, thousands of Shi'a were imprisoned, disappeared, or were summarily executed. Tens of thousands of Shiites in the southeast sought precarious shelter in remote areas of the marshes only to be shelled and attacked by Saddam's military. Many fled into Iran while others were displaced.
i. The foregoing represssion, terror, torture, genocides, war crimes, and crimes against humanity could have been committed against any human being unfortunate enough to be targeted by or live under such a regime, including citizens of the United States. It follows that regime change is fully justified to replace the unelected Baath (National Socialist) Party regime which ruled by terror with a democratic regime which serves the people of Iraq.

Each of these seven reasons for the invasion have been set forth at one time or another. To the anti-Americans and the appeasers we ask, "Have you forgotten?"