War against Iraq is based on lies, lies and more lies

Niger's former Minister of Mining and Energy told the press these charges were "lies".
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Nigerien officials have also denied there have been made uranium shipments to Iraq in the 1980s. The UN weapon inspectors in Iraq however have confirmed that Niger sold concentrated uranium to Iraq on two occasions; one shipment in 1981 and a second shipment in 1982.
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If Niger is found to have sold uranium to Iraq after the 1991 embargo, the Niamey government would be found guilty of the most serious violation of the sanction imposed on Iraq. This would further question Niger's reliability when it comes to sell uranium to dubious recipients, such as terrorists. Niger thus easily could be placed in the US category of "rough states".
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After comparing the letters with official documents of the Niger government, however, IAEA discovered the "documents" were falsifications produced in London and Washington.

Niger's former Minister of Mining and Energy told the press these charges were "lies".
................................................................................................
Nigerien officials have also denied there have been made uranium shipments to Iraq in the 1980s. The UN weapon inspectors in Iraq however have confirmed that Niger sold concentrated uranium to Iraq on two occasions; one shipment in 1981 and a second shipment in 1982.
.................................................................................................
If Niger is found to have sold uranium to Iraq after the 1991 embargo, the Niamey government would be found guilty of the most serious violation of the sanction imposed on Iraq. This would further question Niger's reliability when it comes to sell uranium to dubious recipients, such as terrorists. Niger thus easily could be placed in the US category of "rough states".
.................................................................................................
After comparing the letters with official documents of the Niger government, however, IAEA discovered the "documents" were falsifications produced in London and Washington.

On the busy Kinshasa street known as the "standing parliament" because people gather there to discuss the issues of the day, hundreds of Congolese milled around newspaper stalls, reading the news of Belgium's apology for the assassination of their former leader Patrice Lumumba.
Most of the people in the predominantly male crowd could not afford to buy the papers, but that did not stop them from reading the headlines - and voicing their opinions.
"Lumumba assassination - at least Brussels recognises its responsibility," said the Tempete des Tropiques on Wednesday morning.
And La Reference Plus, the only paper to run the apology as a top story, simply said "Belgium asks forgiveness".
Most Congolese have the feeling that Belgium should go even further.
"Up until now they have not given us any good reasons for the assassination. We must know the true reasons for the assassination," said 19-year-old Ben Kabeia.
An old man named Daniel Galamulume was also standing in the crowd.
Born in 1935 he remembers clearly when the country's first elected prime minister was killed in January 1961. [/i]
He said the affair was a "big disappointment" for him.
What he could not forgive his former colonisers for was their treatment of the the Congolese people.
"We needed special permits to stay in this district at night," he said.
"And the Belgians were very harsh with their workers. They used to whip us badly[/color]. The assassination of Lumumba was just another sad event on the list."
Most Congolese I spoke to have mixed feelings toward their former rulers. They still nickname Belgians "Noko", which means "uncle".

But at the same time, they blame Belgium ... not only for Lumumba's assassination, but also for the backing given for 32 years to the former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who succeeded Patrice Lumumba.
Since then Congo has been shaken between wars and dictatorships. [/color]
As a result, even now, Congolese are too busy dealing with a difficult present to commemorate the past.
But if Belgium not only asked forgiveness but was successful in its attempts to help restore peace and democracy in the DRC, then a new relationship would probably start between Belgium and Congo.

A paratrooper force-fed pork and saltwater to a Muslim Somali child until the boy vomited - again, allegedly to discourage stealing.
Soldiers forced another boy accused of stealing into a closed container, where he languished in scorching heat without water for two days. He died.
A Belgian soldier urinating in the face of a Somali, who in a photograph of the incident appears either injured or dead.

The escalating scandal of unpunished atrocities committed by UN "peacekeepers" illustrates that the planetary police are beyond accountability.
Critics of the UN should eagerly embrace such a debate ?- provided that a copy of the above photograph is made available to all participants. First published in the United States on the cover of the June 24th issue of the left-wing weekly Village Voice, the photograph depicts two Belgian paladins of the new world order giddily holding a Somali child over an open flame.[/color] Other series of photographs depict UN soldiers kicking and stabbing a Somali, and another soldier apparently urinating on the Somali's dead body; yet another shows a Somali child being forced to drink salt water, vomit, and worms. A second group of photos published in the July 15th Village Voice shows the dead bodies of bound Somalis ?- what appears to be the work of a death squad.
One atrocity not caught on camera involved the "punishment" of a Somali child by placing him in a metal container and withholding water from him for two days; predictably, the relentless African heat killed the child. One Belgian UN soldier testified that it was a regular practice to use metal boxes as prison cells, and that other Somalis probably died similarly gruesome deaths.[/color]

Village Voice reporter Jennifer Gould came across the accounts of the Belgian atrocities[/color] while doing an earlier story about sexual harassment of female employees at UN headquarters. "When I spoke with people at the UN, time after time I was told, ?'If you think it's bad here, you ought to see what happens in peacekeeping operations,'" Gould told The New American. "I started looking into that issue and found that the abuses I reported were well-known and easily documented. They were all over the media abroad, and I was really surprised it hadn't been written about over here."

Belgian military authorities launched an investigation into the atrocities following publication of a front-page story by Belgium's Het Laatste Nieuws. In early July, Privates Claude Baert and Kurt Coelus, the two paratroopers photographed dangling the Somali child over a flame, were acquitted by a military court, which ruled that the incident ... was "a form of playing without violence,"[/color] according to prosecutor Luc Walleyn. And what of discipline from the UN, whose "Code of Personal Conduct for Blue Helmets" requires that peacekeepers "respect and regard the human rights of all"? Gould reports that a UN spokesman dismissed the acquittal of Baert and Coelus by insisting that "the UN is not in the habit of embarrassing governments that contribute peacekeeping troops."

For its diligence in reporting unwelcome news, Het Laatste Nieuws was rewarded with a bomb threat. Reporter Lieve Van Bastelaere informed The New American that the man arrested for making the threat owned a local bar that is frequented by many people in the military, including veterans of "peacekeeping" missions. "He apparently had been angered by what he had read," Bastelaere observed dryly. "We've enhanced our security here at the paper, and the police took the threat seriously, even though he may have been drunk when he made it. He claimed not to remember phoning in the threat when he was arrested."
In September, another military tribunal will be held to investigate the actions of Sergeant Dirk Nassel, the soldier photographed forcing a Somali boy to ingest worms and vomit. However, the Belgian military system ?- which is deeply entwined with the UN "peacekeeping" apparatus ?- has yet to inflict substantive penalties for abuses committed in the service of the UN. Several years ago, according to Gould, "Belgian soldiers were also accused of holding mock executions for Somali children and forcing them to dig their own graves; though their officer was given a suspended sentence, the soldiers were acquitted." It is thus firmly established in Belgian military jurisprudence that service in the new world army is a license to commit barbarities with impunity.[/color]

Saddam is a mass murderer. I agree. Isn't Pinochet? Isn't Sharon and his govt? Isn't Putin? Isn't Kabilla and the warlords in Congo? What about them?

lots and lots of executions. Mainly of non-Americans like blacks and hispanics.

I don't know the precise numbers, but I was referring to the dominant number of Blacks and other non-whites having been executed or waiting in the death row cells in the United States. Dubya personally sent thousands of them to death with a simple signature while reading his favorite cartoons. Not so different from S. Hussein you might think. You're wrong: much worse.

As for torture, what the hell do you think those poor souls at the Guantanamo Camp are enduring?

Bush is the last person on Earth who should lecture Hussein.

Steissd, What Happened in Jenin? Nobody knows. You know why nobody knows? => Because Israel officials, backended by American Veto in the UN security council, didn't allow an independant investigation. thats why i call Sharon and his Govt massmurderers.

UNITED NATIONS ?- A U.N. report on Israel's military attack on a Palestinian refugee camp does not back up claims of a massacre, but it does criticize both sides for putting civilians in harm's way, Western diplomats said Wednesday.

The report accuses Israel of delaying aid and medical help to Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp. And it charges Palestinian militants with deliberately putting its fighters and equipment in civilian areas in violation of international law, according to the diplomats.[/i][/color]

The violence in Jenin came during an Israeli offensive launched on March 29 in response to a homicide bombing that killed 29 Israelis. The heaviest fighting during the period was in the Jenin camp, where the Palestinians said Israeli attacks killed 500 people.

On April 19, Israel approved a U.N. fact-finding mission to probe its military assault on Jenin but later objected to the team's makeup and mandate. The team was disbanded and the U.N. General Assembly then asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to compile a report on what happened in the camp.

The report was also to look into attacks on other Palestinian cities assaulted by the Israeli army in what Israel called a campaign to destroy terrorist networks.

The long-awaited report, scheduled to be released on Thursday, said that between March 1 and the beginning of May, 497 Palestinians were killed during Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank, according to diplomats who got advance copies and spoke on condition of anonymity.

That figure was almost double the death toll of 262 reported by the Red Crescent Society in the Palestinian territories for the same period.

But it said that in Jenin, 52 Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by April 18, and that up to half may have been civilians. It called the Palestinian allegation that some 500 were killed "a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of evidence that has emerged," the diplomats said. [/i]

Israel maintained that it fought fierce battles against Palestinian terrorists in which 52 Palestinians were killed -- the vast majority gunmen -- along with 23 Israeli soldiers. Human rights groups have said 22 civilians were killed in Jenin.

The U.N. findings mirrored those of Human Rights Watch, which said its experts had found nothing to back allegations of an Israeli army massacre. [/i][/color]

The report was based on information from U.N. officials, the Palestinians, five U.N. member states, private relief organizations and documents in the public domain, the diplomats said. Annan wrote to the Israeli government asking for help in preparing the report but U.N. officials said Israel did not make a submission or respond to the letter.

Israel and the Palestinians received copies of the report late Wednesday but refused to comment until its release.

Israel has maintained that its army took all measures possible not to hurt civilians.

The report stresses the difficulty of authenticating information, noting that first hand accounts are partial and often anonymous, the diplomats said.

In criticizing the Palestinians, the report noted that much of the fighting took place in heavily populated civilian areas partly because the Palestinians put their fighters in those areas in breach of international law, the diplomats said.[/i][/color]