February 27, 2003
Media Compilation #118: The Great Liberator-in-Chief Wants to Save the World
Dear journalist
With the new visionary reasons to liberate Iraq that the selected U.S. President pulled out of his hat yesterday, I can't wait to read the horrified comments his speech will elicit around the world. But I can tell you already that this will be seen as the worst bunch of lies and thinly disguised propaganda that ever came out of the mouth of any head of state.
If you would just take a few minutes to review the material and articles compiled for you below, you'll see for yourself that there is ample evidence to demonstrate my point.
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation118.htm
"The time for peace is now. At the dawn of a new millennium, there is no better time to review age old challenges with new thinking that peace is not only the absence of violence, but the presence of a higher evolution of human awareness with respect, trust and integrity toward humankind. Our founding fathers recognized that peace was one of the highest duties of the newly organized free and independent states. But too often, we have overlooked the long-term solution of peace for instant gratification of war. This continued downward spiral of violence must stop to ensure that future generations will live in peace and harmony."
- Dennis Kucinich
CONTENTS
1. Chemical Brothers: Bush Magic Turns Medicines Into Munitions
2. Threats, Promises and Lies
3. Robert Fisk: How the news will be censored in this war
4. Take the 'War'-on-Iraq IQ Test
See also:
United Nations: Over One Million Iraqi Children Might Die in War (Feb 13)
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/internal.html
A newly-obtained confidential UN document predicts that 30 percent of children under 5 in Iraq, or 1.26 million, "would be at risk of death from malnutrition" in the event of a war. The draft document, "Integrated Humanitarian Contingency Plan for Iraq and Neighbouring Countries", was produced by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on January 7, 2003. Its release comes as aid agencies and government representatives meet urgently in Geneva to discuss humanitarian operations in the event of war."
Rebellion (Feb 12)
http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/war160203.htm
According to UN estimates over 10 million Iraqis will be killed, injured, displaced or traumatized by the U.S. war of aggression. It is highly likely that U.S. military intelligence figures coincide. Washington has put in place a military plan involving hundreds of war planes and a sea armada directed to dropping thousands of tons of explosives on Iraqi cities, towns, essential infrastructure and defense installations. (...) This is scientific pre-meditated genocide, similar to what took place in Nazi Germany at the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 when the high command decided on extermination of the Jews. The major difference with the Nazi experience is that Washington's decision on genocide precedes the war and is widely publicized in public documents and in official speeches by its executioners. CLIP
Perpetual Death From America (Feb 24 - Harrowing pictures of DU effects!) http://www.rense.com/general35/perp.htm
(...) According to Dai Williams, independent DU researcher, there has been 50 to 100 times greater health hazard in Afghanistan than had been in Balkans from the usage of uranium based weapons-depleted uranium, dirty uranium and uranium ore. (...) The following photos are reminders of the US-UK murderous legacy of perpetual death experienced in Iraq but now in Afghanistan. (...) What would you do, if your entire family except a young sister had perished in the US liberation attempted in Afghanistan?
Rebel vote stuns Blair (Feb 27)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Politics/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,903844,00.html
121 Labour members vote against war.
Biggest rebellion in a century (Feb 27)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Politics/commons/story/0,9061,903831,00.html
Bush Bribes Blair For UK Support (COULD THIS BE TRUE??)
http://www.cloakanddagger.ca/home.asp
The Stories the Shadow Government Hopes You Don't Learn - Reliable bank investigators have uncovered evidence that British PM Blair was involved in criminal bribery. Blair accepted large bribes from the Bush oil interests. The evidence consists of bank transfers from George Bush financial interests to PM Blair's personal accounts via the United Arab Emirates where the investigations into criminal bribery against Blair began. The purpose of the bribery is so that the United Kingdom's PM would be sure to go along with Bush's plan to forcibly seize the Iraqi oil fields while also unseating strongman Saddam Hussein. Part of the bribery plan was to use the Oil fields for collateral to support an out of control US deficit. Bank investigators have shown senior French diplomats documents that corroborate the following. CLIP
The Surrender Of MSNBC (Feb 25)
http://www.allyourtv.com/0203season/news/02252003donahue.html
Leaked internal report says "Donahue presented a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war."
U.S. on Diplomatic Warpath (Feb 24)
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030223.wunun223/BNStory/International
United Nations -- Senior U.S. officials have been quietly dispatched in recent days to the capitals of key Security Council countries where they are warning leaders to vote with the United States on Iraq or risk "paying a heavy price."
Both the Military and the Spooks are Opposed to War on Iraq (Feb 24) http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,901625,00.html
Blair hasn't even convinced his own security establishment. Why now? The question is of course being asked by those opposed to a war against Iraq, and those who have not made up their minds. But it has also been asked by one of the most senior Whitehall officials at the centre of the fight against terrorism. (...) But let's say the objectives do include exporting democracy. Does that mean giving the Shi'a majority in Iraq a free vote? What if the Kurds vote for independence? Turkey's generals are calling for a return to emergency rule in the Kurdish areas of south-eastern Turkey. Does the export of democracy cover Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, including authoritarian Oman, in effect a British protectorate? Or Egypt, one of the largest recipients of American aid? The latest issue of Le Monde Diplomatique reminds us that the US supported Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, the Shah in Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua, Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, and Mobutu in Congo/Zaire. "Some of the bloodiest tyrants are still supported by the US," it adds, noting that Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea was received with full honors by Bush last September. Now the US is cuddling up to Uzbekistan, another country with an appalling human-rights record, because it is convenient for US bases. CLIP
Coalition of the willing? Make that war criminals (Feb 26)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/25/1046064028608.html
A pre-emptive strike on Iraq would constitute a crime against humanity, write 43 experts on international law and human rights. (...) it would be a fundamental violation of international law.
Bush's speech signaled the end of rule of law (Feb 23)
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E73%257E1193621,00.html
(...) When I served in the U.S. Army infantry in the 1960s I learned that we would oppose illegal aggression but never become aggressors ourselves. I learned that we depended upon the rationality of leaders in the Soviet Union and that they depended upon us for the rationality not to commit mutual suicide. I learned that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons. On Jan. 28, in one speech, George W. Bush threw away and rejected all this that I had learned. He scorned the rationality of his opponents, scorned the diplomatic process, scorned containment, condemned deterrence, declared the right of pre-emptive aggressive war, implied a willingness to use nuclear weapons first and authored a new doctrine of American imperialism for the Middle East. He dismissed 50-year-old treaties banning aggression, stating that we would attack when we wished, and explicitly rejected the legal pre-requirement that the threat to us be "imminent," knowingly mocking international law. CLIP
Lots of Hilarious Photos of Bush
http://winstars.free.fr/english/bush.html
If not war then what?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/0,6957,178327,00.html
30 high-profile opponents of military action offer their alternatives.
National guard to protect American bases in UK (Feb 25)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,902377,00.html
Advisers tell Bush climate plan is useless
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,903609,00.html
Strategy 'lacks vision, goals, timetable and criteria'.
Russia urged to rescue Kyoto pact (Feb 26)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,903094,00.html
Pressure on Russia to ratify the Kyoto protocol is intensifying amid fears in the European Union that Moscow may scupper the agreement to combat climate change by refusing to sanction it.
Bid to reduce greenhouse gases 'is folly' (Jan 12) MUST READ!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,873147,00.html
A scheme to dump iron in the sea to help cut global warming could prove catastrophic.
Global stalemate (Dec 12, 2002)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,858442,00.html
Resistance to the Kyoto protocol is preventing the reduction of carbon emissions. But there is a way out that could also cut world poverty
Too Much (Feb 26)
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2003/000146.html
For almost two years now, we have covered the Bush White House with astonishment. We are astonished by the simple fact that this President, with such strong ties to the corporate establishment, has for two years sailed smoothly through our democratic waters, at a time of rising popular discontent, unemployment, corporate scandals, national security disasters, and most recently, gasoline above $2 a gallon. How does he do it?
1.
From: http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02242003.html
February 24
Chemical Brothers: Bush Magic Turns Medicines Into Munitions
by CHRIS FLOYD
Six million marched for peace last week, but the Bush Regime and the Blair Regency were unmoved by this outburst from the ignorant rabble. Instead, the righteous leaders of the "Coalition of the Willing" (or COW) declared that no power on earth will halt their holy quest to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his chemical weapons.
Strange, then, to see one of COW's biggest bovines -- Pentagon warlord Donald "Squinty" Rumsfeld -- informing the dazed and docile rubberstamps of Congress of his intention to assault Iraq with, er, chemical weapons.
Rumsfeld told Congress he has asked COW head George W. Bush to sign a special waiver allowing American forces to use biochemical weapons against Iraqi troops and civilians in the upcoming stampede into Iraq, UPI reports. What's more, the COW chemicals would be launched unilaterally, as part of the standard Rules of Engagement -- and not merely in retaliation for an attack with similar weapons by Saddam.
In his extraordinary testimony -- entirely ignored by the mainstream American media, natch -- Rumsfeld openly complained about the onerous restrictions imposed on American forces by the stupid old Chemical Weapons Convention that the U.S. signed -- indeed, initiated -- many years ago. Rumsfeld told the Congressfolk of his deep "regret" that the U.S. had "tangled ourselves up so badly" with all that sissy-mary malarkey in the first place. But now, thank God, a real brush-clearin', pretzel-chompin' he-man is sitting on top of the COW, so Squinty is sure to get that waiver.
What Squinty wants to do is unleash a barrage of so-called "non-lethal" biochemical weapons against any godless Ayrab stupid enough to resist the incoming herd. This array of incapacitators -- or to use the Pentagon's quaint term, "calmatives" -- will include fighting pharmaceuticals developed by the world's leading drug companies. True, the weaponization of medicine is something of a departure from the Hippocratic Oath -- but what's health and healing when your COW is calling you to war? Anyway, isn't the Hippocratic Oath -- like the CWC, the ABM Treaty, the UN Charter, the Bill of Rights, indeed, the very notion of law itself -- outmoded in the new Bush imperium?
Rumsfeld hopes to emulate the glorious success of Russian security forces, who used "non-lethal calmatives" to liberate the Nord-Ost hostages from their captors -- and from the bonds of earthly existence as well. But there's one slight hitch: the Russians' employment of "calmatives" -- however blundering and murderous -- was legal under international law, which permits the use of "crowd-control devices" in domestic, law enforcement situations. But the use of any chemical weapon against people in wartime -- no matter how supposedly non-lethal it might be -- is expressly forbidden by a number of international treaties, all signed by the United States.
Not only that: the very production of such combat weapons is prohibited -- which is supposedly why COW is on its high horse about Iraq. Squinty knows this, of course; that's why he and COW head Bush have quietly shifted funding authority for "calmative" research from Pentagon coffers to John Ashcroft's Justice Department -- it gives "domestic" cover to the military program. Meanwhile, Squinty proudly notes that production of "delivery systems" for the weaponized drugs is rolling right along: the COW invaders will be able to use both an unmanned "loitering vehicle" -- which hovers in the air and sprays brain-deadening and gut-wrenching juice over all and sundry -- and a good-old fashioned mortar shell loaded with chemical cocktails.
Rumsfeld painted the deployment of field chemical weapons as a "humanitarian gesture," but here too there's a slight hitch. "There is no way known to medical science that can put large numbers of people to sleep without killing a sizable percentage of them," as Harvard biology professor and biochemical weapons expert Matt Meselson told The Nation. This is particularly disturbing in the light of Pentagon documents obtained by The Sunshine Project, a Texas-based group devoted to biochemical warfare issues, detailing the actual plans for the weapons.
The papers, produced by the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, stress a concern for "target discrimination." Like so many Pentagon terms, this phrase actually means the opposite: the weapons do not discriminate among targets -- civilian from soldier, for example -- they simply knock out (or kill) everyone within range, allowing COW troops to move in afterwards and discriminate the victims into piles of "bad guys" and unlucky innocent bystanders. This is considered particularly effective in urban warfare, although the JNLWD papers do note that "soldiers would probably have to be trained to refrain from killing persons already incapacitated with chemical weapons." Well, let's hope so, anyway.
Rumsfeld, of course, knows his way around drugs. He was chairman of two major pharmaceutical firms, including G.D. Searle, which later merged with Monsanto which then merged with Pharmacia & Upjohn and is now merged with Pfizer, creating of the world's great googily-moogily conglomerations of medical loot. Doubtless, Squinty dumped any remaining shares in these various interlocking combines when he cashed out his $95 million worth of corporate holdings upon taking office in 2001 -- or rather, many, many months after taking office and overseeing programs like, well, the weaponization of pharmaceuticals (before the program's hugger-mugger shift to Ashcroft).
He's also well-acquainted with the use of chemical weapons in combat. Back in 1983, when the UN first revealed that Saddam Hussein was exchanging biochemical unpleasantries with Iran, Rumsfeld himself was kicking back in Baghdad, bringing fraternal greetings to Saddam from the wise and pious leaders of the West: Ronald Reagan -- and some guy named George Bush.
Chris Floyd is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor to CounterPunch. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
---
See also:
Rumsfeld Refuses To Rule Out Unleashing Nuclear Weapons (!!!) http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq. The Bush Administration is seeking large increases in funding to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. And the Los Angeles Times is reporting that the White House has considerably lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. A first strike nuclear attack by the U.S. is now a possibility.
2.
Threats, Promises and Lies
The New York Times - February 25
By PAUL KRUGMAN
So it seems that Turkey wasn't really haggling about the price, it just wouldn't accept payment by check or credit card. In return for support of an Iraq invasion, Turkey wanted - and got - immediate aid, cash on the barrelhead, rather than mere assurances about future help. You'd almost think President Bush had a credibility problem. And he does.
The funny thing is that this administration sets great store by credibility. As the justifications for invading Iraq come and go - Saddam is developing nuclear weapons; no, but he's in league with Osama; no, but he's really evil - the case for war has come increasingly to rest on credibility. You see, say the hawks, we've already put our soldiers in position, so we must attack or the world won't take us seriously.
But credibility isn't just about punishing people who cross you. It's also about honoring promises, and telling the truth. And those are areas where the Bush administration has problems.
Consider the astonishing fact that Vicente Fox, president of Mexico, appears unwilling to cast his U.N. Security Council vote in America's favor. Given Mexico's close economic ties to the United States, and Mr. Fox's onetime personal relationship with Mr. Bush, Mexico should have been more or less automatically in America's column. But the Mexican president feels betrayed. He took the politically risky step of aligning himself closely with Mr. Bush - a boost to Republican efforts to woo Hispanic voters - in return for promised reforms that would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants. The administration never acted on those reforms, and Mr. Fox is in no mood to do Mr. Bush any more favors.
Mr. Fox is not alone. In fact, I can't think of anyone other than the hard right and corporate lobbyists who has done a deal with Mr. Bush and not come away feeling betrayed. New York's elected representatives stood side by side with him a few days after Sept. 11 in return for a promise of generous aid.
A few months later, as they started to question the administration's commitment, the budget director, Mitch Daniels, accused them of "money-grubbing games." Firefighters and policemen applauded Mr. Bush's promise, more than a year ago, of $3.5 billion for "first responders"; so far, not a penny has been delivered.
These days, whenever Mr. Bush makes a promise - like his new program to fight AIDS in Africa - experienced Bushologists ask, "O.K., that's the bait, where's the switch?" (Answer: Much of the money will be diverted from other aid programs, such as malaria control.)
Then there's the honesty thing.
Mr. Bush's mendacity on economic matters was obvious even during the 2000 election. But lately it has reached almost pathological levels. Last week Mr. Bush - who has been having a hard time getting reputable economists to endorse his economic plan - claimed an endorsement from the latest Blue Chip survey of business economists. "I don't know what he was citing," declared the puzzled author of that report, which said no such thing.
What Americans may not fully appreciate is the extent to which similarly unfounded claims have, in the eyes of much of the world, discredited the administration's foreign policy. Whatever the real merits of the case against Iraq, again and again the administration has cited evidence that turns out to be misleading or worthless - "garbage after garbage after garbage," according to one U.N. official.
Despite his decline in the polls, Mr. Bush hasn't fully exhausted his reservoir of trust in this country. People still remember the stirring image of the president standing amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, his arm around a fireman's shoulders - and our ever-deferential, protective media haven't said much about the broken promises that followed. But the rest of the world simply doesn't trust Mr. Bush either to honor his promises or to tell the truth.
Can we run a foreign policy in the absence of trust? The administration apparently thinks it can use threats as a substitute. Officials have said that they expect undecided Security Council members to come around out of fear of being on the "wrong" side. And Mr. Bush may yet get the U.N. to acquiesce, grudgingly, in his war.
But even if he does, we shouldn't delude ourselves: whatever credibility we may gain by invading Iraq is small recompense for the trust we have lost around the world.
3.
From: http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=381438
Robert Fisk: How the news will be censored in this war
A new CNN system of 'script approval' suggests the Pentagon will have nothing to worry about
25 February 2003
Already, the American press is expressing its approval of the coverage of American forces which the US military intends to allow its reporters in the next Gulf war. The boys from CNN, CBS, ABC and The New York Times will be "embedded" among the US marines and infantry. The degree of censorship hasn't quite been worked out. But it doesn't matter how much the Pentagon cuts from the reporters' dispatches. A new CNN system of "script approval" – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.
Indeed, reading a new CNN document, "Reminder of Script Approval Policy", fairly takes the breath away. "All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval," it says. "Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved... All packages originating outside Washington, LA (Los Angeles) or NY (New York), including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval." The date of this extraordinary message is 27 January. The "ROW" is the row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist on changes or "balances" in the reporter's dispatch. "A script is not approved for air unless it is properly marked approved by an authorised manager and duped (duplicated) to burcopy (bureau copy)... When a script is updated it must be re-approved, preferably by the originating approving authority."
Note the key words here: "approved" and "authorised". CNN's man or woman in Kuwait or Baghdad – or Jerusalem or Ramallah – may know the background to his or her story; indeed, they will know far more about it than the "authorities" in Atlanta. But CNN's chiefs will decide the spin of the story.
CNN, of course, is not alone in this paranoid form of reporting. Other US networks operate equally anti-journalistic systems. And it's not the fault of the reporters. CNN's teams may use clichés and don military costumes – you will see them do this in the next war – but they try to get something of the truth out. Next time, though, they're going to have even less chance.
Just where this awful system leads is evident from an intriguing exchange last year between CNN's reporter in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah, and Eason Jordan, one of CNN's top honchos in Atlanta.
The journalist's first complaint was about a story by the reporter Michael Holmes on the Red Crescent ambulance drivers who are repeatedly shot at by Israeli troops. "We risked our lives and went out with ambulance drivers... for a whole day. We have also witnessed ambulances from our window being shot at by Israeli soldiers... The story received approval from Mike Shoulder. The story ran twice and then Rick Davis (a CNN executive) killed it. The reason was we did not have an Israeli army response, even though we stated in our story that Israel believes that Palestinians are smuggling weapons and wanted people in the ambulances."
The Israelis refused to give CNN an interview, only a written statement. This statement was then written into the CNN script. But again it was rejected by Davis in Atlanta. Only when, after three days, the Israeli army gave CNN an interview did Holmes's story run – but then with the dishonest inclusion of a line that said the ambulances were shot in "crossfire" (ie that Palestinians also shot at their own ambulances).
The reporter's complaint was all too obvious. "Since when do we hold a story hostage to the whims of governments and armies?We were told by Rick that if we do not get an Israeli on-camera we would not air the package. This means that governments and armies are indirectly censoring us and we are playing directly into their own hands."
The relevance of this is all too obvious in the next Gulf War. We are going to have to see a US army officer denying everything the Iraqis say if any report from Iraq is to get on air. Take another of the Ramallah correspondent's complaints last year. In a package on the damage to Ramallah after Israel's massive incursion last April, "we had already mentioned right at the top of our piece that Israel says it is doing all these incursions because it wants to crack down on the infrastructure of terror. However, obviously that was not enough. We were made by the ROW (in Atlanta) to repeat this same idea three times in one piece, just to make sure that we keep justifying the Israeli actions..."
But the system of "script approval" that has so marred CNN's coverage has got worse. In a further and even more sinister message dated 31 January this year, CNN staff are told that a new computerised system of script approval will allow "authorised script approvers to mark scripts (ie reports) in a clear and standard manner. Script EPs (executive producers) will click on the coloured APPROVED button to turn it from red (unapproved) to green (approved). When someone makes a change in the script after approval, the button will turn yellow." Someone? Who is this someone? CNN's reporters aren't told.
But when we recall that CNN revealed after the 1991 Gulf War that it had allowed Pentagon "trainees" into the CNN newsroom in Atlanta, I have my suspicions.
4.
Take the 'War'-on-Iraq IQ Test
Do you know enough to justify going to war with Iraq?
1. Q: What percentage of the world's population does the U.S. have?
A: 6%
2. Q: What percentage of the world's wealth does the U.S. have?
A: 50%
3. Q: Which country has the largest oil reserves?
A: Saudi Arabia
4. Q: Which country has the second largest oil reserves?
A: Iraq
5. Q: How much is spent on military budgets a year worldwide?
A: $900+ billion
6. Q: How much of this is spent by the U.S.?
A: 50%
7. Q: What percent of US military spending would ensure the essentials of life to everyone in the world, according the UN?
A: 10% (that's about$40 billion, the amount of funding initially requested to fund our retaliatory attack on Afghanistan).
8. Q: How many people have died in wars since World War II?
A: 86 million
9. Q: How long has Iraq had chemical and biological weapons?
A: Since the early 1980's.
10. Q: Did Iraq develop these chemical & biological weapons on their own?
A: No, the materials and technology were supplied by the US government, along with Britain and private corporations.
11. Q: Did the US government condemn the Iraqi use of gas warfare against Iran?
A: No
12. Q: How many people did Saddam Hussein kill using gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988?
A: 5,000
13. Q: How many western countries condemned this action at the time?
A: 0
14. Q: How many gallons of agent Orange did America use in Vietnam?
A: 17million.
15. Q: Are there any proven links between Iraq and September 11th terrorist attack?
A: No
16. Q: What is the estimated number of civilian casualties in the Gulf War?
A: 35,000
17. Q: How many casualties did the Iraqi military inflict on the western forces during the Gulf War ?
A: 0
18. Q: How many retreating Iraqi soldiers were buried alive by U.S. tanks with ploughs mounted on the front?
A: 6,000
19. Q: How many tons of depleted uranium were left in Iraq and Kuwait after the Gulf War?
A: 40 tons
20. Q: What according to the UN was the increase in cancer rates in Iraq between 1991 and 1994?
A: 700%
21. Q: How much of Iraq's military capacity did America claim it had destroyed in 1991?
A: 80%
22. Q: Is there any proof that Iraq plans to use its weapons for anything other than deterrence and self defense?
A: No
23. Q: Does Iraq present more of a threat to world peace now than 10 years ago?
A: No
24. Q: How many civilian deaths has the Pentagon predicted in the event of an attack on Iraq in 2002/3?
A: 10,000
25. Q: What percentage of these will be children?
A:Over 50%
26. Q: How many years has the U.S. engaged in air strikes on Iraq?
A: 11 years
27. Q: Were the U.S and the UK at war with Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999?
A: No
28. Q: How many pounds of explosives were dropped on Iraq between December 1998 and September 1999?
A: 20 million
29. Q: How many years ago was UN Resolution 661 introduced, imposing strict sanctions on Iraq's imports and exports?
A: 12 years
30. Q: What was the child death rate in Iraq in 1989 (per 1,000 births)?
A: 38
31. Q: What was the estimated child death rate in Iraq in 1999 (per 1,000 births)?
A: 131 (that's an increase of 345%)
32. Q: How many Iraqis are estimated to have died by October 1999 as a result of UN sanctions?
A: 1.5 million
33. Q: How many Iraqi children are estimated to have died due to sanctions since 1997?
A: 750,000
34. Q: Did Saddam order the inspectors out of Iraq?
A: No
35. Q: How many inspections were there in November and December 1998?
A: 300
36. Q: How many of these inspections had problems?
A: 5
37. Q: Were the weapons inspectors allowed entry to the Ba'ath Party HQ?
A: Yes
38. Q: Who said that by December 1998, "Iraq had in fact, been disarmed to a level unprecedented in modern history."
A: Scott Ritter, UNSCOM chief.
39. Q: In 1998 how much of Iraq's post 1991 capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction did the UN weapons inspectors claim to have discovered and dismantled?
A: 90%
40. Q: Is Iraq willing to allow the weapons inspectors back in ?
A: Yes
41. Q: How many UN resolutions did Israel violate by 1992?
A: Over 65
42. Q: How many UN resolutions on Israel did America veto between 1972 and 1990?
A: 30+
44. Q: How many countries are known to have nuclear weapons?
A: 8
45. Q: How many nuclear warheads has Iraq got?
A: 0
46. Q: How many nuclear warheads has US got?
A: Over 10,000
47. Q: Which is the only country to use nuclear weapons?
A: The US
48. Q: How many nuclear warheads does Israel have?
A: Over 400
50. Q: Who said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"?
A: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
---
And from http://StandDown.net (on Exposing NORAD's Wag The 911 Window Dressing Tale - a MUST see!)
(...) The United States Government will spend more on the military in fiscal year 2003, than all the rest of the countries on Earth combined. Current expenditures are 437 billion and our past obligations are 339 billion, this equals 776 billion. 46% of our Taxes go to the Military Industrial Complex: http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm
This figure doesn’t even begin to account for all of the off-budget, black projects, homeland security nor the 40+ billion the United States Government will spend on intelligence in 2003.
---
See also:
Saddam did not gas the Kurds
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/media_issues/91209
Apparently there is no forensic evidence of this ever having happened.
A War Crime or an Act of War? (Jan 31)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html
(...) That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.
SUBSCRIPTION TO THE EARTH RAINBOW NETWORK MEDIA LIST
If you would like to subscribe to the Earth Rainbow Network automated Media listserver and regularly receive similar compilations covering a broad range of subjects, please click on this SUBSCRIPTION page.
