by Shenali Waduge
(August 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The invasion of Iraq had nothing yet everything to do with weapons of mass destruction. While Iraq did not have WMD, UK & US political leaderships wanted to use WMD as a strategy to bring about “regime change”. If that rings bells about current accusations & allegations against other countries by the US & UK the world must be ready to admit that it is all because of their desire for “regime change” or to secure “economic & resources”.
So the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal.
In 1990 the UN adopted resolution 678 authorizing coalition forces “to use all necessary means” against Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait. The US used this resolution to provide legal basis for US Operation Desert Storm & ceasefire imposing obligations on Iraq to eliminate WMD.
The use of “weapons of mass destruction” as a pretext for the invasion is proposed to have come from UK in order to obtain UN backing as regime change was illegal under international law.
UK however argues that Resolution 678 can be revived & this formed the basis of force used in 1998 by both US & UK in the Operation Desert Fox & 2003.
It mattered not whether Iraq cooperated or not, allowed UN weapons inspectors into their country or not, it didn’t matter if Iraq had WMD or not….US & UK correction – Bush & Blair & their advisors had already decided to take military action against Iraq. So it really was no important whether Iraq was innocent of the allegations been thrown at them. The West had taken a decision & that decision was to invade a country. So these UN inspectors, the innumerable meetings, closed door discussions were all a whitewash & just a waste of public funds. While on the other hand the UN tightens Iraq with resolution after resolution ending with the food-for-oil program that ended up with UN officials pocketing millions from the deal! Sri Lanka is currently experiencing a similar situation. Scores of allegations are being thrown at Sri Lanka & no matter what trouble the country takes to prove its innocence the fact that these countries have already labeled Sri Lanka’s as the guilty party was obvious even before the allegations. Allegations are a mere whitewash.
This is clear in the manner in which Jack Straw in a memo to Tony Blair stressed the need to present the elimination of Iraq’s WMD capacity rather than regime change as the objective of UK policy in order to argue UK’s case amongst its populace. Thus the release of the UK government’s dossier on Iraq’s WMD in September 2002. In December the Foreign Office publishes a dossier entitled “Saddam Hussein: crimes & human rights abuses” based on the September 2002 dossier. This reveals the extent to which governments go to advance their decisions irrespective of what its citizens think. This is further proof in a meeting held in the White House in January 2003 where Bush & Blair discuss the absence of proof that Iraq has breached UN Security Council Resolution 1441 & discuss alternate ways to provoke a war.
In case people are unaware UN weapons inspectors had conducted more than 550 inspections over 350 sites, over 50 interviews with Iraqi scientists by 2003.
In March 2003, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith provides a detailed advice on the legality of the proposed invasion while Robin Cook & Elizabeth Wilmshurts deputy chief legal advisor at the foreign office resigns though UK parliament votes to support invasion & within days bombing begins targeting Saddam Huseein personally. Ms. Wilmshurts confessed on 18 March 2003 before resigning that the invasion of Iraq was “an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression”
While in the Inquiry as per statement given by Sir John Chilcot promises that “proceedings are as open as possible because we recognize it is one of the ways in which the public can have confidence in the integrity & independence of the inquiry process”, the important aspect remains how much of the hearings are to be held in public or in secret & how much of the Inquiry will be published as documentary evidence?
Prime Minister Gordon Brown initially announced the inquiry was to be entirely in secret but after public opposition agreed that the majority of hearings would be held in public. But the Inquiry is guilty of allowing the government to determine which documents would be published thus the promise of “openness” is certainly compromised. Why would the Inquiry not publish all the documents given by the Government & since uproar at the manner the Inquiry into Iraq was taking shape Sir John Chilcot in 2009 took upon himself the accountability not to publish the documents clearly showcasing the UK governments ability to manipulate the process.
Whatever documents were withheld or how much secrets remained secret cannot hide the UK Government from answering the question of whether the war was legal & on what grounds the attorney general Lord Goldsmith had advised that the war was legal! However, during the Inquiry evidence published confirmed that Goldsmith had previously advised that the war would be illegal without further decision of the UNSC. So how or why did Goldsmith eventually agree to the British participation in the war & most importantly if Goldsmith had advised Blair against pursuing war against Iraq why Blair ignored the advice & how much UK’s Cabinet was aware of these inconsistencies in advice & Blair’s insistence on going to war irrespective of Iraq’s WMD?
What we can conclude is that powerful nations are guilty of creating & doctoring dossiers to influence countries even if it means to invade countries. It is without a doubt that UK’s September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction was one such doctored version supposed to have been done by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) & its chairman John Scarlett. It was this dossier that became the grounds upon which Britain went to war after it was presented to the UK Parliament on 24 September 2002 by Tony Blair. This was how Blair started out his campaign to stir public opinion against Iraq & to get British citizenry to back his campaign to militarily destroy Saddam Hussein. Blair & Bush fooled the citizens of America & UK & media helped by siding with these two world leaders who went about parroting to the world about Iraq’s WMD hiding the truth from the world that both of these leaders were only after regime change! Therefore, it is implored from the public that before believing world leaders in the present context of country turmoil taking place especially in the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan, the people should be more intelligent than merely believing in these leaders & their media campaign outlets. Citizens of UK & USA were fooled by Bush & Blair & previous leaders of both these nations have fooled their citizenry in other wars as well therefore no more innocent countries should have to face similar wraths for no fault of theirs. Sri Lanka is one such example. If the dossier on Iraq’s WMD was untrue, fabricated & exaggerated do we need to be surprised of allegations currently being thrown upon us? Our replies should correctly link to these very fictitious dossiers in order to first demand UK to correct the wrong it has done to Iraq & Iraqi citizens as well as the British public.
The dossier was only used as a means to hoodwink & the case for WMD was merely the strategy being used to justify the need to go to war (especially when the UN inspectors failed to find these “invisible” WMD they were looking for). All that the world had to agree in the end was that both Bush & Blair just “knew” Saddam had WMDs & that Iraq had to be invaded & Iraq “had to be disarmed”. Is this the democracy & human rights these first world countries are preaching about? Is this the transparency & openness that these countries are demanding from the Third World? Is this the human rights that they boast they champion when they have blood on their hands? It was clear that the UK military was illequipped & ill-prepared. When MoD, Brigadier Bill Moore, commander of 19 Brigade, was asked: "Did you receive the correct level of advice for the nation-building you faced?" He replied: "We got absolutely no advice whatsoever. The lack of advice from the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office], the Home Office and DFID [the Department for International Development] was appalling." These same mistakes were repeated however in Afghanistan…this is the tragedy of the situation.
Though much hue & cry is given to the Freedom of Information Act, much of the written drafts with reference to Israel had been removed from the margins prior to its release so as not to damage bilateral relations with Israel (evidence of Neil Wigan, head of Foreign Office’s Arab, Israel, North Africa Group) Furthermore, Jack Straw had also attempted to withhold other drafts in the dossier & represents further abuse of the FOI Act. It is not upto officials to decide what gets published & what doesn’t.
Blair was secretly preparing to commit Britain to war with Bush as far back as 2002 despite advice against such a military maneuver. Regime change are part & parcel of US policy & Blair became part of this plan. Moreover, 4 techniques banned by the UK government in 1972 – hooding, stressing, sleep & food deprivation was used by troops, use of racist connotations & remorseless disregard of Iraqi human rights dehumanizing them. Are these not complicities in war crimes alongside US troops who were obviously influence allied troops to use their interrogation techniques! The cases against UK forces in Iraq are many & cover torture, beatings & killings.
The following are excerpts from an investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba (which was ordered by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of Joint Task Force-7.
Acts of Abuses
a. Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
b. Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
c. Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
d. Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
e. Threatening male detainees with rape;
f. Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
g. Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
h. Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
(T)he intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;
f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements.
Set against this Sri Lanka remains the only country to have conducted a successful humanitarian rescue operation freeing almost 300,000 Tamil civilians from the LTTE. 11,700 LTTE cadres had surrendered to Sri Lanka’s armed forces & 6539 have already been released & 4360 are being rehabilitated where they are given vocational training as well as education facilitities & this effort has cost the Government $2.5billion. 361 child soldiers had even sat for the G.C.E Ordinary Level & 211 had even qualified to do the G.C.E Advanced level showing what talents the LTTE had misused by turning these intelligent children into killers. In two years Sri Lanka has done far more than UK & US Governments have even proposed to do on paper ….a decade in Iraq & Afghanistan the allied troops have only left the countries they descended upon in shatters, economically ruined, socially worse off than under the dictator they overthrew. Can UK & US even remotely produce any of the results that Sri Lanka has shown within 2 years of LTTE elimination? The answer is a Big NO!
So how does all this read against UK’s support of the International Criminal Court (ICC)? Well the ICC claims to fight against impunity for perpetrators of serious international crimes. Yet when the two biggest perpetrators – the US & UK go off scott free we can well understand why most States feel they are likely to be given a biased hearing. Therefore, if the ICC wants to establish a responsible track record then it is very clear that the ICC must take up the US & UK’s false & fabricated invasion of Iraq for the purpose of regime change. The ICC certainly can arrest Tony Blair for War Crimes & make him appear in the Hague & prosecute him under international law. He has afterall lied to the British people & commited crimes against humanity & war crimes– few of the most favored words by Western political leaders. Unfortunately since the US has not ratified the ICC George Bush cannot be captured …yet.
The interesting question is why has Blair not been prosecuted though it would also mean that all others who “knew” of the regime change & was involved in the fabrications would also be arrested & prosecuted. The alarming facet of the invasion itself is the irony & hypocrisy. UK & US Governments used WMD as the strategy to invade Iraq & even after a decade they still have not found any WMD but both the US & UK troops are using WMDs in Iraq – depleted uranium shells are just part of the weapons being used. These pictures reveal the damage the weapons used by US &\ UK troops have done & the damage would certainly not be immune to their own troops! Depleted uraniam was used by US & UK troops in 1991 Gulf War, then in Bosnia, Serbia & Kosovo. Unfortunately there is no treaty banning the use of DU but it certainly runs against basic rules & principles in international humanitarian law.
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