By Chris Floyd -
July 18, 2003.
"The rule of law is dead.
"
...called for a vast militarization of American society and
an aggressive foreign policy geared to "pre-emptive" military
action and the establishment of "substantial American force
presence" throughout the world.
|
The convoluted controversy over whether or not Saddam Hussein
tried to buy uranium "yellowcake" ore from Niger last year and
whether or not George W. Bush should have mentioned this alleged
attempted transaction in his State of the Union address last January
is a classic case of fretting about a molehill when a mountainous
volcano is erupting right behind you.
While
it is of course highly edifying to see the designer-shod feet of
George W. Bush and Tony Blair held to the fire over their mendacious
manipulation of crudely forged documents concerning the Niger
nukestuff, the persnickety parsing of a few words in a couple of
speeches is merely a diversion from the larger moral corruption that
stems from aggressive war and military occupation -- a corrosive
flow that eats away the very spirit of a nation.
But let
us, too, eat cake -- or parse cake -- for a moment, resorting to the
highly unusual expedient of consulting the actual facts. As
Professor Norman Dombey reports in The Guardian, uranium ore is not
fissile material; it can only be weaponized in elaborate enrichment
plants. And all such plants in Iraq had been dismantled by UN
inspectors by 1995. What's more, Saddam already had tons of the
non-fissile stuff; he didn't have to go to Niger to get it, as the
warmongers well know. Their lack of genuine concern over such
material is shown by their failure to secure Iraq's nuclear plants
after the invasion, allowing looters to cart away yellowcake by the
barrelful. Thus, even if Bush and Blair somehow "prove" their
scaremongering tales of African ore-shopping to be true, it doesn't
matter: Iraq could not have used uranium ore from Niger -- or any
other country -- for nuclear weapons.
Nor
does this controversy affect the Anglo-American "case" for going to
war. Despite all the blue smoke and red herrings we've seen the past
two weeks, the true casus belli has been clear for months, even
years. It has nothing to do with terrorism or big boogey-man
weapons. It certainly has nothing to do with mass graves, Saddam's
tyranny or "Iraqi freedom," none of which has ever been of the
slightest concern to the architects of the
aggression.
These architects -- a clique of
extremist ideologues and Establishment heavies closely associated
with the Bush Family -- announced their intentions publicly years
ago, in September 2000. Here's what they said: "While the unresolved
conflict with Saddam Hussein provides the immediate justification,
the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf
transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam
Hussein."
Yes,
we're back in PNAC country. For those who came in late, the "Project
for the New American Century" is a gaggle of right-wing war-wonks
whose ranks included Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz,
plus a slew of other Bushist minions now swaggering along the
corridors of power. PNAC's 2000 broadside called for a vast
militarization of American society and an aggressive foreign policy
geared to "pre-emptive" military action and the establishment of
"substantial American force presence" throughout the world. The
stated goal was to ensure that no other nation or group of nations
could ever challenge American political and economic hegemony, even
in their own regions -- on pain of "pre-emption." America alone
would be the dominant authority in all areas relevant to "energy
security."
PNAC
did acknowledge that such "revolutionary" changes could take decades
to bring about -- unless, of course, the United States was struck by
what the Cheney-Rumsfeld group called "some catastrophic and
catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." Lucky duckies, they
got their wish just a year later -- on Sept. 11 -- and the entire
PNAC agenda became national policy. The longed-for planting of
American bases in Iraq could now proceed without serious
hindrance.
So
there you have it. Iraq was invaded because this elitist clique
wanted a "substantial American force presence" in the Gulf region.
That's it. That's all. Their witless lust for ever-more loot and
ever-more power "transcended" the "issue of the regime of Saddam
Hussein." They were always going to invade Iraq, come hell or high
water -- or yellowcake. The hysterically hyped and constantly
changing "justifications" they offered for the attack were just the
aggressor's usual "sound and fury, signifying
nothing."
The
"threat" posed by Saddam's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction
was always their most flimsy smokescreen. The warmongers knew from
top Iraqi defectors that Saddam had destroyed Iraq's WMD in 1994 --
a fact duly reported by Newsweek last February then promptly
forgotten. Likewise, the bestial repression of Saddam's regime --
now increasingly cited as the sole justification for the war --
never troubled our world dominators. George Bush I ordered U.S.
officials to strengthen ties with Saddam long after the infamous
gassing of Kurds and other atrocities. Cheney, as a corporate chief,
happily signed deals with Saddam after the invasion of Kuwait, after
the murderous suppression, with Bush I's collusion, of the Shiite
revolt in 1991 -- the main source of those mass graves now so
mournfully cited by Bush II and Blair.
No, a
few yellowcake lies are the least of our worries. What's worse is
the rising magma of moral corruption: torture, assassination, secret
arrests, mass murder of civilians, and the human sacrifice of one's
own soldiers to the greed and incompetence of pampered elites. The
blinkered, blundering fools who have deliberately sent America and
Britain down the path of aggression have committed a folly far
greater than their own cramped and tainted minds will ever
comprehend.
Dossiergate Goes Nuclear
The Guardian, July 15, 2003
The Defector's Secrets
Newsweek, March 3, 2003 issue
Rebuilding America's Defenses
Project for the New American Century, September 2000
The Dirty Route to War
Boston Globe, July 16, 2003
Letter From a Young Soldier in Iraq
Information Clearing House, July 4, 2003
Little Caesar's Quicksand
William Grieder, July 10, 2003
Selective Intelligence
New Yorker, May 5, 2003
US Changes Reason for Invading Iraq
Toronto Globe and Mail, July 10, 2003
Intelligence Unglued
CounterPunch, July 14, 2003
Pattern of Corruption
New York Times, July 15, 2003
Iraq: The Human Toll
The Observer, July 6, 2003
Our Designated Killers
Village Voice, Feb. 14, 2003
A U.S. License to Kill
Village Voice, Feb. 21, 2003