"If I found in any way, shape or form
                that he [Saddam Hussein] was developing
                weapons of mass destruction, I'd
                take 'em out."
                         George W. Bush
 

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 6/6/00:

Iraq is effectively destroyed and in a modern-day techno-genocide some
10% of its
population has been killed and the country neutralized from the major
role it use
to play in the affairs of the Middle East.  The human suffering is
incalculable.
 More than a million children have perished.  Three top officials from
the U.N.
charged with overseeing the U.N.'s "humanitarian" program in Iraq,
including Assistant
Secretary-General Denis Haliday, have resigned in moral disgust.

Israel and the U.S. are the main beneficiaries and the ones that have
brought this
about; the Arab "client regimes" -- especially those in Riyadh, Kuwait,
Amman, Cairo
and the Gulf -- are among those who also helped bring this about,
hoping to perpetuate
their own corrupt and repressive rule and wealth.

The former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark, has had
the courage
and conviction from the beginning to call U.S. policies genocidal and
"war crimes"
-- but hardly anyone in the main-stream media dares to speak up or to
allow anyone,
like Clark, to do so.

An "October Surprise" is likely again this year.  The Clinton-Gore team
is working
ferociously to cajole Yasser Arafat into a deal that will be signed and
sealed in
the pre-election period, helping push Gore into the White House for the
immediate
years ahead and shield Clinton from all he still faces once he is a
private citizen.

Even so, the outcome of the American election is up in the air right
now and many
are understandably betting that the Bush-Powell (at State)-McCain (at
Defense) triumverate
is likely to take power come next January, no longer that far away.

The Bush camp is littered with militarists of various stripes.  They
are pushing
hard for a huge "missile defense" scheme that will enrich the arms
builders by more
than $100 billion in the decade ahead, even at the risk of igniting a
new international
arms race and even with major experts explaining that defeating and
tricking such
a system will not only be possible but cost just a pittance in
comparison.

And if Bush and his team do come to power, the real goal is not going
to be just
to "take 'em out" -- referring to the assortment of hodge-podge weapons
of mass
destruction Iraq is understandable trying desperately to build at this
point --
but to remove Saddam Hussein and set up a compliant client regime in a
weakened
and dependent Iraq.  Of course, the western powers have much collective
experience
when it comes to weak and compliant "client regimes".

Bush made the above comment publicly at the beginning of the year on 26
January.
 His
foreign policy team includes many who want to not just take out Iraq's
weapons at
any cost but to totally topple the Iraqi regime, even at the risk of a
possible
Middle Eastern version of the "Bay of Pigs", even at the risk of
creating a new
wave of anti-American sentiment in the region with ramifications hard
to predict
in the years ahead.