The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war against those who might threaten US homeland security is based on lies and on the tactic of frightening the American people. The plan worked. A majority of the American had supported Bush in his little war in Iraq. The Democrats appeared to have been silenced, except Sen. Robert Byrd who delivered last month a powerful and accurate privileged speech before the US Senate courageously assailing the lies and deception of the White House, the Pentagon and the US Intelligence Community.
On March 18, 2003 Bush announced that he had initiated a war to "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." The President told the world: "Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." [Address to the Nation, 3/19/03]
Bush has since announced that major combat operations concluded on May 1: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." Since then, the United States has been recognized by the international community as the occupying power in Iraq. And yet, it has not found any evidence that would confirm the officially stated reason that it had gone to war; namely, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction constituted a grave threat to the US.
On January 28, 2003, Bush said in his State of the Union Address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." [State of the Union, 1/28/03, pg. 7] Yet, according to news reports, the CIA knew that this claim was false as early as March 2002. In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency has since discredited this allegation.
On February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." [Remarks to UN Security Council, 2/5/03, pg. 12] To date we have not found any of this material, nor those thousands of rockets loaded with chemical weapons.
On February 8, Bush told the nation: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons – the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." [Radio Address, 2/8/03] Sen. Byrd was relieved that such weapons were not used, but he continues to ask why the Iraqi army did not use them. Did the Iraqi army flee their positions before chemical weapons could be used? If so, why were the weapons not left behind? Or is it that the army was never issued chemical weapons? The world needs honest answers.
On March 16, in an interview with Tim Russert, US Vice Pres. Cheney said that Iraqis want "to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that." He added, "...the vast majority of them would turn [Saddam Hussein] in in a minute if, in fact, they thought they could do so safely." [Meet the Press, 3/16/03, pg. 6] But today Iraqi cities remain in disorder, US troops are under attack, its occupation government lives and works in fortified compounds, and it is still trying to determine the fate of the ousted, murderous dictator.
On March 30, US Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld said of the search for weapons of mass destruction: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." [This Week, 3/30/03, pg. 8] But Baghdad fell to US troops on April 9, and Tikrit on April 14, and the intelligence Secretary Rumsfeld spoke about has not led US commanders to any weapons of mass destruction.
Sen. Byrd (and the world now knows) the White House rhetoric played upon the well-founded fear of the American public about future acts of terrorism. It was designed to prey on public fear of the American people.
The face of Osama bin Laden morphed into that of Saddam Hussein, Sen. Byrd said. Bush carefully blurred these images in his State of the Union Address: "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans – this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." [State of the Union, 1/28/03, pg 7]
Judging by this speech, not only did Bush confuse al Qaeda and Iraq, but he also appeared to give a vote of no-confidence to US homeland security efforts. Sen. Byrd asked: Isn't the White House, the brains behind the Department of Homeland Security? Isn't the Administration supposed to be stopping those vials, canisters, and crates from entering our country, rather than trying to scare our fellow citizens half to death about them?
On September 26, 2002, just two weeks before Congress voted on a resolution to allow the President to invade Iraq, and six weeks before the mid-term elections, Bush himself built the case that Iraq was plotting to attack the United States. Sen. Byrd said that after meeting with members of Congress on that date, the President said: "The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.... The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material, could build one within a year." [Rose Garden Remarks, 9/26/02]. Have we found any evidence to date of this chilling allegation? No. To this day, after declaring victory in the war against Iraq, the US has seen nary a shred of evidence to support his claims of grave dangers, chemical weapons, links to al Qaeda, or nuclear weapons.
On October 7, just four days before the October 11 vote in the Senate on the war resolution, the President stated: "We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy – the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade." Bush continued: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." Bush also elaborated on claims of Iraq's nuclear program when he said: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen' - his nuclear holy warriors.... If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." [Cincinnati Museum Center, 10/7/02, pg. 3-4]
This is the kind of pumped up intelligence and outrageous rhetoric that were given to the American people to justify war with Iraq, according to Sen. Byrd. This is the same kind of hyped evidence that was given to Congress to sway its vote for war on October 11, 2002.
Sen. Byrd ended his speech, thus: “Congress has the obligation to investigate the use of intelligence information by the Administration, in the open, so that the American people can see that those who exercise power, especially the awesome power of preemptive war, must be held accountable. We must not go down the road of cover-up. That is the road to ruin.” (See: www.commondreams.org).
ATTY. MANUEL J. LASERNA JR.
Professor of Law
Far Eastern University
Manila
c. 2003
