| In Parliament on 18 March, I voted against our
country being involved in the US led invasion of Iraq. I sat in on the debate in the
Chamber from 12pm until 10pm waiting to be called but unfortunately was not called to make
a speech myself. I was able to make some interventions (you can look these up in
Hansard via www.parliament.uk) on other speeches,
including a question to Tony Blair on President Bush's erroneous claim that Iraq has
aided, trained and harboured terrorists, including operatives of Al-Qa'ida. However, if I
had been called, I would have said the following: Ever
since September 11 2001, the Bush Administration has attempted to make a connection
between Saddam Hussein and the horrific events of that day. That effort has been
successful. Surveys have consistently shown that nearly half of the American people
believe that Saddam Hussein played a direct role in the September 11th attack. A January
2003 Knight-Ridder poll showed that 50 percent of the American people believe that one or
more of the Sept. 11 hijackers was Iraqi. A New York Times/CBS survey released on March 11
found that 45% of Americans think that Saddam Hussein was "personally involved"
in the Sept. 11 attacks. Depending on how the questions are phrased, roughly two thirds of
the American people believe that there is some kind of connection between Iraq and Al
Qa’ida. Here in Britain we may find that difficult to comprehend. But it is neither
surprising nor indicative of ignorance on the part of the American people. After all,
after 9/11, shouldn’t they be able to believe what their President tells them? In his
news conference on March 6th, President Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein, "has
trained and financed Al Qa’ida-type organizations before - Al Qa’ida and other
terrorist organizations". In his last broadcast he repeated that assertion. This
is simply not true! By asserting such a connection, and attempting to exploit
people’s fear and anger over Sept. 11, President Bush undermines the credibility of
his leadership and draws into question his other arguments for war.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, Czech intelligence officials reported
an April 2001 meeting in Prague between the leader of the Sept. 11 murderers, Mohammed
Atta, and an Iraqi intelligence agent. President Bush, and other senior administration
officials, quickly seized on that meeting to allege an Iraq–Al Qa’ida link.
Later, after further investigation, Czech officials confessed that they had been mistaken
– that no such meeting had taken place. Nonetheless, top US officials continued to
cite that meeting as evidence of an Iraq-Al Qa’ida link (Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld claimed that the evidence was "bulletproof"). Last year,
Vaclav Havel personally told White House officials that Czech intelligence had been
mistaken, and after exhaustive investigation, the FBI and CIA came to the same conclusion.
Nonetheless, senior members of the Bush administration continued to repeat the claim. Only
when the focus shifted to Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, did
administration officials stop citing the Prague meeting. Not surprisingly, it was not part
of the case against Saddam Hussein made by Secretary of State Powell to the United Nations
on Feb. 5th. But the repeated administration claims have never been retracted and the
misimpression they created lingers and continues to be reinforced in the public mind by
other administration claims of an Iraq-Al Qa’ida link. For example, in his State of
the Union address in late January, President Bush said: "Evidence from
intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody,
reveals that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists including members of Al
Qa’ida". Secretary Powell told the United Nations there was, "a
sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qa’ida terrorist network". In his
televised war address on 17 March, President Bush repeated the claim that Iraq aids and
harbours Al Qa’ida terrorists.
This claim rests heavily on reports that a single Jordanian member
of Al Qa’ida, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, sought and received medical treatment in Baghdad
after being injured in the fighting in Afghanistan. Al-Zarqawi has been associated with
the assassination last October of Laurence Foley, an American diplomatic officer in
Jordan. There is not any evidence, nor is it claimed, that Zarqawi received anything other
than medical treatment in Iraq. By contrast, how many injured Al Qa’ida members got
medical treatment in Afghanistan or across the border in Pakistan? U.S. officials
acknowledge that al-Zarqawi had support from a member of the Qatari Royal family, Abdul
Karim al-Thani, who hosted him in Qatar. However, administration officials do not claim
that, as with Iraq, these facts show that the Qatari court is connected to Al Qua’ida
– particularly since the United States depends on Qatar to provide staging support
for the U.S. Central Command. (And while President Bush hailed the arrest earlier this
month of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the New
York Times reported that Qatar harbored him in 1996 and tipped him off when the FBI was
closing in on him early that year. Who knows, had the "friends" in Qatar not
helped Shaikh Mohammed elude capture then, the events of Sept. 11 may never have
happened.)
The US administration also claims that Al Qa’ida members have
found refuge in northern Iraq. These allegations relate to a group called Ansar al-Islam
which has taken over a small area near the Iranian border. This part of Iraq, however, is
in Kurdish hands and outside the direct control of the Iraqi Government. If the U.S. is
aware of terrorist training camps in northern Iraq, in an area where the U.S. controls the
air space, why haven't they simply taken them out? "Regime change" in Baghdad
isn't necessary to accomplish that. Not only is this territory not controlled by Saddam
Hussein, in fact, the leaders of Ansar al-Islam say they seek to overthrow Saddam Hussein
and his government.
The amazing thing about all of this is how difficult is has been for
the Bush administration to find even the slimmest pretext of an Iraq-Al Qa’ida link.
Of the hundreds of alleged Al Qa’ida members rounded up in the past year and a half
around the world, not a single leading Al Qa’ida operative has been an Iraqi.
Virtually all have come from countries that the U.S. considers allies. Most are Saudi (as
were 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers) or Egyptian; some Pakistani and Yemeni; a few from
Afghanistan, UAE and Lebanon. Even citizens of the U.S. and Great Britain have been
accused of Al Qa’ida links. But no Iraqis. So it would seem that the only group of
Arabs not represented in Al Qa’ida, are Iraqis. But which country is it proposing to
attack? Given the resources that the Bush administration has devoted to finding any kind
of Iraqi link to Al Qa’ida, the absence of any credible evidence speaks volumes. The
simple fact is that Al Qa’ida was formed for the purpose of overthrowing secular Arab
governments like Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. And the Dictator is among the Arab
leaders most hostile to radical Islam (or anything else that might provide opposition to
his ruthless rule). It is hard to imagine two less likely allies. As the Prime Minister
has said, Saddam Hussein has given money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers (see
link to Hansard record of PM's comments), which is certainly a form of
support for terrorism. But so have some members of the Saudi Royal family. And like the
Saudi Royal family, Saddam Hussein has done this as a form of propaganda, to bolster his
image as a defender of the Arab people in their fight against Israel.
In his war statement to the American people, President Bush spoke of
a clear danger: "using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained
with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill
thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people". What nonsense! Saddam
Hussein’s interest is first and foremost survival. He recognizes that use of WMDs
would greatly reduce his own life expectancy. Why would he increase the threat to his own
existence by giving such weapons to terrorists he doesn’t control (and, in the case
of Al Qa’ida, who seek his destruction)? Saddam Hussein is not a radical Islamist. He
has no ideological or theological reason to assist terrorists. He is shrewd enough to know
that it is distinctly not in his interest to attack the US or support someone else who
might. That is, unless he concluded that it is his last hope for survival. Or, if all hope
is gone, that he might be revered as an Arab "martyr". It is worth noting that
Saddam Hussein did not use chemical or biological weapons against the US, Israel or anyone
else during the Gulf War. That just reinforces the conclusion that, even in the extreme
circumstances of war, he has considered the use of such weapons against the US or its
allies to be counterproductive to his own survival.
To simply assert that Saddam Hussein "would" at some point
in the future decide to support someone who threatens the US is a poor pretext to
undertake a major unprovoked war, with no UN authority.
The same could be said, however implausibly, of any country the US
doesn’t like and intends to overthrow. Isn’t this the danger of the pax
Americana wanted by Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz and others signed up to the Project for the New
American Century which will overturn the post-Second World War settlement? And
what is the lesson of this to other tyrants of the world when Saddam Hussein is being
attacked precisely because he is so weak (a point made forcefully by Robin Cook in his resignation speech) and does not possess nuclear weapons.
Bush's credibility as a leader and his popularity arose from the
9/11 attacks and the fear that they generated. The War on Terrorism has muted opposition
to his policies and helped Bush achieve many elements of an extreme right agenda that
would have never been possible otherwise. Maintaining that state of war is crucial to
maintaining Bush's power. His inability to find Osama bin Laden added an element of
urgency to the need for a new face of the enemy. It's hard to come up with better villain
than Saddam Hussein.
Not all the reasons given for going to war are without merit, and
not all the reasons against going to war are decisive. But surely, the bottom line is that
a world in which the US is admired and respected is a much safer world than one in which
the US is hated and feared. The burden of justification required to undertake a major,
unprovoked attack has not been met. Members of Parliament have to decide whether to use
what influence we have to deprive the US administration of the fig leaf of respectability
for war in Iraq that would be provided by this Country’s support.
Acknowledgements to Russ Daggatt |