It's official - Saddam was not an imminent threat

[huckleberry]

Clare Short
Saturday August 23, 2003
The Guardian

Lord Hutton has been charged with inquiring into the narrower question of the circumstances that led to the death of Dr David Kelly and will report on this very important question. But his inquiry is revealing important information that casts light on the bigger question of how we got to war.

.... It is important to remain constantly aware of the vested interests at play: the Murdoch empire and other rightwing media operations would like to weaken and break the BBC so that British broadcasting might be reduced to the sort of commercially dominated, biased news reporting that controls the US airwaves. It is extremely unfortunate that a Labour government has been willing to drive forward this campaign against the BBC.

We know through emails revealed by Hutton that Tony Blair's chief of staff made clear that the dossier was likely to convince those who were prepared to be convinced, but that the document "does nothing to demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the west. We will need to be clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat. The case we are making is that he has continued to develop WMD since 1998, and is in breach of UN resolutions. The international community has to enforce those resolutions if the UN is to be taken seriously."

snip

If there was no imminent threat, then Dr Blix could have been given the time he required. He may well have succeeded in ending all Iraq's WMD programmes - just as he succeeded in dismantling 60-plus ballistic missiles. Then sanctions could have been lifted and a concentrated effort made to help the people of Iraq end the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein - just as we did with Milosevic in Serbia.

snip

Following the terrible bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, there is a danger that those who favour chaos in Iraq will make further gains, at great cost to the people of Iraq and coalition forces. The answer remains a stronger UN mandate and internation-alisation of the reconstruction effort. The worry is that the US will not have the humility to ask for help, and the chaos and suffering will continue.

more at
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/comment/0,9236,1028119,00.html

[wtmusic]

1. I don't know if it's 'official' yet, but

that's one more nail in the coffin.

When * and gang confess to mass murder, call me up personally and apologize for all the time I spent protesting, donate the taxes I paid last year to survivors families in Iraq--that's OFFICIAL.

(not holding my breath)

[arcane1]

2. damn, look how CLOSE we got to being able to end those sanctions!

it makes these devils all the more evil :grr:

[Martin Eden]

3. I wouldn't characterize the worry thusly:

"The worry is that the US will not have the humility to ask for help, and the chaos and suffering will continue."

It's not a question of humility, or even hubris -- although there's plent of that in the Bush administration.

No, it's a question of control. The Bushies ARE asking for help, but they want it on their terms -- no UN mandate, with the US maintaining ultimate authority over Iraq.

Despite all their former talk about enforcing UN resolutions and disarming Iraq, and their subsequent rhetoric about liberation and spreading democracy, the neocons' dogged determination to hold on to their spolis of war is becoming more and more apparent.

There's no way after having spent so much blood and treasure (taxpayer treasure and someone else's blood), that they're going to hand Iraq over to the world body that they so arrogantly dismissed as irrelevant. The UN might actually provide the Iraqis with REAL self-determination, including decisions over who reaps the benefits from their vast oil deposits.

There are many potentially disastrous outcomes from this chaotic situation, but that scenario is one that the Bushies will fight with every last ounce of political capital.