AN APPENDIX TO THE GOVERNMENT DOSSIER ON IRAQ

  "Untruthfulness has everwhere become a quality of the age; it is impossible to describe truth as a characteristic of our times . . . No man should make a statement, or impart anything to another until he has exhausted every means to ascertain the truth of his assertions; and it is only when he recognises this obligation that he can perceive veracity as a moral impulse . . . To this end a radical change must come about in our cultural life. The speed of travel, the lust of sensation on the part of man, everything that comes with a materialistic age, is opposed to truth."

Rudolf Steiner[126]    

The following is one person's search for much of the truth behind the evolving situation that threatens war between the United States and Britain against Saddam Hussein, albeit under the United Nations banner. It is amazing how much information is in the serious media that is forgotten or unheard of generally. To think clearly is the first step on the path to insight, of which a few indications are given from what has arisen in the mind of the author, but the emphasis has been to provide a wide variety of relevant information, in a condensed form.

KUWAIT AND THE GULF WAR

  In the New York Times it was revealed that because of an interview with the American ambassador, April G. Glaspie, in a meeting in Bagdad on 25 July 1990, 8 days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in which "concern" was expressed "about Iraq's military build up on its border with Kuwait", America left Saddam Hussein free to settle his own Arab-Arab conflict with Kuwait, not anticipating it would come to him taking over its territory. Saddam Hussein, who talked of "a possible peaceful resolution", had "warned the United States not to oppose his goal of getting economic concessions from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.". The state department did not confirm, but neither did it dispute the essential message, originally from an Iraqi communiqueé.[127] Reassurances to Saddam Hussein were repeated by others, notably US House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Commission, John Kelly.[128]

  Dr Francis (Iraqi Democratic Forum in exile in London) widened this picture by saying: "Twenty years of dictatorship have wiped out all traces of liberalism and democracy"[129], as exhibited by the remarks of some of those freed in the extensive amnesty of prisoners in October, this year.[130] Saddam Hussein has also perfected his dictatorship through astute manipulation of tribal loyalties.[131] But "Some of Dr Francis" fellow Iraqis in the opposition have said that they fear that if Sadam Hussein were removed, he might be replaced by Islamic fundermentalists' (of which the Da'awa Islamic Party is a representative, who in 1990 admitted the Iraqi people were not ready for that solution then). "We'll find ourselves facing a situation similar to the one that existed in Tehran at the start of the Iranian revolution," they continued(7).

  When the invasion on 2 August happened all "understanding" was revoked on 6 August by President George Bush (Senior), followed by the Western Coalition's retaliation in the Gulf War of 1990, which ended with what sickened American soldiers called "a turkey shoot" of the retreating Iraqi soldiers. More recently British soldiers suffering frm "Guld War Syndrome" were also thought to be suffering, alongside their Iraqi "compatriots", from the effects of depleted uranium on the battle fields, used to strengthen Western tanks and shells, as they were in Kosovo also. Apparently, Saddam Hussein wanted the Rumeilah oil field and the Kuwaiti islands dominating his access to the Persian Gulf and any proper port to the sea—which Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister, Prince Sultan Ibn Abdulazis, said they would not stand in the way of, if he withdrew from Kuwait, having given land to fellow Arab countries in the region themselves—a view echoed by both "the US and Britain".[132]

WEAPONS INSPECTORS

  Then, this Autumn, United Nations resolutions on renewed weapons inspections picked up from the situation in 1998, when the warning of the US Ambassador to the UN to Richard Butler, the former head of the inspection team, "that his team should leave Iraq for its own safety" on 15 December 1998 (just before America started bombing Iraq), followed his report on 14th, which concluded that "no progress" had been made, even though "the majority of the inspections of facilities and sites under the ongoing monitoring system were carried out with Iraqi's co-operation".[133] "Between 1991 and 1998 UN inspectors did impressive work making sure that Iraq's nuclear programme, almost all its missiles and many of its chemical weapons were destroyed. They put in place a long-term control system, with surveillance cameras at dozens of sites".[134] Recently on BBC Radio 4 one leader of the inspections team stated that a great number of the sites had been demolished that could produce weapons of mass destruction, and could not have been replaced in the time-lapse since the inspectors had left. Previously "both the Iraqi government and the former inspector before Butler, Scott Ritter, maintained that the weapons inspectors were joined that year by CIA covert operations specialists' (American Intelligence) "who used the UN's special access to collect information and encourage the republican guard to launch a coup", first alleged by Iraq in 1966(11). Ritter was quoted in the Commons, from a 1998 letter: "The sad truth is that Iraq today is not disarmed any where near the level required by the Security Council resolutions . . . Iraq has lied to the special commission and the world since day one . . . the Commission has uncovered indisputable proof of a systematic concealment mechanism run by the Presidency of Iraq and protected by Iraqi security forces."—"before he suddenly decided, years later that Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat from mass destruction weapons at all.".[135] America insisted, on April 1994, that sanctions would not be lifted (which have been estimated to have killed more people than all the people than all the weapons of mass destruction in history[136]), even if the inspections were completed successfully, contrary to UN Security Resolution 687, paragraph 22. This was reiterated in 30 October 1998 by its rejection of the new UN Resolution of that date, insisting that Saddam must first go.[137] The latest resolution 1441, passed unanimously by the 15 present members of the Security Council—including Syria, the only Arab country present there this year (because nations other than the "big 5" attend by rotation at other than full assembly gatherings), has stiffened the odds for Iraq to comply with. Saddam Hussein has to accept the resolutions by Friday 15 November, a week after it was passed. Then a full disclosure of his weapons of mass destruction, including delivery systems, has to be given to the UN by 8 December. An advanced team arrives in Baghdad on 25 November under Hans Blitz, with 800 to 1000 inspectors starting work on 23 December with visits to "100 priority sites in a test of Iraqi cooperation". All weapons of mass destruction have to be destroyed by February 2003. Any refusal to cooperate will result in "serious consequences". (In the House of Lords the Bishop of Oxford said that the resolution was so strong that it could hardly be accepted by any country's leader.) Both the US (President Bush) and Britain (Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon) have taken the resolution to mean that war may begin immediately any obstacles are reported, and both countries have stated that they "would not be bound by a new UN discussion". Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Party, has called for a vote at the UN before an invasion is started, which is in line with the way the French, and possibly the Russians interpret the resolution. This resolution is due to be voted on in the House of Commons shortly. Meanwhile "the strategy was for a land, sea and air force of 200,000 to 250,000 troops" senior US officials told the Associated Press Agency. "President Bush had approved tentative plans for invading Iraq in the event of a breach of the UN resolutions".[138] This would be in order to be able to invade before the blazing Middle East summer begins at the end of February, when troop movements are made impossible. The Iraqi parliament, following a recent 100 per cent vote giving Saddam Hussein another 8 years of premiership, and in a bizarre example of Arab politics, rejected the UN resolution, but Saddam Hussein is expected to agree to it never-the-less (BBC Radio 4 News).

  Overall, as has been said: "Truth is the first casualty in war"[139] (even if undeclared). Now we have the situation of the Russian authorities using gas to defeat Chechen hostage-takers in a Moscow theatre, only to find it was leathal to many of the hostages also. The Chechens wanted an end to the vicious war being waged against their secession from Russia.[140] Once weapons are made, they are inevitably used—even by mistake.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

  Again the use of chemical weapons by Iraq against the Kurds, whose constituents were imported from the West[141], occured infamously at Halabja in 1988 with up to 5,000 people killed ("according to Human Rights Watch"). (This has a precedent in British history in the then Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill's comment about the Kurds, then under British jurisdiction: "I do not understand this squemishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.".[142]) Western intelligence reports "over a 100 tonnes of sarin" ("and other nerve agents" in the next three months) used "against Iranian troops on the Al Foa peninsular" a month later, with a total of "over 20,000 Iranian casualties; during the whole [8 year] war.[143] The United States did not taken up the use of chemical weapons strongly with Iraq, its former ally throughout the war, even though against the Geneva Conventions. And in the Vietnam War the United States itself used napalm, a chemical weapon which burnt skin off its victims. It was also the only country to have used a nuclear weapon in war—on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[144] And recently we had the headlines: "US `has secret bio-weapons programme'"[145]—a programme that mocks the so-called American moral high ground. There is strong circumstantial evidence from the recently released Chinese state and army archives that America used biological weapons, following an accelerated programme of development, in the North Korean war of the 1950's.[146] The war backed by the UN (due to the absence of the Soviet member of the Security Council when the vote was taken) in the van of N-S Korean hostilities.

OBFUSCATION

  However, we have now reached "an `intelligence war' inside the [White House and Pentagon] administration", where "intelligence and other government employees in sensitive positions" are in "a behind-the-scenes revolt" over their "classified information about Saddam Hussein's activities. Piece by piece the evidence against Baghdad laid out by President Bush and his senior aides has been called into question" as a "selective reading of intelligence, to say the least"[147] (23a). Never-the-less in the face of up-coming elections, and in the perceived wake of public fear of terrorism after 11 September, The House and Senate voted by 68 per cent (31 opposed) and 77 per cent (22 opposed) respectively, to authorise the president to "use the armed forces of the United States as he determines' to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" last week [before 16 October 2002] to effectively "grant President Bush the power to attack Iraq unilterally, remove Saddam from power and abolish the country's nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry". The debate criticised the lack of post-Saddam plan, measures to prevent a widening of the conflict to Israel etc, and no assurance that the war against terrorism would not be compromised(22b). Of course the wavering economy, in the light of the recent corporate scandals (Enron etc), means that the economy is a very real threat, so far covered up, after the intitial exposé, by concentration on a terrorist threat(22c). Officials gave a three phase model: "US military opeation, move to a civilian occupation and shift to Iraqi control after local and national elections", while Secretary of State Colin Powell said "the US military would likely have an extended presence in Iraq"(22d). After encouraging the Iraqis to revolt at the end of the Gulf War America failed to support them when they did, followed by fierce punishment from Saddam Hussein. However, previously rival Kurdish political groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), who "have governed the north and south of the region separately since 1996", have just pledged "from now on to have a single government and a single administration". Congratulated by Colin Powell, the two leaders "hope that the US intervention will take place" and look forward to a federal framework which includes the Shi'ites of South Iraq, who also want a regime change(22e). Now both the northern Kurdish and the southern Shi'ite sectors are the subject of no-fly zones, patrolled by the US and Britain with 36,000 sorties, including 24,000 combat missions" "during the eighteen months to 14 January 1999"[148] (on average, over 40 combat missions/day) and we hear of three attacks (amongst other targets) on the international airport of Basra in southern Iraq in the last two weeks, the last on 18 October 2002. "US and UK defence officials have in the past said that the targets at Basra are mobile air defence radar systems that lock on to allied aircraft".[149] With such a target and a reported "sharp increase inthe US-British air raids on Iraqi air defences over recent months" [on 7 September], played down by Pentagon officials, we have "what military analysts said could be preparations for a possible attack this winter".[150] (The first stages of undeclared war, independent of the UN, by another name.) The same commercial interest in Afghanistan oil has been suggested as what lies behind the wish for a military "regime change" in Iraq.[151] Iraq seems unlikely to threaten anyone in the face of American military power, short of a death-wish or miscalculation, which is also possible, though the power game followed by the West may well be the model for Saddam Hussein's wish to have the trappings of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons leading to a dominant role in the Arab Middle East over against that of Israel (with similar weaponry).

MORALITY

  One must conclude that, far from having the moral high ground, the governments of the United States, aided and abetted particularly by Britain, in relation to Iraq and much of the rest of the world, seem like rogues dealing with rogues, however unconsciously, to be judged by the seven deadly sins: Lust—the will for possession; Gluttony for sensation; Greed for resources and its concomitant life-style; Sloth in finding the Truth; Wrath when we are thwarted; Envy when we feel deprived; and Pride—which comes before a fall! It is precisely "Men in power today, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz" who "worked hard to get Ronald Reagan elected" in place of Jimmy Carter—a critic of President W Bush (Junior)—who has just received the Nobel Prize for Peace. As President from 1977-81 he never sent "American soldiers into combat", and was full of "revulsion over earlier US efforts at `regime change' in which the CIA aimed to assassinate or mount coups against leaders in the developing world"—in "Chile, Congo and Cuba"[152], "revealed just as Mr Carter was starting his bid for the presidency". We must be thankful for this insight too, as for his "20 years of work in conflict resolution in Nicaragua, Haiti, North Korea and Cuba as well as funding programmes against disease in Africa."(25f). (And Llew Smith MP) also added "We shall not forget that, since 1945, the United States has intervened in or invaded Albania, Angola, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Congo, Ccuba, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador, Grenda, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Panama, South Korea, Nicaragua, the Phillipines, Uruguay, Vietnam and Zaire(19).) However one correspondent insisted that President Carter did send millions in aid to El Salvador in 1980 when, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "the death toll reached almost 10,000 with the vast majority of the victims falling prey to the right wing terrorism sanctioned by key government officials".[153] Overall we can thus realise that we are dealing with the hot-headedness of chancing a massive Muslim backlash and the cold calculations of "Real Politik", in which there needs to be placed the calm of balanced compassion—compromise, which was one of the assets of the English Folk Soul, in spite of all its failings in the British Empire and since.

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD—LEVEL-HEADEDNESS

  These questions rely on insight arising out of such information as is quoted here, if we are to develop a feel for the truth. The fact is that neither the United States nor Great Britain, nor China, Russia or France, the permanent members of the Security Council, have admitted any inspections of their weapons of mass destruction in this situation, with the United States preferring to abrogate the anti-ballistic missile treaty on nuclear weapons, and risk a new arms race in order to build the missile defence shield ("Star Wars II"), which again is too complex to ever have its computer programme "de-bugged" from inherent mistakes, and the possibility of a fatal mistake in practice. Neither can the United States invade all the countries of Presidents Bush's "axis of evil" (Iran and North Korea, as well as Iraq), in addition to those America has invaded anyway in the last 50 years—or do they think they can? (Do they think through the consequences?) The new American doctrine of "pre-emptive strikes", before they are actually threatened with attack, destabilises existing international legislation, and encourages any state to attack anyone "at whim". Any military attack against Iraq now, in the present state of Islamic resentment (dating back to the 1990's[154]) felt towards the American state—not least because of the Israeli-Palestinian violence (see "Background" below)—runs the danger of creating a Middle Eastern conflagration. (Both points—especially the former, were reflected in the Parliamentary debate on Iraq on 24 September 2002—the Hansard record).

THE WAY FORWARD

  To admit our moral culpability, usually dismissed as "history" by governments, takes moral courage, but can, in the long term, open up a whole range of possibilities if we can thereby establish trust. Then we might move on to the seven cardinal virtues, even in our political life—between governments and the governed: Charity/Catharsis—in the face of need and crisis; Faith in the future, with Wakefulness to reality; Hope in Man's potential, with Loving Care for humanity; Temperance in our demands; Courage in the face of evil extremes, with Guardianship of the earth; Justice based on equal worth, with Wisdom to see the way forward; and Responsibility—how do I react in my daily life?, with Understanding—empathy for the human condition. For in the end we are always dealing with human beings, however clouded their consciousness of truth, or our own.

IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATIONS

  Even if this long-term stance seems hopelessly impracticable at the moment there are serious considerations in the immediate term. How much chaos and destruction is the present American administration likely to promote in the international scene out of its own idea of its own "self-interest"?—in spite of the fact that there is a sizeable opposition to war with Iraq there—as with the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated in London recently—as there was in New York for peace, immediately after 11 September, though hardly reported in our media. (Mostly, in my experience, on BBC Radio 4 news.) This includes what kind of head of government would be "placed" in a new Iraqi regime (favourable to America's interests). If the spot-light were shone on other regimes—North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Eygpt (let alone Israel) come to mind, as well as the renewed Pakistan military dictatorship, where nuclear weapons are also involved—would they be seen to be as bad as the present Iraqi regime, albeit perhaps in ways less obvious to us at present? And is the bombing of the Iraqi people for a second time really a price worth paying, as it was said to be with the widespread malnutrition and starvation amongst children, for instance, under sanctions—when the long-term outcome is so uncertain? Could we get to the point, by public pressure everywhere, where the Iraqi regime is reformed by "turning the other cheek" in offering development aid as a way towards democracy, when the Iraqi oppposition could for instance come into its own. (Even now Iraq is a secular state with equality for women.) Our recent contributions to the history of Iraq hardly justifies anything else.

ANNEX

BACKGROUND

Afghanistan

  Many now realise, for instance, that, objectively seen, the military campaign of American bombing of Afghanistan at the end of last year intimidated local Afghan drivers of aid lorries from driving through Taliban territory, when, with the advent of the bombing, the Taliban were made more suspicious and uncooperative than they were before, followed, with the Taliban's withdrawal, by the confusion of dealing with the various military groupings which were then found on the ground. `"Christian Aid said military force could only be justified as a last resort" but "in the short term it will inevitably make the humanitarian situation worse". Secure conditions were essential for the transport of supplies, which meant open [Afghan] borders[155] and aid convoys unmolested. "Any offensive military action or threat of military action makes it impossible to deliver these conditions" its director, Daleep Mukarjee, said. "Will Day, chief executive of Care International, said: `Air drops make great TV, but they often represent a failure to respond to a food crisis.'."[156] The mixed message of bombs and food parcels from the air also confused the starving Afghans, and even then the peanut butter and serviettes in them, supplied by a Texan food company, were not their normal diet!—a tragic lack of common sense, let alone insight. Only now have estimates of `3,500 Afghan civilians . . . killed by US bombing, with up to 10,000 combatants killed and many more deaths from cold and hunger as a result of military action.' been formulated as a consensus.[157] `Civilians deaths are thought to be higher than Kosovo and even the Gulf War.'[158] After 20 years of war and three of drought they were desparate, especially in remote mountain areas. It was the failure of the West to enable the Afghans, after the Russian withdrawal under Gorbachev, to re-instate their subsistance farming that led to wide-spread poppy growing for heroin, which would be sold to the Taliban and al Qaida to keep body and soul together.[159] What, as motivation for the war against the Taliban, is more worrying is the repeated claim that America wanted them out of the way because of their opposition to an oil pipeline across Afghanistan.

  It is abstract technological thinking today that enables us to build incredibly sophisticated weaponry and to trust it implicitly. Then military thinking is reluctant to believe it is by no means infallible, and so it underestimates, the number of civilian casualties, despite the reassurances of politicians. Fake video footage is disseminated,[160] and the Taliban is bamed for the fact that women in Afghanistan are forced to wear the burka, which covers them in public (apart from their eyes), when, in fact, it has been enforced in Afghanistan by the War Lords of the Northern Alliance and the Pashtun in the south for a long time before the Taliban came into existence, albeit to be replaced since the latter's demise, in places like Kabul, with the hope of public education for women and girls. On television villagers were quoted as having accepted the Taliban because of the internecine fighting among the mohajedin after the Russian withdrawal. `If the Americans had brought peace, that would have been a good thing. But instead they have just brought us war and looting and the men of Gul Agha [the former mojahedin governor of Kandahar]', said Aslan . . . [a] Pashtun refugee from Alazar-i-Sharif [who] fled his farm . . .' They only know war. If they want to they can just kill you and go unpunished', he said.[161] Now `Investigators have found evidence of a mass grave at Dasht-i-Leili, close to the jail at Sherberghan'—`then under US control' in which Taliban troops `were transported for hours in sealed metal shipping containers' after the battle of Kunduz in late November [01].' The UN investigation `has found evidence that a leading Afghan warlord and strong ally of the United States tortured witnesses'—`up to 1,000 tortured and killed'—`to stop them testifying against him in a war crimes inquiry', a UN source said last weekend [16 November 2002]. General Abdul Rashid Dostan, an Uzbek warlord was part of the opposition Northern Alliance that overthrew the Taliban regime with US help, and has been used extensively by the US military in operations against Al Qaida and the Taliban.' `If confirmed this would raise questions about the role of US special forces who were supervising the detention of the prisoners . . . "We have enough evidence to lead us to believe there are serious concerns," the UN official said.'[162] The long term outlook in the country must remain unknown, in spite of the fledgling government that arose out of the `gung-ho' victory attitudes of the Americans and the United Kingdom, expressed by government officials. Emergency food via the United Nations continues accompanied by a slow reconstruction of the country through the new Afghan government (Clare Short, Radio 4), but, as with Iraq, a massive aid programme could have brought down the Taliban by peaceful means.[163] `Now after the war was supposed to be over, the US 82nd airborne division is reported to be alienating the population in the south and east with relentless raids and detentions, while mortar and rocket attacks on the US bases are now taking place at least three times a week. As General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, puts it, the military campaign in Afghanistan has "lost momentum".'.[164] This does not bode well if it comes to war with Iraq.

Israel and Palestine

  The Middle East has been continuously in the media, so that only a few points need to be made from the present but the longer perspective could be helpful.

  Israel was set up after the second World War as a response to the Holocaust, following increasing Zionist activity in the early part of the 20th century. It was racially based, discriminating positively to the Jewish Diaspora who began to immigrate, especially from Russia where there was considerable anti-Semitism. These immigrants were those especially who were given cheap housing in the settlements after the 6 day war in the West Bank and Gaza strip, complete with access roads from Israel proper, carving up the Palestinian territory, which had been occupied at that point. The Arab world took the stance that it would `drive the Jews into the sea', and there were various atrocities like the shooting of Israeli athletes bound for the Olympics at Munich airport. It would take an eminent historian, with direct experience to demarcate accurately the process of creating the State of Israel in Arab Palestine since the Second World War. What we all experience in the West (second hand) is the break down of the Peace process in November 2000, but also the bursting open of wounds which have been concealed from our general public here in various degrees. By now we have "grown used to"—a shock to some of us initially—Israel having troops to `keep the peace' within the Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza strip. We also now know for sure of the intrusion of the Jewish settlements into these areas, once designated theoretically as the basis of a Palestinian independent State in the Oslo Accords, brokered by President Clinton. New settlements have not abated, nor have the suicide bombings against them. It is this fact that has partially jettisoned any real independence for the Palestinians politically, although they are likely to remain dependent on Israel for much of their employment. After Premier Netanjahu's back-pedalling on the Oslo Agreements, since they broke down under his successor Ehud Barak, the patience of the ordinary Palestinian has broken. In particular, after the Likud opposition leader became Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, sacred to both Jews and Arabs. Israel is naturally afraid of Palestinian terrorists, who have reinstated the old state of war with the State of Israel, that appertained at its inception and for a long period thereafter until Anwar Sadat, President of Eygpt, made a dramatic peace with them, now followed in 2002 with an offer from the Arab States of peace in exchange for land—the land occupied in the West Bank and Gaza strip by Israel ever since the 6-day war when they victoriously occupied land up to the Nile, before withdrawing to what used to be known as Palestine, pre-war. In spite of United Nations Resolutions Israel has for the last 50 years refused to withdraw from these two territories, where the Palestinians have settled exclusively (often as refugees from Israel—their former home), although there are also many Arabs resident in Israel itself, having elected to stay when the State was inaugurated. Ariel Sharon's invasion of the refugee camp of Jenin (as with other towns including Bethlehem) to seek for terrorists has caused uproar world-wide, not to mention Palestine, by its heavy handed measures and apparent contempt for civilian life and property. An attempt by the United Nations to investigate what had been called a massacre were thwarted by the Israeli government. The hard-line orthodox Jews see Israel as the "Promised Land" of the Old Testament, initially occupied under Aaron, the successor of Moses who led the Hebrews out of captivity in Eygpt and through the Sinai desert for "forty years".[165] Repeated attempts at cease-fires have been made, but too often they are quickly thwarted by violence, more often than not from the Israeli side, but also from Palestinian militants like "Hamas". We live in hope. American warnings to Israel about its behaviour from President Bush have not been consequential through the summer and autumn of 2002. The £2 billion subsidy per annum remains, though there have been periods under previous presidents when it was withdrawn, in order to call Israel "to heel".

  The support for the "War against Terrorism" by Muslims across the world will also depend on Ariel Sharon's cessation[166] of this present military confrontation, since the affront to all Palestinians with the "inspection" of the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem that he must surely have expected. This led to the renewed Interfada, and the present Israeli oppression, interwoven with continued attacks on the settlements on Palestinian territory, as well as suicide bombers in Israel itself, who attack soldiers and civilians alike[167], despite all the extensive assassinations of Arabs suspected of terrorism, and the accompanying deaths of Arab civilians, by vastly superior Israeli weaponry. The British, French and Russians diplomatic activity needs to surface into the media, and accompany the new Labour leader in Israel, Amram Mitzna, who is prepared to remove settlements in a new Peace process. (BBC Radio 4 News) It remains to be seen if the Israel electorate will take advantage of this stance and vote his party, and not Ariel Sharon, into power in the elections next year.[168] The difference between Chapter VI UN resolutions which apply to the two parties Israel and Palestine and those from Chapter VII which are directives to Iraq are viewed as entirely academic by many in the West and Arab world. We need to see those on the Middle East enacted by both parties, giving security for both in their separate states. To this end the offer of peace by Saudi Arabia to Israel with the agreement of other Arab states, in exchange for a Palestinian State, needs to be taken up seriously if the "War against Terror" is to have any meaning. After that, the war in Chechnya needs to be addressed as a similar problem by the West.

Brian A Dawes

29 November 2002

Guardian Weekly (M)/(WP) for Le Monde/Washington Post sections;

Hansard refers to the House of Commons debate on 24 September 2002.

127   New York Times: 23 September 1990 "U.S. Gave Iraq Little Reason Not To Mount Kuwait Assault" (Elaine Sciolino with Michael R. Gordon), from a broadcast by ABC News on September 1th (!)-see also Note 6. Back

128   Guardian Weekly (M): 21 October 1990 p13 "Saddam Hussein and the deaf-mutes" (Jacques Amalric). Back

129   As in Note 6: "Dividend Iraqi opposition in exile" (Jean Gueyras). Back

130   Guardian Weekly (WP): 24 October 2002 p31 "Iraq frees thousands from prisons" (Rajiv Chandrasekaran). Back

131   Le MondeDiplomatique Oct.02 front page "How Saddam keeps power in Iraq" (Faleha Jabar). Back

132   Guardian Weekly: 28 October 1990, p6 "Saudi hint of Kuwait concessions to Iraq" (Hella Peck). Back

133   George Monbiot in Guardian Weekly: 17 October 2002 p11 "Spoiling for a fight". Back

134   Le Monde Diplomatique: September 2002 (front page) "Target Baghdad" (Alain Gresh). Back

135   Dr Julian Lewis: Hansard Col. 103. Back

136   Journal of Strategic Studies Vol.23, No. 1 pp163-187, quoted by John Pilger: The New Rulers of the World 02 p60. Back

137   Milan Rai: War Plan Iraq, quoted by George Monbiot (see Note 11). Back

138   Guardian Weekly: 14 November 2002 front page "Iraq faces sternest test" (Patrick Wintour, Ewen MacAskill, & Brian Whitaker in Cairo). Back

139   Aeschylus et al. Penguin Thesaurus (1998)/ Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (OUP 1993). Back

140   Guardian Weekly: 31 October 2002 p14 "Words not war, in Chechnya" (Frank Judd). Back

141   Guardian Weekly (WP): 23 September 1990 p17 "How everybody rushed to arm Saddam Hussein" (Glenn Frankl) & Independent: 12 September 1990 p9 "Terror arsenal the world ignored" (Special Correspondent). Back

142   John Pilger (see Note 14) p65. Back

143   Tony Blair's "Dossier": Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction-The Assessment of the British Government", Ch2: Iraq's programmes 1971-98 p14/5. Back

144   Llew Smith Hansard Col's. 131-133. Back

145   Guardian Weekly: 31 October 2002 front page (Julian Borger in Washington). Back

146   Le Monde Diplomatique: July 1999 p14 "First Victims of biological warfare" (Stephen Endicott & Edward Hagerman). Back

147   Guardian Weekly: 17 October 2002: (a) p6, (b) p31(WP), (c) p14, (d) p31, (e) p29 (M), (f) p3. Back

148   John Pilger (see Note 14) quoting The Observer: 28 October 2001. Back

149   BBC News on-line, 18 October 2002. Back

150   Guardian website: 7 September 2002. Back

151   Guardian Weekly (WP): 19 September 2002, p28 "Firms set for post-Saddam oil bonanza" (Dan Morgan & David B. Ottaway), s. Independent: 29 August 2002 p15 "Amid talk of war, only one thing is certain: fuel prices will rise" (Adrian Hamilton). Back

152   Jeremy Corbyn: Hansard Co., 29-incl. arms to Saudi Arabia & Iran. Back

153   Guardian Weekly: 7 November 2002, p13 "Briefly" (Julian Volger, Santiago, Chile). Back

154   Guardian Weekly: 14 October 1990, p8 "Divided Arabs use deaths to support their position on Iraq" (David Hirst). Back

155   The Press and Journal 20 September 2001 p11: "Pakistan worried as Afghans flee to border". Guardian Weekly 11 October 2001 p4: "Aid agencies say air drops no solution" (Jonathan Steele and Felicity Lawrence). Back

156   Guardian Weekly 11 November 2001, p4: "Aid agencies say air drops no solution" (Jonathan Steele and Felicity Lawrence). Back

157   Guardian Weekly 28 November 2002, p13: Seumus Milne "Reasons to be hated". Back

158   Guardian Weekly 14 February 2002 front page: "Afghans still dying as air strikes go on. But no one is counting" (Ian Traynor in Kabul). Back

159   Guardian Weekly 28 February 2002, p3: "Afghan's deadly crop flourishes again" (Luke Harding in Singesar). Back

160   Guardian Weekly 8 November 2001 front page: "Bungled US raid came close to disaster" (Luke Harding in Quetta, Julian Borger in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor). Back

161   Guardian Weekly (O) 6 December 2001 p4: "Anti-Taliban War Lords bring fresh terrors" (Paul Harris, Chaman). Back

162   Guardian Weekly 21 November 2002 "US Afghan ally `tortured witnesses to his war crimes" (Rory McCarthy). Back

163   Guardian 25 September 2001 George Monbiot: "A massive aid programme for Afghanistan will help bring down the Taliban". Back

164   See Seumas Milne, Op. Cit. Back

165   The Old Testament: Book of Exodus Ch.6v28 ff. Back

166   Sharon has an old feud with Arafat, s. Le Monde Diplomatique September 2002 p8/9: "The past is always present" (Pierre Pean). Back

167   Guardian Weekly (WP) 4 October 2002 p32: "Civilians bear the brunt of Israel-Palestine fighting" (Molly Moore, I Rafah Refugee Camp). Back

168   Guardian Weekly 5 December 2002 p5: "Sharon wins Likud poll-Israeli PM defeats Netanyahu to lead party unto election and dismisses `two states' remark by country's UN ambassador" (Graham Usher and Chris McGreal in Jerusalem). Back