.
George W. Bush and Tony Blair are finding it harder
and harder to maintain that they are "persuaded" of the
existence of these weapons. The truth, which they knew, becomes
apparent today: the war was not started to destroy these weapons, but
to change the Baghdad regime and to begin the remodeling of the Middle
East.
Thursday 29 May 2003: (Le Monde | Editorial)
It's a question then, undoubtedly, of the biggest State Lie of recent
years. Of a campaign of manipulation probably waged in full knowledge of
the facts, in any case, in spite of all the contrary indications, to
make world public opinion believe that Iraq held and constructed weapons
of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein, Number One Dictator on the Axis of
Evil, threatened the security of his neighbors, the United States, and
the whole world, thanks to this terrible arsenal that he could either
use himself, or, in an even worse hypothesis, supply to Al-Qaeda.
Destroying these weapons that he had succeeded in hiding from the UN
inspectors for ten years justified the initiation of a preventative war
against him.
Donald Rumsfeld, American Defense Secretary, declared Tuesday
that it was possible that the Iraqis had "decided to destroy (them)
before the conflict". This is a confession. More precisely, the
beginning of a confession that the American and British authorities
started a war in Iraq in March to "destroy" these weapons,
while they enjoyed the quasi-certitude that those same weapons no longer
existed at that date.
Iraq had such weapons in 1991. But a long campaign of inspection
and destruction carried out under the aegis of the UN considerably
reduced its arsenal. Did Saddam Hussein hold more of them hidden
somewhere? Undoubtedly. But the most likely scenario, that we can now
reconstruct, is that Iraq destroyed whatever weapons were left by
November 2002, when the UN voted for Resolution 1441 which authorized
the return of international inspection teams to Baghdad. Whence the
inspectors' inability to discover the weapons.
Against those like Paris, Berlin and Moscow, who said that
inspections should be continued because they were effective, Washington
and London brandished "documents" in the guise of proofs that
Iraq was playing with the UN inspection teams and that war was
inevitable. America mobilized all its espionage apparatus, but, unable
to find irrefutable proof, it published partial, truncated, suspect
intelligence. In short, they bluffed.
During the war, Iraq used no weapons of mass destruction. Seven
weeks after the end of the conflict, the American teams charged with
searching-one should have said finding- a "smoking gun" remain
empty-handed. George W. Bush and Tony Blair are finding it harder and
harder to maintain that they are "persuaded" of the existence
of these weapons. The truth, which they knew, becomes apparent today:
the war was not started to destroy these weapons, but to change the
Baghdad regime and to begin the remodeling of the Middle East. The
weapons served only as a pretext.
Robin Cook, former British Cabinet Minister, who resigned over
the war, demands a Parliamentary inquiry. Faced with this State Lie,
democracy demands that world opinion know the whole truth.
---------
www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3208--321963-,00.html
Translation: TruthOut French language correspondent Leslie
Thatcher.
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