20 Lies About the War
Falsehoods ranging from exaggeration to plain
untruth were used to make the case for war. More lies are being used in the
aftermath.
By Glen Rangwala and
Raymond Whitaker
Reprinted with
permission from The UK Independent
1. Iraq was responsible for the
11 September attacks
A supposed
meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, leader of the 11 September hijackers,
and an Iraqi intelligence official was the main basis for this claim, but Czech
intelligence later conceded that the Iraqi’s contact could not have been
Atta. This did not stop the constant stream of assertions that Iraq was involved
in 9/11, which was so successful that at one stage opinion polls showed that
two-thirds of Americans believed the hand of Saddam Hussein was behind the
attacks. Almost as many believed Iraqi hijackers were aboard the crashed
airliners; in fact there were none.
2. Iraq and al-Qa'ida were
working together
Persistent claims
by US and British leaders that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were in league with
each other were contradicted by a leaked British Defence Intelligence Staff
report, which said there were no current links between them. Mr Bin
Laden’s “aims are in ideological conflict with present-day
Iraq,” it added.
Another strand to the
claims was that al-Qa’ida members were being sheltered in Iraq, and had
set up a poisons training camp. When US troops reached the camp, they found no
chemical or biological traces.
3. Iraq was seeking uranium
from Africa for a "reconstituted" nuclear weapons programme
The head of the CIA has now
admitted that documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to import uranium
from Niger in west Africa were forged, and that the claim should never have been
in President Bush's State of the Union address. Britain sticks by the claim,
insisting it has “separate intelligence.” The Foreign Office
conceded last week that this information is now “under review.”
4. Iraq was trying to
import aluminium tubes to develop nuclear weapons
The US persistently alleged that
Baghdad tried to buy high-strength aluminum tubes whose only use could be in gas
centrifuges, needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Equally persistently,
the International Atomic Energy Agency said the tubes were being used for
artillery rockets. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei, told the UN
Security Council in January that the tubes were not even suitable for
centrifuges.
5. Iraq still
had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the first Gulf War
Iraq possessed enough dangerous
substances to kill the whole world, it was alleged more than once. It had
pilotless aircraft which could be smuggled into the US and used to spray
chemical and biological toxins. Experts pointed out that apart from mustard gas,
Iraq never had the technology to produce materials with a shelf-life of 12
years, the time between the two wars. All such agents would have deteriorated to
the point of uselessness years ago.
6. Iraq retained up to 20
missiles which could carry chemical or biological warheads, with a range which
would threaten British forces in Cyprus
Apart from the fact that there has
been no sign of these missiles since the invasion, Britain downplayed the risk
of there being any such weapons in Iraq once the fighting began. It was also
revealed that chemical protection equipment was removed from British bases in
Cyprus last year, indicating that the Government did not take its own claims
seriously.
7. Saddam
Hussein had the wherewithal to develop smallpox
This allegation was made by the
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his address to the UN Security Council in
February. The following month the UN said there was nothing to support it.
8. US and British claims
were supported by the inspectors
According to Jack Straw, chief UN
weapons inspector Hans Blix “pointed out” that Iraq had 10,000
litres of anthrax. Tony Blair said Iraq’s chemical, biological and "indeed
the nuclear weapons programme" had been well documented by the UN. Mr Blix's
reply? "This is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction,"
he said last September. "If I had solid evidence that Iraq retained weapons of
mass destruction or were constructing such weapons, I would take it to the
Security Council." In May this year he added: "I am obviously very interested in
the question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am
beginning to suspect there possibly were not."
9. Previous weapons
inspections had failed
Tony Blair
told this newspaper in March that the UN had "tried unsuccessfully for 12 years
to get Saddam to disarm peacefully". But in 1999 a Security Council panel
concluded: "Although important elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of
Iraq's proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated." Mr Blair also claimed
UN inspectors "found no trace at all of Saddam’s offensive biological
weapons programme" until his son-in-law defected. In fact the UN got the regime
to admit to its biological weapons programme more than a month before the
defection.
10. Iraq was
obstructing the inspectors
Britain's February "dodgy dossier"
claimed inspectors' escorts were "trained to start long arguments" with other
Iraqi officials while evidence was being hidden, and inspectors' journeys were
monitored and notified ahead to remove surprise. Dr Blix said in February that
the UN had conducted more than 400 inspections, all without notice, covering
more than 300 sites. "We note that access to sites has so far been without
problems," he said. : "In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the
Iraqi side knew that the inspectors were coming."
11. Iraq could deploy its
weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes
This now-notorious claim was based
on a single source, said to be a serving Iraqi military officer. This individual
has not been produced since the war, but in any case Tony Blair contradicted the
claim in April. He said Iraq had begun to conceal its weapons in May 2002, which
meant that they could not have been used within 45 minutes.
12. The "dodgy dossier"
Mr Blair told the Commons in
February, when the dossier was issued: “We issued further intelligence
over the weekend about the infrastructure of concealment. It is obviously
difficult when we publish intelligence reports.” It soon emerged that most
of it was cribbed without attribution from three articles on the internet. Last
month Alastair Campbell took responsibility for the plagiarism committed by his
staff, but stood by the dossier’s accuracy, even though it confused two
Iraqi intelligence organisations, and said one moved to new headquarters in
1990, two years before it was created.
13. War would be easy
Public fears of war in the US and
Britain were assuaged by assurances that oppressed Iraqis would welcome the
invading forces; that "demolishing Saddam Hussein's military power and
liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk", in the words of Kenneth Adelman, a senior
Pentagon official in two previous Republican administrations. Resistance was
patchy, but stiffer than expected, mainly from irregular forces fighting in
civilian clothes. "This wasn't the enemy we war-gamed against," one general
complained.
14. Umm Qasr
The fall of Iraq's southernmost
city and only port was announced several times before Anglo-American forces
gained full control - by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others, and by
Admiral Michael Boyce, chief of Britain's defence staff. "Umm Qasr has been
overwhelmed by the US Marines and is now in coalition hands," the Admiral
announced, somewhat prematurely.
15. Basra rebellion
Claims that the Shia Muslim
population of Basra, Iraq's second city, had risen against their oppressors were
repeated for days, long after it became clear to those there that this was
little more than wishful thinking. The defeat of a supposed breakout by Iraqi
armour was also announced by military spokesman in no position to know the
truth.
16. The
“rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch
Private Jessica Lynch’s
“rescue” from a hospital in Nasiriya by American special forces was
presented as the major "feel-good" story of the war. She was said to have fired
back at Iraqi troops until her ammunition ran out, and was taken to hospital
suffering bullet and stab wounds. It has since emerged that all her injuries
were sustained in a vehicle crash, which left her incapable of firing any shot.
Local medical staff had tried to return her to the Americans after Iraqi forces
pulled out of the hospital, but the doctors had to turn back when US troops
opened fire on them. The special forces encountered no resistance, but made sure
the whole episode was filmed.
17. Troops would face
chemical and biological weapons
As
US forces approached Baghdad, there was a rash of reports that they would cross
a “red line,” within which Republican Guard units were authorised to
use chemical weapons. But Lieutenant General James Conway, the leading US marine
general in Iraq, conceded afterwards that intelligence reports that chemical
weapons had been deployed around Baghdad before the war were wrong.
“It was a surprise to me ...
that we have not uncovered weapons ... in some of the forward dispersal
sites,” he said. “We’ve been to virtually every ammunition
supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply
not there. We were simply wrong. Whether or not we’re wrong at the
national level, I think still very much remains to be seen.”
18. Interrogation of
scientists would yield the location of WMD
“I have got absolutely no
doubt that those weapons are there ... once we have the co-operation of the
scientists and the experts, I have got no doubt that we will find them,”
Tony Blair said in April. Numerous similar assurances were issued by other
leading figures, who said interrogations would provide the WMD discoveries that
searches had failed to supply. But almost all Iraq’s leading scientists
are in custody, and claims that lingering fears of Saddam Hussein are stilling
their tongues are beginning to wear thin.
19. Iraq's oil money would
go to Iraqis
Tony Blair complained
in Parliament that “people falsely claim that we want to seize”
Iraq’s oil revenues, adding that they should be put in a trust fund for
the Iraqi people administered through the UN. Britain should seek a Security
Council resolution that would affirm "the use of all oil revenues for the
benefit of the Iraqi people".
Instead
Britain co-sponsored a Security Council resolution that gave the US and UK
control over Iraq's oil revenues. There is no UN-administered trust fund.
Far from “all oil
revenues” being used for the Iraqi people, the resolution continues to
make deductions from Iraq’s oil earnings to pay in compensation for the
invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
20. WMD were found
After repeated false sightings,
both Tony Blair and George Bush proclaimed on 30 May that two trailers found in
Iraq were mobile biological laboratories. “We have already found two
trailers, both of which we believe were used for the production of biological
weapons,” said Mr Blair. Mr Bush went further: “Those who say we
haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons - they're
wrong. We found them.” It is now almost certain that the vehicles were for
the production of hydrogen for weather balloons, just as the Iraqis claimed -
and that they were exported by Britain.
Posted: Fri - August 1, 2003 at 08:25 PM