This article appeared in War Times/Tiempo de Guerras No. 11, July 2003.

http://www.war-times.org/issues/11art1.html

Blatant Lies and Deadly Occupation

By Max Elbaum

Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, George Bush said the world faced imminent danger from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). He also boasted that his administration would "liberate the Iraqi people."

Now the president is being exposed before the entire world as a liar on both counts.

No Iraqi WMD have been found. Nor has any proof surfaced of a link between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda. But evidence is piling up that White House claims about these matters were based on cooked intelligence, forgeries and deception.

Meanwhile the U.S. is ruling Iraq by decree, imposing censorship and shooting at looters and demonstrators--a funny way to bring "liberation." The Washington Post wrote on June 16 that Iraq is now enmeshed in an "unfolding low-intensity conflict." In May there were at least 85 armed attacks on U.S. troops; on a single day in June there were 26.

There is no end in sight to the growing count of both Iraqi and U.S. dead and wounded.

NO WEAPONS, ONLY SPIN

"Misrepresentation and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration," wrote New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on June 3.

Before critical votes in Congress and the U.N., President Bush and senior administration officials stated with absolute certainty (sometimes using photographs and charts) that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was allied with Al Qaeda. These claims were at best wild exaggerations and--according to ex-Marine and former U.N. senior weapons inspector Scott Ritter--more likely outright lies.

The Washington Post revealed on June 7 that despite Bush's claims, "U.S. intelligence agencies were reporting they had no direct evidence that such weapons existed." White House advisor Condoleezza Rice has been forced to admit that Bush used a forged document in his State of the Union speech to allege that Iraq represented a nuclear threat.

On June 15 General Wesley Clark told Meet the Press that the White House began pressuring him to implicate Saddam Hussein in the Sept. 11 attacks--starting that very day. He has steadfastly refused to do so because there is no such evidence.

Meanwhile the U.S. "civil administration" in Iraq under Paul Bremer is utterly failing to restore essential services such as food provision, clean water and health care. The U.N. Children's Fund has reported that the number of children in Iraq suffering from diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid was 2.5 times higher this May--after the U.S. occupation--than a year ago.

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization reports that Iraqi agriculture is on the brink of collapse, and many of the country's 24.5 million people may go hungry this summer.

According to Britain's Daily Telegraph (June 16), senior British officials describe the U.S.-led reconstruction effort as "in chaos" and suffering from "a complete absence of strategic direction."

OCCUPATION, NOT LIBERATION

Making things worse, in mid-May the U.S. withdrew its promise to rapidly turn governmental authority over to the Iraqi people themselves. Instead, Bremer is running the country essentially by decree. He has imposed restrictions on freedom of speech and the press.

On May 28 Bremer unilaterally canceled a U.S. supervised mayoral election in Najaf. And the New York Times reported on June 23 that Bremer vowed to immediately sell off at least 40 Iraqi government-owned companies, to encourage foreign investment and to turn Iraq into a "model of free trade and deregulation."

The U.S. warns it may fire on looters, and indeed U.S. shootings of Iraqi civilians are constant. One unprovoked attack left five Iraqi villagers dead and made international headlines on June 14. On June 17, Human Rights Watch accused U.S. troops of using excessive force in two April shootings that killed 20 Iraqis and wounded at least 86.

Anger at the U.S. is mounting even among Iraqis who initially celebrated the U.S. ouster of Saddam Hussein.

According to a survey of 38,000 people in 44 countries done by the non-partisan Pew Research Center, "The war has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world and softened support for the war on terrorism."

Eric Hobsbawm, the most prominent living historian of 19th and 20th century international affairs, recently wrote: "Few things are more dangerous than empires pursuing their own interest in the belief that they are doing humanity a favor."

Max Elbaum is author of Revolution in the Air and an editor of War Times.