5. THREE EARLY SINGS TO THE US INVASION OF IRAQ AND ITS EFFECTS

 Author: Alvaro Montenegro P.

Two years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the French war journalist Thierry Meyssan in his article “Five years of preparation. The secret plan for the colonization of Iraq” [1] alleged that the US had already considered intervening militarily long before George Bush Jr. became president in 2001 and the World Trade Center was attacked.

Thierry Meyssan

Three events that occurred in 1998 support Meyssan´s claim:

a) Letter from PNAC: In January 1998, a US “think tank” founded in 1997 by the name of “Project for New American Century” (PNAC) submitted a public letter to at that time President Clinton and suggested that, in his State of the Union address, he should announce a new strategy towards Iraq with the main objective to remove Saddam Hussein from government.

The January 1998 letter states: “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq may use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the short term, it means taking military action, diplomacy is failing. In the long-term, it means get Hussein and his regime out of power”[2]. 

It is interesting to see that many PNAC members who signed latter occupied important positions during the Bush administration: Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense), John Bolton (Ambassador to the UN), Paul Wolfowitz (Assistant Secretary of Defense and later President of the World Bank), Richard Armitage (Assistant Secretary of State), Zalmay Khalilzad (Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq) and Elliot Abrahams (convicted of the “Iran-Contra” scandal but pardoned by Bush). Influential scholar and author of “The End of History and the Last Man” (1992) Francis Fukuyama also signed the letter.

Paul Wolfowitz

b) Statement by Ahmed Chalabi: Two months later, in March 1988, Chalabi, founder of the "Iraqi National Congress" -the opposition party in Iraq - assured in a hearing in the US Congress that, if help was provided, Saddam could be overthrown. 

Chalabi stated the following in that 105th congressional hearing: “Iraq will never be free of weapons of mass destruction as long as Saddam is in power. Iraq will never be at peace with its neighbors as long as Saddam's war machine continues to function (…) The Iraqi National Congress asks for your help in removing the threat of Saddam's weapons from our people, the region and the world”[3].

After the US invasion, Chalabi became Iraq´s Prime Minister (2003) and Oil Minister (2005-06)

Ahmed Chalabi

c) Liberation of Iraq Act: Seven months after Chalabi's testimony, in October 1988, the “Liberation of Iraq” bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by Clinton.

The law argued that "it should be US policy to seek to remove Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq from power and replace it with a democratic government" as well as allowing the provision to the Iraqi opposition of "radio and television broadcast assistance ( …) services and education and military training (…) humanitarian assistance”[4].

On the other hand, the law provided that the UN should establish an international criminal court to "indict, try and imprison Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide and other criminal acts against international law."

Back in 2003, the US finally removed Saddam from power. However, 19 years later, Iraq still cannot recover from the conflicts that followed. The Iraqi population continues to suffer the consequences, and the accusations that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction were never proven.

They were even denied by the weapons inspector of the United Nations Special Commission, Scott Ritter (1991-98), who wrote a couple of books on the subject.

Scott Ritter

REFERENCES:

[1] Five Years of Preparations. The Secret Planning of Iraq’s Colonization. (2005, 9 May). Thierry Meyssan. Voltaire Network.

[2] Leter to President Clinton. (1998, January). Project New American Century.

[3] Iraq: Can Saddam be Overthrown?: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Congress, 105th.2 (1998) (Testimony of Ahmed Chalabi) 

[4] 105th Congress (1997-1998). Iraq Liberation Act. US Congress