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What will the U.S. find if it invades Iraq?

Does anyone seriously believe that in the event of U.S. invasion, "discovery" of Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction won't be long delayed? The stakes are simply too high. It won't take much: a blueprint or two, a few canisters noisily identified as chemical or biological agents, a "facility" for production of nuclear munitions.

Already there are vague, unconfirmed stories of preliminary manufacture of the necessary smoking guns that can be deployed by undercover teams as U.S. troops advance and then dramatically disclosed to the hungry press. For those who entertain doubts about the likelihood of the United States or its ally Britain manufacturing necessary "evidence," consider the recent explicit charge of forgery leveled by Mohammed ElBaradei, the chief UN inspector looking for evidence of nuclear capability in Iraq.

Here's the relevant passage, from his testimony on behalf of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A) before the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) last week:

Right and Wrong

AUSTIN, Texas -- After every military engagement, the Pentagon conducts a review to discover what they did right, what they did wrong, what worked and what didn't. It is an admirable tradition and one that needs to be copied by the profession of journalism.

According to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS, 42 percent of Americans believe Saddam Hussein of Iraq was personally responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, something that has never even been claimed by the Bush administration. According to a poll conducted by ABC, 55 percent believes Saddam Hussein gives direct support to Al Qaeda, a claim that has been made by the administration but for which no evidence has ever been presented. President Bush has lately modified the claim to "Al Qaeda-type" organizations. This is how well journalism has done its job in the months leading up to this war. A disgraceful performance.

Ambrose Bierce, the 19th century cynic, once observed that war is God's way of teaching Americans geography. Going to war with the people in such a state, not of ignorance but of misinformation, is truly terrifying.

U.S. Could Launch Attack Against North Korea While Troops Fight In Iraq, Rumsfeld Says

Is the United States headed for World War III?  

Last week, at a Pentagon “town hall” meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and members of the U.S. armed forces someone asked Rumsfeld if the U.S. decides to invade Iraq, what would the U.S. do if the situation in North Korea boils over while troops are fighting a war in Iraq?  

Rumsfeld responded by saying that the U.S., if need be, would wage a simultaneous war with North Korea. North Korea is part of the “axis of evil” President Bush referred to in his State of the Union address in 2002.   

  “That question was asked recently at a meeting that General Myers and I were having, and that was his answer, `yes,’” Rumsfeld said. The U.S. “would wage a major conflict in a theater and occupy a country, and near simultaneously swiftly defeat in another theater, and in addition be capable of conducting a variety of lesser contingencies such as things like Bosnia or Kosovo or what's currently going on in Afghanistan.  

What Can the World Do if the US Attacks Iraq?

If the US attacks Iraq without support of the UN Security Council, will the world be powerless to stop it? The answer is no. Under a procedure called "Uniting for Peace," the UN General Assembly can demand an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal. The global peace movement should consider demanding such an action.

When Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt and began advancing on the Suez Canal. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower demanded that the invasion stop. Resolutions in the UN Security Council called for a cease-fire - but Britain and France vetoed them. Then the United States appealed to the General Assembly and proposed a resolution calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of forces. The General Assembly held an emergency session and passed the resolution. Britain and France withdrew from Egypt within a week.

Beam us out of here, Mr. Scott!

With War Looming, Iraqi Oil Imports May Be Strained; Time To Open Up ANWR, GOP Says

In the coming weeks, the Senate will attempt to make a compelling argument for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. It turns out that tapping into ANWR’s resources would produce an immediate 600,000 barrels per day of oil—exactly the same amount of oil the U.S. currently purchases from Iraq under the United Nations oil for food program.

  The U.N. Security Council set up the oil-for-food program in August 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait and the U.N then imposed comprehensive sanctions on the country. The program was aimed at removing some of the hardships placed on Iraqi civilians as a result of the sanctions. Since then, the U.S. has resented the fact that it has had to purchase Iraqi oil, which is crucial to our country’s overall supply, from Saddam Hussein who Bush Administration officials claim uses the money to fund his military and uses very little to reduce the suffering of innocent Iraqi’s affected by the sanctions.

 

Has Bush suckered the UN and Iraq?

Has the Bush Administration suckered the United Nations into weakening Iraq prior to a mass murderous attack that was pre-ordained years ago?

The facts are these:

· Bush's original official stance was that the United Nations must force Iraq to disarm, in keeping with treaties signed after Iraq's 1991 defeat after invading Kuwait.  His charges that Iraq had failed to honor these promises led the United Nations to force it to further disarm;

· According to the official report of UN weapons inspectors, as delivered Friday, March 7 by Hans Blix, Iraq has made "significant" steps toward disarming, among other things destroying many of its missiles;

· According to additional reports, Iraq may have destroyed most or all of its chemical and biological weapons early in the 1990s;

· According to most credible reports, Iraq does not have the near-term ability to build nuclear weapons;

In short, by all internationally accepted standards, Iraq has moved toward significant compliance with the formal demands of the United Nations, and cannot be considered a credible threat to the United States.

George W. Bush Must Answer to the People

Adapted from Ramsey Clark's (Former U.S. Attorney General) address to the half a million demonstrators at the January 18th National March on Washington to Stop the War on Iraq organized by International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism).

The U.S. Constitution provides the means for preventing George W. Bush from engaging in a war of aggression against Iraq, and from advancing a first strike potentially nuclear preemptive war. It's called impeachment.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Impeachment is the direct constitutional means for removing a President, Vice President or other civil officers of the United States who has acted or threatened acts that are serious offenses against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law, or that are conventional crimes of such a serious nature that they would injure the Presidency if there was no removal.

A Constitutional Imperative

Why Moss banged his shoe -- and how the mainstream media covered the story

Columbus Public Schools Acting Internal Auditor Philip Watson’s 7-page summary and report explains why Columbus School Board member William Moss pounded his shoe on the table disrupting the February 4, 2003 Columbus School Board meeting.

An assessment of the mainstream press’ news and commentary surrounding Moss’ imitation of Nikita Khrushchev suggests that only the Columbus Dispatch’s Bill Bush looked past Moss’ tactics to the substance of his complaint. Columbus Dispatch columnist Barbara Carmen, despite the availability of the Watson’s 7-page report, completely ignored its contents, as did The Other Paper’s News Editor Dan Williamson and Alive columnist Jeff Winbush.

Moss told the Free Press in an interview that his outburst was motivated by what he saw as "collusion" between accounting and consulting firm KPMG and Computer Science Corporation (CSC). Moss points out that as former head of the School Board’s Technology Committee, he recommended pulling the CSC contract from the agenda.

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