Not unlike vultures flying high in the sky before swooping down on bloated corpses, the feudal lords of the Iraqi killing fields are making their way to the lands of their conquest. First Mr. Blair and then Mr. Bush will arrive to take the bounty they always desired.
The Iraq of today is still searching for a definition. The people are not much better off than they were under the previous warlord. Killings continue, albeit on a smaller scale, and the determination of the people to get the occupiers out strengthens daily in its resolution.
In today’s dynamic world, yesterday’s news is fast becoming a fading memory, and yet can we not remember what it was that started this all? Wasn’t it those notorious weapons of mad destruction that were on everybody’s lips then, the reason to enter and destroy? Wasn’t evidence tabled in front of the UN Security Council? Where did they go?
Polls today show most Americans aren’t too concerned whether this evidence would ever be discovered. They have after all moved on to other items on their agenda. The soap opera that transfixed a nation during the months of March and April has run out of steam, perhaps to be replaced with other more intriguing serials. Iraq was and remains a distant dot on the map, and so long as it does not interfere with their daily lives, so be it.
And yet it was Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair who sold the war to a gullible public based on their evidence that Iraq had massive quantities of WMD, with the sole intention of carrying out an attack against the United States or its allies. Domestic threat levels escalating at intermittent intervals only helped increase the sense of fear.
And when France and a few others voiced concern over dubious and fabricated evidence presented before the world body, and in their judgment thought best to let the UN Inspectors continue, they too were singled out as collaborators or the “enemy.”
And so, after countless sorties and thousands of bombs, and thousands of lives, estimates that range anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 civilians and military personnel dead in Iraq, there still is no WMD. Looting was not the only side effect for which US war lobbyists failed to plan. Only a hornets’ nest has been stirred up, acquiring a momentum slowly that is slowly running out of control. There is no clean water and not much medical aid either.
Instead there is oil. Oil that the US and the British quickly claimed as their own in their brazen resolution put forth at the UN, allowing them to disperse of it as they saw fit “in the interest of rebuilding Iraq.” And those nations that still had reservations were bullied into voting for it or else.
Remember, we are in an era of “either you’re with us, or you’re the enemy.” This is not a democracy here, but a disguised dictatorship, with spoils going to the victors. From blatantly ignoring calls for restraint by the UN to allowing the mess that is Iraq today to develop, the occupiers have indeed made most of us forget what it was all about.
What led to the death of the innocent? Where are all those WMDs poised to strike at the heartland of America or the UK? According to the Guardian, “an unnamed intelligence official told the BBC that the key claim in last September’s dossier — that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order — had been inserted on the instructions of officials at No 10.” Downing Street had to match Mr. Bush’s evidence for this plan of naked aggression to work.
There never were any world-threatening WMD to begin with, for Saddam would have certainly used them in a last stand. And what relics of weaponry Iraq did have came from none other than the US and the UK, major arms suppliers to Iraq during the 80’s. Since the war began, the military and its media have trumpeted one WMD discovery after another that turned out to be false. Today, the same people are saying it could take months or years for them to be discovered. Or better yet, some have gone do far to suggest that it was all destroyed a week before the bombings began. Right under the noses of the UN inspectors who were combing all over Iraq!
Did the end justify the means? Or are the occupiers no better than the oppressors they replaced? Over 3,500 innocent Iraqi civilians are dead and maimed today because of the non-existent WMDs. And on whose conscience shall those deaths lie?
Arab News Features 31 May 2003
