Bush's Unending Lies: Why Deceptions about Iraq May Be His Only Legacy

by Nomad

Former president George W. Bush's recent comments about Iraq demonstrated that his skill at deception and self-deception is undiminished by time. 
It will probably be the only thing he will be remembered for.

The other day former president George W. Bush was on NPR plugging his book on his father, 41: A Portrait of My Father. While presumably whitewashing his father's career, Bush took a moment to whitewash his own. 

In that interview Bush was asked whether he thought Iraq was safer now compared with when Saddam Hussein was in power. What would Iraq be like today if we hadn't invaded?  

"One could envision a nuclear arms race between Iran and Iraq. The man, Saddam Hussein, would have a lot of revenue as a result of high prices of oil."

Actually this is an outright lie. 

Since 1991, sanctions on exports and imports administrated by the UN had made all exports of oil tightly controlled. Admittedly it wasn't perfect and Saddam was able to find some loopholes. (This is the Middle-East where no rule is entirely fixed and black markets can be found everywhere.)

However, to claim that Iraq could have found the financing for a atomic weapons program is absolute nonsense. In fact, The government of Iraq declined UN offers to ease sanctions which would have enabled Iraq to sell limited quantities of oil to meet its people's needs. Saddam refused in order to effectively hold his own people hostages and to have all sanctions removed. 

The UN did not let up the pressure on the Iraqi government and set up the much-criticized Oil for Food Program in 1995.  Corruption might have been rife in that program but there was never any evidence that money was diverted for any atomic weapons project. 

In fact, 25% Iraqi oil export proceeds allowed under the sanctions were used to the Compensation Fund for war reparation payments, 2.2% went to United Nations administrative and operational costs and 0.8% for the weapons inspection program. The rest (72%) went to humanitarian purposes.
That doesn't leave very much to spend on a clandestine nuclear weapons research program.

Breaking it Down

Immediately after this statement, to preempt reality from wrecking his myth- he added

"And even though there wasn't, you know, a -- we found a dirty bomb, for example -- he had the capacity to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. And so there's -- you know, it's all very hypothetical."

The statement is typical of his fumbling oratorical style but there's more to it than mere incoherence. Bush tries to cram so much misrepresentation in one remark, it's hard to know how to break it down.
Let's give it a shot.

Calls for Tony Blair's Resignation as ME Envoy: The Unraveling of a War-Mongerer?

by Nomad

Calls for Tony Blair's resignation as Middle East envoy have come from former ambassadors and politicians.
They have cited his prominent role in the Iraq invasion and his failure to accept responsibility for the mess.
Have events in Iraq finally caught up with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair? Don't bet on it.

For his role as head cheerleader of the Iraq invasion, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has lately come under fire. In an open letter, former British ambassadors and politicians have called on Blair to step down from his position as Middle East envoy  on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU. 

The scathing letter was addressed to foreign ministers in the US, Russia and the EU as well as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Blair took up the envoy post immediately after resigning as PM on 27 June 2007. Our source reports:

The letter, with signatories including his former ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton and former London Mayor Ken Livingstone – comes weeks after he published an essay in which he claimed that the 2003 invasion was not to blame for the current crisis.

The letter also points out how little Blair has achieved in his position.

With the existential threat to the Iraq democracy project posed by the Islamic militant group ISIS, the authors of the letter have accused Blair of trying to "absolve himself" of his responsibility for the present crisis in the war-torn nation.

“We believe that Mr Blair, as a vociferous advocate of the invasion, must accept a degree of responsibility for its consequences.”

(This might also explain why Dick Cheney has been working so hard recently at passing the buck on the Iraqi "liberation debacle" on to Obama.)

In the past, critics of his actions, including Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harold Pinter and Arundhati Roy have all called for Blair to face a trial at the International Criminal Court. Unsurprisingly, nothing has come of it.

Even if Blair has the integrity to step down- which is doubtful- one needn't worry that he will be facing the misery of standing in the unemployment line. Apart from his gig as an envoy, Blair has other things to keep him busy. His life has been stuffed with lucrative opportunities since dropping out of politics.

Iraq Invasion: What it Feels like to be Ahead of Your Time

This is what it feels like to be a decade ahead of your time. 

Look at that crowd; all those smug looks, smirking at the loudmouth fat guy. Listen to all that booing. Wasn't Hollywood supposed to the bastion of bleeding heart liberals?

The real question is: how many of us could have stood there on that stage and said the same things at that time? Keep in mind, Michael Moore was receiving death threats for voicing his opinions on the war. Wouldn't it have been easier and safer to remain silent?

Why The GOP Can't Be Trusted with Foreign Policy 3/3

by Nomad

Part One- McCain's Speech
Part Two- Reagan and the Iran-Iraq War

Part 3- Reagan: Between Iran and Iraq

I will now conclude this examination of Reagan’s foreign policy, specifically his handling of two Middle-Eastern nations, Iran and Iraq, and the bloody war between them. 

In this post, we shall see how Reagan’s diplomacy failures and hypocrisies would take a disastrous turn and lead to scandal.

Crossing the Line
Let's begin with a quote:

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.-- Ronald Reagan

The executive decision to begin arming and providing military intelligence to Saddam Hussein, despite an American pretense of neutrality in the Iran-Iraq war, had, by 1983, become more complicated when reports confirmed Hussein’s use of outlawed chemical weapons(CW) on the battlefield.

As early as November 1983, US officials were aware that top secret memos confirmed that Hussein had been using CW. Furthermore, they suspected the source of those weapons to be a US foreign subsidiary

But even then, it wasn’t so much of a moral question or even a legal one. It was a matter of public relations. 

According to a New York Times article in August, 2002, Col. Walter P. Lang, a senior defense intelligence officer at the time, explained that D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials “were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose” to Iran. “The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern,” he said. One veteran said, that the Pentagon “wasn’t so horrified by Iraq’s use of gas.” “It was just another way of killing people _ whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn’t make any difference.” 

(Compare that with the mock outrage against WMD that helped launch the Iraq Invasion and occupation.)