Subject: The BIG LIE: "IRAQ WAS A THREAT"

What's wrong with this picture?

1) The countries right next to Iraq and bordering it, don't consider it a
threat -- but Washington, almost halfway around the world, does??

2) The countries that Iraq (with U.S. active support in the case of Iran,
and with complicity in the case of Kuwait with the infamous meeting
between Saddam and our Ambassador Glaspie) invaded -- even they don't
consider Saddam a threat. But Washington, does??

3) These neighboring countries are far, far weaker than Washington, and
they aren't threatened (because the sanctions have made Iraq's
offensive military capacity weak), yet Washington is "threatened"?

These countries' military budgets are puny, and they are NOT thinking
Iraq is a threat, but Washington, which spends more than the next 15
or so countries, COMBINED (See eye opening chart at
http://www.cdi.org/budget/2004/world-military-spending.cfm ), is
"threatened"??

4) And Bush's own CIA say loud and clear, despite hating to contradict
its boss -- but given the major stakes feels compelled to: Iraq is not
a threat if not attacked. If attacked, many threats to the US could
result (not the least of which being major recruitment for Al Qaeda
as U.S. "liberating" bombs may kill more Iraqis than the 3,000
figure of 9/11 itself)

See "BUSH IS A THREAT, NOT IRAQ (TALKING POINTS)"
http://economicdemocracy.org/wtc/bush-is-threat.html

BUSH IS A THREAT, NOT IRAQ (TALKING POINTS)

Who is a threat to world peace? A Time online poll indicated
80% of Americans put Bush's regime as the largest threat to world
peace, far above either Iraq or North Korea. More scientific
poll have given less dramatic numbers, but with the same overall
conclusion: most people in the world and huge numbers of Americans
are seeing through the fear-mongering Bush is using to push the
country to a costly and bloody war, and question who the real threat
is.

Key points to consider:

If Bush/Powell meant a word they say about "disarming," they would
have LOVED the French Plan, or a massive encircling and a major
escalation of inspectors...) In any case,  a few points:

* Iraq is not a threat.

Iraq is far, far weaker today militarily, than in 1991, when Bush the
first was not threatened by, and even gave active military, financial
and diplomatic support to Iraq.  Iraq today is also economically at
the edge of survival.  Iraq was supported by Washington, and even
Rumsfeld himself and Bush #1, at a time when Saddam committed his
worst crimes.  And when he was at his strongest, Washington didn't
feel a "Threat". Today when far, far weaker, in March 2003, after
destroying Al Saud missiles and the rest, suddenly this much weaker
Iraq is a threat, when the much more powerful one was actively
supported? What's wrong with this picture?

* On top of that, why did Saddam not use WMD in 1992, 1993, 1994,
... through 2003? Because he's not suicidal. Any such use would 
mean instant overwhelming retaliation and annihilation. This long
record makes it very clear that Saddam understands very well the
consequences, and hence does not wish to commit suicide by using them.

* For the above reasons, Iraq's neighbors do not fear Iraq. If Iraq
  were such a threat, why would they be opposing a war on Iraq? If
  Iraq were a threat, why would Bush need to do so much arm-twisting,
  bribing, and threatening to withhold economic aid or cooperation,
  merely to get the minimal reluctant cooperation he's gotten so far?

*  While Israel's leadership is going along with Bush, thousands of
  Israelis have demonstrated against a war they know will be born by
  "the Iraqi people", and even a senior Israeli official admitted in a
  BBC interview that "Iraq is not a threat to Israel" but that a war
  on Iraq would cause "an earthquake throughout the entire middle east"
  which would "worry Israel" because of "increased terrorism" that
  would result.

* Even more dramatically, and a seldom-mentioned fact is that Saddam's
survival instinct was tested: in 1991 during the Gulf War Iraq was not
merely suspected of having, but known to have, WMD. Why didn't Saddam
use his WMD even when under military attack to expel Iraq from
Kuwait?  Because he's not suicidal.

Any WMD Saddam might have are utterly useless to him offensively,
since any use of them, would mean instant and overwhelming
annihilation for him.  As 12 straight years and counting demonstrate
very clearly, Saddam has not such suicidal intentions. Any WMD Saddam
might have would be useful only as a deterrent against an attack on
Iraq.

* Scott Ritter, corporate-media character assassination attempts
against him notwithstanding, is worth listening to,
having been a military man who HEADED the Weapons Inspections.
A card-carrying member of the Republican Party, too. Strongly
disliked by Iraq for being "tough" as reported by BBC, also. On top of
that, even VOTED for Bush in 2000. So when *he* says Bush is lying,
inspections worked, and had Iraq 90-95% disarmed when in 1998, Iraq
did not "kick out" inspectors but they were ordered out by Butler
based on Washington's orders...it's time to listen. 

(When even OTHER, top-level, key figures, like 30 year UN veteran
Dennis Halliday resigns in protest from the prestigious post (he was
appointed at the Assistant Secretary General level) of head the
humanitarian program and explains in detail how Washington was
sabotaging it, how it NOT "taken up by Saddam" but deliberately
shipping only parts of the medicine so Iraq had to wait for the other
parts, so had no CHOICE but to warehouse them, etc, while Iraqis went
without, and much more...and when Halliday's replacement Hans von
Sponneck a year later ALSO resigns in protest and also comes
to the same conclusions about murderous  sabotage by Washington, it's
time to wake up, too..)

Finally and returning to the big lie that Iraq was a threat,
very notably:

* Even the CIA -- the most mainstream (and usually Hawkish) of all
Establishment source intelligence agencies -- agrees, Saddam is not a
threat if not attacked today.  The CIA took a lot of heat but felt it
had to, in order to protect the country, when it said: Iraq is not a
threat right now, but, if attacked in a war of annihilation against
him, serious dangers may result to US security, as noted above. These
include not only potential use of WMD, but the killing of thousands of
innocent Iraqi civilian women, men, children, and babies -- who have
just as much a right to live as those so brutally murdered on 9/11. We
do not honor the dead or fight terrorism, by killing thousands of
other civilians elsewhere. In fact, this war is helping to EXPAND
terrorism.

(Furthermore, the attack on Iraq may very well cause a massive
  escalation of countries all over the world attempting to acquire or
  expand their WMD, because it would be a very loud and clear message
  to the whole world that anyone without sufficiently powerful WMD is
  defenseless against "regime change" by pure military force by the
  world only military superpower -- whose leadership seems to have
  abandoned any pretense of abiding by international law.)


So while the European leadership mostly opposed the war
on narrower grounds and accepted that Iraq was a threat, 
but at least opposed a murderous answer to this "threat", the
entire discussion was based on a lie that the people
(if not the elite sand governments) of countries have
increasingly realized: the impoverished Iraq of 2002-2003 was never a threat
to its neighbors, let  alone to the world's Rogue Superpower,
no matter the fairy tales our "leaders" in Washignton tell us...

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand
by the President or any other public office SAVE EXACTLY TO THE DEGREE
in which he himself stands by the country". -Theodore Roosevelt

With emphasis added: we support only to the extent the policy in question
is the right thing for our country  to do.

We recently found a quote where T Roosevelt (whose actions weren't
quite as noble as his words, but that is unfortunately standard in
government), indeed, the implication for today is not only are the
peace movement not unpatriotic, but those who think "keep you mouth
shut and never criticize" are THEMSELVES, being unpatriotic:

"TO ANNOUNCE THAT THERE MUST BE NO CRITICISM of the President, or that
we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is MORALLY TREASONABLE TO THE AMERICAN
PUBLIC." ---Theodore Roosevelt. 

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Still feeling like the mainstream U.S. corporate media
is giving a full honest picture of what's going on?

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More information:

http://www.iraqpeaceteam.org/pages/al_kindi_hospital.html

http://www.iraqpeaceteam.org/

and Iraq Watch on Znet:

http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Iraq/IraqCrisis.htm

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For more information: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/