The Deceivers: Malice Aforethought in the Iraq War Crime

[EV_Ares]

Written by Chris Floyd - Friday, 07 September 2007

Sidney Blumenthal's article on Salon.com ("Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction") -- and Jon Schwarz's critique of it ("Salon WMD Story Seemingly Overstated") -- return us once again to the matter of the origins of the Iraq War. Jon of course has done sterling service in bringing to light the "Downing Street Memo" and related documents on the trumped-up case for war knowingly promulgated by Bush and Blair.

This seems an apt time for a second look at a piece I wrote three years ago, in September 2004, about these murky origins. This article, written in the final weeks of the surreal charade that gave George W. Bush four more years to commit mass murder, came out before the Downing Street memos were uncovered; but as the article notes, the evidence of deliberate deception by the oh-so-Christian leaders of the "Coalition" was already copious, and undeniable. (Original version first published in The Moscow Times, Sept. 24, 2004:)

The Deceivers
How many times must the truth be told before it conquers the lies? Again and again, the brutal realities behind the rape of Iraq - that it was planned years ago, that the aggressors knew full well that their justifications for war were false and that their invasion would lead to chaos, ruin and unbridled terror - have been exposed by the very words and documents of the invaders themselves. Yet the reign of the lie goes on, rolling toward its final entrenchment in November.

Mid-month, as hundreds of Iraqi civilians were being slaughtered by insurgents and invaders, as more pipelines exploded, more hostages were seized, more families sank into poverty and filth, the cynical machinations of the oh-so-Christian Coalition of Bush and Blair were revealed yet again. This time it was a tranche of leaked documents from March 2002, a full year before the war: reports to Tony Blair from his top advisers plainly stating that the intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was unsubstantiated, that there was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaida, that there was no legal justification for invading the country, and that any such invasion would lead to years of chaotic occupation, The Daily Telegraph (an arch-conservative, pro-war paper) reports.

Even more remarkably, Blair was told that the likely end result of the invasion would be the rise of yet another Saddam-like tyrant, who would then try to acquire the very weapons of mass destruction that the Coalition attack was ostensibly designed to destroy. In fact, Blair was told, with Iraq hedged in by a powerful Iran to the east and a nuclear-armed Israel to the west, any Iraqi leader, even a democratic one, will eventually seek WMD to defend the country.

(entire article @ following link)

http://www.chris-floyd.com/