Former IAEA chief: Iraq war killed “a million innocent civilians”

[Echo In Light]

The former head of the UN’s chief nuclear agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, said in an interview with the British newspaper Guardian Wednesday that those who launched the war in Iraq were responsible for killing a million innocent people and could be held accountable under international law. He was clearly referring to US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and their top military and security aides.

It was his first interview with an international publication since ElBaradei returned to his native Egypt, after a decade heading the International Atomic Energy Agency, where he won the Nobel Peace Prize, in large measure because of his opposition to the efforts by the Bush administration to use concocted charges about “weapons of mass destruction” as an all-purpose pretext for military intervention throughout the Middle East.

“I would hope that the lessons of Iraq, both in London and in the US have started to sink in,” he told the Guardian. “Sure, there are dictators, but are you ready every time you want to get rid of a dictator to sacrifice a million innocent civilians? All the indications coming out of are that Iraq was not really about weapons of mass destruction but rather about regime change, and I keep asking the same question ― where do you find this regime change in international law? And if it is a violation of international law, who is accountable for that?”

This suggestion that Bush and Blair were guilty of war crimes, coming from a high-ranking former UN official, would ordinarily be considered major news. The Guardian interview was reported by the main British and French news agencies, Reuters and AFP, but the entire American corporate media gave it zero coverage. Not a single major American newspaper or television network mentioned it.

The discussion of the violation of international law in launching the Iraq war came in the course of a longer discussion of the bankruptcy of US-British foreign policy in the Muslim world. ElBaradei criticized the longstanding support of Washington for dictators like Mubarak. “The idea that the only alternative to authoritarian regimes is Bin Laden and Co. is a fake one, yet continuation of current policies will make that prophecy come true.”

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/bara-a03.shtml

[sabra]

1. ElBaradei is in the midst of writing a book where supposedly he will some interesting revelations

re the Bush Admin and the run up to the war...

[L0oniX]

2. K & R

[sabra]

3. kick

:kick:

[Echo In Light]

4. Bump

[Greyhound]

5. Oh that is so last year, we're moving forward now, don'tcha know?

Some people are just determined to hold on to that "little boo-boo" forever.

Why do you hate America? Don't you want to see "the change"?

Whiny little hippie-pinko-fag!
(just in case):sarcasm:
:kick: & R

[ixion]

6. It's okay. Obama is in the WH

so all is right with the world. :sarcasm:

[amborin]

7. K&R

[Wilms]

8. k&r n/t

[Rex]

9. 1 million out of 26 million. That is horrible.

I'm sure, like all the Epic Bush Failures, this one will be remembered as a tragidy to go into the waste bin of knowledge ASAP. Americans can't be told that their government was WRONG and started an illegal war over propaganda by one of the countries ruling parties. Not ready to hear those kind of things, to bad really because Karl and George need to be behind bars with Cheney and Rummy. They commited war crimes and the people at the top know this - hence the mass cover ups.

[Hannah Bell]

10. well, that's *your* fault, doncha know? & it's your fault the corporate-owned media didn't

report it, too! if you'd wanted to hear it, you would have voted with your dollars!

everything is your fault. see how easy?

leaders & owners are simple tools of the polity and consumers. they bear no responsibility. see how easy?

[Echo In Light]

11. Bump

[blindpig]

12. k&r

[Mari333]

13. and yet we continue the mass murdering and no one will ever be prosecuted.

[Echo In Light]

14. That's what happens when you're the scariest bully on the global block

[Uncle Joe]

15. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Echo In Light.