US must explain reasons for Iraq War
Hu Xuan  Updated: 2004-01-14 08:52

The Bush administration still owes the world an explanation for why it went to war with Iraq, even though Danish troops have found dozens of suspicious mortar rounds buried in the Iraqi desert.

The Danish army said the rounds, which chemical weapons tests indicate could contain blister gas, had been buried for at least 10 years.

In a statement issued following initial examination of liquid leaking from the shells, the Danish Army Operational Command said the result will not be confirmed until final tests are completed.

The Bush administration cited the threat of illicit weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a principal reason for launching war on Iraq in March last year, but no such weapons have been found.

Even though new criticisms have emerged and some American weapons inspectors have left Iraq empty-handed, the White House has not yielded an inch in defence of its justification for the war against a sovereign state without endorsement from the United Nations (UN).

The White House played down the latest move in Iraq, saying that the group focused on hunting weapons was remaining in the country.

Last Thursday US Secretary of State Colin Powell staunchly defended his speech to the UN last February on the need to invade Iraq. Powell's comment was a clear rejection of a Washington think tank's assertion that Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States or the rest of the world prior to the opening of hostilities last March.

Powell claimed the game of searching for Iraq's WMD, one of the main reasons stated for the controversial war, is still unfolding.

Ironically, his remarks came while the White House was quietly withdrawing a 400-member military team whose job was to scour Iraq for evidence of illicit weapons or active weapons programmes.

The step was described as a sign the Bush administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expects to uncover caches of chemical and biological weapons.

Yet, defending his February 2003 presentation to the UN security Council as "solid,'' Powell said: "I'm confident of what I presented last year.''

He reiterated that he stands by his presentation, in which he charged then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had WMD and was pursuing clandestine programmes for WMD and supporting international terrorism, notably the al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden.

The central tenet of his argument that Iraq possessed WMD has, in the absence of any irrefutable evidence, stirred criticism that the administration may have exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq and concocted intelligence concerning Iraqi WMD in order to win support for military action.

More than 1,000 US inspectors have worked daily since before the war began, searching the country and interviewing scientists and other Iraqi officials at a cost of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

Still, their tenacious combing has yielded no persuasive evidence to prove Baghdad's alleged possession of WMD.

Even if they find any evidence, it cannot be taken for granted. That's because the inspectors from the United Nations "not from the United States "have the loudest say, even though the UN has been excluded by Washington, which has completely controlled the arms inspections since the cessation of major combat in May.

A report on the nine-month search for WMD was released last week by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-partisan Washington-based research centre.

The report concluded it was unlikely Iraq could have destroyed, hidden or sent out of the country the hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons and related production facilities that American officials claimed were present "without the United States detecting some sign of this activity.''

It also noted the United States used the threat of Iraqi WMD simply as a justification for launching the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"We found nothing,'' report author Joseph Cirincione said. "There are no large stockpiles of weapons. There hasn't actually been a find of a single weapon, a single weapons agent, nothing like the programmes that the administration that believes existed.''

Cirincione said the study revealed "some of the things we thought were working "our threat assessments "were deeply flawed. We exaggerated the threat. We worst-cased it, then acted as if that worst case was the most likely case.''

The report also accuses the Bush administration of insisting "without evidence "yet treating as a given truth "that Saddam Hussein would give whatever WMD he possessed to terrorists.''

Powell defended at this point by stressing his presentation to the UN "made it clear that we had seen some links and connections to terrorist organizations over time.''

He added: "I have not seen smoking gun concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.''

Make no mistake, Mr Secretary of State, concrete evidence about the connection rather than the possibility of such association depending most entirely on speculation, is exactly what the White House owes the whole world.

Powell indicated he still held out hope that evidence of illegal weapons will be found in Iraq. "Where the debate is, is why haven't we found huge stockpiles and why haven't we found large caches of these weapons"'' he asked.

But first of all, where are they"Nobody but Uncle Sam can answer that question, because in terms of international credibility, any assertions based on US military intelligence are now worthless.

(China Daily)

Close