Gość: Blong
IP: *.zabkowska.sdi.tpnet.pl
13.07.03, 19:41
20 falsehoods about the Iraq war
14.07.2003
Glen Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker sift fact from fiction as controversy
rages over the Iraq war.
1) Iraq was responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
A supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, leader of the September
11 hijackers, and an Iraqi intelligence official was the basis for this
claim, but Czech intelligence later conceded that the Iraqi's contact could
not have been Atta. This did not stop the stream of assertions that Iraq was
involved.
At one stage opinion polls showed that two-thirds of Americans believed
Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. Almost as many believed Iraqi
hijackers were on the crashed aircraft.
2) Iraq and al Qaeda were working together.
Claims by United States and British leaders that Saddam and Osama bin Laden
were in league were contradicted by a leaked British intelligence report,
which said there were no current links between them. Bin Laden's "aims are in
ideological conflict with present-day Iraq", it added.
Another strand to the claims was that al Qaeda members were being sheltered
in Iraq, and had set up a poisons training camp.
When US troops reached the camp, they found no chemical or biological traces.
3) Iraq sought uranium from Africa for a "reconstituted" N-weapons programme.
The head of the CIA has admitted that documents purporting to show that Iraq
tried to import uranium from Niger were forged, and that the claim should
never have been in President George W. Bush's State of the Union address.
Britain sticks by the claim, but the Foreign Office conceded last week that
this information was now "under review".
4) Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to develop nuclear weapons.
The US persistently claimed that Baghdad tried to buy high-strength aluminium
tubes whose only use could be in gas centrifuges, needed to enrich uranium
for nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the tubes were for artillery
rockets. Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei told the UN Security Council in
January that the tubes were useless for centrifuges.
5) Iraq still had vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the
first Gulf War.
Iraq possessed enough dangerous substances to kill the whole world, it was
alleged more than once. It had pilotless aircraft that could be smuggled into
the US and used to spray chemical and biological toxins.
Experts pointed out that apart from mustard gas, Iraq never had the
technology to produce materials with a shelf-life of 12 years, the time
between the two wars. All such agents would have deteriorated to the point of
uselessness years ago.
6) Iraq retained up to 20 missiles able to carry chemical or biological
warheads, which would threaten British forces in Cyprus.
Apart from the fact that there has been no sign of these missiles since the
invasion, Britain downplayed the risk of there being any such weapons in Iraq
once the fighting began.
Chemical protection equipment was removed from British bases in Cyprus last
year, indicating that the Government did not take its own claims seriously.
7) Saddam had the wherewithal to develop smallpox.
This claim was made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in his address to
the Security Council in February. The following month the UN said there was
nothing to support it.
8) US and British claims were supported by weapons inspectors.
According to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, chief UN weapons inspector
Dr Hans Blix "pointed out" that Iraq had 10,000 litres of anthrax.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iraq's chemical, biological
and "indeed the nuclear weapons programme" had been well-documented by the
UN.
Blix's reply? "This is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass
destruction," he said last September.
In May he added: "I am obviously very interested in the question of whether
or not there were weapons of mass destruction, and I am beginning to suspect
there possibly were not."
9) Previous weapons inspections had failed.
Blair told the Independent in March that the UN had "tried unsuccessfully for
12 years to get Saddam to disarm peacefully". But in 1999 a Security Council
panel concluded: "Although important elements still have to be resolved, the
bulk of Iraq's proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated."
Blair also claimed UN inspectors "found no trace at all of Saddam's offensive
biological weapons programme" until his son-in-law defected. In fact, the UN
got the regime to admit to its programme more than a month before the
defection.
10) Iraq was obstructing the inspectors.
Britain's "dodgy dossier" in February claimed inspectors' escorts
were "trained to start long arguments" with other Iraqi officials while
evidence was being hidden, and inspectors' journeys were monitored and
notified ahead to remove surprise.
Blix said in February that the UN had conducted more than 400 inspections,
all without notice. "In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the
Iraqi side knew the inspectors were coming."
11) Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.
This now-notorious claim was based on a single source, said to be a serving
Iraqi military officer.
This individual has not been produced since the war, but in any case Blair
contradicted the claim in April. He said Iraq had begun to conceal its
weapons in May last year, which meant they could not have been used within 45
minutes.
12) The "dodgy dossier".
Blair told Parliament in February, when the dossier was issued: "We issued
further intelligence over the weekend about the infrastructure of
concealment. It is obviously difficult when we publish intelligence reports."
It soon emerged that most of it was cribbed without attribution from three
articles on the internet.
13) War would be easy.
Public fears of war in the US and Britain were assuaged by assurances that
Iraqis would welcome the invading forces.
Resistance was patchy, but stiffer than expected, mainly from irregular
forces fighting in civilian clothes. "This wasn't the enemy we war-gamed
against," one general complained.
14) Umm Qasr.
The fall of Iraq's only port was announced several times before Anglo-
American forces gained full control - among others by Admiral Michael Boyce,
chief of Britain's defence staff.
"Umm Qasr has been overwhelmed by the US Marines and is now in coalition
hands," he said, somewhat prematurely.
15) The Basra rebellion.
Claims that the Shia Muslim population of Basra, Iraq's second city, had
risen against their oppressors were repeated for days, long after it became
clear to those on the ground that this was little more than wishful thinking.
The defeat of a supposed breakout by Iraqi armour was also announced by a
military spokesman in no position to know the truth.
16) The "rescue" of Private Jessica Lynch.
Lynch's "rescue" from a hospital in Nasiriyah by American special forces was
presented as the major "feel-good" story of the war.
She was said to have fired back at Iraqi troops until her ammunition ran out,
and was taken to hospital suffering bullet and stab wounds.
But all her injuries were suffered in a vehicle crash, which left her
incapable of firing.
Medical staff had tried to return her to the Americans after Iraqi forces
pulled out, but the doctors had to turn back when US troops fired on them.
The special forces encountered no resistance, but made sure the whole episode
was filmed.
17) Troops would face chemical and biological weapons.
As US forces approached Baghdad, there was a rash of reports that they would
cross a "red line", within which Republican Guard units were authorised to
use chemica
