White House fails to whitewash white lies

Desperate diseases need desperate medicines. Bush-Blair applied the desperate medicine to cure the desperate disease in Iraq. After the World-War II, the biggest ever concentration of ground and air forces was made available around Iraq. Regime of Saddam fell with Saddam's crumbling statue in the centre of Baghdad. Iraq is now under full control of the Anglo-US occupation forces. But the WMD seems to have gone with the wind! However, in most cases occupation justified war.

Dr Kelly's death: Political implications?

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But the whole operation has received the greatest shock and set-back following the most unexpected and mysterious suicide of the British scientist Dr Kelly who was also government's weapon adviser as an expert on chemical weapons. Whatever might have been the reasons forcing Dr Kelly to commit suicide, there hangs a prima facie case of political implications. However, much depends on the high-level inquiry into the death, which is already being processed.

This unprecedented tragedy in the life of a scientist raised a huge storm, shaking many top-notches in their boats. More fuel was added to fire by BBC's recent confirmation that Dr Kelly was the principal source of its most sensational report that Alastair Cambell, Tony Blair's senior aide on communication, had sexed up an intelligence dossier on Iraq's WMD, justifying US-led war against Iraq. But BBC had also admitted it had tried to protect Dr Kelly from being identified as the source of the report. But the excellent gesture shown by BBC couldn't save the precious life of a scientist, when somebody among the high-ups leaked it and Kelly was grilled by a Parliamentary enquiry committee making his life miserable.

But the British press as well as some MPs took a long hand on Blair administration on Dr Kelly's death. Some of them accused the government of turning the weapons expert into a fall guy. A headline in the Daily Express read simply: Thrown to the wolves. While, the British Tory MP Richard Ottaway said that Dr Kelly's death would be a tragedy of ghastly proportion, if political implications had resulted in his death. A Labour MP Peter Kidfoyle, a staunch opponent of US-led war against Iraq, said in a recent interview, that "this is another bizarre twist to the whole on-going soap-drama which is the weapons of mass destruction excuse for going to war with Iraq".

What weapon experts say?

Let us also have a look at some of the comments made by some weapons experts, including the just-retired chief of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, Hans Blix, and another chief of the inspection team, retired earlier, Scott Ritter on the "looking intelligence" that had hyped up the so-called fake evidence on existence of WMD in Iraq.

Mr Blix, in an interview with the British newspaper, The Guardian, blamed some US Administration officials as undermining him, during his three years as chief of the inspection team. He also accused Washington of regarding the UN as an 'alien power,' adding, that these officials planted nasty things in the media. He further alleged that Bush Administration was particularly upset that the weapons inspectors did not make more of their discovery in view of the cluster bombs and drones in the run-up to the US-led war.

Mr Rittar, a former US marine, who was chief, UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq (1991-98), and a bitter critic of Bush administration's Iraq policy, in his recent book, titled, "Frontier Justice, Weapons of Mass Destruction and Bush Whacking of America", has accused Bush of illegally attacking Iraq and alleged that Bush had "lied to the American people and the Congress" about Iraq's WMD. Addressing a recent press conference, Mr Ritter argued that "what is needed in America is a regime change: Anything but Bush and (Vice-President) Cheney". It is interesting to note here that one of the corporate Petroleum companies, of which Dick Cheney was the chairman and Chief Executive from 1995-2000, is trying to grab the lion's share of Iraq's oil resources. The democrat lawmakers of the US Congress had alleged that the company (Halliburton?) having links to Cheney was "getting too much business out of the Iraq war."

Another chemical weapons expert, Mr Ron Manby, former Director of the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibitions of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), who was charged with the responsibility of implementing the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, signed by some 153 nations, in a recent BBC interview, had strongly asserted that Iraq's chemical weapons "posed no significant risk" to the world in the run-up to the US-led war to oust Saddam.

Meanwhile, a German member of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq, Peter Franck, had accused the US Administration of presenting "false evidence" against Saddam regime, adding that US Secretary of State Colin Powell "did not present truthful evidence" to the UN Security Council in his February 5 speech.

Now the cat has come out of the magical bag. Perhaps to save some fallen angels, CIA Chief George Tenet has volunteered (or, forced to do so?) to offer himself as a scape-goat at the altar of Presidential (?) honour, by taking the responsibility on himself for a "key error" that Bush had included in his January 28 state of the union address to the US Congress. But it is too late for such shifting of burden after some four months of committing a crime in Iraq in the name of world peace and security. It is more than an ordinary crime, when innocent people, including women and children, were massacred to pave the way for a 'regime change'.

Ground slipping fast

But do these world leaders feel that the ground is fast slipping from under their feet? Time is running out for them. The recent CNN-Time poll shows that the popularity ratings of the US President has slipped down to the lowest level since March last. Fifty-one per cent of Americans polled had expressed their "doubts and reservations" about Bush's leadership which is a slip from 41 per cent in March, and 50 per cent think that Bush Administration had intentionally exaggerated its evidence about WMD. British Prime Minister's position is more slippery and shaky since his going into Iraq war along with Bush. The popularity ratings of Mr Blair, once considered as one of the most popular Prime Ministers in British history, has slided down from 51 per cent to 31 per cent in one month.

The above analysis brings us to the vital question of morality of the US-led war against Iraq and its consequences.

Bizarre show coming to an end?

Undoubtedly, the world had the good opportunity to witness, during the last couple of months, 'the greatest show on earth', presented by two veteran actors along with a few jokers around to add colour to the bizarre show. But will the show continue? Let us see what a well-known writer columnist and author, Gore Vidal, (a cousin of Al-Gore, former vice-President of Clinton regime), says in his latest book Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and Cheney-Bush Junta" (Ref: DS 7.6.03). Taking a big slap on US Administration, Mr Gore says that the United States of America (USA) has now become "the United States of Amnesia." Gore had predicted that Bush will not win another term "... the economy is going to crush, yon can't go on with 6 per cent unemployment, it is unheard of. ..."

Bush, thus, had pushed the country deliberately in the quagmire of nasty Iraq war. The much hyped adventure in Iraqi desert had ultimately proved a mis-adventure with boomerang effect. Repetition of false hood do not become truth. The mills of God grind slowly but steadily.

AMM Shahabuddin is a retired UN Official.