Month: January 2004

Libyan Disarmament a Positive Step, but Threat of Proliferation Remains

Posted on

In a world seemingly gone mad, it is ironic that one of most sane and reasonable actions to come out of the Middle East recently has emanated from the government of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator long recognized as an international outlaw.

Libya’s stunning announcement that it is giving up its nascent biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs and accepting international assistance and verification of its disarmament efforts is a small but important positive step in the struggle to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

It would be a big mistake, however, to accept claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that it was the invasion of Iraq and other threatened uses of force against so-called “rogue states” which pursue WMD programs that led to Libya’s decision to end its WMD programs.

While Saddam Hussein was less than cooperative with United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) efforts in the 1990s, it appears that they were successful in ridding the country of its chemical and biological weapons and related facilities. The Iraqi regime was more cooperative during that period with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with the IAEA announcing in 1998 that Iraq’s nuclear program had been completely dismantled. When IAEA inspectors returned in the fall of 2002 as part of UN Security Council resolution 1441, they reported that no signs that the program had been revived. Iraq also allowed the return of a revived and strengthened inspections regime for chemical and biological weapons systems (known as UNMOVIC) at that time, which also found no evidence of any proscribed weapons or weapons programs.

Despite this, the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew the government. As a result, Libya presumably knows that unilateral disarmament and allowing UN inspectors does not necessarily make you less safe from a possible U.S. invasion.

More likely, Libya simply recognized that they would not get anything worthwhile as a result of continuing with an expensive, dangerous, and complex process of weapons development and would instead continue to face international isolation and difficulty obtaining certain dual-use technologies which could enhance the country’s economic development.

A Triumph of Diplomacy

Indeed, the agreement is a sign of the triumph of American and British diplomacy, not military threats.

That this breakthrough involved some diplomatic initiatives from the U.S. government doesn’t mean that the Bush administration has abandoned its unilateralist agenda. In a dispute which could potentially jeopardize Libya’s bold initiative, the United States is challenging Libya’s assumption that its disarmament process would be under the auspices of the IAEA and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW.). The Bush administration insists that U.S. intelligence officials and experts from the U.S. Defense Department and U.S. Energy Department–along with some British authorities to give it a multilateral veneer–take charge of the disarmament process.

More serious is the position of successive administrations that the United States has the right to impose a kind of WMD apartheid on the Middle East, giving itself the right to say which countries can and cannot have nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

The United States has quietly supported Israel’s extensive chemical and biological weapons programs, as well as Israel’s nuclear program, which is believed to consist of over 300 warheads along with sophisticated medium-range missiles. This comes despite UN Security Council resolution 487, which calls on Israel to turn its nuclear facilities over to the trusteeship of the IAEA.

In the post 9/11 era, the U.S. has dropped its opposition to the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan, eliminating sanctions imposed by the Clinton administration after both countries engaged in a series of underground nuclear tests in 1998 and ignoring UN Security Council resolution 1172, which calls on Pakistan and India to dismantle their nuclear programs and ballistic missiles.

To the United States, UN Security Council resolutions calling on the elimination of a given country’s weapons of mass destruction should be enforced only when it comes to countries the U.S. government does not like, such as Iraq. By contrast, the United States has threatened to veto any efforts to enforce such resolutions against its allies.

Such a policy is doing little to enhance U.S. security interests. The evidence now points to Pakistan as the source of the key nuclear technology employed by Libya in its embryonic nuclear program, most of which ended up in Qaddafi’s hands in the two years since the United States relaxed its restrictions on Pakistan’s military government.

The Costs of Domination

The unfortunate reality is that the United States is not interested in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction per se but in preventing a challenge to its military domination in the post-cold war world.

The first country to introduce weapons of mass destruction into the Middle East was the United States, which initially brought in nuclear weapons on its planes and ships as far back as the 1950s. More recently, the Bush administration has explicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states and is developing new nuclear weapons for battlefield use.

While demanding that countries that do not yet have nuclear weapons sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)–which includes provisions that would prohibit them from doing so–the United States has refused to abide by other provisions of the NPT that call on already-existing nuclear powers to take serious steps towards complete disarmament.

Concern over the prospects of the horizontal proliferation of weapons of mass destruction also serves as a pretext for the ongoing U.S. military presence in the Middle East and for attacking countries that threaten to challenge this American dominance. Instead of seeing the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons by Third World countries as an inevitable reaction to the American failure to support global nuclear disarmament, the United States–by labeling it as part of the threat from international terrorism–can justify military interventionism.

Nuclear weapons are inherently weapons of terror, given their level of devastation and their non-discriminate nature. Indeed, the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War was often referred to as “the balance of terror.” Many people outside the United States see the atomic bombings by U.S. forces of two Japanese cities in 1945 as among the greatest acts of terrorism in world history. American concerns, however, are not about the ability of the United States to threaten other countries with weapons of mass destruction but how others might threaten the United States. This can make it possible for U.S. administrations to portray acts of war against far-off countries as acts of self-defense.

Countries ranging from U.S. allies like Jordan and Egypt to adversaries like Syria and Iran have all endorsed calls for the establishment of a weapons of mass destruction-free zone for the entire Middle East, similar to those already existing in Latin America and the South Pacific. Such proposals have been categorically rejected by the United States, however. A UN Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of such a WMD-free zone in the region was introduced last month, but is expected to be vetoed by the United States. In effect, the United States insists that such weapons in the Middle East should be the exclusive domain of itself and Israel.

Other Middle Eastern governments may therefore decide not to risk emulating Libya’s choice of unilateral disarmament. Indeed, such U.S. policies will most likely lead not to greater acquiescence to American will, but to a rush by other nations in the region to counter this perceived American-Israeli threat through the development of their own dangerous arsenals.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (online at www.commoncouragepress.com).

Democrats’ Attacks on Dean Enhance Bush’s Re-election Prospects

Posted on

It is not the increasingly likely prospect of Howard Dean’s nomination that could lead to a Democratic defeat in November, it’s his opponents’ attacks against him. As Dick Gephardt, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman see themselves lagging in the polls running up to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary later this month, their campaigns are engaging in increasingly desperate attacks against the front-runner for their party’s nomination.

Criticizing a candidate’s positions on important policy issues is certainly valid. I have been quite critical of Howard Dean’s positions on a number of issues myself. (See, for example, my article ‘Howard Dean: Hawk in Dove’s Clothing?‘ CommonDreams, February 26, 2003.)

However, deliberately misrepresenting a candidate’s position, particularly in language that will almost certainly be used against him in the general election by the opposing party, is irresponsible.
The impression his Democratic rivals are trying to put forward is that the decidedly centrist former Vermont is some kind of flaming leftist and therefore unelectable.

Anti-Dean forces have tried to raise a parallel between Dean’s prospective nomination and South Dakota senator George McGovern’s 1972 nomination, which ended in a landslide defeat. Such a comparison, however, has little merit.

Though McGovern wasn’t nearly as far to the left as Richard Nixon and his dirty tricksters tried to depict him, he was certainly to the left of Dean. While McGovern called for an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, Dean ‘ despite his opposition to the initial invasion of Iraq ‘ believes that now that they are there, they should stay to try to bring stability to the country. While McGovern supported stricter gun control, Dean opposes it. While McGovern supported slashing military spending, Dean supports keeping the so-called ‘Defense’ budget high despite the lack of funding for human needs at home. While McGovern supported more progressive taxation and heavy government investment in New Deal-type programs, Dean is a fiscal conservative.

Indeed, on virtually every issue, Dean is not at all to the left of the average American voter. So it is not his actual positions that are the problem in terms of electability. It is how Bush and Dean’s Democratic rivals are depicting him.

Last month, a political group with close connections with Gephardt and Kerry campaigns unleashed television spots in New Hampshire which alternated Dean’s face with Osama bin Laden, warning that ‘Howard Dean cannot compete with George Bush on foreign policy.’ This is an utterly ridiculous charge. Bush’s foreign policy has been a disaster for America and for the world. Bush had far less knowledge of world affairs than Howard Dean when he ran for president four years ago and probably still does.
However, given that Gephardt and Kerry have supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq, supported Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan, and support Bush’s backing of Israeli occupation forces, it is not surprising that they would want to attack anyone who would offer any kind of bold challenge to Bush’s foreign policy leadership.

This is just one of a number of examples of how Gephardt, Kerry, and Lieberman are acting, in the words of the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, as if they are ‘more interested in tearing down Howard Dean than in defeating George Bush’ by launching ‘vitriolic attacks that might as well have been scripted by Karl Rove.’ Indeed, while Dean and his supporters have repeatedly called on his fellow Democratic contenders to focus their attacks on Bush, most of them seem to prefer to attack him instead.

If these attacks are unsuccessful and Dean gets the nomination anyway, these claims that he is unelectable in November could become self-fulfilling. Just as Al Gore’s attacks of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 primaries were used by the senior George Bush to smear the Massachusetts, the reckless and irresponsible attacks by Gephardt, Kerry, and Lieberman are simply adding fodder to the Republican arsenal.

Indeed, the New York Times reported on December 26, in reference to the Bush campaign, ‘They plan to use the Democrats’ words to attack Dean in their ads, meanwhile keeping Bush personally above the fray.’

Lying about Iraq

One of the most powerful tools that the Democrats have in defeating President Bush is in pointing out how he lied to the American people about Saddam Hussein’s alleged military threat to its neighbors, U.S. forces in the Middle East and even the United States itself, in justifying his invasion of Iraq.
However, Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Edwards, along with Representative Gephardt, also lied about Iraq’s military capability to justify their vote for the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq.

For example, in October 2002, then-House minority leader Dick Gephardt joined top Republicans in co-sponsoring the bill in the House authorizing the use of force against Iraq, falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein ‘continues to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices.’ Despite Gephardt and the Republicans’ efforts to steamroll the invasion through the House of Representatives, however, a sizable majority of House Democrats, led by Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, voted to defend the Constitution and the UN Charter by voting against the measure.

Meanwhile, on the Senate side of the Capitol, Kerry was falsely claiming that ‘all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons’ and that ‘Iraq has chemical and biological weapons’ that ‘are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War.’ (See my article ‘Kerry’s Deceptions on Iraq Threaten his Presidential Hopes,’ CommonDreams, August 26, 2003)

Ironically, both Kerry and Gephardt voted against authorizing the use of force against Iraq when the senior President Bush asked for such support to launch the 1991 Gulf War. Opponents of that war were correct when they argued that there were still non-military options available and the long-term consequences would be disastrous. However, this first U.S. war against Iraq did have at least some legitimate legal basis through the doctrine of collective security against acts of aggression ‘ which Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait clearly constituted ‘ as enshrined in the United Nations charter. By contrast, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq this spring was itself a clear act of aggression in direct violation of the UN Charter and other basic principles of international law.

It is interesting to note that, contrary to any of his major rivals, Dean supported the 1991 Gulf War while opposing last year’s invasion of Iraq.

Another irony was that Iraq was far stronger militarily and a far greater threat to its neighbors back in 1990 when Kerry and Gephardt voted against the use of force than in 2003 when they did.
This is one of a number of indications of how far to the right these once moderately liberal Democratic members of Congress have swung and why it is so crucial they be denied the party’s nomination for president.

Meanwhile, North Carolina senator John Edwards’ outspoken support for war against Iraq was so strong that his New York Times op-ed piece supporting an invasion of that oil-rich nation was published by the Bush Administration on the State Department’s website. Similarly, Lieberman was one of the leading Senate supporters of Bush’s war policies. Both senators, in a desperate attempt to justify their support for Bush, also falsely claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and sophisticated delivery systems that the war-ravaged and impoverished country had not possessed for many years or never possessed at all.

Some apologists for Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards and Lieberman claim that they did not knowingly lie about Iraq’s alleged WMD threat, but that they were simply duped by the administration. However, most independent strategic analysts knew long before the invasion that the Bush Administration’s claims were grossly exaggerated and many of these reports challenging the administration were given to every Congressional office.

Just two weeks before the vote, a lengthy article of mine systematically refuting the case for invading Iraq, including the WMD claims, appeared as the cover story in The Nation magazine (see Stephen Zunes, ‘The Case Against War,’ The Nation, September 30, 2002.). This article was widely circulated and reprinted and every member of Congress received multiple copies.

Furthermore, a number of Democratic members of the Congressional intelligence committees ‘ who had access to classified documents ‘ had no problems voting against authorizing Bush’s invasion plans.
In short, it is hard to believe that Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards, and Lieberman did not knowingly lie to the American public. That alone should disqualify them from receiving the Democratic Party nomination for president.

Kerry has recently tried to rationalize for his vote by claiming that he did not really support a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, he simply supported the authorization of the use of force as a tactic to get Saddam Hussein to allow UN inspectors to return. This is demonstrably false, however: Saddam Hussein had actually agreed unconditionally to accept unrestricted UN weapons inspectors several weeks before Kerry voted to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq.

With anti-war sentiment strong and likely to grow, few Americans are likely to forgive politicians who are on record supporting an unnecessary war and lying to justify it. One can only think back to Vice-President Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 loss to Richard Nixon.

Nor is the public likely to forgive opportunistic politicians who ‘ in response to public opinion polls indicating this growing anti-war sentiment ‘ change their position to one of opposing an incumbent Republican’s interventionist policies after initially supporting them. One can only think of the 1972 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination when the once-favored Maine senator Edmund Muskie ‘ who came out against the Vietnam War barely two years beforehand ‘ was knocked out of the race by McGovern, whose opposition to the war was far more longstanding and principled.

There are also large numbers of voters ‘ including myself ‘ who respect the U.S. Constitution and the UN Charter enough that we would refuse to vote for any presidential nominee who authorized President Bush to invade Iraq and lied to the American people about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in order to justify it. Indeed, if Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards or Lieberman appear likely to receive the Democratic nomination, you can bet that the Green Party will attempt to field a strong candidate. She or he would certainly get my vote and the votes of millions of others like me who would otherwise vote Democratic.

If the Republicans really are wishing that Dean gets the Democratic nomination, you better believe that the Greens (at least those who put the growth of their party as their top priority) are hoping Dean is denied the Democratic nomination. Nothing could be better for the Green Party than for the Democrats to select a nominee who supports Bush’s disastrous foreign policies.

Indeed, with a Democratic nominee so willing to endorse the most immoral, illegal and dangerous foreign policies of the Bush Administration, why should voters believe a Democratic administration would do things any better?

In short, at this point it appears that the Democrats would lose less votes by nominating Dean than by nominating one of his pro-war rivals.

Self-Defeating Politics

The unfortunate reality, which many Democrats are still unwilling to admit, is that Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards and Lieberman essentially agree with the foreign policy agenda of the Bush Administration and the neo-conservatives who run U.S. foreign policy.

For example, late this past summer, Dean ‘ a strong supporter of Israel ‘ correctly observed that the Bush administration’s support for Sharon’s hard line policies was damaging the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. In response, Dean was viciously attacked by Kerry, Lieberman and the entire House Democratic leadership as somehow abandoning America’s historic commitment to Israel and of being soft on terrorism. (See my article ‘Kerry, Lieberman, House Democratic Leadership Attack Dean,’ CommonDreams, September 14, 2003)

Similarly, Dean’s observation that the capture of Saddam Hussein would not make America safer also received vehement attacks from his Democratic rivals. They were unable to explain, however, how a former dictator living in a hole in the ground without any government, armed force, or command and control apparatus at his disposal could constitute a threat to the United States. Indeed, as of this writing, the armed anti-American resistance in Iraq remains as strong as ever. (See my article ‘Saddam’s Arrest Raises Troubling Questions,’ CommonDreams, December 15, 2003)

Another recent example came in response to a radio interview where Dean expressed his distress over the Bush Administration’s efforts to block investigations of events leading up to 9/11 and concerns that perhaps they did not take certain warnings of possible attacks as seriously as they should. In response, Kerry tried to link Dean with Internet conspiracy buffs and claimed that such speculation ‘leaves Americans questioning his judgment and sense of responsibility.’

It should be remembered that it was Gephardt’s decision, as House Democratic leader, to kowtow to Bush’s neo-conservative militarism which played a major role in the Democrats’ unprecedented defeat in the 2002 midterm elections. Indeed, none of the six incumbent House Democrats who lost (except for one who had been redistricted to run against a popular moderate Republican incumbent and was expected to lose anyway) opposed the war. Gephardt’s na’ve insistence that the Democrats had to play consensus politics with a fraudulently-elected right-wing Republican president was not only immoral, but self-defeating. (See my article, ‘How the Democrats Blew It,’ CommonDreams, November 7, 2002.)
And yet his campaign insists that he is more somehow more electable than Dean.

As a member of an AFL-CIO union (American Federation of Teachers, Local 4629), I find the significant support Gephardt has solicited from organized labor quite puzzling. While Gephardt’s positions on globalization, international trade and related positions are more progressive than Dean, it is hard to understand how Gephardt’s militaristic foreign policy positions ‘ such as supporting an illegal invasion of a nation that was no threat to the United States, which is draining the national treasury and is returning some of the nation’s finest young men and women home in body bags ‘ is in the interest of working people. If a candidate’s position on NAFTA, the WTO and FTAA are that important, these unions should endorse Dennis Kucinich, who opposes the neo-liberal model of globalization even more than Gephardt and opposed the Iraq war in even stronger terms than Dean.

The disturbing fact is that if the attacks by Gephardt and the others are successful and one of the pro-Bush Capitol Hill Democrats wins the nomination, the grassroots of the party that has been so energized by Dean’s campaign will be so alienated that many Democrats who would have actively campaigned throughout the fall for Dean as the Democratic nominee will instead stay home. The bitterness that Dean had been robbed of the nomination through unfair attacks from the party’s right wing could divide the Democrats for many years to come.

The Significance of Dean’s Candidacy

I do not plan to vote for Dean in the upcoming California primary. I will instead be voting for Kucinich, both because the Ohio Congressman’s positions on specific issues are far more progressive than Dean as well as the fact that his working class roots and his great success in repeatedly winning re-election in a Congressional district with one of the highest numbers of blue collar ‘Reagan Democrats’ in the country shows that he would probably be more electable in November than the upper class Dean.
However, I am quite pleased with the way Dean’s campaign has caught the imagination of the American public and that he has emerged as the front runner for the Democratic nomination. While Dean is not nearly as progressive as most of his followers, he has demonstrated that speaking out against the excesses of the Bush Administration can be far more successful than simply playing along with them as most of the Democrats on Capitol Hill are doing.

In many respects, Dean’s opposition to Bush’s invasion of Iraq is being seen in large part as a metaphor for standing up for what one believes in. Unlike his major rivals, he was willing to say, in effect, that the emperor has no clothes. This is why House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats have so viciously and unfairly attacked Dean: they know they are being exposed as the panderers to Bush’s neo-conservative agenda that they are.

While Pelosi and Dean’s major rivals have gone on record expressing their ‘unequivocal support and appreciation’ to President Bush for his ‘firm leadership and decisive action in the conduct of military operation is Iraq,’ polls show that most Democrats and Independents agree with Dean that Bush does not deserve such unreserved backing for invading that country. While Pelosi and Dean’s major rivals have gone on record praising President Bush’s ‘leadership’ in supporting Sharon’s occupation policies in the occupied West Bank, polls show that most Democrats and Independents believe that the Bush Administration should be willing to pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories in exchange for security guarantees. While Pelosi and Dean’s major rivals have given Bush a blank check in fighting ‘the war on terrorism,’ most Democrats and Independents believe that we are actually less secure now than we were immediately following 9/11.

By contrast, Dean has galvanized the grass roots of the party which the Democratic Party establishment chooses to ignore.

And traditional Democratic leaders are notorious for ignoring the grass roots. For example, in the weeks prior to the launch of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Pelosi’s San Francisco district had been the site of anti-war protests consisting of nearly a half million people. On the day after the war began in March, nearly 10,000 protestors risked arrest by shutting down downtown San Francisco. Despite this, Pelosi arrogantly insisted that her fellow Democrats join her in supporting a pro-war resolution and in allocating tens of billions of dollars worth of taxpayer’s money to support it, despite severe budget cutbacks in her district and elsewhere for education, housing, health care, public transportation and other needs.

Most Democrats have recognized ever since Bush came to office that their leadership on Capitol Hill was in bad need of a spine transplant. Having failed to get one, it is not surprising that they have turned to the former governor of a small rural state who at least had the courage to say no and stand up for principle, something that the Democratic Party establishment has repeatedly failed to do.
Or, to put it more bluntly, while the Democratic Party leadership and Dean’s major challengers have acted like a bunch of wimps, Dean has shown a willingness to fight for what he believes in.
Howard Dean is far from the perfect candidate. But compared to the other Democratic contenders, it’s not surprising that he looks so good to so many.

Annotate This! Misleading Rhetoric in 2004 State of the Union Address

Posted on

As we gather tonight, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.

Though no one should question the commitment and bravery of American servicemen and women, their missions of invading and occupying foreign countries and engaging in high altitude bombing and urban counterinsurgency operations that kill civilians has brought more fear than hope, delivered more violence than justice, and has created an unprecedented level of anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world and beyond that has actually made America less secure.

We have faced serious challenges together and now we face a choice: We can go forward with confidence and resolve or we can turn back to the dangerous illusion that terrorists are not plotting and outlaw regimes are no threat to us.

This assumes that those who believe that the Bush administration’s policies are illegal, immoral, and counterproductive are living under illusions that deny the dangers from terrorists and despots. This rhetorical device ignores the many national security analysts and ordinary Americans who are fully aware of the forces arrayed against the United States yet believe the country must choose better means to protect itself than continuing the policies of the Bush administration.

The first to see our determination were the Taliban, who made Afghanistan the primary training base of al Qaeda killers. Businesses are opening, health care centers are being established, and the boys and girls of Afghanistan are back in school. With help from the new Afghan Army, our coalition is leading aggressive raids against surviving members of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

While life has improved markedly in the capital of Kabul, the vast majority of Afghanistan is under the grip of warlords, ethnic militias, opium magnates, and overall lawlessness. While women and girls are now legally able to attend school and go out of their houses unaccompanied, many are now too afraid to do so because of the breakdown of law and order.

Furthermore, the aggressive raids led by the United States are unfortunately not just against surviving members of the Taliban and al Qaeda, but often end up being against innocent villagers. Indeed, more Afghan civilians have been killed from U.S. bombing raids than American civilians were killed from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Since we last met in this chamber, combat forces of the United States and other countries enforced the demands of the United Nations, ended the rule of Saddam Hussein, and the people of Iraq are free.

The United Nations did not demand an invasion of Iraq or an end to Saddam’s regime. It demanded that the Iraqi government destroy its weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems and open up to intrusive inspections to confirm that it had done so. Iraq eventually came into compliance with these demands, allowing UN inspectors to return to conduct unimpeded inspections anywhere in the country in 2002 and apparently eliminating its WMDs and delivery systems some years earlier. An invasion was not necessary for Iraq to comply with the demands of the United Nations since it had already done so.

While the people of Iraq are free from Saddam Hussein’s rule, they are not free. They are living under a foreign military occupation and the United States occupation authorities has thus far rejected popular demands by the Iraqis for direct elections to choose their own government.

Having broken the Baathist regime, we face a remnant of violent Saddam supporters. These killers, joined by foreign terrorists, are a serious, continuing danger. We are dealing with these thugs in Iraq, just as surely as we dealt with Saddam Hussein’s evil regime.

While Baathists are apparently taking the dominant role leading the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation, increasing numbers of Iraqis fighting U.S. forces are not supporters of the former regime, but are non-Baathist nationalists who resent their country being controlled by a foreign army. If U.S. forces were simply battling remnants of the old regime and some foreign supporters, it would largely be a mopping up operation where attacks would be decreasing over time. Instead, the resistance has been growing. While those planting bombs in crowded civilian areas are undeniably thugs and terrorists, the vast majority of attacks are against uniformed foreign occupation forces which, while most unfortunate, are generally recognized as legitimate acts of resistance under international law.

Today our coalition is working with the Iraqi Governing Council to draft a basic law, with a bill of rights. We are working with Iraqis and the United Nations to prepare for a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty by the end of June.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration and its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council are trying to set up a government through regional caucuses that they can control, rejecting popular demands for direct elections. Under this system and with U.S. occupation forces remaining in the country, it would be a stretch to consider the establishment of such a government full Iraqi sovereignty. The United Nations has thus far been understandably reluctant to support the establishment of what many would see as a puppet regime.

As democracy takes hold in Iraq, the enemies of freedom will do all in their power to spread violence and fear. They are trying to shake the will of our country and our friends, but the United States of America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins. The killers will fail, and the Iraqi people will live in freedom.

By defining the U.S. occupation as democracy and those who are fighting the occupation as enemies of freedom who are trying to shake the will of our country, President Bush is trying to make Americans and others who are calling for a U.S. withdrawal appear to be unprincipled cowards.

Last month, the leader of Libya voluntarily pledged to disclose and dismantle all of his regime’s weapons of mass destruction programs, including a uranium enrichment project for nuclear weapons. Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not. And one reason is clear: For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible and no one can now doubt the word of America.

This is misleading on several counts. First of all, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs had been well-developed, whereas Libya’s WMD efforts were in their infancy. Secondly, there was no direct diplomacy between the United States and Iraq in the twelve years prior to the invasion: there were sanctions, threats, and air strikes. Most importantly, the implication that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was what led Libya to give up its program flies in the face of logic: Not only did Iraq give up its WMD programs through United Nations efforts prior to the U.S. invasion, but despite dismantling its weapons and opening up to inspections the United States invaded anyway.

Let us be candid about the consequences of leaving Saddam in power. Already the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictator’s weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day.

Last year, President Bush falsely claimed Iraq had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. At most, all he can claim now is that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction-related program activities. These were virtually all legal and inconsequential remnants of old programs, not new WMD programs starting up again that posed a potential threat. With strict sanctions remaining in place against the importation of military equipment, dual use technologies, and raw materials to Iraq that could be used for WMD development (which, unlike the economic sanctions, were strongly supported worldwide) it is hard to imagine how Saddam Hussein could have ever restarted his WMD programs.

Had we failed to act, Security Council resolutions on Iraq would have been revealed as empty threats, weakening the United Nations and encouraging defiance by dictators around the world.

Not only does it appear that Iraq was apparently in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions at the time of the U.S. invasion, there are more than ninety UN Security Council resolutions currently being violated by countries other than Iraq, the vast majority by governments supported by the Bush administration. U.S. policy has done far more than Saddam Hussein in weakening the authority of the United Nations.

The world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

Putting aside the fact that previous Republican administrations helped keep the regime in power during the 1980s (its most dangerous and repressive period), many of Iraq’s neighbors and independent strategic analysts believe that a weak and disarmed Iraqi regime even under Saddam’s oppressive rule represented a better and safer environment than the current situation, where Iraq is torn by guerrilla warfare, terrorist attacks, separatist movements, and a rising tide of Islamic extremism.

Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq.

Despite some notable exceptions, most of the 34 countries contributing to the U.S. occupation have sent only very small and highly specialized units (such as medical teams or construction workers) and have done so only under diplomatic pressure and financial incentives. Americans make up over 85% of the occupation forces and have control over virtually all of the political, military, and reconstruction operations by these other countries. By contrast, most of those who are calling for internationalizing the operations in Iraq are advocating placing Iraq under a United Nations trusteeship similar to that which guided East Timor to independence following the 1999 Indonesian withdrawal.

From the beginning, America has sought international support for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.

In reality, it was not a few nations, but an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations that opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Furthermore, public opinion polls show that even in countries whose governments did support the U.S. invasion, the majority of these countries’ populations opposed it. It is highly unlikely that there would be any opposition in the United Nations Security Council or anywhere else for the U.S. government to defend the security of our people. The invasion of Iraq, however, was not about defending the security of the American people but an illegal act of aggression, according to the United Nations Charter, which has been signed and ratified by the United States and virtually every country in the world.

As long as the Middle East remains a place of tyranny, despair, and anger, it will continue to produce men and movements that threaten the safety of America and our friends. So America is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the greater Middle East. We will challenge the enemies of reform, confront the allies of terror, and expect a higher standard from our friends.

The unfortunate reality is that the United States is not pursuing a strategy of freedom, but continues to be the primary military, financial, and diplomatic supporter of the majority of tyrannical regimes in the Middle East. The United States supplies the equipment and training for internal security forces for dictatorial governments in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Uzbekistan that crush popular movements for reform as well as providing the military equipment for occupation armies that suppress movements for national self-determination from Western Sahara to the West Bank.

Our aim is a democratic peace, a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will lead the cause of freedom.

No country has given more military and economic support to more dictatorships and occupation armies in the Middle East and in the world as a whole than has the United States . The monetary value of U.S. military aid to Middle Eastern countries is six times our economic aid. The top commercial export from the United States to the Middle East is not consumer items, high technology, or foodstuffs but armaments. Virtually all the recipients of such weaponry are governments that engage in gross and systematic human rights abuses. Unfortunately, U.S. policy has little to do with peace or freedom.

Perhaps even more disheartening than these misleading statements by President Bush during his State of the Union address is that, in their formal responses to Bush’s speech, Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle failed to challenge them other than a vague appeal for stronger diplomatic efforts. None of the analysts on the major networks challenged these misleading statements either. Meanwhile, the two Democratic presidential contenders who dominated the Iowa caucuses the previous evening were senators who have largely supported Bush administration policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, and elsewhere in the Middle East.

President Bush can get away with such misleading rhetoric because he knows the mainstream media and the Democratic Party will allow him to do so. Unless the American public demands greater accountability from the news media and the Democratic Party leadership, George W. Bush will have four more opportunities to make similar State of the Union speeches.

http://www.fpif.info/fpiftxt/563