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© 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

18
September 2002 09:35 BDST

Home   > Argument  > Commentators

Robert Fisk: President Bush wants war, not justice - and he'll
soon find another excuse for it

Saddam Hussein's own cynicism - for he could have given UN
inspectors free rein years ago - will be matched by Mr Bush's

18 September 2002

Internal links

UN
split over Iraqi weapons offer

Saddam
again shows ability to throw sand in face of the UN

Arab
countries welcome Iraq's 'positive step'

Yemeni
'linked to Pearl killing' suspect

Inspectors
face a daunting task if they are allowed in

'Sooner
or later we're going to be attacked'

US
builds up forces for winter campaign

Leading
article: Saddam's offer should be accepted

Robert
Fisk: President Bush wants war, not justice

Michael
Brown: Now even the Tories want to give peace a chance

You've got to hand it to Saddam. In one brisk, neat letter to
Kofi Annan, he pulled the rug from right under George Bush's feet.
There was the American president last week, playing the role of
multilateralist, warning the world that Iraq had one last chance –
through the UN – to avoid Armageddon. "If the Iraqi regime wishes
peace," he told us all in the General Assembly, "it will immediately
and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all
weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related
material." And that, of course, is the point. Saddam would do
everything he could to avoid war. President Bush was doing
everything he could to avoid peace. And now the Iraqi regime has put
the Americans into a corner. The arms inspectors are welcome back in
Iraq. No conditions. Just as the Americans asked.

No wonder the United States was whingeing on about "false hopes"
yesterday. No wonder the Americans were searching desperately for
another casus belli – be sure that they will find one – in an
attempt to make sure that their next war keeps to its timetable. Be
sure, too, that Saddam, that master of the post-agreement
conditional clause, will have a few surprises for the UN inspectors
when they do turn up in Baghdad. Will the UN boys be allowed to
visit the Beast of Baghdad's palaces? Will they be waved through all
checkpoints when they want to visit Tuwaitha or any of the other
horror factories in which the Iraqis once cooked up their biological
weapons?

But for now, the Americans have been sandbagged. It will take at
least 25 days to put the UN inspection team together, another 60 for
their preliminary assessment – always assuming they are given
"unfettered" access to all Iraqi government facilities -- then
another 60 days for further inspections. In other words, George
Bush's latest war has been delayed by more than five months. Saddam,
of course, must have his own worries. Back in 1996, the Iraqis were
already accusing the UN inspectorate of working with the
Israelis.

Major Scott Ritter, Iraq's nemesis-turned-saviour, was indeed –
as an inspector – regularly travelling to Tel Aviv to consult
Israeli intelligence. Then Saddam accused the UN inspectors of
working for the CIA. And he was right. The United States, it
emerged, was using the UN's Baghdad offices to bug Iraq's government
communications. And once the inspectors were withdrawn in 1998 and
the US and Britain launched "Operation Desert Fox", it turned out
that virtually every one of the bombing targets had been visited by
UN inspectors over the previous six months. Far from being an
inspectorate, the UN lads – though they didn't all know it – had
been acting as forward air controllers, drawing up an American hit
list rather than monitoring compliance with UN resolutions.

But a glance back at George Bush's UN speech last week shows that
a free inspection of Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass
destruction was just one of six conditions which Iraq would have to
meet if it "wishes peace". In other words, stand by for further UN
Security Council resolutions which Saddam will find far more
difficult to accept.

The other Bush demands, for example, included the "end of all
support for terrorism". Does this mean the UN will now be urged to
send inspectors to hunt for evidence inside Iraq for Saddam's
previous – or current – liaisons with guns-for-hire?

Then Bush demanded that Iraq "cease persecution of its civilian
population, including Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans and others".
Notwithstanding the inclusion of Turkomans – worthy of protection
indeed, though one wonders how they turned up on the Bush list –
does this mean that the UN could demand human rights monitors inside
Iraq? In reality, such a proposal would be both moral and highly
ethical, but America's Arab allies would profoundly hope that such
monitors are not also dispatched to Riyadh, Cairo, Amman and other
centres of gentle interrogation.

Yet even if Saddam was prepared to accede to all these demands
with a sincerity he has not shown in response to other UN
resolutions, the Americans have made clear that sanctions will only
be lifted – that Iraq's isolation will only end – with "regime
change". For Mr Bush's sudden passion for international adherence to
UN Security Council resolutions -- an enthusiasm which will not, of
course, extend to Israel's flouting of UN resolutions of equal
importance – is in reality a cynical manoeuvre to provide legitimacy
for Washington's planned invasion of Iraq.

My own suspicion is that the Americans may try for a war crimes
indictment against Saddam Hussein. Mr Bush's crocodile tears for the
victims of Saddam's secret police torturers – who were hard at work
when the president's father was maintaining warm relations with the
Iraqi monster – suggest that somebody in the administration is
playing with the idea of a war crimes trial. The tens of thousands
of Iraqis subject to "summary execution, and torture by beating,
burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape" could
provide the evidence for any war crimes prosecution. Indeed, when
the Americans sealed off northern Iraq in 1991 to provide a dubious
"safe haven" for the Kurds, they scooped up masses of Iraqi
government documents, flew them out of Dohuk in a fleet of Chinook
helicopters and squirrelled them away in Washington as evidence for
a possible future tribunal.

But even this idea has a hand grenade attached to it. Today, for
example – and you will look elsewhere in vain for any mention of
this – marks the 20th anniversary of the 1982 Sabra and Chatila
massacre, the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian civilians by Israel's
Phalangist militia allies, a bloodbath which Israel's own army
watched and noted – and did nothing about. Lawyers for the families
of the victims are even now appealing against a Belgian decision not
to allow Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon – then the defence
minister who was judged "personally responsible" by Israel's
commission of inquiry – to be tried for these mass murders.

If Saddam Hussein can be charged with war crimes – and he should
be – then why not Ariel Sharon? Why not Rifaat Assad, the brother of
the late president of Syria, whose Special Forces killed up to
20,000 Syrians in the rebellious city of Hama in 1982? Why not the
Algerian police officers who have routinely tortured and murdered
civilians in the country's dirty war against the "Islamist"
insurgency?

But justice is not what President Bush wants – unless it's a
useful way of putting America's enemies out of the way, of effecting
"regime change" or of providing a useful excuse for a military
invasion which will leave US oil companies – including Mr Bush's own
buddies – in control of one of the world's largest reserves of oil.
Saddam Hussein's own cynicism – for he could have given UN
inspectors free rein years ago – will be matched by Mr Bush's
cynicism. Saddam's letter to Mr Annan was a smart move, as
contemptuous as it was inevitable. Stand by, then, for an equally
contemptible response from President Bush.

Also from the Commentators section.
Andrew
Brown: At last, a theological row that's about theology
Richard
Askwith: Why you won't see me marching for my countryside
Stephen
Pollard: This is the worst way to protect the Third World
Clive
Anderson: The first rule for TV is, never let content get in the way
of a good title
Robert
Fisk: America's case for war is built on blindness, hypocrisy and
lies

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