Focus on Iraq: Powell's UN speech dissected
By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, February 5, 2003
US media had suggested that Secretary of State Colin Powell was playing down what he would present to the UN Security Council about Iraq's alleged deceptions, weapons of mass destruction, and support for terrorism, so that when he made his revelations, they would have all the greater impact. Having heard Powell's presentation, it is now clear he was playing things down because his hand was in fact so weak. Powell's multi-media presentation was a rag-bag of old allegations, which the United States has been making for years, some of them based on information Iraq has itself provided to UN inspectors. Other claims were based on audio recordings and satellite images, and still more were based on unverifiable claims from unidentified human witnesses and "defectors." Powell all but admitted the weakness of his case by continually saying "these are facts, not assertions," at moments when he was providing the most sensational yet least supported claims. He also resorted to the comic book tactic of calling Saddam Hussein an "evil genius" for having succeeded in hiding what the US says is a vast arsenal, not only from UN inspectors, but from the world's only super power. Let's look more closely at some of the "new" elements in the American case for an immediate attack on Iraq.

Don't let the facts get in the way
By Ronan Bennett and Alice Perman, The Guardian, February 6, 2003
Given its history, US intelligence should come with a health warning -- Colin Powell certainly raised questions for the Iraqis to answer at the UN yesterday. But before anyone gets carried away there are equally important questions to ask of US intelligence. We know from experience that politicians about to go to war are not above manipulating information to heat up public opinion. They have manufactured international incidents - the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin "clash", for example, which President Johnson used to deceive the Senate into giving him a declaration of war against North Vietnam. They can be the simple peddling of "evil Hun" stories, as with the discredited accounts of Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators. History has revealed the truth about such episodes, but too late. On the few occasions we are allowed sufficient facts to form an independent assessment, the intelligence on offer is rarely persuasive. We were told, for example, of FBI intelligence linking Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian-born pilot living in Britain, to the September 11 hijackers. Raissi was arrested in September 2001 and sent to Belmarsh to wait extradition proceedings. To support its case, the FBI claimed to have video evidence of Raissi with Hani Hanjour (who flew into the Pentagon) flying together in America. Incontrovertible evidence, except that defence lawyers demonstrated the "video" to be a webcam picture of Raissi and his cousin taken in Colnbrook. Raissi spent five months as a maximum security prisoner before being released.

Waiting for the missiles in Baghdad
By Norman Solomon, Arab News, February 6, 2003
BAGHDAD — Picture yourself as an American reporter here in the Iraqi capital. You’re based in one of the fraying rooms at the Al-Rashid, the large hotel where most Western journalists stay. There’s plenty to cover, but the obstacles are daunting. Iraq’s government often makes things difficult: “Minders” accompany you. Interviews with top officials are hard to obtain. Sometimes international calls can’t get through. Editors back home want you to be a bit ahead of the US media curve — but not too far out on a limb. Your stories are supposed to be ahead of the pack but not out of step. The winter weather is unseasonably mild under blue sky. But the scene is grim. By now, even the most optimistic souls can’t quite believe their own denial. Nothing is certain, but one specter is close: The missiles are coming. Probably within a few weeks. Fear is in the air. And a sense of doom has fallen over the city like a smothering blanket. But there’s little time to dwell on, or even acknowledge, such emotions. Staying busy seems to push back the dread.

Powell shoots to kill
Editorial, The Guardian, February 6, 2003
But battle over Iraq is far from finished -- Colin Powell turned the UN security council into a firing range yesterday and aimed his best shots at Saddam Hussein. Some of them undoubtedly hit the target. Mr Powell's keenly anticipated presentation of US evidence of Iraqi non-compliance with UN disarmament demands contained no "killer facts" or definitive proof of the kind that would render continued inspections or further diplomacy redundant. This was not the dread moment that war became inevitable. As the French foreign minister was quick to point out, there remain other ways of defusing this crisis. But the US secretary of state did provide persuasive, disturbing information suggesting that Iraq's efforts to circumvent the inspections are well-planned, thorough and centrally directed and as such constitute an unacceptable defiance of the UN's will.

With friends like these ...
By Paul Foot, The Guardian, February 5, 2003
Every day the yawning gaps in the arguments for war in Iraq grow wider still and wider. Into the intellectual breach rushes a new organisation, the LWL, the Leftist Warmongers League. The principles of the LWL are quite simple.
The regime of Saddam Hussein is a monstrous tyranny, and should be toppled. The only way to topple it is by armed invasion by the US, Britain and anyone else who will join in. Anyone who opposes such an invasion is a friend of Saddam Hussein and an enemy of the Iraqi people. No one in the anti-war movement opposes the first proposition. Indeed, many of us who were active in the 1980s were constantly shouting and demonstrating against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and denouncing the governments, chiefly in the US and Britain, who were propping him up and arming him. But what of proposition two? What about the cost and the unspeakable loss of life and limb in Iraq that will result from even the shortest war? Intelligence agencies in Britain and America estimate a minimum of 100,000 Iraqi deaths, and a minimum cost to Britain alone of £3.5bn. This shocking price appears to be acceptable to the LWL. But what will the Iraqi people get for it? What evidence is there anywhere in the world that a regime imposed by the armed forces of the US will be democratic or even progressive? In 1953, for instance, in Iran, in the same region, the US engineered a coup that dispensed with the elected prime minister and eventually imposed a monarchical dictatorship every bit as monstrous and cruel as that of Saddam Hussein. In every corner of the globe, US coups, assassinations or invasions or a combination of these have led to, or succoured, dictators - Duvalier, Trujillo, Pinochet, Suharto, Mobutu. All these and many others have unleashed the most frightful oppression especially on the workers and the poor.

Powell’s Dubious Case for War 
By Phyllis Bennis, Common Dreams, February 6, 2003
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5 wasn't likely to win over anyone not already on his side. He ignored the crucial fact that in the past several days (in Sunday's New York Times and in his February 4th briefing of UN journalists) Hans Blix denied key components of Powell's claims. Blix, who directs the UN inspection team in Iraq, said the UNMOVIC inspectors have seen "no evidence" of mobile biological weapons labs, have "no persuasive indications" of Iraq-al Qaeda links, and no evidence of Iraq hiding and moving material used for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) either outside or inside Iraq. Dr. Blix also said there was no evidence of Iraq sending scientists out of the country, of Iraqi intelligence agents posing as scientists, of UNMOVIC conversations being monitored, or of UNMOVIC being penetrated. Further, CIA and FBI officials still believe the Bush administration is "exaggerating" information to make their political case for war. Regarding the alleged Iraqi link with al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence officials told the New York Times, "we just don't think it's there."

You wanted to believe him – but it was like something out of Beckett
By Robert Fisk. The Independent, February 6, 2003
Sources, foreign intelligence sources, "our sources," defectors, sources, sources, sources. Colin Powell's terror talk to the United Nations Security Council yesterday sounded like one of those government-inspired reports on the front page of The New York Times – where it will most certainly be treated with due reverence in this morning's edition. It was a bit like heating up old soup. Haven't we heard most of this stuff before? Should one trust the man? General Powell, I mean, not Saddam. Certainly we don't trust Saddam but Secretary of State Powell's presentation was a mixture of awesomely funny recordings of Iraqi Republican Guard telephone intercepts à la Samuel Beckett that just might have been some terrifying little proof that Saddam really is conning the UN inspectors again, and some ancient material on the Monster of Baghdad's all too well known record of beastliness. I am still waiting to hear the Arabic for the State Department's translation of "Okay Buddy" – "Consider it done, Sir" – this from the Republican Guard's "Captain Ibrahim", for heaven's sake – and some dinky illustrations of mobile bio-labs whose lorries and railway trucks were in such perfect condition that they suggested the Pentagon didn't have much idea of the dilapidated state of Saddam's army.

Mr. Powell, You’re No Adlai Stevenson 
By Stephen Zunes, Common Dreams, February 6, 2003 
Already, pundits are comparing Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech at the United Nations to the dramatic presentation in 1962 by U.S. ambassador Adlai Stevenson before the same body. There, the former Illinois governor showed the world incontrovertible proof of Soviet efforts to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. Though not everyone agreed with the Kennedy Administration’s quarantine and brinkmanship, there was no dispute that the American allegations against the Soviets were valid and the threat was real. By contrast, despite 40 years in advances in surveillance technology, Powell was unable to emulate Stevenson’s historic challenge to the Soviet threat. Indeed, while it was an eloquent speech, Powell fell way short of proving that Iraq had anything that could seriously threaten the security of its neighbors, much less the United States. Evasiveness and paranoia by an isolated dictator does not a security threat make. One major problem was that most of Powell’s accusations were based upon the word of anonymous sources. Given the propensity of U.S. administrations of both parties to fabricate and exaggerate threats to justify previous foreign wars such as the alleged Gulf of Tonkin incident off the coast of Vietnam and the supposed “rescue” of American medical students in Grenada there is an understandable reluctance by many to blindly accept such accusations.

A time for testing, and a testing time
By Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz, February 6, 2003
The Washington Post published a surprising editorial last Friday, calling on President George W. Bush to put to the test Ariel Sharon's intentions and seriousness regarding the prime minister's attitude toward the president's vision of a Palestinian state. The editorial proposed that Bush condition the special aid to Israel and the loan guarantees on a total freeze of construction in the settlements. Meanwhile, a document circulated among congressmen by American Friends of Peace Now calls for conditioning the approval of the Israeli aid request on the dismantling of all the illegal outposts. The peace activists also proposed that Israel be required to allocate 20 percent of the loans to preparing housing for those settlers who will be evacuated from the territories in the wake of a peace agreement. There were no signs of an earthquake in Washington as a result of these two incidents. Any sentence that does not include the words "Iraq" or "Saddam" goes right past Bush. His strategic advisors, on the other hand, are busy with scenarios for the day after the war in Iraq. The term "pressure to dismantle the settlements," however, does not appear in any of those scenarios.

An Israeli primer for Muslim rulers: How to make America love you
By Yusuf Agha, YellowTimes, February 4, 2003
(YellowTimes.org) – Alas, poor Musharraf! No matter what the Pakistani general does to please President Bush, he can't get the U.S. administration to reciprocate his amorous advances. A single phone call from General Powell and he turns his back on his Taliban allies. He surrenders his military bases to American forces. He allows FBI agents to roam the length of his country picking up Pakistani citizens at will. He arrests anyone with an Arabic accent and bundles him off to Guantanamo -- 440 to date, and counting. He extradites his citizens bypassing Pakistani law and courts. He rigs elections so he can keep the rapidly growing anti-American political forces out of government. And what does he get for his troubles? America adds Pakistan to its list of nations whose citizens are being considered a security risk: Hundreds of Pakistanis living in the U.S. are imprisoned; all Pakistanis entering the U.S. are to be fingerprinted like criminal suspects. But that's only the insult -- the added injury came when U.S. airplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a mosque/seminary in Pakistan and U.S. officials announced they will chase enemy fighters into Pakistani territory. The latest: American ambassadors to both India and Pakistan have been accusing Pakistan's Kashmir stance as "cross border" terrorism, attracting feeble murmurs of disapproval from the Foreign Office.