The big lie

Opinion

More and more each day, the lies and deception spewed from the mouths of George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Richard Cheney, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Foreign Minister Jack Straw are now coming back to haunt them.

Wolfowitz, in an interview in July’s Vanity Fair, stated, “the Bush administration focused on alleged WMDs as the primary justification for toppling the Iraqi regime because it was politically convenient.” He continued, “For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”

This rogues gallery of criminals who have deceived the American and British people are now making up new lies. Rumsfeld says that Iraq probably destroyed all WMDs before the invasion. Powell keeps insisting on repeating the lie that Iraq is a big country and that these weapons will be found. Rice practically swore on the Bible in every possible TV appearance that “we know that Iraq has those weapons.”

These claims of WMDs by high-ranking officials presented a false bill of goods before the United Nations and the entire world. And to this very day they have not been called before the U.S. Congress or the British Parliament charged with crimes against humanity. Yet, there is ample evidence to bring them before a court of justice.

U.S. and World Report reports that the first draft of Powell’s speech to the UN was prepared by Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, in late January. In this draft, he wanted to include that Iraq had purchased special computer software that would allow it to plan an attack on the United States. This was even too much for Powell, according to the report. Powell threw those pages of the inserted material in the air and shouted, “I’m not reading this, this is bull.” As it stood, the magazine stated that the CIA did not support the allegations in Powell’s report to the UN.

Now with the invasion and the conquest of Iraq, it turns out that the millions of people in the world who demanded “no blood for oil” were right. Oil was the reason for the conquest of Iraq. Cheney’s firm, Halliburton, is now in charge of those oil wells.

American and British troops were killed in this war, as were thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. This information provides more proof that the Bush and Blair administrations are guilty of violations of international law and should be brought before the World Court. They should be considered as much a bunch of criminals as if they had robbed all the gold from Fort Knox.

John Gilman is a peace and solidarity activist from Wisconsin and can be reached at johngilman@aol.com