War in Iraq

The Bush administration has listed a number of reasons for going to war with Iraq. The biggest and most common is that Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction, including biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Of course before his capture, Hussein has long claimed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction (CNN, 2.8.03). We clearly can't take Iraq's word for it. In Bush's declaration of war speech, he changed the long-standing reference to "weapons of mass destruction" to "weapons of mass murder" (AP, 3.19.03). Clearly "mass murder" and "mass destruction" are different things. The Columbine kids are mass murderers, but they surely didn't engage in mass destruction. Is this a conscience choice by the administration to cover their tails because the evidence doesn't support their old terminology? There is still, no proof whatsoever that Iraq ever had weapons of mass destruction, and there is still no justifying reason for the U.S. Military's invasion of the Middle Eastern country.

There is little evidence that Iraq had maintained any biological or chemical weapons. The biggest problem with the first two is that most biological and chemical weapons do not exist indefinitely, they have short life spans. And without large and easily recognizable facilities to store them, they die even quicker. Such facilities do not exist in Iraq (CounterPunch, 2.6.03).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Iraq has gotten around this problem by claiming that Iraq had mobile biological/chemical lab facilities and he used drawings of such facilities based in trucks to prove that Iraq might have the capability to hide such weapons. Cheif U.N. Weapons inspector Blix rejected the idea that Iraq has mobile biological weapons labs, stating that no evidence of such labs had ever been found.

Powell also mentioned a large amount of anthrax produced by Iraq before the gulf war. If this is the case, this anthrax produced could not still be as potent unless stored properly, which there is no evidence to support that it was (Taprock, 2.16.03). Powell also claimed that Hussein had the ability to produce smallpox virus. This means that either he was able to keep some from the early 1970s, which was the last time smallpox existed in Iraq according to my research, or that Iraq got smallpox somehow from the U.S. or Russia, the only countries to have the virus. There is no evidence that any of this has happened. (Taprock, 2.16.03)

The evidence for nuclear weapons is and was very weak.

Another claim that the administration has tried to make is between Iraq and terrorism, specifically al-Qaeda. The administration makes a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq because a member of al-Qaeda had some relationship with terrorist training camps in Northern Iraq. This is crazy to believe since the area of Northern Iraq in question was under the control of the Kurds and is completely outside the influence of Saddam Hussein or the Iraqi government (CounterPunch, 2.6.03). There is very little evidence than any members of al-Qaeda have been in areas of Iraq that are under Saddam Hussein's control.

One of the biggest reasons not to have invaded Iraq is the fact that the invasion will lead to a higher risk of terrorism against U.S. citizens and our allies. U.S. government officials have admitted to this. Al-Qaeda has already seen some growth in membership just from our talking about the war (GoMemphis, 3.16.03).

Another common excuse for the war with Iraq is that Hussein was not going through with his part of the deal with U.N. inspections. The Bush administration has argued that Iraq has done nothing to comply with disarmament or the U.N. resolutions. This is clearly not true. Hussein has definitely not complied fully, but he has, when pushed, done what he was told (AP, 2.7.03).

Iraq is painted as a threat to its neighbors, despite evidence that I believe shoots this down.. Despite U.S. claims that Iraq is a threat to its neighbors, the only country in the region that has ever feared of an Iraqi attack is Israel. Countries like Iran and Kuwait, who have fought wars with Iraq in recent years seem to have no fear of Iraqi attack (Alternet, 2.10.03). Despite U.S. claims that Hussein was an aggressor who wanted to invade other countries and was planning to use chemical or biological weapons on other countries, no such action has happened since 1990 and there is no evidence of any plans by Hussein to resort to such attacks (Alternet, 2.10.03). There is still no evidence that the Iraqis had the delivery methods to get the supposed weapons of mass destruction to even affect it's neighbors, much less American interests.

The U.N. weapons inspectors have found no missiles that could actually reach Israel or neighboring oil-producing countries (AP, 2.27.03). The U.S. claimed that Iraq was developing missiles that could go 600 miles - more than 6 times the allowable limit, but inspectors checked out the U.S.-provided intelligence and found out otherwise (AP, 2.27.03).

The U.S. has firmly claimed that Hussein gassed his own people, but leaves out the fact that the U.S. assisted in this, by providing intelligence and materials, and allowed it to happen (Alternet, 2.10.03). How convenient.

Inspections during the earlier years have proven to be successful. During the time since the first Gulf War, Hussein has destroyed most, if not all, of his illegal weapons. And inspectors have found weapons and forced them to be destroyed, such as the recent finding of empty chemical warheads on several occasions and the finding and destruction of missiles that had a range that went beyond what was allowable (CNN, 2.4.03) . Among the many successes of the inspectors, experts found illegal artillery shells and four containers of illegal mustard gas and destroyed them. The al-Samoud missiles that tested as exceeding the allowable distance were not even completed weapons. Just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, weapons inspectors were planning to end their inspections and move to a monitoring state. They had inspected everything they wanted to and had found very little

The Bush administration is arguing that somehow it has evidence of weapons violations that the inspectors, who are trained to find such weapons, have been unable to find. This is an insulting suggesting that the Bush administration knows more than the experts do. Of course we can all rely on recent history when Bush finally admitted that U.S. Intelligence was faulty to begin with. U.N. Weapons inspectors have regularly complained that the U.S. has provided them with bad intelligence, leading them on wild goose chases and wasting time and resources

The rest of the world opposes the war against Iraq. The U.S. and Israel are only two countries in the entire