Home

Iraq Myths and Misinformation v1.2.2

from Iowans For Peace

This list is a compilation of responses to the common reasons given for war with Iraq, debunking many of the myths and misconceptions presented.

1. "Iraq kicked out the weapons inspectors"

False.
Inspector Richard Butler, believed to be acting on information from the US government about the planning of Operation Desert Fox, pulled out UNSCOM from Iraq without consulting the UN (the organization he was responsible to) shortly before the operation began, with the obvious knowledge that, since Desert Fox used targetting information aquired by the inspectors, they wouldn't be allowed back in. (1)

2. "Iraq broke international law by not allowing in the inspectors"

Misleading.
a) The US broke the exact same laws by sending in spies in with the weapons inspectors; even further, we used the targetting information gathered by the inspectors in Operation Desert Fox, ensuring the inspections process was thoroughly discredited and wouldn't be allowed back into Iraq. (2)
b) The US declared that successful weapons inspections would not lift the sanctions, in violation of the UN resolution; the US stated that they would not be lifted as long as Saddam was in power. (3)
c) Israel, as an example, has broken many resolutions by the UN, which the US has continually not enforced. (4)
d) The concept of responding to a breach of international law by breaking international law (by preemptive strikes without explicit UN authorization) is preposterous, not to mention puts us in the same boat as the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and Kaiser Wilhelm's start of WWI, both of which having far more plausible threats than our supposition on Iraq. (5)

Full writeup:
cursor.org

3. "Iraq gassed its own people"

Misleading.
a) After the US and the UN had already issued reports on Iraq's use of chemical weapons, president Ronald Reagan dispached his special Middle East envoy at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, in 1983, to reestablish relations with the country that were cut off in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. (6)
b) Virtually all of these attacks were targetted at Iran (who they were at war with) or PUK (the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a pro-Iranian rebel group). (7)
c) The most famous attack, against the town of Halabja, was done when Halabja had been occupied by PUK, who was effectively using the town's citizens as human shields. Saddam attacked through the human shields and then condemned the other side for using human shields in the first place (8). Sound familiar?
d) The attack was largely launched from US equipment that we sold them. (9). In fact, they still are assessed to have some, even after the Gulf War.(10).
e) After the attack, the US congress voted to suspend weapons sales to Iraq. Despite such moving arguments, such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell's plea, "We cannot be silent to genocide again" (in comparison to how we stayed silent during Hitler's genocide until Pearl Harbor forced us into the war), the White House defeated the resolution (11).
f) Concerning their bioweapons program, we gave them many of their starter cultures (12).

4. "Iraq tried to commit ethnic cleansing"

Misleading.
a) Again, this is another case of "With Our Support", since the Anfal campaign was conducted while the US was supplying Iraq with weapons (including biological and chemical, as mentioned before) and intelligence information. Check out the time period.(13)
b) We've supported, and still do support, many people who've tried to commit ethnic cleansing, amongst many other crimes. (See section 5)
c) As an example for (b), we supported Pol Pot during his murder of 1.6-1.7 million Cambodians and to this day refuse to even admit officially (although freely do off the record) Turkey's widely accepted genocide of 1.5 million Armenians (near a century ago, and we still don't say anything!). Compare this to the 50k-190k Kurds killed (again, with our support) in Anfal.(14)

5. "We have to save Iraq's people from Saddam, as he's been a brutal tyrant".

Misleading.
a) Supporting brutal tyrants has been an integral part of US history. Here's a few alphabetically by last name:

Colonel Hugo Banzer, Fulgencio Batista, Sir Hassanal Bolkiah, P. W. Botha, General Humberto Branco, Vinicio Cerezo, Chiang Kai-Shek, Roberto Suazo Cordova, Ngo Dinh Diem, General Samuel Doe, Francois & Jean Claude Duvalier, General Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, Hussan II, Ferdinand Marcos, Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, Mobutu Sese Seko, General Manuel Noriega, Turgut Ozal, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, George Papadopoulos, Park Chung Hee, General Augusto Pinochet, General Sitiveni Rabuka, General Efrain Rios Mont, Antionio De Oliveira Salazar, Halie Selassie, Ian Smith, Anastasio Somoza, Sr. and Jr., Alfredo Stroessner, General Suharto, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, General Jorge Rafael Videla, Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq. (15)

b) Present human rights violators with comparable per-capita records to Saddam Hussein include Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and many others. Per capita, our new Northern Alliance allies have far *worse* records than Saddam Hussein. For more details, check Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and their publicly available records. (16)
c) In general, the only thing the Iraqi people seem to hate more than they hate Saddam is the American government and military. (17)

6. "Iraq refuses to accept the return of weapons inspectors in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and no attack"

False.
Iraq has continually offered to allow the return of weapons inspectors in exchange for precisely those two conditions. Just recently, they accepted acceptors under all of the UN restrictions *without* even those two guarantees. The US has been, instead of gladly helping, working to stop the inspectors from getting into Iraq, so that we can pass our new, preposterously unacceptable resolution to enable us to attack Iraq anyways. (18)

7. "Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction"

Unlikely.
a) As negligible as this is (see #7), all available evidence to date has shown little to no development of weapons of mass destruction. As an example, Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq - a gulf-war veteran and Republican who voted for Bush, who resigned for what he considered not being allowed to inspect enough sites by the US government - has repeatedly testify that all available evidence, from not only the US but even Iraq's enemies such as Israel, shows no continued WMD development. Ritter is hardly the only one who was there making these claims. (19)
b) Iraq has done no measurable development of long-range delivery systems since the last Gulf. There has not been a single long-range ballistics missile test launch from Iraq during this time (20), and it is virtually impossible to do significant development on a missile program without this. If you doubt this, look at the rate of missile test failures from a similar tech country, Iran, who *has* been testing their missiles. (21)
c) If there was any evidence to these actions, why on earth would the Bush administration not present it to make their case for war? It has presented nothing but speculation thus far.
d) As Richard Butler, the former head of UNSCOM, stated, it's more than a little bit hypocritical to condemn a nation for developing a small number of WMD for "national security" when we develop thousands of times as many for the same reason; nor could Butler address the issue of why Israel is freely allowed to keep and develop many times as many WMD despite breech of security council resolutions. (22)
e) The only tangible piece of evidence offered by the Bush administration to support WMD development - the shipment of aluminum tubes supposedly to be used as gas centrifuge rotors - falls apart since the tubes are not suitable for welding. The IAEA disagrees as well with the Bush administration. (23) Is this all they have to offer? Before the Gulf War, in a brief period of time Iraq was caught importing many dozens of types of equiptment pieces with no doubt as to their use in WMD. Even then, it was very, very far from success. (24)

8. "If Saddam gets WMD, he won't hesitate to use it without prior provocation".

Unlikely.
It seems preposterous to assume that the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) applies to everyone in the world, from our western allies to leaders of unstable former Soviet republics who don't even know where all of their weapons are, everyone that is except Saddam Hussein (who has continually, throughout his whole life, shown if anything a concern only for himself). And no, using chemical weapons during wartime against a group that didn't have any (PUK, Iran) does not quality as "Mutually Assured Destruction", in the exact same way that "Mutually Assured Destruction" didn't apply to the United States when it bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Almost universally, however, weapons of mass destruction have been developed for deterrence. Did the Soviet Union use their nuclear weapons to bomb us as soon as they got them? What about our enemies, the Chinese? Did anyone?

9, "Iraq is dangerous to its neighbors"

False.
Iraq's neighbors have almost all expressed opposition to the attack. Most have much to lose from an attack, from dissent amongst their populace weaking their already tenuous rules, to, such as the case of Turkey, inciting of revolts amongst their own Kurdish populations. (25)


10. "War is good for the economy. It will help our situation out"

False.
War is effectively "putting money on your credit cards". War gives a temporary boost to the economy by spending the country into debt; it doesn't create money from nowhere, and it is far worse that most other spending-stimulus methods because what it produces is promptly destroyed (munitions, etc), vs. permanent infrastructure development. For example, in an 80 billion dollar war, you're stimulating the economy by putting in 80 billion dollars, for which the work it funds gets destroyed. For 80 billion dollars, however, you could stimulate the economy exactly the same by producing 80 billion dollars of things that are useful to the country - renewable energy power plants, education, health, etc - things that aren't wasted. In the first Gulf War, we started in a strong economy, had 80% of the war paid for by our allies, and still went into a depression afterwards. Now, we're in a teetering economy and have minimal allies in this conflict (and many nations with flatly stated opposition). The math isn't very hard on what will happen.

11. "Saddam uses his own people as human shields"

Misleading.
a) How does one hold a city without having troops inside a city? Can you hold a city, say, from 50 miles away? Of course not. If New York was invaded and attempted to be siezed, would you *not* expect the US army to move in to try and prevent this?
b) The US classifies in war everything from police stations to government facilities to power to water to radio/television transmission of all types to fuel depots (including gas stations) to fuel tankers to buildings (including apartments) which house leaders at different levels to dams to... well, you get the picture. Using these criterea on our own country, picture what percentage of the city you live in would be hit, and how many civilians would be killed by the shrapnel, falling debris, etc. (26)
c) The US tends to make these accusations right after it shoots through the "shields". Think back - when was the last case you heard about where the US averted an attack because innocent people were there? Can you even think of one? How moral is this when such aversions are rarely done, in the name of "efficiency"? If civilian lives are worth nothing in the pursuit of the goal, then we're dangerously close to having the same level of morality as those who crash planes into skyscrapers and government buildings to strike at the US government.

12. "Iraq will give his weapons he develops to terrorists"

Unlikely.
a) Why would Saddam Hussein give weapons critical to his maintaining of power to groups he doesn't control? It would be lose-lose - any attacks they did would still be blamed on them by an administration eager to link Iraq to attacks, but they wouldn't be able to control their use for their own benefit (something a country that thinks it is going to be attacked would find critical). Furthermore, most of the groups we find dangerous want to set off a holy war between the arab world and the US. What a better way to start such a war than to attack the US with whatever supposed "weapon of mass destruction" he gave them, thus ensuring Saddam's destruction? (28)
b) In the few times in history where Saddam gave weapons to a group he didn't exert direct authority over, they were anything but WMD. (29)
c) Most fundamentalist groups oppose Saddam's secular state, in addition to many of his policies, including al-Qaeda. In fact, Osama bin Laden initially tried to rally the Saudis against Saddam, and even sent a letter to the Saudi royal family encouraging them to let him bring in his mujahadiin army against his forces. (30). Besides, paranoid dictators aren't famous for giving their best weapons (or any weapons at all) to groups who want to destroy them.
d) If this is in reference to the money he gives to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, you might also want to talk to allied countries like Saudi Arabia about their doing of the same thing (31). The Palestinian cause is a very popular one in the Arab world (this is beyond the scope of this FAQ); it is unreasonable to expect that arab countries won't support the Palestinians, and it's unreasonable to expect that the people of Iraq or the successive government won't continue to behave with the same sympathies that their entire region has. Do note the difference in the type of aid being considered, however, as the Palestinians most advanced weapons currently are homemade grenades and low-quality homemade rockets. (32) Compare that to Israel's weaponry (33).
e) If this is in reference to Iraq's supposed assassination attempt of President George H. W. Bush, please realize that that case hinged entirely on how much you trust confessions from a country that had a vested interest in promoting discord between the US and Iraq, and uses torture on prisoners, with one of the accused even showing up for trial with fresh marks across his body. (34)

13. "Iraq supported the Sept. 11th attacks"

False.
The only piece of evidence that supposedly tied Iraq to the attacks has since been denied by the Czechs (who provided the information) and the CIA, as a misidentification (the CIA places him in the US at the time). Even if the US hadn't dismissed the supposed "leaving his terror cell to go to Prague for a bit then coming back" and the Czechs hadn't denied it, the entire case was based on 1 person who, after seing a picture of Atta, decided that the picture looked like someone he saw meeting with al-Ani. That's *it*.(35). Any further evidence that might exist has not been presented to the American public - seemingly a highly improbable thing from an administration trying to make the case for an attack. Likewise, the method the anthrax was aerosolized, of the three known methods (the method used by the US, the method used by the former Soviet Union, and the method used by Iraq) has been determined to be the method used by the US, and the strain determined to be the Ames strain (named after Ames, IA where it was developed). (36)

14. "Who cares, the new resolution gives us the right to attack Iraq at will"

False.
a) Do you remember why France and Russia were taking so long before agreeing to sign it (despite the intense pressure of a country with near half of the world's total military spending and an economy about the size of all of Europe combined behind it)? It was specificly to remove triggers that would allow the US to decide if it felt that Iraq was in violation and could attack at will. (37). There is no reason to believe that they would have changed their stance.
b) The resolution we tried to force apon Iraq was completely unreasonable - something that no nation could ever reasonably be expected to allow. France and Russia managed to get it softened, thankfully. Note now that the resolution itself (referenced) explicitly requires the security council to reconvene to decide a course of action, and does *not* authorize war in any way. (38)

References

I supply just a few references available from a quick search of the internet; I searched in each case until I got bored or didn't see fit to search any more. Even the most simplistic of searches of news sites will yield many more articles. The past is the past, and it does not change, short of an Orwellian Memory Hole. Seek the truth for yourself if I have not provided enough references in each case to satiate your curiosity - you'll be surprised at what you find.

1 & 2)

3) 4) 5) 6) 7 & 8) 9) 10)
  • Jane's Intelligence Review: Jan, 2002: "Iraq retains ability to quell revolts".
11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20) 21)
  • Federation of American Scientists: Iranian missiles (Read the individual reports and linked intelligence analyses from various US governmental and non-governmental sources)
22) 23) 24) 25) 26 & 27)
  • As just one example, the war on Afghanistan. An article analyzing targets from the war in Afghanistan with 89 references in the summary alone is available - "Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan". This documents many, many cases, but if not sufficient, please email me at daystar_setting@myself.com and I will gladly provide many more.
28)
  • President Bush's "Brink Of War" letter to Saddam Hussein, presented by Secretary Of State James Baker to Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva, January 9, 1991. Also, interview with H. Martin Lancaster, Special Advisor to the President and the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Washington, October 2, 1995; Bob Woodward, The Commanders, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Referenced in: (Air Force),  (Army)
  • I don't think a reference needs to be given on the matter that Iraq, while having such WMD, did not use them in the Gulf War.
29) 30) 31) 32) 33) 34) 35 & 36) 37) 38) Contact Karen Pease with any questions or comments.

The original web page has been reformatted for improved legibility and some dead links have been updated. Check the original web page for a slightly later version. The Iowans for Peace web site has since been redesigned and the url has changed from www.iowansforpeace.org to www.iowansforpeace.net.
Text version for printing.

For more articles and links on related topics see
Iraq/General