Quotes

“There is not one of you who would dare write his honest opinion. The business of Journalism is now to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon and sell himself for his daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes, we are jumping jacks. They pull the strings; we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
– John Swainton, of the New York Times, at his retirement party in September 2000.
“Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.
“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”
– Teddy Roosevelt
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished – only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina ...”
– William Shirer, author, 1973
“...a cigarette recognized by eminent medical authorities for its advantages to the nose and throat”
– Philip Morris Official Comment 1939
“The media are a pitiful lot. They don't give us any history, they don't give us any analysis, they don't tell us anything. They don't raise the most basic questions: Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world by far? Who has used weapons of mass destruction more than any other nation? Who has killed more people in this world with weapons of mass destruction than any other nation? The answer: the United States.”
– Howard Zinn
“Perhaps, you have a responsibility to be informed, to know for yourself. To know the truth. And then, perhaps you must decide with your own conscience and your personal energy and your resources what you should do.”
– Isabel Allende, author
“Americans are the best entertained and the least informed people in the world.”
– Neil Postman
“As long as an economic system provides an acceptable degree of security, growing material wealth and opportunity for further increase for the next generation, the average American does not ask who is running things or what goals are being pursued.”
– Daniel R. Fusfeld, Friendly Fascism
“The most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the 'best' sources.”
– Walter Karp, Harpers magazine
“I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world – in the field of advertizing – and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours.”
– Soviet correspondent based five years in the U.S.
“The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first.... The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: "It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war.
Then the few will shout even louder.... Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it...
Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies...and each man will be glad of these lies and will study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will bye and bye convince himself that the war is just and he will thank God for a better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception.”
– Mark Twain – observing how wars that are at first seen as unnecessary by the mass of the people become converted into "just" wars
“The greatest threats to U.S. society are not coming from "terrorists" or "rogue nations" abroad. They are coming from the words and actions of elected officials here at home. Actions of the Department of Justice – emboldened by the USA-Patriot Act passed by Congress last fall – threaten to turn the U.S. into a permanent security state.
Likewise, the greatest threats to global peace – and to human development and security worldwide – are coming from U.S. policymakers carrying out their lawful duties.”
– Friends Committee on National Legislation
“To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.”
– Michael Parenti, author
“Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country, for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria.”
– Howard Zinn
“The U.S. ranks last among developed countries in the percentage of its GNP (0.11%) given in aid. On average, governments in the European Union contribute three times as much of their GNP (0.33%) in non-military foreign aid.”
– Friends Committee on National Legislation
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”
– Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Fascist Dictator of Italy
“You don't need a totalitarian dictatorship like Hitler's to get by with murder ... you can do it in a democracy as long as the Congress and the people Congress is supposed to represent don't give a damn?”
– William Shirer, author, 1973
“Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.”
– Arthur Miller, playwright
“It would be easy for us, if we do not learn to understand the world and appreciate the rights, privileges and duties of all other countries and peoples, to represent in our power the same danger to the world that Fascism did.”
– Ernest Hemingway
“The corporations of America today effectively oversee the Congress, and the regulatory agencies and indeed the presidency itself.”
– E.L. Doctorow, author
“We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism.”
– Robert Bowman, Vietnam Veteran, bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, FL.
“Patriotism itself – love of one's country and one's people – is a natural and reasonable human feeling. But patriotism which measures one's country by military superiority over all rivals regardless of consequence is irrational... There is surely a more rational form of patriotism that searches for excellence in social, economic and moral spheres rather than in weapon systems.”
– Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould, Rollback
“The goal of conservative rulers around the world, led by those who occupy the seats of power in Washington, is the systematic rollback of democratic gains, public services, and common living standards around the world.”
– Michael Parenti
“The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.”
– Emma Goldman, American anarchist and feminist, 1869-1940
“Far from being the terrorists of the world, the Islamic peoples have been its victims, principally the victims of U.S. fundamentalism, whose power, in all its forms-military, strategic, and economic-is the greatest source of terrorism on Earth.... People are neither still nor stupid. They see their independence compromised, their resources and land and the lives of their children taken away, and their accusing fingers increasingly point north: to the great enclaves of plunder and privilege. Inevitably, terror breeds terror and more fanaticism. But how patient the oppressed have been. Their distant voices of rage are now heard; the daily horrors in faraway brutalized places have at last come home.”
– John Pilger, author – Hidden Agendas
“There is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country where the police were allowed to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country where the government is entitled to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your e-mail communications; if we lived in a country where people could be held indefinitely based . . . on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, the government would probably discover and arrest more terrorists, or would-be terrorists.... But that wouldn't be a country in which we would want to live.”
– Senator Russ Feingold (Sen. Wisconsin)
“The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.”
– Michael Parenti
“The United States is no longer the nation its citizens once thought: a place, unlike most others in the world, free from censorship and thought police, where people can say what they want, when they want to, about their government... Until the citizens of this land aggressively defend their First Amendment rights of free speech, there is little hope that the march to censorship will be reversed. The survival of the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights is at stake.”
– Angus Mackenzie, Secrets – CIA's War at Home
“I believe the profligate waste of our resources on irrelevant weapons systems and the Asian economic meltdown, as well as the continuous trail of military 'accidents' and of terrorist attacks on American installations and embassies, are all portents of a twenty-first century crisis in America's empire, an empire based on the projection of military power to every corner of the world and on the use of American capital and markets to force global economic integration on our terms, at whatever costs to others.”
– Chalmers Johnson – Blowback
“America, like Britain before her, is now the great defender of the Status Quo. She has committed herself against revolution and radical change in the underdeveloped world because independent governments would destroy the world economic and political system, which assures the United States its disproportionate share of economic and political power ... America's preeminent wealth depends upon keeping things in the underdeveloped world much as they are, allowing change and modernization to proceed only in a controlled, orderly, and nonthreatening way.”
– Richard Barnet, Intervention and Revolution
“[True] liberty...means allowing people freely to say things you do not want to hear.”
– George Orwell
“In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the l990s it triumphed over democracy. ”
– David Korten, The Post-Corporate World
“The U.S. government leaders ... have created an idol, the military machine. They require the people of this country to sacrifice to this idol. Not only tax dollars, but the lives and futures of the nation's young people, the health of communities and society, and the well-being of natural resources and the environment are all offered up at the altar of military might.”
– Friends Committee on National Legislation
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.”
– Arundhati Roy, author
“Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congresses and presidents that it pays for in an arrangement where no one is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media.”
– Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
“The interests of the corporation state are to convert all the riches of the earth into dollars.”
– William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1969
“The illegal we can do right now; the unconstitutional will take a little longer.”
– Henry Kissinger
“Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished – only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina ...”
– William Shirer, author, 1973
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
– Benjamin Franklin, 1759
“The awful scenes of death and suffering we were witnessing on our television screens have been going on in other parts of the world for a long time, and only now can we begin to know what people have gone through, often as a result of our policies.”
– Howard Zinn, after the 9-11 WTC destruction in New York
“The American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government's policies, that are so hated.”
– Arundhati Roy, author
“The crimes of the U.S. throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless, and fully documented but nobody talks about them. ”
– Harold Pinter, playwrite
“Rogue states that are internally free – and the U.S. is at the outer limits in this respect – must rely on the willingness of the educated classes to produce accolades and tolerate or deny terrible crimes.”
– Noam Chomsky, Rogue States
“Leaders symbolize what the country stands for. As corruption becomes routine in Washington in both parties, it trickles down as a corrupting influence in everyone's lives... Democracy is the ultimate casualty, and the sapping of democratic life is the most serious contribution of corporate ascendancy to our spiritual decline. As democracy ebbs, Americans retreat into private cocoons, feeling helpless to make a difference... In a democracy, civic participation and the belief in one's ability to contribute to the common good is the most important guarantor of public morality. When that belief fades, so too does the vision of the common good itself.”
– Charles Derber, Corporation Nation
“The U. S. stands on the threshold of a permanent state of war and a permanent war economy.”
– Friends Committee on National Legislation
“Multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations view the exploitation of the world's sick and dying as a sacred duty to their shareholders.”
– John le Carré – author
“No form of government, once in power, can be trusted to limit its own ambition, to extend freedom and to wither away. This means that it is up to the citizenry, those outside of power, to engage in permanent combat with the state, short of violent, escalatory revolution, but beyond the gentility of the ballot-box, to insure justice, freedom and well being.”
– Howard Zinn, on the need for dissent and non-violent protest
“The greatest danger we have now is militarism in America. We have this huge, overpowering, unbelievably expensive military establishment... Seasoned U.S. Ieaders have warned against the threat of a huge military establishment to the liberty of our citizens. I fear that from this we are going to get even more militarism. That is, more and more functions-including domestic police functions-will be transferred from civilian institutions to the military, and the military will have ever greater authority in our society.”
– Chalmers Johnson, author – Blowback, In These Times magazine
“Freedom of the Press is meaningless if nobody asks a question.”
– Ani DiFranco, songwriter/singer, from her song Serpentine
“Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment ... People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers ... do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to.”
– William Blum, Rogue State
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
– John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and author
“Each party [Democratic and Republican] has assumed the mantle of fiscal responsibility while accusing the other of reckless spending. Yet both parties have proposed irresponsibly high levels of military spending at the expense of programs that meet the needs of society's most vulnerable members.”
– Friends Committee on National Legislation
“The corporation is not a person and it does not live. It is a lifeless bundle of legally protected financial rights and relationships brilliantly designed to serve money and its imperatives. It is money that flows in its veins, not blood. The corporation has neither soul nor conscience.”
– David Korten, The Post-Corporate World
“We now live in a state of permanent war – a global arms industry, apparently the largest single international business, must have its products used up so more can be sold. There must be profits for the capitalists and jobs for the proles... Are we not still in Caligula's Rome?”
– New Internationalist magazine
“In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena. In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times.”
– Robert W. McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy
“Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike.”
– William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1969
“Think for yourselves, do not uncritically accept what you are told, and do what you can to make the world a better place, particularly for those who suffer and are oppressed.”
– Noam Chomsky
“Our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people.”
– Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
“Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees – just as government has for its citizens.”
– Charles Derber, Corporation Nation
“If envy were the cause of terrorism, Beverly Hills [and] Fifth Avenue ... would have become targets long ago.”
– Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
“Political freedom has given way to guilt by association. Due process has given way to detention on the Attorney General's say-so. Public scrutiny has given way to secret detentions and secret trials. Equal protection under law has given way to ethnic profiling.”
– The Nation magazine – about how Sept.11 attack has allowed the government to take away Americans' civil liberties
“The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.”
– Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
“A properly functioning system of indoctrination has a variety of tasks. Its primary target are the "stupid and ignorant masses". They must be kept that way; marginalized, and isolated. Ideally, each person should be alone in front of the TV screen watching sports, soap operas, or comedies, deprived of organizational structures that permit individuals lacking resources to discover what they think and believe in, to engage in interaction with others, to formulate their own concerns and programs, and to act to realize them. This hapless multitude are the proper targets of the mass media and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions.”
– Noam Chomsky
“Our upside down welfare state is "socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor." The great welfare scandal of the age concerns the dole we give rich people.”
– William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1969
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. ”
– President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – on the threat to democracy by corporate power
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.”
– Gore Vidal, novelist and critic
“We pretend not to understand the linkages between our comfortable standard of living and the dictatorships we impose and protect through an international military presence.”
– Jerry Fresia, author of Toward an American Revolution
“If we'd been born where they were born and taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe.”
– A sign inside a church in Northern Ireland, explaining the origin of intolerance and hate
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
– Noam Chomsky
“Since 1945 this country ... has sought not the delicate balance of power but a position of commanding superiority in weapons technology, in the regulation of the international economy, and in the manipulation of the internal politics of other countries.”
– Richard Barnet, Intervention and Revolution
“The problem in defense is how far you can go [in military spending] without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.”
– President Dwight Eisenhower, 1953
“If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
– Howard Zinn, historian and author
“U.S. Ieaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a "favorable climate of investment" everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also ... by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalize each and every venture and the commission of war crimes. ”
– Edward Herman, political economist and author
“The United States supports right-wing dictatorships in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East ... because these are the rulers who have tied their personal political destiny to the fortunes of the American corporations in their countries... Revolutionary or nationalist leaders have radically different political constituencies and interests. For them creating "a good investment climate" for the United States and developing their own country are fundamentally conflicting goals. Therefore, the United States has a strong economic interest in keeping such men from coming to power or arranging for their removal if they do.”
– Richard Barnet, Intervention and Revolution
“Quite simply, there can be no popular sovereignty without a real belief in the value of government. If government does not assume and carry out public responsibilities, less accountable institutions such as the corporation will do the job in their own self-interest.”
– Charles Derber, Corporation Nation
“The United States is not only number one in military power but also in the effectiveness of its propaganda system.”
– Edward S. Herman, political economist and author
“If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realization that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented.”
– Tony Benn, British Labour Party Member of Parliament
“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
– Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, 1950
“If the public knew the truth, the war would end tomorrow. But they don't know and they can't know.”
– Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, to Manchester Guardian editor C.P. Scott, 1914
As quoted by Philip Knightly in his book 'The First Casualty: From the Crimea to Vietnam – Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth-maker.'
“The Pentagon recently justified its position on censorship by insisting:
'If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.'”
– from 'Military Blunders' – article by Geoffrey Regan in 'Night and Day' (Mail on Sunday supplement) 23rd January 2000
“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience…therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
– Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950
“When a long train of abuses and usurpations [...] evinces a design to reduce them [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.”
– Thomas Jefferson, US Declaration of Independence
“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

– Hermann Goerring
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”
– Julius Caesar
“What land has not seen Britain's crimson flag, the meteor of murder, but justice the plea?”
– Song lyric, anonymous, circa. 1820
“We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the oil which we require.”
– British Royal Commission, agreeing with Winston Churchill's policy towards Iraq, 1913 [quote unconfirmed]
“What we want to have in existence, what we ought to have been creating in this time is some administration with Arab institutions which we can safely leave while pulling the strings ourselves; something that won't cost very much, which the Labour government can swallow consistent with its principles, but under which our economic and political interests will be secure. [.....] If the French remain in Syria we shall have to avoid giving them the excuse of setting up a protectorate. If they go, or if we appear to be reactionary in Mesopotamia, there is always the risk that [King] Faisal will encourage the Americans to take over both, and it should be borne in mind that the Standard Oil company is very anxious to take over Iraq.”
– Sir Arthur Hirtzel, Head of the British government's 'India Office Political Department.' 1919 [quote unconfirmed]
“Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here, that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?”
– Former US President Woodrow Wilson, 1919
“[I advocate] using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes [and] against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment. [I do not understand] the squeamishness about the use of gas [...] We cannot in any circumstances acquiesce in the non-utilisation of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier.”
– Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State at the British War Office, authorising RAF Middle East Command to attack rebelling Iraqis with chemical weapons, 1919
“By no moral right may the ownership and control of the natural and material resources of a territory be regarded as the absolute monopoly of the people who happened to be settled there.”
– Philip Snowden, Labour Party Chancellor, 1921 [quote unconfirmed]
“Give responsibility for the control of Iraq to the Royal Air Force, thus recognising the ability of air power to maintain effective control of a mandated territory with the maximum economy in the deployment of forces.”
– Winston Churchill, Colonial Secretary of the British 'Middle East Department of the Colonial Office', speaking at the Cairo Conference, 1921
“The United States is the most powerful among the technically advanced countries in the world today. its influence on the shaping of international relations is absolutely incalculable. But America is a large country, and its people have so far not shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of disarmament occupies first place today.
This must be changed, if only in America's own interest. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round.”
– Albert Einstein, from an interview in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1921
“The efficiency of the truly national leader consists mainly of preventing the people's attention from becoming divided, and of always concentrating it on a single enemy.”
– Adolf Hitler, 'Mein Kampf' 1924
“Utter, boorish self-centred indifference to every living human struggle is the heart and soul of the imperialist psychology in the Labour [Party] aristocracy, looking on with contemptuous indifference to the curious, incomprehensible inferior races.”
– R. Palme Dutt, Labour Monthly, March 1927 [quote unconfirmed]
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country. [....] We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. [....] It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind [....] in its sum total, [propaganda] is regimenting the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers. [....] If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will, without their knowing it? [....] Ours must be a leadership democracy administered by the intelligent minority who know how to regiment and guide the masses.”
– Extracts from Edward Bernays' 'Propaganda', first published 1928
“First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”
– Pastor Martin Niemoller, who was arrested by the Nazis in 1937
“If war aims are stated which seem to be solely concerned with Anglo-American imperialism, they will offer little to people in the rest of the world. The interests of other peoples should be stressed. This would have a better propaganda effect.”
– Private memo from The Council of Foreign Relations to the US State Department, 1941 [quote unconfirmed]
“The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells.”
– John Flynn, 1944
“The government of the world must be entrusted to satisfied nations, who wished nothing more for themselves than what they had. If the world government were in the hands of the hungry nations, there would always be danger. But none of us had any reason to seek for anything more. The peace would be kept by peoples who lived in their own way and were not ambitious. Our power placed us above the rest. We were like rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations.”
– Winston Churchill, as cited by Noam Chomsky in 'Deterring Democracy'
“By hook or by crook the development of primary production of all sorts in the colonial territories and dependent areas in the Commonwealth and throughout the world is a life and death matter for the economy of this country.”
– John Strachey, Labour Party minister for Food, 1947 [quote unconfirmed]
“Our strategic and security interests throughout the world will be best safeguarded by the establishment in suitable spots of 'Police Stations', fully equipped to deal with emergencies within a large radius. Kuwait is one such spot from which Iraq, South Persia, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf could be controlled. It will be worthwhile to go to considerable trouble and expense to establish and man a 'Police Station' there.”
– British Foreign Office, policy memo, 1947 [quote unconfirmed]
“It is not Russian military power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power.”
– George Kennan, former Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, October 1947, echoing sentiments held by the majority of post war planners and elected officials
“We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. [....] We should cease to talk about such vague and – for the far East – unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and democratisation. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”
– George Kennan, former Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff, Document PPS23, 24th February 1948.
“I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.”
– Albert Einstein, 1947
“Guatemala has become an increasing threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador. its agrarian reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbours where similar conditions prevail.”
– Unidentified US State Department official, 1954, cited by Noam Chomsky in 'What Uncle Sam Really Wants'.
The US overthrew the Guatemalan government later that year, the first democratic government the country had ever had, and one that was actually modelled on Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal', and installed a brutal dictatorship, with attendant death squads, 'disappearances', mass torture and murder, which continue to this day.
“You have to pat them a little bit and make them think that you are fond of them.””
– John Foster Dulles, former US Secretary of State, describing to former President Eisenhower how to keep Latin Americans in line, as cited by Noam Chomsky in 'What Uncle Sam Really Wants' – quote is undated but in the context of the chapter, estimated as 1955
“The target suffered a terminal illness before a firing squad in Baghdad.”
– CIA officer testifying to US Senate hearing, after bloody CIA aided Ba'th Party coup overthrew Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Kassem, 1963
“It was an operation where all the t's were really crossed. It was a great victory.”
– James Critchfield, former head of the CIA's Middle East Desk, describing their involvement in the Ba'athist coup, 1963, quoted in 'Out of the Ashes' by Andrew and Patrick Cockburn
“Neither the foreign head of state (the Shah) nor the President nor Dr. Kissinger desired a victory for our clients (the Kurds). They merely hoped to ensure a level of hostilities high enough to sap the resources of the neighbouring state (Iraq). Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise.”
– US Congressional Pike Report, describing President Nixon and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's policy of arming the Kurds, 1972
“Covert operations should not be confused with missionary work.”
– Kissinger describing why US withdrew aid to the Kurds, 1975
“Strikes at population targets (per se) are likely not only to create a counterproductive wave of revulsion abroad and at home, but greatly to increase the risk of enlarging the war with China and the Soviet Union. Destruction of locks and dams, however – if handled right – might offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does not kill or drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after time to widespread starvation (more than a million) unless food is provided – which we could offer to do 'at the conference table'.”
– John McNaughton, US State Department Vietnam policy, as quoted in 'The Mentality of the Backroom Boys.' Article by Noam Chomsky, 1973
“They are using damage caused by [US} B-52 strikes as the main theme of their propaganda. This approach has resulted in the successful recruitment of a number of young men. Residents [....] say that the propaganda has been effective with refugees in areas which have been subject to B-52 strikes.”
– Report by the CIA's Directorate of Operations, describing how Pol Pot used the American bombing of Cambodia as a tool for recruiting people to the Khmer Rouge, May 2nd, 1973, as quoted by John Pilger in 'Heroes'
“The US must carry out some act somewhere in the world which shows its determination to continue to be a world power.”
– Henry Kissinger, post-Vietnam blues, as quoted in The Washington Post, April 1975
“In terms of the bilateral relations between the U.S. and Indonesia, we are more or less condoning the incursion into East Timor. The United States wants to keep its relations with Indonesia close and friendly. We regard Indonesia as a friendly, non-aligned nation – a nation we do a lot of business with.””
– Unidentified US State Department official, quoted in The Australian, 22nd January 1976. One third of the entire population of East Timor, 200,000, was murdered by the Indonesian army, a genocide comparable to, possibly worse, than Pol Pot's in Cambodia.
“A US commitment to the defence of the oil resources of the gulf, and to political stability in the region constitutes one of the most vital and enduring interests of the United States.”
– Conclusion of US Senator Henry Jackson's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, 1977
“Though they spoke of terrible human suffering, reality was sealed off by their trite, lifeless vernacular: 'capabilities', 'objectives', 'our chips', 'giveaway'. It was a matter, too, of culture and style. They spoke with the cool, deliberate detachment of men who believe the banishment of feeling renders them wise and, more important, credible to other men. [....] They neither understood the foreign policy they were dealing with, nor were deeply moved by the bloodshed and suffering they administered to their stereotypes.”
– Roger Morris, former US State Department staff member, describing Kissinger et al and their attitude to Vietnam and Cambodia, as quoted by John Pilger in 'Heroes'
“You have a survivability of command in control, survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, and you have a capability that inflicts more damage on the opposition than it can inflict on you. That's the way you can have a winner.”
– George Bush Sr., explaining how to win a nuclear war to Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Scheer, 1980
“To put it in terms of a Chinese dialectic, United States policy is exactly to squeeze Vietnam to rely on the Soviet Union: then Vietnam will find the Soviet Union can not meet all its needs. [....] If Vietnam suffers economic hardships, I think that is just great.”
– Roger Sullivan, US National Security Council, addressing a US delegation who had travelled to the White House with a petition requesting the US Government to allow humanitarian assistance to be sent to Vietnam, as quoted by Anthony Barrett, The New Statesman, August 22nd 1980
“It would not have been possible for a political party to be more committed to a national home for the Jews in Palestine than was Labour.”
– Harold Wilson, former British Labour Party Prime Minister, 1981
“The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent and labour power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen. […] There is none that disperses its control more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media – none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.”
– Howard Zinn, from 'A People's History of the United States,' first published 1981
“One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all.”
– Ronald Reagan, former US President, basking in the triumph that was the US invasion of Grenada, 1983
Q. “Mr. President, have you approved of covert activity to destablise the present government of Nicaragua?”
A. “Well, no, we're supporting them, the – oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm sorry, I was thinking of El Salvador, because of the previous, when you said Nicaragua. Here again, this is something upon which the national security interests, I just – I will not comment.”
– Ronald Reagan, former US President, Washington press conference, February 13th 1983, as quoted by John Pilger in 'Heroes'
“[George] Kennan applied the same ideas to Latin America in a briefing for Latin American ambassadors in which he explained that one of the main concerns of US policy is the: '…protection of our raw materials.'
Who must we protect our raw materials from? Well, primarily the domestic populations, the indigenous population, which may have ideas of their own about raising the living standards, democratisation and human rights. And that's inconsistent with maintaining the disparity. How will we protect our raw materials from the indigenous population. Well, the answer is the following:
'The final answer might be an unpleasant one, but…we should not hesitate before police repression by the local government. This is not shameful, since the communists are essentially traitors. It is better to have a strong regime in power than a liberal government if it is indulgent and relaxed and penetrated by Communists.'
Well, who are the communists? 'Communists' is a term regularly used in American political theology to refer to people who are committed to the belief that: 'the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the people.'
I'm quoting the words of a 1949 State Department intelligence report which warned about the spread of this grim and evil doctrine.”
– Noam Chomsky, 'Intervention in Vietnam and Central America: Parallels and Differences', 1st published 1985
“You Americans, you treat the Third World in the way an Iraqi peasant treats his new bride. Three days of honeymoon, and then it's off to the fields.”
– Saddam Hussein, at a 1985 meeting with US State Department officials, as later quoted in the Los Angeles Times, February 10th 1991
“After seeing 'RAMBO' last night, I know what to do the next time this happens.”
– Ronald Reagan, former US President, as reported by Daily Express, July 2nd 1985
“Pictures of dead children don't go down well in the US.”
– Unidentified US official, in an article describing the Reagan administration's support for the Contras in Nicaragua, specifically their request that the Contras refrain from using pressure-triggered mines that killed indiscriminately, Time Magazine, November 3rd 1986
“Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. [There is no] utopian, legalistic means like outside mediation, the United Nations, and the World Court, while ignoring the power element of the equation.”
– George Schultz, former US Secretary of State, April 14th 1986, as cited in 'Rogue States', article by Noam Chomsky, 1999
“One of the things we would like to do is that we would like to become actively engaged in ending the [Iran/Iraq] war in such a way that it becomes very evident to everybody that the guy who is causing the problem is Saddam Hussein. If I were to talk to any other Muslim leader, they wouldn't say Saddam Hussein is the problem. They'd say Iran is the problem……What we're talking about is a process by which all of the rest of the Arab world comes quickly to realise that Iran is not a threat to them, Iran is not going to overrun Kuwait. Iran is not going to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia. That the real problem in preventing peace in the region is Saddam Hussein. And we'll have to take care of that”.
– Colonel Oliver North, US Congressional Iran/Contra Hearings – 1987, North's personal tape of a conversation with Iran/Contra players Richard Secord, Albert Hakim and an Iranian government official in Frankfurt, 1985. North claimed in the hearings that he was lying to the Iranians.
“One of our few remaining hopes is that democrats and those who cherish values of justice, peace and freedom will voice their concern for the plight of the Kurds.”
– Kurdish Leaders in a letter to Margaret Thatcher following the gassing of Kurds at Halabja, 16th August 1988. A British �340 million export credit deal with Iraq went through on September 5th 1988.
“[Eastern Europeans are] luckier than Central Americans [because] while the Moscow-imposed government in Prague would degrade and huniliate reformers, the Washington-made government in Guatemala would kill them. It still does, in a virtual genocide that has taken more then 150,000 victims. [....] One is tempted to believe that some people in the White House worship Aztec Gods – with the offering of Central American blood.”
– Julio Godoy, former journalist for Guatemalan newspaper 'La Epoca', writing in 1989, the year after the paper's offices were blown up by government forces.
“Baghdad should not be expected to deliberately provoke military confrontations with anyone. Its interests are best served now and in the immediate future by peace. Revenues from oil sales could put it in the front ranks of nations economically. A stable Middle East is conducive to selling oil; disruption has a long-range adverse effect on the oil market which would hurt Iraq. Force is only likely if the Iraqis feel seriously threatened. It is our belief that Iraq is basically committed to a non aggressive strategy, and that it will, over the course of the next few years, considerably reduce the size of its military. Economic conditions practically mandate such action. There seems no doubt that Iraq would like to demobilise now that the war [with Iran] has ended. The Ba'ath Party argue that they should be allowed to invest in economic recovery and industrialisation so that they can become productive again and pay off their debts.”
– 'Iraqi Power and US Security in the Middle East', a study issued in February 1990 by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College
“Secure supplies of energy are essential to our prosperity and security. The concentration of 65 percent of the world's known oil reserves in the Persian Gulf means we must continue to ensure reliable access to competitively priced oil and a prompt, adequate response to any major oil supply disruption.”
– from 'National Security Strategy of the United States', White House publication, March 1990
“Aerosol DU (Depleted Uranium) exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects. [...] Under combat conditions, the most exposed individuals are probably ground troops that re-enter a battlefield following the exchange of armour-piercing munitions. [...] We are simply highlighting the potential for levels of DU exposure to military personnel during combat that would be unacceptable during peacetime operations. [...DU is..]... a low level alpha radiation emitter which is linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage. [...] Short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low doses have been linked to cancer. [...] Our conclusion regarding the health and environmental acceptability of DU penetrators assume both controlled use and the presence of excellent health physics management practices. Combat conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of DU. [...] The conditions of the battlefield, and the long term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic penetrators for military applications.”
– excerpts from the July 1990 Science and Applications International Corporation report: ' Kinetic Energy Penetrator Environment and Health Considerations', as included in Appendix D – US Army Armaments, Munitions and Chemical Command report: 'Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, July 1990'
These documents state clearly and equivocally that the US army was well aware of the radioactive and toxic dangers of Depleted Uranium ammunition long before the first shots of the war were fired.
“We do not have any defence treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defence or security commitments to Kuwait.”
– Margaret Tutweiller, US State Department spokeswoman, 24th July 1990, nine days before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait
“President Bush is an intelligent man. He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq. […] I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait. James Baker [US Secretary of State] has directed our official spokesmen to emphasise this instruction […] when we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are, in the final analysis, tantamount to military aggression against Iraq, then it is reasonable for me to be concerned.”
– April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, in conversation with Saddam Hussein, US State Department transcripts, 25th July 1990, eight days before the invasion
HAMILTON: “Do we have a commitment to our friends in the Gulf in the event that they are engaged in oil or territorial disputes with their neighbours?”
KELLY:“As I said, Mr. Chairman, we have no defence treaty relationships with any of the countries. We have historically avoided taking a position on border disputes or on internal OPEC deliberations, but we certainly, as have all administrations, resoundingly called for the peaceful settlement of disputes and differences in the area.”
HAMILTON: “If Iraq, for example, charged across the border into Kuwait, for whatever reason, what would be our position with regard to the use of US forces?”
KELLY:“That, Mr. Chairman, is a hypothetical or a contingency, the kind of which I can't get into. Suffice it to say, we would be extremely concerned, but I can not get into the realm of 'what if...' answers.”
HAMILTON: “In that circumstance, is it correct to say, however, that we do not have a treaty commitment which would obligate us to engage US forces?”
KELLY: “That is correct.”
– Question and answer session between US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs John Kelly and Representative Lee Hamilton, July 31st 1990, two days before the invasion. French researcher Pierre Salinger claimed in his 1991 book 'Secret Dossier – The Hidden Agenda behind the Gulf War' that this exchange was broadcast on the BBC World Service and heard in Iraq.
“Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take ALL of Kuwait.”
– April Glaspie, accidentally revealing US compicity, interview with The New York Times, 20th September 1990, seven weeks after the invasion
“Just watch. Everything…everything.”
– George Bush, in response to press enquiry if US enforcement of sanctions would include food and essentials, 14th August 1990
“We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country's government to delineate our common border. The CIA gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad co-operation should be initiated between us, on condition that such activities are co-ordinated at a high level.”
– Memo submitted by Iraq to the UN in late August 1990, after their invasion of Kuwait. Dated 22nd November 1989, it was a record of a meeting between William Webster, Director of the CIA, and Kuwaiti officials. The CIA disputed the memo's authenticity, but many experts have since vouched that it was genuine.
“That's a nice list of targets, but that's not enough. [...] [It is also important to target] ...what is unique about Iraqi culture, that they put very high value on, that psychologically would make an impact on the population and regime. [….] If push came to shove, the cutting edge would be downtown Baghdad. If I want to hurt you, it would be at home, not out in the woods someplace.”
– General Michael Dugan, US Airforce Chief of Staff , as quoted in The Washington Post, 15th September 1990. He was removed from his post shortly afterwards by US Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney, describing Dugan's comments as '...inappropriate...'
“We're dealing with Hitler revisited.””
– Former US President George Bush, describing Saddam Hussein, October 15th, 1990. Bush later retracted the statement under criticism that it belittled the Holocaust.
“That was the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast.”
– US Ambassador Pickering to Yemeni Ambassador Abdallah Saleh al-Ashtol, after Yemen voted against Resolution 678, 29th November 1990. The US $70 million aid package to Yemen was cancelled the following day. 900,000 Yemeni migrant workers were later expelled from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Yemen's economy was devastated as a result.
“We have only friendship for the people in Iraq.”
– George Bush, November 1990
“Every Iraqi soldier bleeding from every orifice.....”
– General Norman Schwarzkopf, describing his war aims, November 1990
“We didn't see anything to indicate an Iraqi force in Kuwait of even 20% the size the administration claimed.”
– Peter Zimmerman, formerly of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and an unidentified Defence Intelligence Agency analyst, examining Soviet Satellite photos of the allegedly huge Iraqi troop build up, article by Jean Heller 'Public doesn't get the picture with satellite photos', The St. Petersburg Times, 6th January 1991
“It is said by some that you do not understand just how isolated Iraq is and what Iraq faces as a result……but unless you withdraw from Kuwait completely and without condition, you will lose more than Kuwait……the choice is yours to make. What is at stake demands that no opportunity be lost to avoid a certain calamity for the people of Iraq [....] Iraq is already feeling the sanctions mandated by the UN. Should war come, it would be a far greater tragedy for you and your country [....] I write this letter not to threaten, but to inform.”
– George Bush's letter to Saddam Hussein, 9th January 1991
“I would like to tell you in all sincerity and seriousness that we would have no problems implementing legitimacy and the rules of justice and fairness if these principles were to be honoured with regard to all regional conflicts. [….] However, we do not want to see these principles implemented with regard to a single issue….this would mean double standards were at work. If you are willing to work to achieve peace, justice, stability and security in the whole region, then you would find us at the forefront of those willing to co-operate with you in this regard.”
– Tariq Aziz, Iraqi Foreign minister, in conversation with US Secretary of State James Baker in Geneva, 9th January 1991. Baker announced at the press conference afterwards: “The conclusion is clear. Saddam Hussein continues to reject a diplomatic solution.”
“If Kuwait grew carrots, we wouldn't give a damn.”
– Lawrence Korb, former US Assistant Secretary of Defence, January 1991
“I venture to say that if Kuwait produced bananas, instead of oil, we would not have 400,000 American troops there today.”
– US Congressman Stokes (Ohio), 12th January 1991
“[Bombing missions were a] turkey shoot…it's almost like you flipped on the light in the kitchen at night and the cockroaches start scurrying, and we're killing them.”
– US Pilot Colonel Richard White, quoted in The Independent, 6th February 1991
“It wasn't really a war. A war is when TWO armies are fighting.”
– Bill Hicks, American comedian, from the album 'RELENTLESS', released in 1992
“It's a paradox that the UN, who authorised the use of force in the Gulf, are totally unable to stop it.”
The American military machine is in full flood....diplomacy has gone out of the window. The Americans have got the ability, with the British, to drag this out at the United Nations. They've got the ability to interpret United Nations Resolutions as they want, until they are satisfied that they have destroyed the Iraqi military machine. And it's quite clear, from talking to UN delegates here that that's absolutely what they intend to do.”
I'm up at the United Nations at the moment, which is due to go into session fifteen minutes ago and hasn't. Quite frankly the United Nations doesn't matter anymore. Somebody said to me a couple of hours ago, perhaps they should sell the building for the time being to the Japanese, and they can turn it into a pizza parlour. And they were serious.”
– Keith Graves, UN correspondent for the BBC, three separate reports for BBC television news, February 27th-29th 1991
“There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no-one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus be deleted from the arsenal. I believe we should keep this sensitive issue in mind when action reports are written.”
– Lt. Col. M.V. Ziehmn, Los Alamos National Laboratory memorandum, 1st March 1991
“Political meetings with them would not be appropriate for our policy at this time.”
– Richard Boucher, US State Department spokesman, 14th March 1991, in reference to the US refusal to even meet with the Iraqi democratic opposition leaders whilst the Iraqi rebellion was brutally crushed in the South of the country
“This is a new kind of war which understands and takes advantage of technological advances. The situation is deteriorating rapidly and it will get worse in the months ahead.”
– Save The Children 'Iraq Situation Report,' March 1991
“You asked me to travel, as a matter of urgency, to Iraq. It should be said at once that nothing we had seen or read had quite prepared us for this particular form of devastation which has now befallen the country. [...] Most means of modern life have been destroyed. [...] The authorities are as yet scarcely able to measure the dimensions of the calamity, much less respond to its consequences. The recent conflict has wrought near apocalyptic results; Iraq has been relegated to a pre-industrial age.
All electrically operated installations have ceased to function. Food can not be preserved, water can not be purified, sewage can not be pumped away. Nine thousand homes are destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The flow of food through the private sector has been reduced to a trickle; many food prices are already beyond the purchasing power of most Iraqi families. The mission recommends that sanctions in respect of food supplies should be immediately removed.
Drastic international measures are most urgent. The Iraqi people face further catastrophe, epidemic and famine, if massive life supporting needs are not met. The long summer is only weeks away. Time is short.”
– Martti Ahtisaari, UN Under Secretary for Administration and Management, March 20th 1991. Ahtisaari was the first UN official to visit post-war Iraq.
“The time of reconstruction and recovery should not be the occasion for vengeful actions against a nation forced to war as a result of a dictator's ambition.”
– James Baker, US Secretary of State, addressing US Congress, March 1991
“That's not really a number I'm terribly interested in.”
– General Colin Powell, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on being asked his assessment of Iraqi military and civilian casualties, April 1991
“In every city we visited, we documented severe damage to homes, electrical plants, fuel storage facilities, civilian factories, hospitals, churches, civilian airports, vehicles, transportation facilities, food storage and food testing laboratories, grain silos, animal vaccination centres, schools, communication towers, civilian government office buildings, and stores. Almost all facilities we saw had been bombed two or three times, ensuring that they could not be repaired. Most of the bridges we saw had been bombed from both ends.”
– Adeeb Abed and Gavrielle Gemma, Independent Commission of Inquiry staff members, fact find finding trip to Iraq, April 3rd-14th 1991
“All possible sanctions will be maintained until Saddam Hussein is gone.”
– Marlin Fitzwater, White House Press Spokesman, May 1991
“Iraqis will be made to pay the price while Saddam Hussein is in power. Any easing of sanctions will be considered only when there is a new government.”
– Robert Gates, US National Security Advisor, Los Angeles Times, 9th May 1991
“[Britain will veto any UN attempt to weaken sanctions] for so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power.”
– John Major, British Prime Minister, 10th May 1991
“Gulf lesson one is the value of air power...[....]...it was right on target from day one. The Gulf war taught us that we must retain combat superiority in the skies. [....] Our air strikes were the most effective, yet humane, in the history of warfare.”
– George Bush, 29th May 1991
“Many of the targets were chosen only secondarily to contribute to the military defeat of Iraq. [...] Military planners hoped the bombing would amplify the economic and psychological impact of international sanctions on Iraqi society. [....] Because of these goals, damage to civilian structures and interests, invariably described by briefers during the war as 'collateral' and unintended, were sometimes neither. [....] They deliberately did great harm to Iraq's ability to support itself as an industrial society.”
– from 'Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq; Officials Acknowledge Strategy Went Beyond Purely Military Targets' Article by Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, 23rd June 1991
“Saddam Hussein cannot restore his own electricity. He needs help. If there are political objectives that the UN coalition has, it can say: 'Saddam, when you agree to do these things, we will allow people to come in and fix your electricity.' It gives us long-term leverage.”
– US Colonel John A. Warden III, as quoted in Gellman's article, The Washington Post, 23rd June 1991
“What were we trying to do with the sanctions? Help out the Iraqi people? No, what we were doing with the attacks on the infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of sanctions.”
– Unidentified Pentagon planner, as quoted in Gellman's article, The Washington Post, 23rd June 1991
“There is a clear and undeniable humanitarian need in Iraq. It is absurd and indefensible for the UN to pay for these needs when numerous other urgent crises and disasters, from Bangladesh to the Horn of Africa, cry out for our attention. Iraq has considerable oil reserves and should pay to meet these needs itself.”
– UN field study of water and sanitation, food, health and energy; submitted by the Secretary General to the Sanctions Committee, 22nd July 1991
“Sooner or later, Mr. Bush argued, sanctions would force Mr. Hussein's generals to bring him down, and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein. [A return to the days when Saddam's] iron fist held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.”
– Thomas Friedman, article in The New York Times, July 1991. Two years later, in a rare moment of brutal honesty, Friedman wrote : “It has always been American policy that the iron-fisted Mr. Hussein plays a useful role in holding Iraq together.”
“[Iraq is like a medieval city under siege]….cut off from outside assistance; its population deprived of adequate food, water, medical care and the means to produce for its subsistence, is condemned to perish. It is only a matter of time.”
– Warren J. Hamerman, International Progress Organisation, in testimony before the UN Organisation on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities' 43^rd session, 13th August 1991
“Unless sanctions are eased quickly, Iraq will face malnutrition, disease and a food emergency unprecedented in modern times.”
– Michael Priestly, UN official, quoted in The Independent, 3rd September 1991
“Is it your aim to destroy Iraqi industry or implement resolution 687? If your aim is to carry out 687, then you have our approval. But if your objective is to annihilate Iraqi industry and deny Iraq the chance of becoming a prosperous industrial country, that would be a different matter.”
– Tariq Aziz, Deputy Iraqi Prime Minster, statement published in Baghdad newspapers in response to continued US threats of new attacks if Iraq fails to comply with weapons disclosure, October 1991
“In the most lackadaisical and morally laid back way, we are killing people…..small, brown children beyond the reach of our shrivelled imaginations.”
– Edward Pearce, Journalist, article in 'The Guardian' entitled 'Death and Indecency in a time of Cholera,' 25th October 1991
“Millions of innocent people are suffering and that is intolerable. They are the last in the nutcracker. They have not been able to influence events, but my God they are being squeezed. […] There is no way the infrastructural problems can be solved by the agencies alone.”
– Lord Judd, director of OXFAM, 20th November 1991
“The US has always regarded international laws as an annoying encumbrance, unless they can be used to advantage against an enemy.”
– Professor Noam Chomsky, Author, 'Deterring Democracy' 1991
“What has been destroyed is through the peaceful means of inspection. It is that way to destroy weapons, and not through bombing and attacks.”
– Rolf Ekeus, UNSCOM Weapons Inspectors Chairman, March 1992
“[The need for the agreement of every member of the Committee]….makes the work much more difficult……you could not necessarily respond very efficiently to the needs of the population.”
– Peter Hohenfeller, Former Chairman of the Sanctions Committee, May 20th 1992
“Unborn children of the region [are] being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA.”
– Ross B. Mirkarimi, The Arms Control Research Centre, from his report: 'The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Gulf Region with Special Reference to Iraq.' May 1992
“The results of our study contradict this claim [that use of precision weapons had produced limited damage to the civilian population] and confirm that the casualties of war extend far beyond those caused directly by warfare.”
– Dr. Eric Hoskins, Harvard University health specialist, in his report 'Children, War and Sanctions,' June 1992
“The situation which the Iraqi people is suffering is extremely tragic…..all the medical contributions of humanitarian organisations and bodies meet only a small proportion of the actual needs of drugs and medical services. […] It appears that the work of the Sanctions Committee and the way it performs the tasks entrusted to it under the provision of SCR 661 are orientated towards the obstruction or rejection of any request by Iraq that enters into the area of essential civilian needs of a humanitarian nature, which has led to the increasing danger faced by vulnerable categories.”
– Iraqi UN Ambassador Abd al-Amir al-Anbari, report to the UN Secretary General of a study prepared by the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the workings of the Sanctions Committee, July 1992
“[There is]…nothing to prevent the Iraqi government using its own resources to pay for humanitarian supplies.”
– Douglas Hogg, Minister of State at the British Foreign Office, February 1993. Hogg does not mention that all Iraqi exports are still prohibited and all assets still frozen.
“The measures taken by the world community are not aimed at the Iraqi people. Iraq may import, and indeed does, foodstuffs, medicines and essential civilian consumer goods.”
– Ronald Newman, head of the Northern Gulf Bureau of the US State Department, February 1993
“Three years of sanctions have created circumstances in Iraq where the majority of the civilian population are now living in poverty. The greatest threat to the health and well-being of the Iraqi people remains the difficult economic conditions created by internationally mandated sanctions and by the infrastructural damage wrought in the 1991 military conflict. […] One fundamental contradiction remains: that politically motivated sanctions (which by definition are imposed to create hardship) can not be implemented in a manner which spares the vulnerable.”
– Dr. Eric Hoskins, UNICEF commissioned report, later shelved, February 1993
“It is inconceivable that Saddam Hussein could remain in power if he complied with all UN resolutions.”
– Dee Dee Myers, White House spokeswoman, March 1993
“[To swallow the US case]…as it stands requires a leap of faith and a complete suspension of political cynicism.”
– The New York Times, commenting on Madeleine Albright's attempts to justify the latest Cruise missile attacks, June 27th 1993
“We will not hesitate to use force if necessary…..[but the West]…has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. They have suffered enough.”
– Douglas Hurd, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, June 1993
“It is a country whose economy has been devastated….above all by the continued sanctions….which have virtually paralysed the whole economy and generated persistent deprivation, chronic hunger, endemic under-nutrition, massive unemployment and widespread human suffering. A vast majority of the Iraqi population is living under the most deplorable conditions and is simply engaged in a struggle for survival. A grave humanitarian tragedy is unfolding….the nutritional status of the population continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Large numbers of Iraqis now have food intakes lower than those populations in the disaster stricken African countries.”
– Food and Agriculture Organisation / World Food Programme report 'Food Supply Situation and Crop Outlook in Iraq', July 1993
“[Iraq is]…18.8 million people in a refugee camp, one third of which are children – of whom at least 100,000 are now dead, not from war but from hunger.”
– Health expert Dr. Salman Rawaf, July 1993
“We do not believe that an independent Kurdistan is possible.”
– Douglas Hurd, on Turkish television, January 1994
“Our interests lie in reverting to Soviet alliances [with Iraq] because that's where the money is.”
– Unidentified Russian diplomat, January 1994, quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons.
“The claim by the Western governments that food and drugs flow freely into Iraq is not true. I have seen telexes and documents that showed clearly that the British and the American government interfered with the flow of crucial drugs into Iraq. That is unquestionable. […..The sanctions] would not be lifted even if Iraq satisfies the UN Security Council on every single sanction report….the Americans are making it clear that the sanctions are not going to be lifted under any circumstances.”
– Tim Llewellyn, BBC Middle East correspondent speaking at a meeting of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, 16th February 1994
“The Iraqi government complies with UN resolutions not because they have seen the error of their ways, but because they are in such desperate straits.”
– Unidentified Western diplomat, March 1994, quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons
“The stakes are too high to give Mr. Hussein the benefit of the doubt, or to let our policy be dictated by commercial interests or simple fatigue. [Compliance with UN resolutions is] a cynical tactic.”
– Warren Christopher, US Secretary of State, 29th April 1994
“Working in paediatric departments in Iraq has become a daily nightmare. Hospitals depend entirely on irregular and spasmodic donations brought in by charities which are like a drop of water on parched earth. In the diabetic clinic we have to divide four small bottles of insulin between 20 or 30 children while trying to clam their parents' terror. For children with leukaemia to begin treatment, parents are forced to send money to buy drugs from Jordan. Parents sell their belongings and even their homes, and after bringing in the drugs the children are dying from uncontrolled infection.”
– Dr. Harvey Marcovitch, British physician, in a letter to The Times: 'Saddam's atrocity…or ours?' and quoting an Iraqi doctor, May 31st 1994
“The difficulty with cut-off points is that all the Iraqis have to do is sit back and be good boys.'
– Unidentified British official, September 13th 1994, quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons after Rolf Ekeus of UNSCOM announces his intention to commence a six month weapons monitoring period, after a which a recommendation for lifting sanctions could be made.
“We do want Iraq to see light at the end of the tunnel……without progress Iraq can conclude it is not worth co-operating.”
– Rolf Ekeus, UNSCOM, September 1994
“Before any individual or company can talk to an Iraqi buyer, they must apply for a licence to negotiate. Licences to negotiate can take three to four weeks to issue. Only when the licence is issued can you start talking without breaking the law. Once the buyer and seller agree [a price] the seller must then apply for a supply licence, which can take up to twenty weeks to issue. In the meantime the Iraqi Dinar is suffering daily devaluation and inflation beyond control. Twenty weeks later the seller receives the supply licence by which time the buyer's situation has changed. This forces the buyer to cancel the order, or, at best, reduce the quality or quantity of the goods in order to raise the hard currency needed to finance the purchase. But [the Sanctions Committee insist that] any change to the application means that the entire process must start again.”
– Unidentified British businessman describes the tortuous process of attempting to send medical supplies to Iraq, October 1994, quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons
“We will not allow Saddam Hussein to defy the will of the US and the international community.”
– Bill Clinton, 6th October 1994
“They [the Iraqis] have done an excellent job. Our commission is convinced it's all over. It is watertight. We have faith in the work we have done.”
– Jaako Ylitalo, Chief UNSCOM field officer in Baghdad, 13th October 1994
“[There would still be an] …Iraqi threat when British and American soldiers have gone home…..Saddam's mailed fist will still be over Kuwait and her neighbours.”
– Douglas Hurd, in response to Iraq's official recognition of Kuwait as a sovereign state, 15th October 1994
“There is no occasion for doing Saddam Hussein any favours at the present time.”
– Warren Christopher, whilst the US threatens Iraq with fresh air attacks, 16th October 1994
“We recognise this area as vital to US interests and we will behave, with others, multilaterally when we can and unilaterally when we must.”
– Madeleine Albright, US Ambassador to the UN, describing unauthorised bombing and air patrols of Iraq by US aircraft to the UN Security Council, 21st October 1994
“Sanctions will never be lifted because the US and Britain do not trust Saddam not to pose a threat.”

“[Sanctions cannot be lifted] …whatever the degree of Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions as long as President Saddam remains in power.”

“Washington is determined to maintain sanctions and avoid discussion of the underlying issues.”
– Two articles in The Guardian and one from 'Gulf Newsletter', November 1994
“A severe deterioration is detectable in all the hospitals visited by MAI. The team had not expected to see such an extreme reduction of resources, given the desperate situation of the hospitals in April; further deterioration had been hard to imagine. Basic medicines are absent, routine surgery impossible, and more and more equipment is breaking down and put out of use because of the unavailability of spare parts. Children are referred to Baghdad because treatment is unavailable at their local hospital, but the Baghdad hospitals can not provide for them either.”
– Medical Aid For Iraq report, December 1994
“[Not]…a timely action….neither helpful nor constructive…”
– Christine Shelley, US State Department spokeswoman, rebuking a French initiative to lift sanctions, 6th January 1995
“This is a leopard that has not changed its spots. Pressure has got us to where we are now and it needs to be maintained.”
– Unidentified British Foreign Office official, in response to French initiative, 24th February 1995
“Any modification of the sanctions regime that ameliorates the pressure that Saddam Hussein must feel is not at this time warranted.”
– Mike McCurry, White House Spokesman, March 1995
“We are determined to ensure that the whole of Iraq's biological capability is detected and destroyed before there can be any question of adjustment to the sanctions regime….we shall continue with good reason to approach sanctions rigorously in the interest of Iraq's peoples.”
– John Major, British Prime Minister, March 1995
“Being in casualty is like living in a nightmare. The severe shortage of drugs means we can do very little to help. Children die in front of me. The parents ask why and I can not answer them. Each night I pray for the embargo to be lifted.”
– Dr. Tariq Abbas Hady, quoted in an article in The Sunday Times, 12th March 1995
“[There is no point in adopting a resolution merely as]…..a public relations tool enabling the US and Britain to continue blaming Iraq for hardships caused by sanctions.”
– Unidentified French and Russian diplomats describe Resolution 986 (The Oil-For-Food Programme), quoted in The Independent, 14th April 1995
“Our conclusion, and what we will present to the Security Council, is that we feel confident that, with the exception of the biological area, Iraq will not be able to develop any weapons of mass destruction or long range missiles without being detected by the international controls.”
– Rolf Ekeus, May 1995
“Soldiers may be incidentally exposed to DU from dust and smoke on the battlefield. The Army Surgeon General has determined that it is unlikely that these soldiers will receive a significant internal DU exposure. Medical follow-up is not warranted for soldiers who experience incidental exposure from dust or smoke.”

“Since DU weapons are openly available on the world arms market, DU weapons will be used in future conflicts. The number of DU patients on future battlefields probably will be significantly higher because other countries will use systems containing DU.”

“DU is a low-level radioactive waste, and, therefore, must be disposed of in a licensed repository.”

“No international law, treaty, regulation, or custom requires the United States to remediate the Persian Gulf war battlefields.”
– Bewildering and contradictory excerpts from the SAME report by the US Army Environmental Policy Institute: 'Health and Consequences of Depleted Uranium use in the US army', June 1995
“This is a matter that we do not contemplate because we are with the people of Iraq as much as we can until the long night of their suffering ends.”
– King Hussein of Jordan, in response to US pressure to close his border with Iraq, 18th August 1995
“The Iraqi leadership declared to me that its policy from now on is 100% implementation of the cease-fire arrangements. [SCR 687] So, with that, the Security Council, all members without exception, should have no choice about lifting the embargo.”
– Rolf Ekeus, quoted in The Times, 24th August 1995
“I am filled with shame and anger at myself, at my cowardice, my silence, my complicity with those, who, despite their claims to the contrary, have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, without incurring the wrath of the [war crimes] tribunal of The Hague, implacably going about their dirty, evil work.”
– Yves Bonnet, Deputy French Prime Minister, describing a recent visit to Iraq, 25th August 1995
“Alarming food shortages are causing irreparable damage to an entire generation of Iraqi children. After 24 years in the field, mostly in Africa starting with Biafra, I didn't think anything could shock me, but this was comparable to the worst scenarios I have ever seen.”
– Dieter Hannusch, Chief Emergency Support Officer, World Food Programme, WFP news update 26th September 1995
“There are actually more than four million people, a fifth of Iraq's population, at severe nutritional risk. That number includes 2.4 million children under five, about 600,000 pregnant/nursing women and destitute women heads of households, as well as hundreds of thousands of elderly without anyone to help them. 70% of the population has little or no access to food…..nearly everyone seems to be emaciated. We are at the point of no return in Iraq. The social fabric of the nation is disintegrating. People have exhausted their ability to cope.”
– Mona Hamman, WFP Regional Manager, WFP news update, 26th September 1995
“We simply do not know if he is testing us, planning an attack on Kuwait or planning to murder more of his own people. Any action by him is madness, but then he's mad, so who knows?”
– Unidentified Pentagon official, September 1995, as quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons
“Believe me, it contains very sophisticated technology.”
– Unidentified Washington spokesman describing a corroded 'gadget' that was fished out of the Tigris river, Baghdad, 11th October 1995, as quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons
“It is generally agreed that Iraq has already destroyed all of its weapons of mass destruction, either under UN supervision, or in anticipation of allied bombing raids.”
– Article in The Guardian, 4th October 1995
“Our policy is to keep Iraq in its box.”
– Unidentified Western diplomat, article in The Guardian, 18th October 1995, as quoted in 'The Scourging of Iraq' by Geoff Simons
“What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?”
– Madeleine Albright, to General Colin Powell who, strangely, was arguing that to deploy US troops required a political objective, as quoted in Powell's book 'My American Journey', 1995.
“[Deliberate destruction of public service infrastructure, notably electrical-power generation and distribution facilities, so as to] .........degrade the will of the civilian population.”
– 'Cruise Missiles: Proven Capability Should Affect Aircraft and Force Structure Requirements' - Document 95-116. Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, 1995
“The solution lies in adequate food supplies in the country, restoring the viability of the local currency, and creating conditions for the people to acquire adequate purchasing power. But these conditions can only be fulfilled if the economy can be put back in proper shape enabling it to draw on its own resources, and that clearly can not occur as long as the embargo remains in force.”
– UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, 1995
“'The United States shifted its deterrent strategy from the defunct Soviet Union to so-called 'rogue states' such as Iraq, Libya, Cuba and North Korea.' AP reported. The study advocated that the US exploit its nuclear arsenal to portray itself as”...irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked. [That] should be part of the national persona we project to all adversaries. [...] It hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool headed. [...] The fact that some elements [of the US government] may appear to be potentially out of control can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision makers.”
– Excerpt from US Strategic Command report ' Essentials of Post Cold War Deterrence,' 1995, as reported by Associated Press and later cited in 'Rogue States', article by Noam Chomsky, 1999. The report resurrected former US President Richard Nixon's 'Mad-Man' theory of the 1970's, designed to prevent the Soviets from interfering in US policy.
“Depleted Uranium is more of a problem than we thought when it was developed. But it was developed according to standards and was thought through very carefully. It turned out perhaps to be wrong.”
– Brent Scowcroft, former US National Security Advisor, 'Riding The Storm' – Channel 4 documentary, 3rd January 1996
“The level of malnutrition is on a par with famine ravaged countries like Sudan.”
– John English, British Red Cross, 29th January 1996
“The only people who are told what is going on are the Americans and the British. We have asked them for a copy of the draft agreement and a copy of the 20 conditions they have set, but we have not been given anything.”
– Unidentified member of the Sanctions Committee, describing US and UK insistence on new conditions for Resolution 986, article in The Guardian, April 1996
Stahl: “The question is, are they [sanctions] missing the mark? ….We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, this is more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?”
“This is a very hard choice, but the price….we think the price is worth it.”
– Interviewer Leslie Stahl questions Madeleine Albright, CBS Television '60 Minutes', 12th May 1996
“It would be hard to imagine sanctions being lifted whilst Saddam Hussein is still in power.”
– Malcolm Rifkind, British Foreign Secretary, quoted in The Guardian, 21st May 1996
“Ministers deliberately misled Parliament, but did not intend to mislead Parliament.”
– Conclusion of Lord Chief Justice Scott's 'British Arms to Iraq' Inquiry, June 1996
“[It was]..the rigorous implementation of a flexible interpretation.”
– Michael Heseltine, former British MP, on being asked during the Scott inquiry why Britain was exporting 'dual-use' items to Iraq in breach of the government's own ban on military sales.
“One of the charges at the time was that in some way, because I had been Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Prime Minister, I must have known what was going on.”
– John Major, in response to Lord Chief Justice Scott's ' British Arms to Iraq' enquiry, 1992
“Iraqis are congenital liars.”
– Article in The Observer, 9th June 1996
“[Iraq is trying ] …to turn this humanitarian exception into a partial lifting of sanctions.”
– James Rubin, US spokesman at the UN, justifying the US rejection of Iraq's plans for food distribution under Resolution 986
“Limited but clear objectives…to make Saddam pay a price for the latest act of brutality, reducing his ability to threaten his neighbours and America's interests.”
– Bill Clinton, justifying renewed US air strikes, 3rd September 1996
“It's all very helpful for oil prices, and with the winter coming and low stocks, the price strength will remain.”
– Irene Himona, oil analyst with Societe Generale Strauss Turnbull, quoted in The Independent, 3rd September 1996
“Sanctions, as is generally recognised, are a blunt instrument. They raise the ethical question of whether suffering inflicted on vulnerable groups in the target country is a legitimate means of exerting pressure on political leaders whose behaviour is unlikely to be affected by the plight of their subjects.”
– Nizar Hamdoon, Iraqi Ambassador to the UN, addressing the Security Council, and quoting the UN Secretary General's observation made in 1995, 29th September 1996
“By so grudgingly acquiescing in it [implementing Resolution 986] the US in effect concedes what others have long proclaimed: prolonged sanctions do not punish President Saddam, only his people…..The US has floundered about without any discernible plan for the future of Iraq. As long as that is so, sanctions will come under the increasing assault of moral imperatives.”
– Nizar Hamdoon, Iraqi Ambassador to the UN, addressing the Security Council, 29th September 1996
“The majority of the population are living below the poverty line and malnutrition is rampant with over 50% of women and children receiving half their calorific needs.
It is hard to think of a more grave breach of child rights in modern history than the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five caused by a political dispute between 'their' government and the international community. The [UN] Security Council shoulders a large measure of responsibility for these violations by maintaining sanctions without taking strong measures to prevent this suffering.”
– Centre For Social and Economic Rights (New York), 1996
“The full ramifications…specifically the time lag between the initial flow of oil and the actual delivery of foodstuffs, are only now becoming clear. I have had strong concerns about the pace at which the provisions of SCR 986 are being implemented. […] The amount actually available for operational and administrative expenses has been very limited. Several agencies have used their own funds to meet these costs. It appears unlikely that all the humanitarian goods in the distribution plan will be delivered and distributed within the initial 180 days established by the resolution.”
– Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, 10th March 1997
“We do not agree with those nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted.”
– Madeleine Albright, addressing a symposium on Iraq at Georgetown University, USA, 26th March 1997
“Children will continue to die after the agreement, since it does not correspond to the minimum needs of the civilian population. It is a temporary and feeble measure, and it should not be characterised as otherwise.”
– Iraqi Minister for Foreign Affairs Al-Sahaf describing Resolution 986 to the UN Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 25th April 1997
“We are not saying Saddam is totally respectful of human rights, but he is the one who is supporting us. Saddam is better than the UN and he is much better than Turkey.”
– Ahmet Vurgun, Kurdish refugee crossing to the border from Turkey into Iraq to seek sanctuary, as witnessed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugess, May 1997
“Saddam Hussein is the reason God created Cruise Missiles. Cruise Missiles are simply the only way to deal with him. [...] If and when Saddam pushes beyond the brink, and we get that one good shot, let's make sure it's a head shot.”
– Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, from his article 'Head Shot,' 6th Novermber 1997
“Sanctions will be there until the end of time, or as long as he [Hussein] lasts.”

– Former US President Bill Clinton, quoted in The New York Times, 23rd November 1997
“The Arab Monetary Fund has estimated the value of destroyed infrastructure and economic assets attributable to the 1991 Gulf war at $232 billion.”
– Dr. Eric Hoskins, in his report 'Political Gain and Civilian Pain', December 1997
“Britain has been a major force in world affairs for several centuries. No British Patriot should be willing to give up that status.”
– Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, 1997
“[I advocate] bombing Iraq over and over and over again.”
– Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, from his article 'America's Multiple Choice Quiz,' 31st January 1998
“The United States did want Saddam Hussein to go, they just didn't want the Iraqi people to take over.”

– Peter Jennings, ABC News, 7th February 1998
“I am willing to make a bet to anyone here that we care more about the Iraqi people than Saddam Hussein does.”
– Madeleine Albright, open meeting in Town Hall, Columbus, Ohio, 18th February 1998. Over a million Iraqis had died from sanctions and bombing at the time of her statement.
“If we have to use force it is because we are America! We are the indispensible nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.”
– Madeleine Albright, NBC Television 'Today' show, 19th February 1998
“The new Oil-For-Food deal could solve the humanitarian crisis. It could pay for the food and medicines that the Iraqi people need so badly…could restore clean water and proper sanitation to hundreds and thousands of Iraqis, restore electricity to their homes and help the farmers increase their output.”
– Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary, article in The Guardian, entitled 'Saddam is to Blame,' 20th February 1998 (Cook does not mention the other 21.5 million strong population.)
“The US has to make clear to Iraq and US allies that [....] America will use force, without negotiation, hesitation or UN approval.”
– Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, from his article 'Craziness Pays,' 24th February 1998
“We wish him well, and when he comes back we will see what he has brought and how it fits with our national interest.”
– Madeleine Albright, describing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's diplomatic mission to Iraq, February 1998. On Annan's return, having reached an agreement with the government of Iraq, Albright re-iterated:”It is possible he will come with something we don't like, in which case we will pursue our national interest.”
“To say they [UNSCOM] have found enough weapons to kill the world several times over is equivalent to the statement that a man who produces a million sperm a day can thus produce a million babies a day. The problem in both cases is one of delivery systems.”
– Dr. Julian Perry Robinson, Science Policy Research Unit, rebuffing British prime Minister Tony Blair's assertions about the threat of Iraqi weapons, article in The Independent, 7th March 1998
“Gas masks are not required […] and are not distributed to Embassy staff. [The Embassy is]….not even interested in finding a source for gas masks… [due to UNSCOM's presence in Iraq and]…the fact that biological and chemical warheads are very ineffective.”
– Jim Larocco, US Ambassador to Kuwait, briefing US businessmen visiting Kuwait, as quoted in The Independent, 7th March 1998
“Saddam Hussein already has the resources to enable the Iraqi health service to function properly. The government shares your concerns about the humanitarian situation in Iraq and has sympathy for the people of Iraq. Sanctions are aimed at the Iraq regime and not at them.”
– Middle East Department of the British Foreign Office, responding to a letter from an anti-sanctions campaigner, 18th May 1998
“The truth of the matter is that the government of Iraq has no role, however small, which allows it to respond to the allegations contained in claims. It is unable to give its legal and objective opinion on claims, even when those are exaggerated. The Compensation Commission decides which claims should be settled, who is authorised to submit a claim, what should be considered direct losses, and what constitutes sufficient proof. […] These measures create a legal screen which conceals the systematic subjugation of the Iraqi people. There are no reasonable grounds for this collective punishment of the Iraqi people. If this is not done [the verification of claims in accordance with international law and the rules of justice and equity] the compensation process will become simply an organised operation to strip the Iraqi people of their property, which they desperately need in order to rebuild their society and economy.”
– Tariq Aziz, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister expressing concerns about reparations / compensations being paid to Kuwait from the proceeds of Resolution 986, in a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan, 27th May 1998
“We are looking at ways now, together with the Americans, of the possibility of removing Saddam Hussein altogether.”
– Tony Blair, addressing the House of Commons, July 1998
“It is important to note the order of magnitude of the weapons retained by Iraq; two thirds of the operational missile force [and] more than one half of the chemical weapons.”
– Richard Butler, Chairman of UNSCOM, article in The Guardian quoting a comment made by him in June, 5th August 1998
“If this were a five lap race, we were halfway into the fifth lap. Why stop the race when you're getting toward the finishing line? [I am]…mystified by Baghdad's action when resolution of several issues was near. The inspectors were apparently close, in the areas of missiles and chemical weapons, to being able to declare Iraq had complied with UN resolutions.'”
– Richard Butler, in an extraordinary about-face, quoted in The Independent, 6th August 1998
“If Iraq does not honour its agreements then it would be profoundly wrong for the international community to reward its intransigence by lifting sanctions regardless.”
– Robin Cook, article in The Times, 8th August 1998
“The discussions were certainly long winded, alternately chilling or tedious in their subject matter: exactly how many Iraqi warheads were filled with Anthrax spores before they were destroyed in 1992? Was a donkey, used in a biological experiment, tethered to a car or not? How many punctures were there in the tyres of an Iraqi convoy taking weapons to destruction pits seven years ago?”
– Article in The Independent describing the UNSCOM / Iraq negotiations, 9th August 1998
“Saddam Hussein has wrestled himself to the ground. He is stuck in a box and he has thrown away the key.”
– Madeleine Albright, quoted in the Financial Times, 10th August 1998
“I'm somebody who doesn't support the continuation of sanctions….I think they're a horrible tool…..sanctions only punish the people of Iraq, they don't punish this [Iraqi] regime.”
– Scott Ritter, former team leader UNSCOM, who resigned in protest of the”…US and UK interference in my work…” BBC Radio 4, 29th September 1998
“We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and as terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”
– Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Aid Co-Ordinator, in his resignation speech, 30th September 1998
“4000 to 5000 children are dying every month due to the impact of sanctions because of the breakdown of water and sanitation, inadequate diet, and the bad internal health situation.”
– Denis Halliday, 14th October 1998
“Sanctions are inhuman and what we are doing can not redress that inhumanity.”
– Margaret Hassan, CARE International Baghdad, quoted in The Independent, 15th October 1998
“I personally believe, as I think a lot of security Council members believe with 100% certainty, that Iraq being fully disarmed is never going to be possible. At the end of the day the Security Council must decide whether Iraq is disarmed to the extent that it is not a threat to its neighbours, that it has no weapons of mass destruction, and that it has no capacity to make weapons of mass destruction.”
– Kofi Annan, quoted in the International Herald Tribune, 19th October 1998
“[This figure would only have] …helped in preventing further deterioration of the humanitarian situation.”
– Kofi Annan, report to the Security Council describing the lack of revenue available under the Oil-For-Food programme, 19th November 1998
“The most I can say is that in a number of key areas the [oil-for-food] program has stopped the situation from getting worse. In other areas it has slowed down the rate of deterioration.””
– Benon Sevan, Executive Director of the Office of the Iraq Program in the U.N. Secretariat, November 1998
“We have allowed Saddam to sell oil to buy as much food and medicine for the Iraqi people as necessary.”
– Tony Blair, November 1998
“A strong, sustained series of air strikes [….] to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.”
– Bill Clinton, describing 'Operation Desert Fox', 17th December 1998. Tony Blair, live on television, stood in front of a Christmas tree to make his statement that Britain was attacking Iraq
“[There is]…No question…[that 'Desert Fox' was unlawful] … It is illegal to attack with bombs targets in a sovereign country without direct authorisation from the Security Council.”
– Lord Dennis Healey, Former British Foreign Secretary, quoted in the Daily Telegraph, 21st December 1998
“World-wide, poverty is the main determinant of malnutrition and child mortality. Hence it is not surprising that artificially induced poverty by economic embargo produces the same results. Deprivation and excess deaths are real in Iraq, and I can personally attest to the devastating effects of the embargo on ordinary life from having been a member of three UN food and nutrition missions. Sanctions are not the humane alternative to war that they are purported to be, and if there were justice in this world these actions promoted by the US and Britain in the name of the UN would be seen as the crime against humanity that they are.”
– Dr. Peter Pellet, Professor of Nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, quoted in The Guardian Weekly, 10th January 1999
“[They were] surely intended and understood to be a message of contempt for the Security Council. This action is in fact a call for a lawless world in which the powerful will rule. The powerful happen to be the United States and Britain, which is by now a pathetic puppy dog that has abandoned any pretence of being an independent state.”
– Professor Noam Chomsky, article in 'Frontline' magazine, 13th January 1999
“Since Iraq can not meet even the existing UN oil sales quotas because of the low price of crude, the practical effect would be small. But the political effect would be huge: Britain would be free of claims that it is punishing the Iraqi people.”
– Article in The Times, describing the gesture of lifting the cap on Iraqi oil sales under Resolution 986, and Britain's support for it, 14th January 1999
“To keep pumping and exporting its oil, Iraq must upgrade and update its entire production sector. But Washington has refused to entertain such a possibility, just as it has rejected efforts to bring new fields into production.”
– Article in The Irish Times, describing US pressure on Iraq, 14th January 1999
“With Saddam rattled, now is the time to really rattle his cage. Turn up the volume on 'Radio Free Iraq' to extra loud and call for his ouster twenty four hours a day: ”All Saddam, all the time.” Take steps to have Saddam declared a war criminal by the UN. Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no-one knows when the lights will go off or who's in charge. Offer a reward for removing Saddam from office. Use every provocation by Saddam to blow up another Iraqi general's home
– Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, from his article 'Rattling the Rattler,' 24th February 1998
“This month US policy will kill 4,500 children under the age of five in Iraq, according to UN studies. This is not foreign policy – it is state sanctioned mass murder that is nearing holocaust proportions.”
– Professor Noam Chomsky, Edward Hermann, Edward Said and Howard Zinn, letter to The Independent, 21st January 1999
“The US regrets any civilian casualties, but has no independent evidence that any Iraqis were killed.”
– Ken Bacon, US Pentagon spokesman describing US missiles that struck the al-Jumhuriya residential district of Basra, and 'unidentified' missiles hitting the village of Abu-Khasib, January 25th 1999. The UN reported that 17 people had been killed, approx. 100 injured and approx. 45 houses damaged or destroyed.
“We have to continue making these air strikes in order to carry on with our humanitarian work.”
– George Robertson, British Minister of Defence (later to become the head of NATO), BBC Television, 28th January 1999
“The continual TV images of the West's high-technology systems causing death and destruction to people in the Third World will not be tolerated forever by civilised people.”
– General Michael Rose, former UN Force Commander in Bosnia condemning 'Desert Fox' and the ongoing air offensive, January 1999
“We bought seven years and that's not bad….the longer we can fool around in the [Security] Council and keep things static the better.”
– Unidentified US official with '..responsibility for Iraq…', as quoted in The Washington Post, 28th January 1999
“We simply can not let two [UN] member states continue to pervert the UN into a weapon of mass destruction.”
– Denis Halliday, quoted in The Seattle Post Intelligencer, 12th February 1999
“The gravity of the situation is indisputable and can not be overstated. The magnitude of the humanitarian needs is such that they can not be met within the context of the parameters set forth in SCR 986 and succeeding SCR 1153…..nor was the programme intended to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people. [….] Given the present state of infrastructure, the revenue required for its rehabilitation is far above the funding level available under SCRs 986 and 1153. [….] Under current conditions the outlook will remain bleak and become more serious with time. The humanitarian situation will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy.”
– Conclusion of the UN humanitarian panel set up in late January to additionally assess needs of the 986 program, March 1999
“For a force supposedly protecting civilians, the American and British jets controlling the skies above Iraq go about their task in a peculiar manner. Their near daily attacks on the "perceived danger" of Iraqi air defences have disrupted the distribution of food and medicine, cut off the flow of oil that pays for those supplies and, on occasion, killed the people they are supposed to be protecting.”
– Article in The Economist, 6th March 1999
“[It is] a mini undeclared war.” – Unnamed US State Department official
”It's a strategy we fell into….it's not one we originally planned, but it's working very, very well for us.” – Unnamed military official
– Article in The Washington Post describing new US guidelines that allow almost daily bombing, and govern how planners select Iraqi targets and how pilots responded to Iraqi actions, 7th March 1999
“Imagine the official (and thereby mainstream media) reaction if the following sentence were to appear in a prominently placed article in an Iraqi daily:
- 'Iraqi officials admit they have little idea what's going on inside the United States, and attempts to organise American dissidents into an effective anti-Clinton fighting force have been disastrously unsuccessful.'
- Or maybe: 'But if Iraq lets up the pressure on him, Iraqi officials say, Clinton would soon be out bullying his way around the Americas, perhaps armed with nuclear or biological weapons.'
- Or possibly: 'Occasionally, as in the United States, pinprick air attacks may be needed to keep opponents in line.'
- Or this whopper: 'The hundreds of Iraqi airstrikes on the United States since the zones were established are made in self-defence or occasionally in retaliation for U.S. flight violations of the zones, Iraqi officials are careful to emphasise.'”
– Eddy Tews, EAT THE STATE web site editorial, 1999
“In a confidential paper sent to the UN with the authority of the British Foreign Office Minister Derek Fatchett, the government admits "….the needs of the Iraqi people are not being met by the Oil-For-Food programme."”
– Article in The Observer, 28th March 1999
“There is adequate provision, under the Oil-For-Food deal for food and medical supplies to reach those in need.”
– Derek Fatchett, responding to anti-sanctions campaign letter, March 1999
“Despite revenue under Oil-For-Food being less than we had hoped, it still ought to be sufficient to meet the immediate needs of the Iraqi people.”
– Carol Hinchley, British Foreign Office staff member, responding to anti-sanctions campaign letter, March 1999
“If you assume lets say for the sake of argument, 2 billion dollars twice a year for 22 million people, then you are getting a per capita figure per year of 180, just under 180 dollars. Now I ask you, 180 dollars per year? That's not a per capita income figure, that is the figure out of which everything has to be financed: from electrical services to water and sewerage, to food, to health, the lot. Now if you have 180 dollars and then the press ask me: '…do you consider that adequate for survival…?' I can say at the very best, that the nose is just above the water, so that you are not drowning, but over the course of years, the nose is increasingly touching that water and many people are already drowning. So it is not a figure that we can really take lightly or accept as adequate.”
– Hans Von Sponeck, Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator for Iraq, presentation to members of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility delegation, Baghdad, 2nd April 1999
“Saddam now hoards vast quantities of medical supplies rather than distributing them to his people.”
– George Robertson, British Minister of Defence, 6th March 1999
“You have heard, I'm sure about the so-called overstocking [of medicine]. If you get from someone a mono-causal explanation, then s