Tim Blair

I notice that Paxie also says: "And I would like to add that Jazeera is the worst ever. They should be banned under Mullah Bremer’s Fatwa banning all pro-saddam/pro-ba’ath propaganda. That political analyst they have, something al-ani, is a fucking saddamite. "
Bet *that* won't make the Guardian column!

"why was the decision made to attack with a force that would have been capable of annihilating a city block"

Because a force capable of annihilating ten city blocks was considered overkill.

When I read that in Salam Pax's journal, it struck me that perhaps Fisk has simply adopted the paranoid style of the Arab world, attributing to the United States an almost unlimited power to control events down to the smallest detail. As Paul Wolfowitz noted the other day, folks in the Middle East think the U.S. is so powerful and hyper-competent that *everything* it does must be deeply purposeful. So of course we could have taken them alive if we'd really wanted to, and must have had some nefarious reason for having killed them instead.

What was even more amusing from Salam Pax (very fashionable with the anti-war crowd here) was the previous entry:
QUOTE
just to tell you that i would be really dissapointed if Uday and Qusay were really killed in Mosul. this is just the easy way out for them. they should have been humiliated in public, images of them handcuffed and being pushed around.
END QUOTE

'Salam' would have prefered that the Hussein Brothers were alive while their dignity was being affronted and the Geneva Convention used for toilet paper. I doubt Fisk would agree.

No, Fiskie has plenty of toilet paper already.

You just know that if Oozy and Q-Tip had been taken alive and put on trial, the odious Fisk would have been the first one to start bleating about 'victors' justice' and the like. The man's a moral cripple. Can't we hire some refugees to beat him up again?

I doubt if we would have to hire refugees to beat him up. All we would have to do is present him, identify him and start reading his columns in the appropriate translation. Then stand back and watch the fists fly. ;->=

>>"why was the decision made to attack with a force that would have been capable of annihilating a city block? "

No decision necessary, the use of overwhelming force whenever possible is policy.

Fewer Yanks die that way. As for the Iraqis on the receiving end, "Think of it as evolution in action".

"You'll never take us alive, coppers!" (bang, bang)

"Hokay..." (BLAM! BLAM!)

Uday and Qusay would not have allowed themselves to be taken alive because they would have faced a humiliating public trial followed by either execution or lifelong imprisonment under the "care" of Iraqis who hate them. They had only two things left to look forward to: killing as many Americans as possible before being killed or killing themselves with their last bullets or hope that the Americans would wait them out for days in hopes that loyalists and jihadists would attack the troops from behind and create chaos so that they could escape. As one military officer said, success in these operations depends upon speed and secrecy, and a long stand-off would taken away both advantages.

The poor Iraqis seem to think that the Hussein boys and Saddam himself would be willing to stand in a prisoner's dock and answer questions about mass graves, missing people, torture, and all the rest. It must be unbearable for them not to have answers, but they aren't being realistic if they think they would have gotten honest information from the Husseins.

Hey, deliberately killing your enemies then publicly displaying their corpses, that'll get them nostalgic for the good ole days of Saddam Hussein, who did precisely the same.

The only difference was that back then they had jobs, money, electricity, water, and limbs. Unless of course they protested Saddam too loudly, in which case they were killed..... just like under Bremer

Yeah, I'm sure Ambassador Bremer is strolling around the palace shouting "Off with his head!" to anyone who disagrees with him.

Listen, idiot: deliberately killing your enemies is what one does in a war. Display of the bodies was only made necessary by Arab fantansy conspiracy theories. Note that in no other instance has the US displayed any bodies.

As for the moral idiocy of comparing pre- and post-war Iraq, all one needs to point out is that the celebrating crowds in Baghdad seem to disagree with you. What do they know that you don't? Everything, it would appear.

Besides, should we have left the Third Reich in power because the Germans were without food, water, jobs, electricity, phones, etc. until about 1948 or so?

Analogue Voter, don't forget the long hours of torture, killing of loved ones, and the rape of wives and children under Saddam.You are dillusional to make any favorable comparison between what's going on today and under Saddam.

Sorry to burst Moira's bubble, but a far more likely explanation for not trying to capture them alive is that a trial might have revealed - with considerable media scrutiny - the role of the US in supplying Iraq with WMD. Perhaps US Senator Riegle's report would have received the scrutiny it deserves. All those sales of anthrax that Washington approved, it's a bit embarrasing -

http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/r_1_2.html

Ah, the Third Reich - last bastion of the redundant argument. But since you (bizarrely) mention it Kevin, weren't there trials after WW2? Weren't Husseins sons the two best leads as to the whereabouts of the father, not to mention the WMD? Besides, I thought the war (sorry, "major combat operations") was over?

As for those "celebrating crowds" Kevin, do you judge the right or wrong of an action according to the number of people taking to the street? Since February 15th saw the biggest protests in world history you were presumably against the aerial blitzkrieg/invasion/occupation of Iraq? And the only crowds now are protests, a risky business in view of the US response of bullets and death, as in Fallujah.

Ruprect reminds us of the "long hours of torture, killing of loved ones, and the rape of wives and children under Saddam". Indeed, it was a barbaric regime.

Does that mean you are joining those who call for members of the US administration (and others) who backed Saddam Hussein at the height of his atrocities to face charges of abetting his undoubted crimes?

*sniff* *sniff*

I detect a whiff of tin-foil hat in the air. The common tin-foil hatter, often found lurking about coffee houses and clothing consignment shops on college campuses, is impervious to most sensation including sight, sound and is sometimes (but not often) rendered speechless when confronted with the real world. But he/she typically plays a mean pinball.

AV pre-war Iraq was "safe" in the way that the Soviet Union was "safe"..unless you said/did something wrong, or looked at the wrong person sideways or were in the wrong clan/tribe, and then you'd suddenly be "disappeared". Just like under the Baath Party! Please give that ol' "better off under Hussein" line a rest.

Anyone that tries on that better before the war argument should be sent to Syria or Iran and they can see how great it would be. Maybe we could set up a pre-war Iraq theme park outside of Damascus... there'd be a 60% chance of leaving it once you were in there.. super stuff.

The iraqis got that anthrax from the National Culture Collection on pretext of using it for veterinary research. They got it under false pretenses, in other words. One of the functions of that collection is to make samples of pathogens available to medical and veterinary researchers all over the world. And it was safe to send it, according to the standards of the time, for had not Iraq signed the Biological Weapons Convention? Yes, just like the USSR had.

Oh god, not another asshole... Now we have "Analogue Voter," whatever the hell that clever nickname is supposed to signify. (Don't tell me... "seleceted, not elected.") And he she or it brings up that by-now ancient and disproved crapola about "the US sold Iraq all its arms and germs!" What, is there a cellar somewhere full of thousands of cryogenically-preserved feebs who are being revived and released a few at a time?

I don't know why AV finds it bizzare to compare the Third Reich with the fascist Ba'athist Party regime formerly in power in Iraq. The two governments shared more than a passing resemblance.

US support for Iraq, even at its peak during the Iran-Iraq war, was always miniscule; it is France and Russia that were, up to the end, the Iraqi government's main suppilers, bankrollers and dipomatic supporters. The US has supported many odious regimes when it felt it had too. Where we differ is what that means. We once allied with the Soviet Union itself, and supplied it with tons of military weaponry, when we were engaged with a bigger threat. Would you argue, then, that US officials bear personal and criminal responsibility for those millions who suffered or were killed under the Soviet regime? When Iran looked set to export its revolution to the entire Middle East, US officials threw support behind Saddam to stop it. It no more implies a love for Saddam or US approval than our shipments to Stalin
gave US approval to him or the Gulag.

It's a big world out there, and one thing lefties like AV don't understand (despite claims that it is conservatives who do not understand the nuances and shades of grey in the world) is that sometimes you must make common cause with scum in order to protect against bigger scum.

Of course, the number of crowds supporting an action do not make it right or wrong. However, AV, I didn't say that. What I said what that the people of Iraq seem to feel that the death and display of the two fascist rapist thugs was cause for celebration while you, who claim to be concerned for those people, show only disgust. I would tend to go with the view of those on the ground who know the situation over yours in that instance.

AV, like most lefties, ascribes an other-worldly omnipetance to the United States. If we didn't capture the two brothers alive, it only could mean that we didn't want them alive, for example.

AV, I'm assuming you're not American. Let me explain something to you: we would rather level a whole house containing Ba'athist assholes than risk even one of our guys getting killed trying to capture them alive. They were a legitimate military target, both holding military rank, and both having commanded opposition forces during the war. When we engaged, we asked them to surrender. They returned fire. We returned fire, American-style. There is no conspiracy there. What you see is what you get.

Boy, those Yanks sure are inept conspirators, considering that the Riegle Report is available on publicly accessible US military websites. Quite the coverup.

But yes, if it can be shown that US government officials approved sales of "dual-use" chemical and biological materials from private companies to Iraq with the knowledge that the Iraqi government intended to use them to construct proscribed weapons, I'd certainly like to see them brought to account.

However, the weight of evidence doesn't seem to be on your side here. As this informational website explains, "Many transactions [to Iraq] involved dual-use equipment, or chemical, biological and toxin agents which also have legitimate uses unrelated to CB weapon production," such as research or pesticide manufacture. These types of transactions are common and wholly unremarkable, considering that Iraq was not at that time a "proscribed nation". Furthermore, Article X of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapon Convention "urges states parties to facilitate the exchange of equipment, materials, and scientific and technological information for the use of bacteriological (biological) agents and toxins for peaceful purposes" (same website). The site goes on to point out that the Iraqis were quite clever in their procurement of these materials, using a variety of strategies to hide their intentions.

Finally, there's this answer to a question of Riegle's:

The US intelligence community is forbidden from monitoring the activities of US citizens and its companies...very little was known by the Intelligence Community about US exports of technology with military potential, particularly to a non-proscribed non-enemy nation...During 1980-1994 Commerce requested review of only 16 dual-use export cases by the DoD. Of these, only two were forwarded to the DIA for technical review....DIA recommended denial in both cases. DIA was aware of the illegal export of thiodiglycol to Iraq by the Baltimore company Alcolac. DIA assisted customs and the FBI in their investigation and successful prosecution of that company. DIA biological warfare (BW) analysts were aware of some of the dual-use items purchased by Iraq for its BW program, but generally did not know what U.S. company was supplying the items.

Now this proves nothing, particularly to those who are determined to believe the worst of the US in all possible circumstances, but it seems there's less here than meets the eye. Got anything else?

Sorry about the excessive length.

I second Murray's point about the US Government intelligence agencies being unable to monitor its citizens and its companies. Until passage of the USA Patriot Act post 9/11 the FBI was even forbidden to surf the Internet for information unless it could demonstrate it was conducting a specific criminal investigation with probable cause!

This goes to my point above how lefties ascribe near-universal power to the US Government. If some chemicals were exported from here to Saddam, it could only have been with CIA approval, etc. etc.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the real US (as opposed to the fantasy bad-guy US that lives in the left-wing mind)knows that the US Government is the *last* entity to have the slightest idea what is going on over here in commerce.

Of course, Murray's point about those who are willing to believe the worst about the US is really the bottom line: if you think Starbucks, Sec. Rumsfeld and Southern Christian conservatives are just as bad as rape pits, execution chambers and stone-the-gays-night at Kabul Stadium, them we can't please you anyway.

The difference is that pre-9/11 we might have cared. Now we don't.

"Of course, Murray's point about those who are willing to believe the worst about the US is really the bottom line: if you think Starbucks, Sec. Rumsfeld and Southern Christian conservatives are just as bad as rape pits, execution chambers and stone-the-gays-night at Kabul Stadium, them we can't please you anyway.

The difference is that pre-9/11 we might have cared. Now we don't."

Also we are knuckle-dragging barbarians with missile-armed robots and nuclear weapons.

Spread the news.

We are maybe two generations of hardware from a time when ONE soldier will be overkill for most of what they will face.

Some - and this seems to be a particularly Left thing - have chosen a mind-set of loathing their own culture and all that resembles it (which is why Israel is singled out for the harshest criticism in the ME). And if you loath modern Western Democracy, there's nothing bigger than the USA. We may hate our mean, miserable Prime Minister and the snivelling morons who voted for his pathetic party, but that's small-time. Let's go international. Like a Poodle yapping at a Kodiak Bear, let's give it to the USA!

I don't see much equivalence though. Where fruitcakes like Chomsky and Pilger have at least some acceptance on the Left (our own Phillip Adams has quite a bit of Pilger in his bile duct) - thereby setting the range of acceptable thought - similarly paranoid, fact-fabricating looneys on the Right are ignored by all. (Yes, they are ignored, despite Left barrackers trying to suggest that anyone who thinks Capitalism is OK must also be a paid-up member of the KKK.)

I guess what I'm saying is: if you're delusional, overly emotional or just stark raving bonkers, you're more likely to have a home on the Left side of the fence.

Anal - ogue Voter: You overlooked something in your " Saddam days of prosperity " nostalgia fiction; 1/5th of the population of Iraq lives in self-imposed exile. A little too high of a percentage, don't you think, to sell any of your " quality of life " crap?

In additions to the points about the anthrax being obtained without the US government's blessing, there's also the point that unless Iraq was behind the anthrax mailings soon after September 11, Saddam's anthrax never hurt anyone (apart from unfortunate Iraqi scientists I guess).

By contrast, the gassing of Kurds at Halabja that killed 5000 in a single day involved French mirage jetcraft using chemical weapons derived from German pesticides (reminds me of Zyklon-B being a pesticide).

Ah, the Third Reich - last bastion of the redundant argument. But since you (bizarrely) mention it Kevin, weren't there trials after WW2? Weren't Husseins sons the two best leads as to the whereabouts of the father, not to mention the WMD? Besides, I thought the war (sorry, "major combat operations") was over?

The nazi government at least surrendered and called it quits. They didn't try to slug it out in person. If Uday and Qusay decided to surrender, then they'd be alive today.

thereby setting the range of acceptable thought - similarly paranoid, fact-fabricating looneys on the Right are ignored by all

I agree with you to an extent but I'd regard Robert Byrd as a looney of the right in many respects (despite being a Democrat) and he was regarded as credible by many of the left-wing commentators.

Interesting tidbit: Common dreams mentions Robert Byrd as being ex-klansman http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1117-02.htm when it suited their interests, but nary a peep about his background when he came out against the Iraq war.

Just want to point out a crucial difference between U.S. support for the Soviets during WW2 and U.S. support for Iraq during the Ir-Ir War: The Yanks never shipped no damned Spam to Iraq. Nor to Iran. Why? Because they are sensitive, caring people. Like the Aussies, who for similar reasons declined to ship Vegemite to those yeast-deprived Iraqi babies. Russian soldiers would have loved it though, in WW2, as much as they did Spam. Aussie caviar, it would have been to them, I'll bet. Few things go better with a crust of stale bread.

"Paranoid, fact-fabricating looneys on the Right are ignored by all"

would be fine if true but sadly it isn't, as this site attests.

Of the anthrax approved for sale to the world's worst dictator Michael says -

>it was safe to send it

er, right. You know, you should get a job with homeland security - boy, would those terrorists have a hard time.

Plunging further into la-la land, Andrea accuses me of saying that -

>the US sold Iraq all its arms and germs

yet I said no such thing, nor do I believe it, because it's not true. That'll be why I said "and others" when calling for charges to be pressed. Government ministers from the UK, France, Germany and Russia are just as culpable in helping create, arm and support Saddam Hussein's regime.

Kevin drags us to a hallucinatory world of unreality, maintaining -

>When Iran looked set to export its revolution to the entire Middle East, US officials threw support behind Saddam to stop it

which erases from history the fact that it was Saddam Hussein who started the war with Iran by invading in September 1980. Which country did Iran invade?

Rewriting history to "justify" supporting the world's worst dictator simply isn't on, except here in la-la land.

If the Iranian threat was so awful that the US had to provide WMD to the world's worst dictator why aren't I hearing your calls for Oliver North to be shot as a traitor? After all, he helped armed Iran. Tongue Boy is probably too busy slobbering over Ollie's poster, but what about the rest of you?

Murray has some interesting comments, but still resorts to sheer invention, claiming -

>Boy, those Yanks sure are inept conspirators, considering that the Riegle Report is available on publicly accessible US military websites. Quite the coverup

when I actually made no mention of coverup or conspiracy, but that the Riegle Report had not received "the scrutiny it deserves". If you can't see a difference you should either go back to school or join the army.

As for your multiple caveats, surely the average four year old would know that sending anthrax, botulinum etc to the world's worst dictator was a criminaly reckless thing to do?

What most of the world can't understand is how you Freeper/Hitler Youth types can condemn Saddam Hussein as a tyrant for gassing 5000 Kurds, while proudly supporting the fact that you, and the powerful you so obviously adore, were backing him and made virtually no protest about his crimes -

until it suited you.

A_V,

In other words, no. You don't have anything else.

Sorry for misrepresenting your argument with the "cover up" jibe. My error.

I accept your gracious apology.

There's actually a wealth of material. A good starting point might be Cambridge (UK) academic Glen Rangwala's research -

http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

Which has plenty of citations if you want to look further. This deals with U.S. - Iraq relations.

It was Rangwala who spotted that Blair's dodgy dossier (billed as containing the latest intelligence) was plagiarized from a student paper written over ten years ago.

For UK/Iraq you could start with the "Scott Report", produced by order of the UK parliament to investigate arms-to-Iraq, as it became known. To paraphrase it severely it shows that British businessmen and Ministers were batting for Baghdad before and after, and with full knowledge of, the Halabja atrocity, to name one of Husseins many crimes.