Returning to his vomit

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Daniel M Pourkesali
by Daniel M Pourkesali
28-Aug-2007
 

During a Press Briefing [1] on January 9, 2003 in Manila, Philippines; a reporter asked then Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton a question:

"On Iraq; the arms inspectors have not found any specific weapons of mass destruction that you've been outlining so far. What would be the justification for the U.S. Government to take military action if indeed it does?"

Bolton replied:

"Iraq 's obligation under the Security Council resolutions is to demonstrate that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction. In other words, the burden is on Iraq. And the requirement is on Iraq to be free of weapons of mass destruction. It was obligated under Resolution 1441 [2] to make a declaration of the weapons of mass destruction, the production facilities, the dual-use items that it has and it failed to do so."

If you're having a little problem following that convoluted logic, you're not alone. He was declaring Iraq in violation of a U.N. resolution 1441 because it had failed to produce a list of "weapons of mass destruction, production facilities, and the dual-use items" it did not possess.
He goes on to assert that everything Iraq had done up to that point to cooperate with the arms inspectors was suspect and disingenuous:

"The December 7 Iraqi Declaration is false and misleading. It contains material omissions and misrepresentations. And as Secretary Powell has said, it constitutes a material breach of Iraq's obligations -- one in a long series of material breaches over a 12-year period…"

And then went on to proclaim:

"There's no doubt if they had enough people in Iraq, if they had enough facilities, they would find the hidden weapons of mass destruction, production facilities and dual-use items that Iraqis still possess. If they're not able to do that by the 27th, then we'll have to take that into account. The President has committed in any event to further discussion in the Security Council and depending on what the inspectors report on the 27th, we'll consider what the next steps are."

Well, we all know what that next step was -- Two months later, on March 20, 2003 the United States and Britain along with a handful of other countries launched a military invasion "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."

After over a million Iraqis [3] killed, and nearly 4,000 Americans sacrificed [4], no such weapons have ever been found, Saddam's ties to terror networks never established, and the Iraqi people are fleeing by millions [5] to seek basic shelter and escape the turmoil and violence that has engulfed their war-torn country.

If all of the above sounds frighteningly familiar with all the recent rhetoric coming from the same cast of scrupulous characters regarding Iran, it's only because it is. Last week, John Bolton appearing on Fox News, the same network that cheer leaded us and the rest of the media to root for the Iraqi "shock and awe" campaign, had this to say [6] about and hoped that the comments made by the former CIA operative Bob Baer [7] that the Bush administration will likely attack Iran in the coming months were “absolutely” true:

"HEMMER: Bob Baer says within six months his sources inform him that there will be a strike on Iran. Do you agree with that?

BOLTON: Well, I don't think one can tell one way or the other. I don't think there's any doubt, based on the information we have, that Iran is interfering in Iraq and is posing a direct threat to our troops. So I think if President Bush as commander in chief believes that information is accurate, he is fully entitled to take defensive measures, which could include going after the Revolutionary Guards inside Iran. […]"

Note the same tone and twisted reasoning and presumptions used to prop Iraq into the kind of serious threat that President Bush as commander in chief had to deal with?

There is a famous proverb in the Bible that says "As a dog returneth to his vomit: so a fool returneth to his folly".

Let us not be fooled by the same dogs determined to take us down the path of the same folly.

 

[1] //www.state.gov/t/us/rm/16631.htm
[2] //www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/15016.htm
[3] //www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.h...
[4] //icasualties.org/oif/
[5] //www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586...
[6] //thinkprogress.org/2007/08/22/bolton-iran-si...
[7] //rawstory.com/news/2007/Former_CIA_agent_US_...

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