What Hypocrisy!!!!

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Looks like some of the BUSH administration’s accusations against Iraq are gradually being revealed as nothing BUT unproven Propoganda!!. And now they are trying to brush their original claims aside by saying its up to the UN inspectors to see what is at the sites.. :stuck_out_tongue: Also the fact that they insist Iraq obey the UN resolutions but plan to disregard them, themselves.

**Come inspect two sites now, Baghdad tells US **

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,1870,148358,00.html

BAGHDAD - The head of Iraq’s armament programme invited the Bush administration yesterday to inspect ‘‘immediately’’ two sites where Washington suspects Baghdad has resumed its prohibited weapons programmes.

**‘‘The American administration can send whoever it wants to visit the An-Nasr and Al-Furat sites, which it suspects of being used to produce weapons of mass destruction,’’ said Mr Abdel Tawab Mulla Howeish, who is also Military Industries minister. ‘‘If the American administration wants to see the two sites, we urge them to inspect them immediately,’’ he told a press conference. **

The two sites were mentioned in the dossier British Prime Minister Tony Blair released recently on Iraq’s arsenal, while United States President George W. Bush showed a satellite photograph of Al-Furat in a speech this week in which he threatened to disarm Baghdad by force, if necessary.

**Mr Howeish said sites ‘‘used to produce metal and moulded structures for cement bound for industrial and real-estate construction were inspected by the United Nations between 1992 and 1998, notably the International Atomic Energy Agency, and were destroyed in US bombings in 1991 and 1998’’. **

‘‘All we have done is rebuild the An-Nasr site without enlarging it, while we have undertaken no work at the Al-Furat site,’’ he said. ''We have the right to rebuild the sites and businesses that are used to reconstruct Iraq. ‘‘We do not have weapons of mass destruction. We do not have programmes or plans to produce them and we have not violated UN Security Council resolutions relating to this issue in the absence of inspectors,’’ he said.

**On Sept 16, Iraq accepted the unconditional return of UN weapons inspectors after a near four-year hiatus. But the inspectors’ mission is currently on hold while the US and Britain wrangle with the other three permanent members of the Security Council - France, Russia and China - for a tough new resolution. **

UN arms chief Hans Blix and IAEA director Mohammad el-Baradei said in a joint letter published on Tuesday that Iraq had agreed in talks in Vienna last week that weapons inspectors would be granted immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites deemed sensitive in the past, including eight presidential palaces.

**The White House yesterday dismissed the latest Iraqi offer saying it was up to the UN to verify Iraq’s programme on weapons of mass destruction and reiterated that President Saddam Hussein should obey UN resolutions.-- **AFP, Reuters

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Iraq has signed an agreement with the UN to allow UN inspectors back into the country without any conditions. But now it is the USA that has blocked the return of the inspectors to Iraq. Thats hypocrisy ans show the complete bankruptcy of the American argument.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Malik73: *
Iraq has signed an agreement with the UN to allow UN inspectors back into the country without any conditions. But now it is the USA that has blocked the return of the inspectors to Iraq. Thats hypocrisy ans show the complete bankruptcy of the American argument.
[/QUOTE]

That's not true, surpise searches at palace complexes were not allowed. These complexes are massive, some have over a 1000 buildings within them.

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Utd look at the article:

"UN arms chief Hans Blix and IAEA director Mohammad el-Baradei said in a joint letter published on Tuesday that Iraq had agreed in talks in Vienna last week that weapons inspectors would be granted immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites deemed sensitive in the past, including eight presidential palaces. "

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *

That's not true,

[/QUOTE]

Has Iraq not agreed with the UN to allow the inspectors back in without conditiions, under the present UN Resolutions? Yes. Is it not the US that is stopping the inspectors going back in? Yes.

One other question to you. Do you know who ended up destroying more Iraqi weapons? Was it the US-led coalition in the Gulf war in 1991, or the UN inspectors in Iraq from 1991 till 1998?

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not how I read it…

Oct 9th 2002.

**The letter noted that a 1998 agreement between Iraq and the United Nations requires advance notice to inspect eight presidential sites, but raised the possibility that this might change. **

Should these sites be subject, as all other sites, to immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access,'' it said, inspections would be conducted there with the same professionalism.‘’

The United States is demanding that the 1998 exemption be lifted and that all presidential sites–encompassing 12 square miles ( 31 square kilometers)–also be subject to surprise inspections.

Iraq says it has nothing to hide at the sites, but considers them a symbol of their sovereignty and wants the agreement, which was endorsed by the Security Council, to remain in effect.

…
It might change? What does that mean? Sorry this doesn’t fly.
Besides that Saddam has a history of saying one thing and doing another, he needs to understand that playing games at this level will no longer be tolerated. I’m for peace, but let’s remember who we’re dealing with and not be tricked again

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by underthedome:

*It might change? What does that mean? Sorry this doesn't fly. *
[/QUOTE]

It does not have to fly with you does it? The UN weapons inspection team was ready to go to Iraq, the Russians, French and Chinese were perfectly satisfied with what Iraq said. It won't "fly" with the American's is because Iraq's agreement pulled the carpet from under the USA's onward march for war. The United States stands practically alone in demanding things that others are not demanding, and the United states is the one that is now blocking the return of UN inspectors from going to back into Iraq, no one else.

Now you failed to answer a pertinent question I put to you. Do you know who ended up destroying more Iraqi weapons? Was it the US-led coalition in the Gulf war in 1991, or the UN inspectors in Iraq from 1991 till 1998?

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Malik73: *

Do you know who ended up destroying more Iraqi weapons? Was it the US-led coalition in the Gulf war in 1991, or the UN inspectors in Iraq from 1991 till 1998?
[/QUOTE]

US was responsible for both, so what's the point? The real hypocrisy (and pertinent question) is why is that it took the US to reign in the Butcher of Baghdad, and not any of Iraq's neighbors, who's bretheren it was being butchered?

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Seminole: *
US was responsible for both, so what's the point
[/QUOTE]

Actually it was the UN inspectors who by far destroyed more weapons, than the US did in the Gulf war, hence rubbishing the argument that inspectors did not achieve anything. In fact they destroyed '98%' of their weaponary according to some UN inspectors, while the US military missed 80% of its targets when it bombed Iraq back to dark ages.

A more pertinet question is why the likes of Donald Rumsfeld were repeatedly calling at the court of Saddam the butcher, when he knew he had used chemical weapons? Still not heard an answer for that.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Seminole: *

The real hypocrisy (and pertinent question) is why is that it took the US to reign in the Butcher of Baghdad, and not any of Iraq's neighbors, who's bretheren it was being butchered?
[/QUOTE]

Because of gallon of gas...

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Yes why did it take the US so long. Please answer this all you americans (this includes the pakistanis who rather consider themselves american you know who you are). The Iraqis said they would allow the Inspectors in and the US said not good enough. Now the Iraqis are dealing with the IAEA and the US again says not good enough. Of course when a deal is made the US will say not good enough. Nothing except the blood is enough for bush and his administration.

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US oil lobby wants a regime change in Iraq. That much is obvious. All this weapons inspection bullcrap is to distract you and me.
After that they want to install an American-led military puppet government like the postwar Japan, or so thinks the following commentator:

*[Rebuilding Iraq: Japan Is No Model](http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe chalmers17oct17,0,5168452.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment 2Dopinions) **
*
By Chalmers Johnson, Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute. His latest book is “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire” (Owl Books, 2001).

According to press reports, the White House is developing a plan, modeled on the postwar occupation of Japan, to install an American-led military government in Iraq. Administration officials said Iraq would be governed by a senior American military officer, who would assume the role that Gen. Douglas MacArthur played in Japan after its surrender. The plan calls for war-crimes trials of Iraqi leaders and a transition to an elected civilian government after a few years of American occupation.

After the story broke last week, the White House tried to back away from it. However, some unnamed senior officials have stood by it.

Our politics become more surreal every day. This plan won’t work for the simple reason that Iraq is not Japan. The Bush White House and the Rumsfeld Pentagon seem to know next to nothing about Japan.

The Potsdam Declaration ending World War II ordered MacArthur to “democratize” Japan. MacArthur himself thought that this order held great dangers. If not done carefully, his efforts would have only the legitimacy of the conqueror behind them and might well provide a target for later Japanese nationalists seeking to overturn foreign reforms.

MacArthur made some strategic decisions. He retained Hirohito on the throne and had all occupation reform directives come from the emperor. The general conducted an indirect occupation. He did not replace the wartime Japanese government but kept it intact, only now taking orders from him.

The new Japanese constitution, land reform, trade unions and the attempt to open up the economy all came in the form of laws enacted by the Japanese government. If the U.S. intends to follow the Japanese model in Iraq, it will have to keep Saddam Hussein in place and work through him.

The idea of conducting war-crimes trials is crackpot. In Japan, they were intended to educate the public about the war, but they backfired. Gen. Hideki Tojo, who was prime minister at the time of Pearl Harbor, embarrassed everyone by asking from the dock, “Why isn’t the emperor here?” No one dared answer that MacArthur had rewritten history to keep the emperor in power. By the time the U.S. got around to hanging a few wartime leaders, most Japanese saw the war-crimes trials as miscarriages of justice.

Most Americans do not understand that the Japanese people do not credit MacArthur with bringing democracy to Japan, although they do honor his memory as a postwar shogun. Democracy already existed in Japan, based on the parliamentary politics of the 1920s, before the militarists took over.

Another reason the Japanese don’t credit the U.S. is that halfway through the occupation the Americans changed their minds and began turning Japan into a docile American satellite for fighting the Cold War.

The so-called “reverse course” of 1947 meant welcoming back to power many of the prewar and wartime leaders whom the Americans had purged. Seeing this, the Japanese worked to take advantage of the new conditions created by the Cold War. In return for letting the U.S. keep its military bases on Japanese soil, the Japanese demanded unrestricted access to the U.S. market and American tolerance of their protectionism. The results of this policy can be seen today in any U.S. parking lot. It also produced the largest trade imbalances (in favor of Japan) in economic history.

During the early days of the Allied occupation, the Americans did not have any economic interests in Japan. But the oil lobby led by Vice President Dick Cheney is drooling to get its hands on Iraq’s oil. As late as 1999, Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, supplied Hussein with $23.8 million worth of oil field equipment.

Perhaps most obviously, MacArthur did not have a serious religion problem in Japan. He forced the emperor to renounce his status as a Shinto god, but religious impulses have always lain lightly on the Japanese psyche. Iraq, by contrast, is ruled by a minority government of Sunni Muslims that has fought bloody wars with the country’s Shiite and Kurdish majorities.

I am doubtful that a group of heavily armed American infidels can bring “democracy” to Iraq, but I know for certain that what happened 50 years ago in Japan is no model.