by Kerry Thomas
February 13, 2007
All too often, history’s facts get re-written so as to
better fit a political agenda. We’re
seeing such a re-write now regarding America’s involvement in Iraq.
The most common refrain heard today is “Bush lied. There were no weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq.” Those who parrot this line are
woefully ignorant of historic facts.
As early as March 1988, Saddam Hussein used mustard gas and
the nerve agents sarin, tabun, and VX against the Kurdish people in northern
Iraq, with the most egregious attack killing more than 10,000 people in Halabja.
Saddam Hussein
then invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990.
On August 6, the U.N. imposed complete trade sanctions against Iraq. By August 31, the United States had massed
over 60,000 troops in Saudi Arabia. On
November 29, the United Nations passed Resolution 678, calling for Iraq to
withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991.
On January 12, 1991 the U.S. Congress authorized the use of American military
force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. On
January 17, the U.S.-led coalition began more than 1,000 air sorties per day
against Iraqi forces in Kuwait. On
February 9, the first coalition ground forces entered Kuwait, which eventually
numbered more than 540,000 troops.
During the first Persian Gulf War, coalition forces were
repeatedly exposed to chemical and biological attacks from Iraq, as were the
people of Israel. Remember all the news
footage of the scud missile attacks?
The cease-fire agreements ending the Gulf War mandated that
Iraq account for all their weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and to destroy
same. Iraq listed numerous stockpiles
of WMDs, but subsequently failed to account for their destruction.
Between 1990-2002 Saddam Hussein violated at
least 16 United Nations Security Council resolutions in addition to
violating numerous other
U.N. resolutions. He also
repeatedly violated the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement.
On October 10, 2002 the U.S. House of Representatives passed
H.J. Res. 114 by a vote of 296-133.
It passed in the Senate by a vote of 77-23.
This resolution authorized the President to use the Armed Forces of the
United States as he determined to be necessary and appropriate in
order to (1) defend the
national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by
Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions
regarding Iraq.
Between
October 10, 2002 and the March 20, 2003 deployment of U.S. Armed Forces into
Iraq, Saddam Hussein took full advantage of the time he had left to hide and
move his weapons programs. (Just one
example - later searches would uncover modern fighter jets completely buried in
the Iraq desert sands.)
Georges Sada, the number two official in Saddam Hussein's
Iraqi air force, oversaw Special Republican Guard brigades that loaded WMDs
onto two converted Iraqi Airways planes and moved them to
Syria. Sada is backed up by two
pilots that helped transport the materials on 56 flights that were made. The flights were accompanied by a ground
convoy of trucks carrying similar materials.
The flights attracted little international attention because
they occurred at the same time that Iraq was subbosedly sending relief to Syria
for a dam collapse.
Georges Sada is not the only high official to make such
statements. In December 2005, Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s top
general in Operation Iraqi Freedom, revealed that Iraq had "transferred
chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.”
Israeli prime minister Ariel
Sharon issued a similar warning in a December 23, 2002 Israeli television
interview: “Chemical
and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from
Iraq to Syria.”
So, yes, there are no more WMDs in Iraq – now (and no more
Saddam Hussein). By their own admission,
Iraq had WMDs, as disclosed after the first Gulf War. Some were destroyed; some were used. Most were moved to Syria.
To say Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction ignores historic facts, and is
simply not true.