Date:   4/2/2003 8:46:18 PM ( 21 y ago)
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Mr Bush's planet

Brian Cloughley

The difference between Israel's intransigence and Iraq's intransigence is remarkable only in that the former is endorsed by the United States and the latter condemned by the United States

A Washington 'source' pronounced that the Baghdad government "may have trained [al-Qaida] terrorists in germ and gas warfare". The Baghdad government may also have trained little green men from Planet Zog in bungee-jumping from full-size cardboard replicas of the Eiffel Tower on the banks of the Limpopo. Or it may have given advanced technical instruction to massed bands of banjo-playing Taliban limbo dancers in wiggling hula hoops while hopping on electronic pogo sticks.

It is amazing what comes into the minds of the demented draft-dodgers in Washington who are intent on justifying, by any means possible, their intended lunatic blitzkrieg on Iraq.

Mr Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of State for War on Iraq (who, to give him his due, is the only non-draft-dodger in the unpleasant coterie of Washington's rabid warmongers, having served as a Navy pilot in the Fifties) claimed that "senior members of al-Qaida" have been in Baghdad "in recent periods". Mr Bush parroted this by declaring that "There are al-Qaida terrorists in Iraq."

Ms Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said "There clearly are contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida and Iraq that can be documented; clearly there is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here.... And there are some Al-Qaida personnel who found refuge in Baghdad."

Ignoring her fractured language (little wonder we do not hear from her often: she and her employer make a good syntactical pair), we realise that a concerted message is being sent to the world, in that the link between the repulsive Mr Hussein and the repulsive (and elusive) Mr bin Laden must be proved because Mr Bush and his posse tell us so.

So this has just been discovered, has it? It is pure coincidence, we are asked to believe, that evidence of strong contact between Al Qaeda and Mr Saddam Hussein has been found at the very time when every country in the world except Israel and Britain welcomed Iraq's acceptance of UN inspectors on its soil.

Certainly, on 20 August, Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Ari Fleischer (the White House spokesman) and others in Washington claimed that Al Qaeda was strongly represented in Iraq.

"There are many names you would recognise" said a 'Defense official', and Mr Rumsfeld was more intriguing if less forthcoming. But nobody has been given any names we "would recognise" although Mr Rumsfeld said that at "a later date... it might make sense to discuss that [allegation] publicly." And it seems that the time for publicly distributed indisputable high-level rumour about Al Qaeda's association with Iraq came last week.

By chance it came when America and Britain were cobbling together a draft UN resolution in such robust, rigid and revengeful terms as would make it impossible for Iraq to accept it, which is the earnest desire and precise intention of Mr Bush and Mr Blair just as Herr Hitler imposed terms on shortly-to-be-invaded countries, then upped the ante once they agreed to his demands.

Just as last week's UN Security Council resolution requiring Israel to withdraw its tanks and swaggering soldiers from Palestinian sovereign territory was impossible for Israel to accept. (Among other actions Israeli soldiers daubed excrement on the walls of a room of children's paintings.

This is recorded in a film by the redoubtable John Pilger, 'Palestine is Still the Issue', shown on British television. The Jews of Britain, who appear to owe more allegiance to Israel than to their own country, have gone into hysterics about such behaviour being displayed. Their cousins in the United States will ensure that the film is never shown there.)

There appears to be some difference between US reaction to Iraq's refusal to obey UN Security Council resolutions and US reaction to Israel's rejection of equally binding international policy initiatives. Resolutions involving Israel are rarely passed because the US generally vetoes them, but this time all the US could do if it was not to be an international laughingstock was to abstain from voting.

(Israel has withdrawn some troops from the immediate environs of Mr Arafat's compound, but there are still hundreds in the area.)

The difference between Israel's intransigence and Iraq's intransigence is remarkable only in that the former is endorsed by the United States and the latter condemned by the United States to the point of planned military aggression.

The invasion of Iraq now appears to be 'justified' by flat and unsupported statements that the all-embracing, all-purpose, international terrorist organisation, Al Qaeda, is deeply involved with Mr Saddam Hussein.

Mr Rumsfeld has not only said that Al Qaeda senior members have been in Baghdad, he averred that the US has "credible information that Iraq and al-Qaida have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq [and] reciprocal nonaggression discussions." How fascinating.

The United States has spent billions of dollars trying to find and kill its Number One Enemy, Mr Osama bin Laden. It has combed, bombed, rocketed and rummaged Afghanistan, killing scores of Afghan civilians and four Canadian soldiers in the process, and investigated all regional countries with sometimes risible results.

But the entire US intelligence empire a staggering combination of organisations with unlimited resources and devices of such sophistication as to make the most exotic sci-fi gadgets look like a manual typewriter has not been able to inform its employer whether Mr bin Laden is alive or dead, never mind providing the White House with evidence of him living it up in one of Mr Hussein's 'palaces', about which Mr Bush's lip-smacking martial marvels seem so well informed.

How can Washington's bottom-guns and the draft-dodging buffoon dragoons be so certain that "There are al-Qaida terrorists in Iraq"?

If the communications' intercepts (of mind-boggling scope), the sweeps by Special Forces, the round-the-clock imagery surveillance of the world, the spooks, the spies, the agents, the suborned politicians and bribed bureaucrats of a hundred countries the combined, energetic, even frantic efforts of the mighty United States intelligence agencies cannot provide hard information as to whether Mr bin Laden is alive or dead, then why should we believe that "Iraq and al-Qaida have discussed safe haven opportunities in Iraq [and] reciprocal nonaggression discussions" as claimed by Mr Rumsfeld?

If Mr Rumsfeld knows who they are and where they are, and exactly what these people discussed, and with whom, how come he does not know if Mr bin Laden is still on the planet? We know that Mr Bush is hell-bent on killing Mr Hussein ("he tried to kill my dad!"), but manufacturing drivel about a nexus between Al Qaeda and Iraq makes one wonder on which planet Mr Bush resides.

Colonel Cloughley writes extensively on military and international affairs. He is also the author of the book, "A history of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections

(C) Copyright The Daily Star. The Daily Star Internet Edition, is jointly published by the Daily Star with the technical assistance provided by Onirban.

 

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