JNV Briefing 77
By Milan Rai
(pdf available from JNV)

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE WRONG ANSWERS

Five days after the 11 September attacks, President Bush said that Osama bin Laden was ‘the prime suspect’. He added, ‘Now, I want to remind the American people that the prime suspect’s organization is in a lot of countries-it’s a widespread organization based upon one thing: terrorizing. They can’t stand freedom; they hate what America stands for.’

Addressing Congress on 20 Sept. 2001, President Bush said, ‘Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world-and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.’ He added, ‘Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber-a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.’

Prime Minister Blair told the House of Commons on 14 Sept. 2001 that Parliament had been specially recalled because ‘these attacks were not just attacks upon people and buildings; nor even merely upon the USA; these were attacks on the basic democratic values in which we all believe so passionately and on the civilised world’.

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE REAL ANSWERS

The US Government’s official ‘9/11 Commission’ reported that bin Laden’s grievance with the United States ’started in reaction to specific US policies’. Bin Laden and his group ’say that America had attacked Islam… Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.’ The US is also ‘held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as “your agents”.

Such charges, says the Commission, ‘found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers.’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: Norton & Co, 2004, p. 51)

“…Iraq remains ‘unfinished business’ for the international peace movement and responsible citizens everywhere.”

by Hans Von Sponeck

Published on Saturday, June 25, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Testimony given to the World Tribunal on Iraq
June 24, 2005

In discussing UN involvement before and after the 2003 invasion of US, UK and other coalition forces into Iraq, a clear distinction has to be made between the policy makers and the civil servants expected to carry out the policies, i.e., between member governments in the UN Security Council and the UN Secretariat.

If this is done, it quickly becomes clear that primary responsibility for the human catastrophe in Iraq lies with the political UN, with those member governments in the UN Security Council who had the power to make a difference. The failure of the Council to make a humanitarian, ethical and legal difference is much more monumental than is commonly known. There is not only the betrayal of the Iraqi people but also the betrayal of the UN Charter and the betrayal of the international conscience.

Why is this so?

Banner Reading: “Return Sons to Their Mothers, Fathers to Their Children. Release All Innocent Detainees.” (Photo: CPT)

Although the publicity surrounding the detainee abuse scandal is one year in the past, the suffering of detainees and their families continues. Close to 11,000 Iraqis are held in U.S.-run prisons and bases throughout Iraq. They are held without trial and often without knowledge of the charges against them. Often their families will not know where they are for months.

The following are five recent stories of detainees - two women and three men. Two are part of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Adopt-a-Detainee campaign and are in detention right now. Three have been released and have given their testimonies.
-CPT team in Iraq

Iraq Analysis Group, March 2005

Summary

This briefing examines the continuing use of incendiary weapons (“napalm”) by the US military in Iraq. While the UK government has attempted to downplay or deny the use of incendiaries in Iraq, US officials have been forced to admit using the MK-77 incendiary, a modern form of napalm. The UK is party to an international convention banning such weapons where they may cause harm to civilians. In Iraq, UK forces are part of a coalition which does not adhere to internationally agreed standards of warfare.

Iraq: the real sanctions scandal

The recent interim report by the independent commission investigating the United Nations oil-for-food programme accuses UN officials of favouritism, violation of competitive bidding rules, and a dangerous lack of auditing. But the truth may be far more complicated.

By Joy Gordon
Le Monde diplomatique

ANOTHER Iraq scandal emerged last spring, quite different from the Abu Ghraib prison torture allegations, complete with photographs, that were then embarrassing the Bush adminstration in the United States. The Iraqi newspaper Al Mada focused attention on charges that the United Nations-run oil-for-food programme had been corrupt. In April the US general accounting office published a report claiming that Saddam Hussein had accumulated over $10bn in funds from illicit oil sales and kickbacks on import contracts (1). Later a 900-page CIA report found there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but noted that the Iraqi government had none the less engaged in smuggling and fraud to raise money for weapons of mass destruction.

The rightwing press in the US has been eager to follow up on the accusations, and histrionically. William Safire proclaimed it “the worst financial scandal in human history” (2), although the recent Enron company scandal involving Kenneth Lay, a long-time friend of President George Bush, resulted in similar losses, including billions of dollars of employee pension funds. Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal described the UN programme as marked by “privilege and secrecy”, suggesting this put the UN in the same category as dictatorships (3). Congressman Christopher Shays, who presided over two of the nine congressional hearings that investigated the accusations, claimed that the programme had “trust[ed] Saddam Hussein to exercise sovereign control over billions of dollars of oil sales and commodity purchases” (4).