The Big Lie
By John Pilger
The London Daily Mirror
Monday 22 September 2003
JOHN PILGER REVEALS WMDs WERE JUST A PRETEXT FOR PLANNED WAR
ON IRAQ
EXACTLY one year ago, Tony Blair told Parliament: "Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction programme is active, detailed and growing.
"The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut
down. It is up and running now."
Not only was every word of this false, it was part of a big lie invented in Washington within hours of
the attacks of September 11 2001 and used to hoodwink the American public and distract the media
from the real reason for attacking Iraq. "It was 95 per cent charade," a former senior CIA analyst told
me.
An investigation of files and archive film for my TV documentary Breaking The Silence, together with
interviews with former intelligence officers and senior Bush officials have revealed that Bush and Blair
knew all along that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed.
Both Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest
adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America,
Europe or the Middle East.
In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any
significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project
conventional power against his neighbours."
This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public.
Powell even boasted that it was the U.S. policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the
Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went
further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop
weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in
keeping him "in a box".
Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq.
"Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms
from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
So here were two of Bush's most important officials putting the lie to their own propaganda, and the
Blair government's propaganda that subsequently provided the justification for an unprovoked, illegal
attack on Iraq. The result was the deaths of what reliable studies now put at 50,000 people, civilians
and mostly conscript Iraqi soldiers, as well as British and American troops. There is no estimate of the
countless thousands of wounded.
In a torrent of propaganda seeking to justify this violence before and during the invasion, there were
occasional truths that never made headlines. In April last year, Condoleezza Rice described
September 11 2001 as an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of
these new opportunities."
Taking over Iraq, the world's second biggest oil producer, was the first such opportunity.
At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld,
the Defense Secretary, said he wanted to "hit" Iraq - even though not a shred of evidence existed that
Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. "Go massive,"
the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." Iraq was given a brief
reprieve when it was decided instead to attack Afghanistan. This was the "softest option" and easiest
to explain to the American people - even though not a single September 11 hijacker came from
Afghanistan. In the meantime, securing the "big prize", Iraq, became an obsession in both Washington
and London.
An Office of Special Plans was hurriedly set up in the Pentagon for the sole purpose of converting
"loose" or unsubstantiated intelligence into U.S. policy. This was a source from which Downing Street
received much of the "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction we now know to be phoney.
Contrary to Blair's denials at the time, the decision to attack Iraq was set in motion on September
17 2001, just six days after the attacks on New York and Washington.
On that day, Bush signed a top- secret directive, ordering the Pentagon to begin planning "military
options" for an invasion of Iraq. In July 2002, Condoleezza Rice told another Bush official who had
voiced doubts about invading Iraq: "A decision has been made. Don't waste your breath."
The ultimate cynicism of this cover-up was expressed by Rumsfeld himself only last week. When
asked why he thought most Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of
September 11, he replied: "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe I could say that."
It is this that makes the Hutton inquiry in London virtually a sham. By setting up an inquiry solely
into the death of the weapons expert David Kelly, Blair has ensured there will be no official public
investigation into the real reasons he and Bush attacked Iraq and into when exactly they made that
decision. He has ensured there will be no headlines about disclosures in email traffic between
Downing Street and the White House, only secretive tittle-tattle from Whitehall and the smearing of the
messenger of Blair's misdeeds.
The sheer scale of this cover-up makes almost laughable the forensic cross-examination of the
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan about "anomalies" in the notes of his interview with David Kelly - when
the story Gilligan told of government hypocrisy and deception was basically true.
Those pontificating about Gilligan failed to ask one vital question - why has Lord Hutton not recalled
Tony Blair for cross-examination? Why is Blair not being asked why British sovereignty has been
handed over to a gang in Washington whose extremism is no longer doubted by even the most
conservative observers? No one knows the Bush extremists better than Ray McGovern, a former
senior CIA officer and personal friend of George Bush senior, the President's father. In Breaking The
Silence, he tells me: "They were referred to in the circles in which I moved when I was briefing at the
top policy levels as 'the crazies'."
"Who referred to them as 'the crazies'?" I asked.
"All of us... in policy circles as well as intelligence circles... There is plenty of documented evidence
that they have been planning these attacks for a long time and that 9/11 accelerated their plan. (The
weapons of mass destruction issue) was all contrived, so was the connection of Iraq with al Qaeda. It
was all PR... Josef Goebbels had this dictum: If you say something often enough, the people will
believe it." He added: "I think we ought to be all worried about fascism (in the United States)."
The "crazies" include John Bolton, Under Secretary of State, who has made a personal mission of
tearing up missile treaties with the Russians and threatening North Korea, and Douglas Feith, an
Under Secretary of Defence, who ran a secret propaganda unit "reworking" intelligence about Iraq's
weapons. I interviewed them both in Washington.
Bolton boasted to me that the killing of as many as 10,000 Iraqi civilians in the invasion was "quite
low if you look at the size of the military operation."
For raising the question of civilian casualties and asking which country America might attack next, I
was told: "You must be a member of the Communist Party."
Over at the Pentagon, Feith, No 3 to Rumsfeld, spoke about the "precision" of American weapons
and denied that many civilians had been killed. When I pressed him, an army colonel ordered my
cameraman: "Stop the tape!" In Washington, the wholesale deaths of Iraqis is unmentionable. They
are non-people; the more they resist the Anglo-American occupation, the more they are dismissed as
"terrorists".
It is this slaughter in Iraq, a crime by any interpretation of an international law, that makes the
Hutton inquiry absurd. While his lordship and the barristers play their semantic games, the spectre of
thousands of dead human beings is never mentioned, and witnesses to this great crime are not called.
Jo Wilding, a young law graduate, is one such witness. She was one of a group of human rights
observers in Baghdad during the bombing. She and the others lived with Iraqi families as the missiles
and cluster bombs exploded around them. Where possible, they would follow the explosions to
scenes of civilian casualties and trace the victims to hospitals and mortuaries, interviewing the
eyewitnesses and doctors. She kept meticulous notes.
She saw children cut to pieces by shrapnel and screaming because there were no anaesthetics or
painkillers. She saw Fatima, a mother stained with the blood of her eight children. She saw streets,
mosques and farmhouses bombed by marauding aircraft. "Nothing could explain them," she told me,
"other than that it was a deliberate attack on civilians."
As these atrocities were carried out in our name, why are we not hearing such crucial evidence?
And why is Blair allowed to make yet more self-serving speeches, and none of them from the dock?
Go to Original
Journo Claims Proof of WMD Lies
By Paul Mulvey in London
Tuesday 23 September 2003
Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based
on a lie that could cost George W. Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John
Howard down with them.
A television report by Pilger aired on British screens overnight said U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat.
But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger
claimed Rice said the U.S. "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities" to attack Iraq
and claim control of its oil.
Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam
Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He
is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces
have not been rebuilt."
Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively
disarmed Saddam.
Pilger claims this confirms that the decision of U.S. President George W Bush - with the full
support of British Prime Minister Blair and Howard - to wage war on Saddam because he had weapons
of mass destruction was a huge deception.
Pilger interviewed several leading U.S. government figures in Washington but said he did not ask
Powell or Rice to respond to his claims.
"I think it's very serious for Howard. Howard has followed the Americans and to a lesser degree Blair
almost word for word," Pilger told AAP before his program was screened on ITV tonight.
"All Howard does is say `well it's not true' and never explains himself.
"I just don't believe you can be seen to be party to such a big lie, such a big deception and endure
that politically.
"It simply can't be shrugged off and that's Howard's response.
"Blair has shrugged it off but Blair is deeply damaged. It's far from over here, there's a lot that is
going to happen and much of it could wash onto Howard.
"And it's unravelling in America and Bush could lose the election next year.
"I've not seen political leaders survive when they've been complicit in such an open deception for so
long."
Howard last week dismissed an accusation from Opposition Leader Simon Crean that he hid a
warning from British intelligence that war against Iraq would heighten the terrorist threat to Australia.
In his report, Pilger interviews Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and friend of Bush's father
and ex-president, George Bush senior.
McGovern told Pilger that going to war because of weapons of mass destruction "was 95 per cent
charade."
Pilger also claims that six hours after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, U.S.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he wanted to "hit" Iraq and allegedly said "Go Massive ...
Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
He was allegedly talked down by Powell who said the American people would not accept an attack
on Iraq without any evidence, so they opted to invade Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden had bases.
Pilger claimed war was set in train on September 17, 2001 when Bush signed a paper directing the
Pentagon to explore the military options for an attack on Iraq.
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