- The American public is savagely misinformed on the situation
in Iraq, according to a former ambassador to Iraq.
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- Edward L. Peck, ambassador to Iraq under the Carter administration,
was in Lubbock Thursday to speak at the International Cultural Center about
"Doing it All Wrong in the Middle East: Iraq."
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- Iraq President Saddam Hussein is relatively harmless,
Peck says.
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- "He would like to develop nuclear weapons, but you
cannot hide a nuclear weapons development program," Peck explained.
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- "And if you are going to build nuclear weapons,
the only time they become dangerous is when you have a delivery system,
and you can't hide that either."
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- The ambassador considers the overflights done by the
United States and Britain illegitimate.
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- "They are illegal," he contended. "There
is no justification in any form for doing that. We do it because we can,
period. And from the overflights, whenever we feel like it, we drop bombs
on a totally prostrate defenseless nation ó Iraq."
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- According to Peck, America likes the Kurds and the Turks,
but not the Iraqis.
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- "Why don't we like the Iraqis?" he asked. "Because
Saddam Hussein fired missiles into Israel."
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- He added, "I think Saddam would like to be harmful,
but we have fixed it so he isn't right now.
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- "Why I feel less than safe is because what we have
been doing to the Iraqi people for the last 11 years makes an awful lot
of people angry at us, angry enough to try to find some way to make us
sorry we are doing it," Peck said.
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- He said Iraq's sewage treatment plants were destroyed
by the U.S. Air Force in violation of the Geneva Convention, and that the
United States has refused to let Iraq rebuild them.
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- "The sewage from the cities goes directly into the
Tigress River raw, untreated. Water supplies for the cities come from the
Tigress and go into the water treatment plants for purification, which
we also have destroyed and will not let the Iraqis repair. So, the population
suffers from massive pervasive gastro diseases from contaminated water."
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- Children have been the most frequent victims, he said.
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- Peck charges that Madeleine Albright, while ambassador
to the United Nations, said, "It's a very hard choice, but the death
of a half-million Iraqi children was worth it."
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- Peck considers the Israelis occupiers of Palestinian
land. He said the Palestinians look on the suicide bombers as freedom fighters.
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- "When I was a boy, all of the people in Europe who
were fighting against the German occupiers were called freedom fighters.
In Palestine, they are called terrorists."
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- Peck draws a parallel between the Palestinian fighters
and the French resistance.
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- "They were heroes fighting against the Germans.
Somehow the Palestinians are not. I personally think part of that is the
fault of the American media as well."
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- He said: "The suicide bombers, what a horror. But
look at the concept embodied in American history: We had our first person
executed as a spy who said, 'My only regret is that I have but one life
to give for my country.' Patrick Henry said, 'Give me liberty or give me
death.'
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- "So, this is not all that unusual," Peck said.
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- When reminded that Nathan Hale and Patrick Henry could
not be compared with the bombers who murdered 28 Jewish civilians during
a March 27 Passover suicide bombing in Netanya, Peck replied, "Absolutely
not, and yet the idea is, you see, if I cannot be free I will die."
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- While Iraqis live under a dictatorship, Peck thinks they
will not rise up against Saddam Hussein.
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- "First, they can't ó this is not a fuzzy-puppy
government. Marches on the palace in Baghdad are very short and you are
only around for one.
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- "Secondly, they don't want to."
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- rwestbrook@lubbockonline.com766-8711 http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/041902/loc_041902034.shtml
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