- In a show trial whose theatrical climax was clearly timed
to promote George W Bush in the American midterm elections, Saddam Hussein
was convicted and sentenced to hang. Drivel about "end of an era"
and "a new start for Iraq" was promoted by the usual false moral
accountants, who uttered not a word about bringing the tyrant's accomplices
to justice. Why are these accomplices not being charged with aiding and
abetting crimes against humanity?
-
- Why isn't George Bush Snr being charged? In 1992, a congressional
inquiry found that Bush as president had ordered a cover-up to conceal
his secret support for Saddam and the illegal arms shipments being sent
to Iraq via third countries. Missile technology was shipped to South Africa
and Chile, then "on sold" to Iraq, while US Commerce Department
records were falsified. Congressman Henry Gonzalez, chairman of the House
of Representatives Banking Com mittee, said: "[We found that] Bush
and his advisers financed, equipped and succoured the monster . . ."
-
- Why isn't Douglas Hurd being charged? In 1981, as Foreign
Office minister, Hurd travelled to Baghdad to sell Saddam a British Aerospace
missile system and to "celebrate" the anniversary of Saddam's
blood-soaked ascent to power. Why isn't his former cabinet colleague, Tony
Newton, being charged? As Thatcher's trade secretary, Newton, within a
month of Saddam gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja (news of which the Foreign
Office tried to suppress), offered the mass murderer £340m in export
credits.
-
- Why isn't Donald Rumsfeld being charged? In December
1983, Rumsfeld was in Baghdad to signal America's approval of Iraq's aggression
against Iran. Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad on 24 March 1984, the day that
the United Nations reported that Iraq had used mustard gas laced with a
nerve agent against Iranian soldiers. Rumsfeld said nothing. A subsequent
Senate report documented the transfer of the ingredients of biological
weapons from a company in Maryland, licensed by the Commerce Department
and approved by the State Department.
-
- Why isn't Madeleine Albright being charged? As President
Clinton's secretary of state, Albright enforced an unrelenting embargo
on Iraq which caused half a million "excess deaths" of children
under the age of five. When asked on television if the children's deaths
were a price worth paying, she replied: "We think the price is worth
it."
-
- Why isn't Peter Hain being charged? In 2001, as Foreign
Office minister, Hain described as "gratuitous" the suggestion
that he, along with other British politicians outspoken in their support
of the deadly siege of Iraq, might find themselves summoned before the
International Criminal Court. A report for the UN secretary general by
a world authority on international law describes the embargo on Iraq in
the 1990s as "unequivocally illegal under existing human rights law",
a crime that "could raise questions under the Genocide Convention".
Indeed, two past heads of the UN humanitarian mission in Iraq, both of
them assistant secretary generals, resigned because the embargo was indeed
genocidal. As of July 2002, more than $5bn-worth of humanitarian supplies,
approved by the UN Sanctions Committee and paid for by Iraq, were blocked
by the Bush administration, backed by the Blair and Hain government. These
included items related to food, health, water and sanitation.
-
- Above all, why aren't Blair and Bush Jnr being charged
with "the paramount war crime", to quote the judges at Nuremberg
and, recently, the chief American prosecutor - that is, unprovoked aggression
against a defenceless country?
-
- And why aren't those who spread and amplified propaganda
that led to such epic suffering being charged? The New York Times reported
as fact fabrications fed to its reporter by Iraqi exiles. These gave credibility
to the White House's lies, and doubtless helped soften up public opinion
to support an invasion. Over here, the BBC all but celebrated the invasion
with its man in Downing Street congratulating Blair on being "conclusively
right" on his assertion that he and Bush "would be able to take
Baghdad without a bloodbath". The invasion, it is reliably estimated,
has caused 655,000 "excess deaths", overwhelmingly civilians.
-
- If none of these important people are called to account,
there is clearly only justice for the victims of accredited "monsters".
-
- Is that real or fake justice?
-
- Fake.
-
- This article first appeared in the New Statesman.
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