- Why did President George W. Bush invade Iraq? Some very
curious developments in the U.S.-occupied nation are making Iraqis and
their Arab neighbors very uneasy as they question Bush's motives. These
amazing tales should also infuriate Americans who are beginning to suspect
they've been hoodwinked into fighting yet another battle on behalf of Israel.
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- On the eve of war, President Bush and British Prime Minister
Tony Blair told their people that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction posed
a real and present danger to Americans, their British cousins, indeed the
entire planet. If Saddam Hussain didn't use his weapons himself, the Anglo-American
leaders argued, he might pass them on to terrorist groups. U.S. and British
citizens believed their leaders were looking out for their safety and that
they had evidence of Saddam Hussain's evil intentions which they could
not yet divulge.
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- Some 1,500 American investigators are now searching Iraq
for evidence to back up those controversial claims. Former United Nations
weapons inspector Scott Ritter doubts the investigators, known as the Iraq
Survey Group, will have much luck. For one thing, he points out, every
Iraqi government record relating to the weapons program was stored in metal
containers at a complex in downtown Baghdad's Jadariya. This archive was
the basis for the 12,500-page declaration Iraq compiled for the U.N. in
2002.
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- On April 8 U.S. troops took possession of the complex.
They never interviewed the scientists who continued to report for work
or tried to examine the archives. Instead the U.S. soldiers simply withdrew
after two weeks, leaving all the evidence: computers, disks, video records
of U.N. interviews with Iraqi scientists throughout the 1990s, and the
carefully organized documents. Looters ransacked the facility and destroyed
any evidence of a weapons program.
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- Anyone who watches TV knows that, in investigating a
crime, it first is necessary to secure the crime scene. One has to wonder
why U.S. forces never bothered to do thisóor to guard from looters
the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, or six other nuclear sites in Iraq.
Did coalition leaders know all along there were no weapons of mass destruction?
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- It's beginning to look like anti-war protesters were
on the right track when they declared: "No War For Oil!" Iraq,
one of the world's largest oil producers, has a potential output of 2.5
million barrels a day. Would the U.S. really attack a nation for its oil?
Perish the thought! The coalition promised that Iraq's oil would finally
benefit its own people, instead of lining its leader's pockets. Today Iraqis
are beginning to doubt that message as well, as fuel shortages and gas
lines at petrol stations make them wonder if they'll ever be able to return
to normal.
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- And now another horrible suspicion is crossing their
minds. Did Bush's Israel-first advisers invade Iraq in order to assure
that Israel would have easy access to oil?
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- A March 31 Ha'aretz article reported upcoming plans to
reopen a long-unused pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk oil fields to the Israeli
port of Haifa. Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky
suggested that after Saddam Hussain's departure Iraqi oil could flow to
the Jewish state, to be consumed or marketed from there.
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- According to John Cooley's April 23 article in The Christian
Science Monitor, "The idea is economically tempting for Israel and
some of its friends, especially those whose firms might profit from such
a project. Oil-poor Israel, MEES [Middle East Economic Survey] reports,
wants high-quality Kirkuk crude oil for its Haifa refinery. Israeli refineries
currently use Russian, West African, Egyptian, and other crude oils.
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- "Politically, the scheme is a potential bomb,"
Cooley warned, because Israel and Iraq have been implacable foes since
1948. "Its implementation could ignite a new explosion in the chain
of reactions to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, now beginning
to reverberate throughout the troubled Middle East."
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- Nevertheless, according to a Ha'aretz article the following
day, "a senior Pentagon official" sent a telegram to a "top
Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem" to check the logistics of
pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa and rebuilding the
Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline. According to the telegram, "The pipeline
to Haifa is considered a 'bonus' the U.S. will give to Israel in return
for its support for the American-led campaign in Iraq."
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- In early September, Paritzky will travel to Washington,
DC to present Israel's pipeline plans, along with a cost estimate, to U.S.
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. Israel's National Infrastructure Ministry
estimates a 42-inch pipeline between Kirkuk and Haifa would cost about
$400,000 per kilometer.
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- The plan requires Jordanian consent, but Amman would
receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to traverse its territory. Jordan's
neighbors may have something to say about thisóbut will the Iraqis
have any voice at all in the decision regarding their oil?
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- Responding to the rumors, Turkey has warned Israel that
it would regard this scheme as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations.
Iraqi oil currently is transported through Turkey to a port near Syria.
Ankara depends on the transit fees collected on this oil.
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- MEMRI Gains a Foothold
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- Still another shocking development, first reported by
IslamOnline.net, is causing consternation in Iraq. Israel opened a "center
for Middle Eastern studies" in a heavily guarded building on Baghdad's
Abu Nawaas Street. The center is affiliated with the Middle East Media
Research Institute (MEMRI). Some of MEMRI's cofounders have worked in Israeli
military intelligence.
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- MEMRI translates inflammatory newspaper articles it finds
in the Arab press into Hebrew, English, German, French and Italian and
circulates them to subscribers. According to Brian Whitaker in his Guardian
article "Selective MEMRI" (reprinted in the Nov. 2002 Washington
Report, p. 22), "The stories selected by MEMRI for translation follow
a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs
or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel."
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- MEMRI received the necessary work permits from the U.S.
occupation authority in Iraq and from the Pentagon, and on July 15 published
its first "reports" from the Iraqi press and translations of
Friday sermons at Iraqi mosques. MEMRI's actions speak for themselves:
one can view the articles they've selected to distribute on their Web site
(www.memri.org). Just don't expect any translations of Israeli rants in
its Hebrew-language press.
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- Iraqis are furious that the U.S. occupation forces have
allowed MEMRI to set up shop in their country. Baghdad University professor
Dr. Anwar Abdul Aziz told IslamOnline that MEMRI and its offshoots have
sinister purposes. "Israel's underground goals in the Middle East
are not a secret," he said. "The center is, in effect, a fa?ade
for intelligence and security bodies orchestrated by the Mossad (Israel's
intelligence service)."
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- "Who would have imagined that Baghdad would someday
host a center serving Israeli plots and schemes?" asked Dr. Soad Bahudin
al-Mousli of Al-Rafeden University. The opening of this center has convinced
her that the U.S.-led war on Iraq was waged on behalf of Israel: "This
is the product of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and reaffirms our conviction
that Israel and the United States are two sides of the same coin."
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- Another startling report, in the Aug. 27 Jerusalem Post,
provides the last piece in the puzzle of why American Israel-firsters pushed
Washington into waging war on Iraq. Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed
Chalabi, the Pentagon's discredited candidate to lead Iraq, has placed
a peace treaty with Israel at the "top of the agenda" for a new
Iraqi government. In the absence of a just Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement,
this could never have happened without an Israel-friendly regime change
in Iraq.
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- The belief that U.S. soldiers are doing Israel's dirty
work may be why Iraqis are killing their "liberators." Indeed,
these feelings are expressed over and over again in the editorials MEMRI
has translated from Baghdad in recent weeks. Every Iraqi knows that Israel
once feared Iraq's powerful army, as well as its economic, political and
educational strengths. Israel, and its supporters in the U.S., worked hard
over the years to isolate the advanced Arab nation and keep it from fulfilling
its potential.
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- If Iraqi suspicions are justified, Americans went to
war to help Israel's position in the Middle East. It's beginning to look
more and more like the people we "liberated" just might be right.
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- - Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs.
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- http://www.wrmea.com/archives/October_2003/0310006.html
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