MYTH #7: "If the United States marches 200,000 troops into the region and then marches them back out . . . the credibility of American power . . . will be gravely, perhaps irreparably impaired." – Henry Kissinger, quoted in NY Times, Feb. 15, 2003.
RESPONSE: Top US officials have repeatedly stated they want to avoid war:
"I will tell my friend Silvio [President of Italy] that the use of military troops is my last choice, not my first." – President Bush, quoted in White House News Release, January 30, 2003.
"We still hope that force may not be necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein... Let me be clear: no one wants war." - Donald Rumsfeld, in Munich, Germany, Feb. 8, 2003.
The U.S. position is that "Force should always be a last resort." – Colin Powell, response to weapons inspection head Mohamed El Baradei, February 14, 2003.
If the U.S. can disarm Saddam without war – the administration's stated objective – how is our credibility hurt? Even French President Chirac, a critic of war, has credited the presence of U.S. troops with increasing Iraqi compliance.
Kissinger and top Bush administration officials are not satisfied with this progress. However these individuals have conflicts of interest. They have strong ties with companies that produce weapons, drill oil, and build military bases.
The President's father, and his 2000 recount advisor James Baker, are, respectively, "Asian Advisor" and Partner of Carlyle Group. According to Fortune magazine, Carlyle makes much of its profits by buying smaller "defense" companies, assisting them in winning huge taxpayer-funded contracts, and then selling them at a large profit.
Dick Cheney's wife, until January 2001, was on the board of Lockheed, the largest U.S. military contractor. Eight other administration officials had Lockheed ties before they were appointed. Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were involved in a think-tank advocating for "global military dominance" that is funded by family foundations whose fortunes came from military contracting and whose founders included a Lockheed executive. These ties must be taken into account when evaluating the legitimacy of 'fears' about a peaceful outcome of the Iraq crisis.
MYTH #8: War in Iraq will involve 150,000-200,000 troops and only cost $50 billion – less than it did in 1991.
RESPONSE: Bush's former economic advisor Laurence Lindsey estimated to the Wall Street Journal last summer that the war would cost $100-$200 billion. A veteran ABC News reporter revealed on 1/13/03 that the actual deployment planned was 350,000 troops.
One reason the proposed war would cost so much more than the Gulf War is that the administration plans to occupy Baghdad, a city of 5 million people. Another is that other countries have declined to pay the costs of the war as they did in 1991; instead, the U.S. has offered to pay Turkey $30 billion in grants and loans, an offer Turkey has thus far refused.
As Colin Powell wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1992, "The Gulf War was a limited-objective war. If it had not been, we would be ruling Baghdad today at unpardonable expense in terms of money, lives lost and ruined regional relationships."
Credible estimates of cost of a "short" Iraq war start at $120 billion. This is on top of a 2003 military budget that is already expanded dramatically. The numbers tell the story: the military budget in 2001 was $304 billion after 9/11 expenses were added. The military budget in 2003 is already $407 including homeland security and military construction. Adding the cost of the war, it could reach $527 billion or more. The cost of the increase from 2001-3 comes out to $2,000 for every family in the U.S.
The Bush administration does not seem concerned with the fact that their own budget projections two years ago anticipated a surplus of over $300 billion in 2004, but their projections now anticipate a 2004 deficit of over $350 billion, before the costs of an Iraq war are factored in.
MYTH #9: Freedom of the Press in the U.S. exists even in times of war. The U.S. news media has been extremely skeptical of the official stories put out by the government, in order to uphold the truth.
RESPONSE: The last 20 years have seen a trend toward "management" of the press by the government: restricted access press pools, fabricated stories, fake letters to the editor, and even violence against U.S. war reporters.
According to the Winter 2002 Navy War College Review, citing the book "America's Team: Media and the Military," the military had assigned reporters to a pool to cover the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, but the Defense Secretary at the time, Dick Cheney, "delayed calling out the pool."
During the 1991 Gulf War, according to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Patrick J. Sloyan, "The Associated Press... sent photographer Scott Applewhite to cover victims of a Scud missile attack near Dahran. The warhead had hit an American tent, killing 25 army reservists and wounding 70... Applewhite, an accredited pool member, was stopped by US Army military police. When he objected, they punched and handcuffed him while ripping the film from his cameras."
Dick Cheney, quoted in "America's Team," was honest after the Gulf War about his treatment of the media. "Frankly, I looked on it as a problem to be managed," he said after the war. "The information function was extraordinarily important. I did not have a lot of confidence that I could leave that to the press."
The most famous Gulf War media fiasco occurred right here at home. Employees of the large PR firm Hill & Knowlton arranged for a speech to be made by a 15-year-old girl, "Nayirah," to an unofficial "Congressional Human Rights" group in October 2000. Her so-called eyewitness story about Iraqi soldiers removing babies from hospital incubators was publicized by the entire news media and even by Amnesty International. But Nayirah was actually the daughter of Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States; the other eyewitness recanted his story, and other eyewitnesses have said that the story was fabricated. Amnesty was forced to issue a rare retraction.
MYTH #10: "We can give the Iraqi people their chance to live in freedom and choose their own government." – President Bush, Feb. 6, 2003 press statement.
"Iraq's oil and other natural resources belong to all the Iraqi people – and the United States will respect this fact." – Stephen Hadley, US Deputy National Security Advisor, Feb. 11, 2003.
RESPONSE: The U.S. government has made statements elsewhere asserting that we will control both Iraq's government and its oil, for quite some time.
Excerpt from the Oil and Gas International, an industry trade publication, 1/27/03: "France and Russia have been warned they must support the US military invasion and occupation of Iraq if they want access to Iraqi oilfields in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq."
Excerpt from the Globe and Mail, quoting US Congressional Testimony on 2/12/03: "The United States intends to rule postwar Iraq through an American military governor, supported by an Iraqi consultative council appointed by Washington, Iraqi opposition leaders gathered in this northern Kurdish city said yesterday. 'While we are listening to what the Iraqis are telling us, the United States government will make its decisions based on what is in the national interest of the United States,' said Mark Grossman." Grossman, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, was testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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word is bond
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