The Lies

Iraq DID NOT invade Iran "unprovoked".
Iran publicly announced their intentions of overthrowing Saddam's regime for months before the start of the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran bombed an Iraqi university, killing and wounding many students; Iran carried out some 25 assassination attempts (some successful) on various of Saddam's government members.

Iran gave the Kurds money & equipment to use to overthrow Saddam's regime. Iran then bombed several of Iraq's border towns, killing hundreds of civilians. The US Pentagon's own report talks about the many attempts Saddam made for a diplomatic solution with Iran; each of which Iran refused. Saddam was secular, Iran wanted Iraq to be fundamental Islamist. The Iranian bombing of the Iraqi border towns was the actual start of the war, although the USA calls the start the day Iraq attacked Iran back.

If Canada publicly announced intentions to overthrow the Bush regime, tried to assassinate members of Bush & the Bush regime, and bombed US border towns, you can be sure the USA would attack Canada and equally sure America would NOT be calling their attack "unprovoked".

http://www.ndu.edu/library/n2/n015602L.pdf

The USA supported Iraq during the 8 years of the war, with money, sattelite photos of enemy positions, and equipment INCLUDING chemical and bio weapons, technical expertise, and plans for chemical weapons factories.

-The US rewarded Saddam after the Iran-Iraq war with billions in loan guarantees and agricultural credits right up until Aug 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait.

In the fall of 1989, at a time when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only nine months away and Saddam Hussein was desperate for money to buy arms, President Bush signed a top-secret National Security Decision directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for $1 billion in new aid.

* In 1987, Vice President Bush successfully pressed the federal Export-Import Bank to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Iraq, the documents show, despite staff objections that the loans were not likely to be repaid as required by law.

* After Bush became President in 1989, documents show that senior officials in his Administration lobbied the bank and the Agriculture Department to finance billions in new Iraqi projects.

* As vice president in 1987, Bush met personally with Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq's ambassador to the United States, to assure him that Iraq could buy more dual-use technology. It was three years later that National Security Council officials blocked the attempt by the Commerce Department and other agencies to restrict such exports.

* After Bush signed NSD 26 in October, 1989, Secretary of State James A. Baker III personally intervened with Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter to drop Agriculture's opposition to the $1 billion in food credits. Yeutter, now a senior White House official, agreed and the first half of the $1 billion was made available to Iraq at the beginning of 1990.

* As late as July, 1990, one month before Iraqi troops stormed into Kuwait city, officials at the National Security Council and the State Department were pushing to deliver the second installment of the $1 billion in loan guarantees, despite the looming crisis in the region and evidence that Iraq had used the aid illegally to help finance a secret arms procurement network to obtain technology for its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile program.

An Agriculture Department official cautioned in a February, 1990, internal memo that, when all the facts were known about loan guarantees to Iraq, the program could be viewed as another "HUD or savings-and-loan scandal."

Of the $5 billion in economic aid provided to Iraq over an eight-year period, American taxpayers have now been stuck for $2 billion in defaulted loans.

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2000/msg007...

Then there's the "he gassed his own people" rhetoric.

The Kurds were not and never have been Saddam's "own people". Kurds fought with Iran against Iraq...and America supported Iraq.

"Talking points for the meeting include the Iran-Iraq war -the U.S. "would regard any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West"
US declassified document, page 2-1A

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB...

-It was during a war; the US term is "collateral damage".

The UK "gassed the Kurds" during their own previous occupation of Iraq, 1917-1952, something Winston Churchill, the man bush likens himself to, said was a good thing to do.

"I do not understand squeamishness about the use of gas," Churchill wrote. "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes."

Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...

British Use of Chemical Weapons in Iraq

http://www.iraqwar.org/chemical.htm

-The US supplied much of Iraq's chemical agents and technical expertise in how to weaponize, (just like the current Bush admin is offering to sell to India), as well as sattelite photos showing enemy positions

Yes, U.S. helped Iraq get chemical, biological weapons

You don't have to dig deep to find that from 1982 to 1990 the United States supplied Iraq with not only conventional arms and cash but also chemical and biological materials, including the precursors for anthrax and botulism.

A 1994 investigation by the Senate Bank Committee found that U.S. companies had been licensed by the Commerce Department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including precursors of anthrax and botulism. The report also noted the exports included plans for chemical and biolgical warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment.

"Only on Aug. 2, 1990, did the Agriculture Department officially suspend the (loan) guarantees to Iraq -- the same day that Hussein's tanks and troops swept into Kuwait," a Los Angeles Times expose on Feb. 23, 1992, noted.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/newsdemocrat...

Both Iraq AND Iran were using chemical weapons.

The US State Department found both sides were using chemical weapons.

"There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting," spokesman Charles Redman told the press a week after the attack. "We call on Iran and Iraq to desist immediately from the use of any chemical weapons."

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0218/tr...

On May 3, 1990, referring to yet another study, "A Defense Department reconstruction of the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war has assembled what analysts say is conclusive intelligence that one of the worst civilian massacres of the war, in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, was caused by "repeated chemical bombardments from both belligerent armies." "
Washington Post (May 3, 1990)

The US government itself later confirmed the fact that both sides had used gas and that, in all likelihood, Iranian gas killed the Kurds.

A Pentagon report, ‘Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East’ published in 1990 states (Chapter 5): “In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.” United Nations: No Proof Saddam Gassed the Kurds

http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-...

-The Pentagon's USAWC and US Marine Corps report concluded Iran gassed the Kurds at Halbjah, not Iraq.

Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War
by Dr. Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson
U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute

"The great majority of the victims seen by reporters and other
observers who attended the scene were blue in their extremities. That means that they were killed by a blood agent, probably either cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide. Iraq never used and lacked any capacity to produce these chemicals. But the Iranians did deploy them. Therefore the Iranians killed the Kurds."

US Marine Corps document FMFRP 3

"Blood agents were allegedly responsible for the most infamous use of chemicals in the war—the killing of Kurds at Halabjah. Since the Iraqis have no history of using these two agents—and the Iranians do—we conclude that the Iranians perpetrated this attack."

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/doc... /

The DIA's report concluded Iran had gassed the Kurds & Iranians of Halabjah;

Immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated
they had been killed with a blood agent - that is, a cyanide-based gas -which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

http://truthout.org/docs_02/020303C.htm

The CIA's report mentions "hundreds" killed, not "5000" and against the Iranians primarily w Kurds caught in the cross-fire. This report is still on the US government website.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Ir...

Halabaja, the town where it took place, was at the time occupied by invading Iranian forces, and, according to MSNBC Internet Home News, hundreds of Iranians and civilians were killed, not thousands.

Then came the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, with the opportunity for yet more lies and a very good setting up of Saddam.

Remember, the USA was still paying money to Iraq right up until Aug 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded. Iraq had made their intentions of invasion well-known in public in the UN. Kuwait was slant-drilling and pumping more oil than they were supposed to be and as well there was a long-standing border dispute between the two nations. This was no "surprise" invasion.

On 24 July 1990 two Iraqi armoured divisions moved from their bases to take up positions on the Kuwaiti border. Later the same day the US State Department spokeswoman, Margaret Tutwiler, asked whether the US had any military plans to defend Kuwait, replied: ‘We do not have any defense treaties with Kuwait, and there are no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’

On July 25th, US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, met with Saddam Hussein to discuss the coming invasion;

Glaspie: "But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

"The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction."

http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/02-...

On July 31, two days before the invasion, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly testified before Chairman Lee Hamilton of House Foreign Affairs. Asked repeatedly if we would come to the defense of Kuwait if it were attacked, he insisted there was no obligation on our part to do so.

Meanwhile, Iraq prepared for a meeting the following day with Kuwait to negotiate a deal on the oil issues. The talks ended badly, with the Kuwaiti emir refusing to attend.

How did the USA get involved, attacking Iraq for invading Kuwait, after all the government's public assertions that "Arab to Arab conflicts are not our concern"? More lies, that's how.

Colin Powell said he had "top secret satellite photos" showing thousands of Iraqi troops massed on the Saudi border, showing that Iraq intended to invade into Saudi. That was a total lie. Satellite photos taken at the exact same time in the exact same place showed...nothing. Miles and miles of empty sand. It never happened.

The above was admitted to the following year by Powell...but it was far too late by then; some 400,000 Iraqi (and other nations) men, women and children were dead and hundreds of thousands more were wounded.

General Colin Powell; : "I think we could go to war if they invaded Saudi Arabia. I doubt if we would go to war over Kuwait."

Another lie, one which galvanized the American public's support for the 1991 Gulf War, was the horrendous story of Iraqis in Kuwaiti hospitals dumping babies out of incubators and leaving them to die on the floor. This was totally untrue, made up by the PR firm Bush41 had hired (the same PR firm Bush43 now uses).

President Bush(41) mentioned the incubator babies in five speeches and seven senators referred to them in speeches backing a pro-war resolution.

Later, Amnesty International, who had also been duped by the testimony, admitted it had got it wrong.

It never happened.

http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/nocasu...

The USA committed some horrendous atrocities on the Iraqis during the 1991 Gulf War. We hear all about those "mass graves", but what Bush isn't saying is how many America put into those graves.

Iraq's infra-structure, crops, livestock, hospitals, water supply, electrical grid, all were targets of US bombings, an effort to "demoralize civilians of Iraq and accelerate the sanctions" that were to come, admitted the Pentagon.

Many observers commented that the 1991 Gulf conflict was not a 'war' in the conventional sense: throughout its most decisive phase -- from the beginning of the air strikes on 16 January to the onset of the Coalition ground offensive on 24 February -- allied aircraft ranged over the whole of Iraq, bombing at will (by the end of February well over 100,000 air sorties had been flown).

As early as September of 1990, Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Dugan told reporters that, as far as targets went, the "cutting edge would be downtown Baghdad."

The Washington Post reported that the list of targets Dugan proposed included Iraqi power grids, roads, railroads, and "perhaps" domestic petroleum production facilities.

Within days of that statement, Dugan was fired.

In late January 1991, after two weeks of bombing, the London Times observed that allied attacks were closely following Dugan’s description, "with the liberation of Kuwait as only part of the overall plan."

At 2:30 a.m. on 17 January 1991 the bombs began to fall, and for forty-two days U.S. aircraft attacked Iraq on an average of once every thirty seconds.

There were two thousand air strikes in the first twenty-four hours. More than 90 percent of Iraq’s electrical capacity was bombed out of service in the first few hours. Within several days, "not an electron was flowing." Multimillion-dollar missiles targeted power plants up to the last days of the war, to leave the country without power as economic sanctions sapped life from the survivors. In less than three weeks the U.S. press reported military calculations that the tonnage of high-explosive bombs already released had exceeded the combined allied air offense of World War II.

By the end of the aerial assault, 110,000 aircraft sorties had dropped 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq, the equivalent of seven and a half atomic bombs of the size that incinerated Hiroshima.

http://www.iacenter.org/fireice.htm

Thousands of Iraqi troops were buried alive in their trenches, with US troops bulldozing over top of them;

"Many Iraqi soldiers were killed by the simple expedient of burying them alive: in one report, American earthmovers and ploughs mounted on tanks were used to attack more than 70 miles of trenches. Colonel Anthony Moreno commented that for all he knew, 'we could killed have thousands'.

One US commander, Colonel Lon Maggart, estimated that his forces alone had buried about 650 Iraqi soldiers.

"What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with peoples arms and things sticking out of them,' observed Moreno.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.as...

The US Pentagon defended this atrocity, saying there was a "gap" in international law that allowed for burying the troops alive.

http://jeff.paterson.net/aw/aw4_buried_ali...

Then there was the Basra massacre, aka The Highway of Death. On March 2, 1991, Iraq announced over public radio that it was withdrawing from Kuwait. The surrendering soldiers, as well as families of Iraq and other nations seeking to escape the US ariel bombings, went down the Basra road to Southern Iraq.

Above them, the U.S. bombed both ends of the highway, ensuring that there would be no escape from what was to follow. Along the seven-mile stretch, the U.S. then killed thousands. On some planes, the PA system bleated out Rossini’s William Tell Overture (the Lone Ranger theme).

WARNING: SHOCKING PHOTOS

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0212...

The Highway of Death
“Even in Vietnam I didn’t see anything like this. It’s pathetic.“ — Major Bob Nugent, Army intelligence officer

WARNING: SHOCKING PHOTOS

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstatete...

On the Highway of Death

"It was like going down an American highway—people were all mixed up in cars in trucks. People got out of their cars and ran away. We shot them.... The Iraqis were getting massacred." —Pfc. Charles Sheehan-Miles

http://www.cornerstonemag.com/pages/show_p...

"We've blown away a busload of kids."
—Unidentified platoon sergeant during March 2 assault.

"We're yelling on the radio, 'They're firing at the prisoners! They're firing at the prisoners!'
—Specialist 4 Edward Walker, describing February 27, 1991, incident during ground invasion of Iraq.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/0...

The UK Parliament commented on the Basra road massacre:

UK Parliament
House of Commons
column 1347

Hon. Members will know that I am not emotional about many subjects. But I suggest that, emotionally, we shall be haunted for a long time to come by what has happened in the last few weeks. We shall be haunted in particular by what occurred on the Basra road. That was done in the name of the American Congress and the British House of Commons.

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-offic...

There's still other bodies in those mass graves aside from the ones Saddam put there; most of us are aware of Bush41's urging the Kurds and Shiites to uprsie and overthrow Saddam's regime after the Gulf war. Why do people take this to mean the innocent lamb Kurds & Shiites simply marched in the streets waving little "Saddam is Nasty" banners?

The rebels slaughtered thousands of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds; some by execution, by slitting throats, by hanging, by shooting...all were dumped into those mass graves.

"It was a revolution," says one Basrawi rebel named Mohamad, who deserted his army unit after the intifada began and eventually made it to the United States. "It was glorious. There were demonstrations and shooting. There were bodies all over the place."

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/MEW1-...

But there were more bodies to come. U.S. officials quickly voiced concerns about Iran's support of the Shiite rebels.

"I'm not sure whose side you'd want to be on," then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said as the uprisings began.

But in trying to drum up American public support for the current invasion, Cheney suddenly was very decisive on whose side one should be...12 years later.

Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Shiites, as well as the Kurds in the north, "never had a chance of succeeding, and their success was not a goal for the administration."

"Our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States," Powell said in his book, "My American Journey."

So orders were given to the US troops to slow down the retreating rebels, and free passage was given to Saddam's Republican Guards chasing the rebels. The executions of the rebels happened SO CLOSE to the US troops, many were traumatized because they could actually see the executions taking place.

Mass Graves Revive Memories of U.S. 'Betrayal'

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.as...

Uprising in Iraq may be slow because of U.S. inaction in 1991.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/115...

Analysts like the University of Haifa's Baram estimate the number of civilian dead in the Shi'ite intifada at between 30,000 and 60,000. Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman at the time, said the administration felt no guilt for refusing to aid the rebels.

Gen. COLIN POWELL: The only issue that came up is, "Should we do something about the Iraqi helicopters?"

It had never been one of our objectives to get involved in this kind of civil uprising between factions within Iraq and the Iraqi government. And so it was not clear what purpose would have been achieved by getting ourselves mixed up in the middle of that."

The American pilots patrolling the skies above Iraq could see the Kurds being chased into the mountains, but they had strict orders not to intervene.

Capt. MERRICK KRAUSE, F-15 Pilot: We saw helicopters chasing a lot of people down a road and we saw the gunships shooting at them. You could see the smoke coming out of the gunship and occasionally see flashes of the tracers, even though the sun had just started coming up.

Capt. MERRICK KRAUSE: We felt frustrated in the fact that we couldn't help the uprising that was going on on the ground, for whatever political reasons that were above our rank. And the best we could do was report what we saw and eventually hope that it was taken care of.

Pres. GEORGE BUSH: I do not want to push American forces beyond our mandate. We've done the heavy lifting. Our kids performed with superior courage and they don't need to be thrust into a war that's been going on for years."

They sure didn't care about the "poor Iraqis" back then; funny how suddenly 13 years later this becomes their "justification" for war.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gu...

And the latest "WMD" issue from the current Bush administration???

The United States may sell "defensive nuclear, biological and chemical equipment" to India under the growing defense cooperation between the two countries"

Remember this when America decides to demonize India for "gassing their own people".

http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?...

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted the US had had no fresh intelligence prior to 1998 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before going to war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,276...

The bipartisan Senate House Intelligence Committee report backs Rummy up on that;

"Most of the information was collected before 1998, when U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq because the United States had made it clear it was about to strike the country", the two members noted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/tombs...

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

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". Ie, the sanctions were working.

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."

Seven Months Before 9/11, CIA Director George Tenet, testified before Congress that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or to other countries in the Middle East and that they had no new evidence Iraq had or was acquiring WMD

So we had NO NEW EVIDENCE after 1998, and in 2001 we have the CIA, Powell, and Rice saying Iraq was NO THREAT to anyone, and the sanctions were working.

So how come in 2002, with NO NEW EVIDENCE, suddenly they were saying Iraq WAS a threat???

The media replayed over & over film of Chirac greeting Saddam Hussein in the 1970s. Chirac was mocked and ridiculed for it.

How come they not once showed Rumsfeld greeting Saddam Hussein in the mid-1980s? Why no mocking & ridiculing of Rumsfeld?

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/30/sproject.... /

Why no word on how Detroit handed Saddam the key to the city in 1979?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/26/...

What about this fact; Saddam's regime was using much of Iraq's burgeoning oil revenue to improve the daily lives of its people. It even won UN humanitarian awards for its literacy programs.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/30/sproject.... /

None of this is to say SH was "benevolent". He was a ruthless and brutal dictator. But as the Iraqis themselves say, as long as you stayed out of his way politically, you were pretty much left alone.

But had more Americans known all of the above before the invasion, bush wouldn't have gotten his war for geopolitics. The rest of the world knew, and that's why no nation had a pro-war population. But hey let's keep smearing France for daring to try warning us.



In the mid-1980s the Reagan administration sent current U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to meet with Saddam Hussein to improve relations between the U.S. and Iraq.

As for "humanitarian intervention"...nope:

The vast majority of Americans say "humanitarian" is not justification;

In the latest PIPA polls, only 27 percent of respondents said they think that countries have the right, without UN approval, to overthrow another government that is committing "substantial violations of its citizens' human rights,".

41 percent said that intervention could be justified if the violations were "large-scale, extreme and equivalent to genocide."

In the case of Iraq, however, only 32 percent of respondents believed both that human rights abuses equivalent to genocide justified intervention and that such extreme violations were occurring under Hussein's rule.

Asked, "Do you think that there are other governments existing today that have human rights records as bad as that of Iraq under Saddam Hussein?" an overwhelming 88 percent said there are.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/11...

The war in Iraq CANNOT be justified as an intervention in defense of human rights even though it ended a brutal regime, Human Rights Watch said Monday, dismissing one of the Bush administration's main arguments for the invasion.

While Saddam Hussein had an atrocious human rights record, his worst actions occurred LONG BEFORE THE WAR and there was NO ONGOING or imminent mass killing in Iraq when the conflict began, the advocacy group said in its annual report.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair cited the threat from Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction as their main reason for attacking Iraq. But as coalition forces have failed to find evidence of such weapons, both leaders have also highlighted the brutality of the regime when justifying military intervention.

Human Rights Watch, however, said SUCH CLAIMS WERE INVALID.

"The Bush administration cannot justify the war in Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, and neither can Tony Blair," executive director Kenneth Roth said.

Atrocities such as Saddam's 1988 mass killing of Kurds would have justified humanitarian intervention, Roth said.

``But such interventions should be reserved for stopping an imminent or ongoing slaughter," he added. ``They shouldn't be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in the past."

The 407-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2004 also said the U.S. government was applying ``war rules" to the struggle against global terrorism and denying terror suspects their rights. It suggested that ``police rules" of law enforcement should be applied in such cases instead.

The New York-based group further said that European and other governments were ignoring human rights abuses in the conflict in Chechnya, which Russia characterizes as its contribution to the global war on terror.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/01...

But "Saddam was the worst dictator ever! and disappeared MILLIONS!

Read what the Human Rights Watch has to say about the "disappeared" in Iraq; "No details were available about the fate of the approximately 16,500 people reported “disappeared” in the last ten years, mainly ethnic Kurds and Shi’as but including the approximately 600 Kuwaitis reported to have been in Iraqi custody but unaccounted for since the 1991 Gulf War."

http://hrw.org/worldreport99/mideast/iraq....

Bush's own website agrees with the 16,500;

"In 1999, the UN Special Rapporteur stated that Iraq remains the country with the highest number of disappearances known to the UN: over 16,000."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/dec...

And during that same ten years...

UNAMIR: United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (1994) of Rwandans killed had risen to 800,000 dead...

http://www.un.org/av/photo/subjects/unamir...

As for Iraq's actual human rights violations, read bush's OWN WEBSITE http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/dec...

...and then COMPARE to the US Military's OWN REPORT of the torture, rapes and murders committed by US troops against INNOCENT Iraqi men, women and children at Abu Ghraib and other arrest camps;

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001

Compare it to ISRAEL'S HRW report;

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/mideast/israel.ht...

...compare it to SAUDI'S HRW report;

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/mideast/saudi.htm...

...compare it to bush's good buddy Uzbekistan; the dictator who prefers boiling his political enemies to death.

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/europe/uzbekistan...

Saddam wouldn't let human rights groups into all prisons? Neither will bush;

Rights Groups Demand That US Open All Detention Facilities

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/05...

Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in Iraq

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/05...

War Crimes: Gen. Sanchez Hid Prisoner From Red Cross

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/061404B.sh...

Saddam arbitrarily arrested innocent Iraqis? Tortured innocent Iraqis? So does bush;

70% to 90% of Iraq Prisoners 'Arrested by Mistake'

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/05...

Detainees Suffer Terror at US Hands; Red Cross Says Torture Part of Deliberate Tactic

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/05...

Saddam arrested and tortured children? So does bush;

Military Analyst Describes Abuse of 16-Year-Old in Iraq Prison

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/05...

Iraq's child prisoners

http://www.sundayherald.com/43796

By the way, also read the current Human Rights report against AMERICA:

Amnesty Slams "Bankrupt" Vision of US in Damning Rights Report

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/05...

And how about them "mass graves" anyways? Oops. Another LIE?

"Remember we discovered mass graves with hundreds of thousands of men and women and children clutching their little toys, as a result of this person's brutality."

-Bush, November 16, 2003
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/frost/transcri...
Oh we did, huh?

Blair admits Iraq graves claim untrue

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office has admitted that repeated claims that 400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves were untrue, The Observer newspaper reported on Sunday.

According to the paper, only 5,000 corpses have been uncovered so far.

The claims by Blair last November and December were given widespread credence, quoted by British lawmakers and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's mass graves.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-07/...

And of those 5000 corpses, who are they? The mass graves mostly include the remains of ethnic Kurds and Shia Muslims killed for opposing the regime between 1983 and 1991. While Iraq was a US client state.

Sandy Hodgkinson, the U.S. official in charge of disinterring these graves, said the majority of people buried in the mass graves are believed to be Kurds killed by Saddam in the 1980s after rebelling against the government (during the Iran-Iraq WAR, where the Kurds sided with IRAN, and the USA sided with IRAQ) and Shiites killed after an uprising following the 1991 Gulf War (helped and supported by Bush41, Cheney, Powell, etc). And that is straight from bushCartel's own mouthpiece.

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/00047...

In the absence of mass graves from the 1990s to the present,in the absence of ongoing or imminent atrocities, how can we say that we saved more Iraqis by going to war than if we hadn’t?

OK but "better late than never, we had to hold SH accountable for crimes from 20+ years ago!" Oh?

Blair: March 2, 2003

"If military action proves necessary, it will be to uphold the authority of the UN and to ensure Saddam is disarmed of his weapons of mass destruction, not to overthrow him. It is why, detestable as I find his regime, he could stay in power if he disarms peacefully."

http://www.sundayherald.com/print31827

Bush: March 5, 2003

"We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force,"

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03092003/na...

"Three top Bush administration officials said today they would welcome exile for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and one, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, signaled the United States might allow Hussein to escape war crimes prosecution if he voluntarily steps down."

http://www.why-war.com/news/2003/01/20/off...

"President George Bush last night gave Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to give up power and go into exile."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....

Saddam can stay if he disarms, Powell says

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/21/...

Rice and Powell Say that a Disarmed Saddam Could Stay in Power

http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/Nati...

And of course we won't mention the current Shia uprisings that the US forces are slaughtering in Iraq.

"Only you LIBERALS" oppose invading Iraq (a defenseless nation that never threatened us, and did nothing against us) chant the rightwing...do they mean such as THESE "liberals"???

Dick Cheney in April 1991, then Defense Secretary

If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?

How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2072479

GHW Bush, 1998;

"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

http://www.rense.com/general43/quote.htm

Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush:

Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "Our pre-eminent security priority--underscored repeatedly by the president--is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...

Norman Schwarzkopf - Four Star General - 1/28/03:

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq….(And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...

Col. David Hackworth (ret), America's most highly decorated soldier:

"Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster - will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done: stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....

James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran - Navy Cross, Silver Star, and Purple Heart:

"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?p... ¬Found=true

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.:

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/... /

TOP REPUBLICANS BREAK WITH BUSH ON IRAQ STRATEGY

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...

Republicans Who Voted Against Iraq Resolution Tell Why

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2...

"A Republican Dissent on Iraq"
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors:

"Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back…. A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war."
- Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003

Or now;

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/0...

Hey, how about them 74 Shi'ites we just slaughtered in Najaf yesterday.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...

Maybe now it's more understandable why the Iraqi soccer team, rather than say thanks has said FU to bush.

What isn't understandable is why we have 14,000+ seriously wounded troops, 1100 dead troops (970 US), an est 40,000 dead Iraqi civilains ("That's not a number I'm interested in", said Powell. Yes, they know that.) and $200+ billion of our money (with $10+ billion unaccounted for) gone. For what?

I'm not painting Saddam Hussein as "benevolent"...but what have we now painted ourselves as to the rest of the world?