Whilst not wishing to spend time refuting one by one the main contentions between Anna Romano and myself, I am spurred to respond on one particular point of hers which cannot be allowed to stand. The hoary lie that UN sanctions were responsible for the sufferings of the Iraqi people during the nineties and up to the liberation of Iraq is by now so absolutely discredited that I wasn’t aware anyone was still trying to peddle this especially wicked canard. For twelve years Saddam Hussein’s glad fools ignored his open abuse of the sanctions arrangements (most notably the Oil for Food programme) and blamed the sanctions themselves for imposing the terrible sufferings on the Iraqi people. What Hussein did was to allow himself, his supporters and his sympathisers to profit while he starved the country he was meant to care for. Those who provided the propaganda Hussein desired pointed their fingers in the wrong direction often enough to cover for the tyrant in Baghdad, elongate his despotic reign and swell his personal wealth while the Iraqi people suffered. That a great many observers did this from a mixture of genuine prejudice, bias and ignorance, I do not doubt. But a great many others performed the motion for even more ignoble and selfish reasons. If Ms Romano and others would care to read the Duelfer report, which has now been available for two months, some, at least, of this lazy and uninformed slur both on the main Western powers and on the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people may be corrected. It is unfortunate for Ms Romano that on the very day she wrote her response, yet more details emerged of the $1 billion stolen by Hussein before the start of the recent war. Was this final, grabbing, theft by Hussein also the fault of the international community? Or the U.S.? As for ‘convincing the Arab world otherwise’ – does Ms Romano honestly think it possible to convince the ‘Arab world’ of anything it doesn’t wish to believe when it remained so spectacularly silent on Saddam Hussein’s crimes only to complain at his ‘humiliation’ when the mass murderer was shown on television having his hair checked? Is she referring to the same ‘Arab world’ who raised barely a finger to prevent their brother Arabs being slaughtered by the thousands in Abu Ghraib for two decades, only to erupt with indignation at the awful but, by comparison, negligible abuses carried out in that same hell-hole by the horrible Lyndie England and co.? Blaming the West and forgiving the dictator has been a popular pastime for more than the last decade, but it’s ignoble, dishonest and lazy to continue propagating the sanctions lie in the face of the wealth of evidence now in the public domain. Meanwhile, I’m afraid I cannot genuinely share Ms Romano’s dismay at the comprehensive obliteration of the border-crossing Ba’athist army. Finally, it is unfortunate that in her posting, in which Ms Romano rightly emphasises her own revulsion of terror, she should quote such a disreputable source as John Pilger. In this war against a ‘resistance’ of death-cult jihadists, Ba’athist remnants and common criminals, it is never elevating to quote on matters of morality a man who long ago declared himself ‘for’ the losing side in this conflict.

Murray considerably weakens his case and professional objectivity by referring to John Pilger as “disreputable”. Pilger has received many international awards (including an Emmy) for his documentaries, films and contributions to investigative journalism and is currently visiting professor at Cornell University, New York. Murray seems to have also deliberately missed the point of my reply: just because we don’t “do gruesome beheadings” is not sufficient grounds to consider ourselves a morally superior force in the context of this conflict – incidentally, beheadings are a fairly common occurrence in Saudi Arabia, a major US ally. Has Murray not heard of cluster bombs, daisy cutters* or Shock and Awe Fireworks displays which have left 100, 000 Iraqis (1) reduced to blackened clots of plasma, and many others mutilated? (The Lancet is perhaps too disreputable a source of information for his satisfaction). George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English language” describes the importance of language in framing and informing debate. Orwell was particularly critical of the use of euphemisms and the passive voice. It would appear that today we are sublimely skilful at camouflaging the hideousness of our actions, with such phrases as “collateral damage”, “precision bombing”, “the arena of war”, “mission accomplished, ” ‘villages were bombed”. Unfortunately, Murray writes just after the shooting of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi in a mosque which negates his thesis point: that the West values every human life (we already know that Zarqawi doesn’t) There seems to be an attempt to willfully obfuscate the issues by falling into the classic trap of treating all criticism of Western foreign policy as tantamount to support for dictators. There is certainly no forgiveness of Saddam in my posting; it clearly states that sanctions prolonged the sufferings of the Iraqis by making them more dependent on Saddam. Dennis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Hans von Sponeck, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, both resigned in 1998 and 2000 respectively because they no longer wished to be associated with the “genocide” in Iraq(2). These resignations were soon followed by that of Jutta Burghardt, head of the UN’s World Food Program in Iraq. She is reported to have declared that she could not continue her job amid the widespread suffering she attributed to UN sanctions. (3)Von Sponeck stated that the oil for food programme which allowed Iraq to buy essential items was barely meeting what he called ‘survival requirements’ for Iraq’s 22 million people. He also unequivocally blamed the Iraqi government for playing its part in the general suffering, as the ongoing wrangling between the Baghdad government and the Security Council over disarmament and other issues victimized the civilian population. Von Sponeck added: …”.I do not think it is fair to make the civilian population subject to bargaining…(by) the government of Iraq on the one hand and the others in the Security Council…. The real victims are those who walk in the streets of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul”. (AP Feb 2004) Nevertheless, even if it was common knowledge that Saddam was prospering and his people languishing, the sanctions were allowed to drag on for twelve years. The facts indicate a collusion between Saddam, the UN, the US and UK governments. All these parties failed to meet their responsibilities towards the Iraqi people. As corruption is a particularly relevant issue in the light of recent discussions, it’s worth adding that Haliburton has also done quite nicely out of kickbacks and reconstruction contracts in post-liberation Iraq, Saddam was sponsored and nurtured by the West when it was convenient to do so, Who does Murray think sold chemical arms to Saddam in the first place - The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ? The Republic of Lilliput? Obviously, negotiations took place between those Baa’th ist officials and criminals he refers to (which they probably were, although many have been re-employed by the interim government) and Western government representatives in order to sign lucrative arms deals. No action was taken by any state – Arab or Western – when the Kurds were gassed in Halabaja in 1988, possibly with the chemical weapons sold to him by Western companies. Colin Powell, who was the National Security Advisor at the time of Halabaja during the Reagan administration, responded by increasing aid, particularly agricultural aid to Saddam because they said it was their duty to support US exporters, according to public records(4). At the end of the 1st Gulf War, when the US practically had total control of the whole region, Saddam was effectively authorized to massacre the Shiites and Kurds,and to stifle the rebellion that could have overthrown him. Human Rights Watch (the New York based activist group) stated that the massacre at Halabja would have warranted international intervention, but obviously no Shock and Awe coalition force was available or willing to do so at the time. If we insist on adopting the criteria of human rights violations then the problem posed by Saddam and his regime should have been dealt with decades ago, not now when world oil reserves are dwindling. Perhaps the key lies in Thomas Friedman’s comments as Diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times in 1991 when he remarked: …the best of both worlds for the US would be an iron-fisted military junta that would rule Iraq the same as Saddam, but as Saddam is an embarrassment, let’s try to get someone else. And if we cannot find someone else, we will have to settle for second best, Saddam Hussein….. (5) Prominent Iraqi exiles confirmed that executions, torture and abuses were widespread. Thus, to maintain that Iraq was invaded because of human rights violations under Sadamm is cynical posturing –it is a lazy, wicked and hoary canard indeed, to peddle this myth. It also leaves one wondering why similar liberation campaigns have not been launched in the dozens of countries where human rights abuses have been routinely documented. This is called, quite simply, selective morality. When an author shows no interest in addressing the inconsistencies and hypocrisies inherent in Western foreign policy toward the Middle East , then the result is an analysis which lacks critical incisiveness. This a region where a complex interplay of factors -historical, societal, philosophical, and combined with not so subtle foreign interference – intertwine irrevocably. These aspects continue to shape and influence the Middle East of today. The words of the US state Department, phrased approximately sixty years ago, still resonate strongly. The Middle East was described as…….’the most strategically important area of the world, “‘ a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest prizes in World history’ and which constituted “profits beyond the dream of avarice……Which must flow in the right direction….”(6) On the subject of forgiving dictators, the example of Craig Murray (any relation ?) could be taken as a bench mark of Western political hypocrisy Craig Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan whose president, Islam Karimov, is renowned for his repressive and extremely brutal regime. Political opponents have been reported to have been executed without trial and cases have surfaced where detainees have even boiled alive (Amnesty International). Karimov’s secret police, who carry out most of the torture, received extra funding from the US administration in 1999 and Blair recently invited Karimov to pick the best of British weaponry. Craig Murray was dismissed from his high ranking post for publicly referring to the policies of routine torture in Uzbekistan; furthermore, attempts were made to certify him as being mentally unstable on account of his stance. When Blair announced in April 2002 at the Labour annual spring conference that…. “to leave Iraq in its brutalized state under Sadamm was wrong “(7)….. how much credibility does this statement have when he obviously believes that it is right to help Uzbekistan remain under a brutal dictator? Craig Murray’s case was documented by the press, but Blair’s and Bush’s backing for Karimov isn’t. It’s an extraordinary paradox but Murray is right: it is fashionable to selectively forgive dictators - until they renege, that is, - especially when the dictator in question happens to be sitting on some of Central Asia’s massive gas and crude oil fields. Murray refers to his own lack of compassion for the estimated 250,000 Iraqi soldiers, many of them teenage conscripts and trying to surrender, caught in the “cross border obliteration” (a euphemism for massacre ) at the end of the 1st Gulf War. If we allow these and other disturbing events to float by our consciences, then we can be assured that the violation of all humanitarian law is now tolerated in the pursuit of success in our policies in the Middle East. How can we logically expect to win the battle for hearts and minds ? Democracies that resort to violence to flouting international law and the Geneva Conventions, to ridiculing the United Nations, that resort to falsification as a justification for war, that maintain that pre-emptive strikes are their prerogative, are democracies that have failed to meet the challenges of a pluralistic world. In his discussion of the figures provided by the Lancet, Jeffrey Sachs comments (8):” American behaviour and self-perceptions reveal the ease with which a civilized country can engage in large-scale killing of civilians without public discussion.” That disreputable John Pilger, and the mother of all scoundrels, has declared that “the unthinkable is now becoming normalized” and quotes the American essayist Edward Hernan who wrote: “There is usually a division of labour in doing and rationalizing the unthinkable, with the directed brutalizing and killing done by one set of individuals… others working on improving technology (a better crematory gas, a longer burning and more adhesive napalm, bomb fragments that penetrate flesh in hard-to trace-patterns). It is the function of the experts, and the mainstream media, to normalize the unthinkable for the general public,” (9) Having spent eight years in the Arab World, my colleagues and I are constantly humbled by the respectful treatment and courtesy we receive on both a professional and personal level. Many Muslims eschew the extremes of Islam and are not death cult jihadists. Many do not lament the demise of Saddam but neither are they happy with foreign interference, nor do they believe that it should be their unquestioning destiny to accept foreign occupation. Before anyone sets themselves up as a bastion of moral self-righteousness in this conflict, - and exercise the right to rubbish the views of others - they should perhaps consider the words of the 11th century poet and sage Omar Khayyam who offers valuable insights into human nature and the issue of accountability: Pray tell, who has not transgressed your law? Pray tell the purpose of a sinless life If with evil you punish the evil I have done Pray tell, what is the difference between you and me? The Rubaiyaat End Notes * Daisy cutters are the very latest from the American armament industry, designed not for snipping daises, but for annihilating all life-forms by sucking out the oxygen from an area covering a square kilometer for a period of five minutes. They have been used in Afghanistan. (1) The Lancet is an internationally respected medical journal. The abstract for November 20th 2004, Volume 364, Number 9446 reads: In view of the limited health information Les Roberts and colleagues did a national survey of Iraqi civilian households to compare mortality rates before and after the invasion. Making conservative assumptions, they estimated that around 100, 000 Iraqi civilians died as a result of the invasion. These were mostly violent deaths among women and children related to military activity and that the risk of death was about 2-5 times higher after the invasion than before. Prime Minister Blair – who was obviously not part of the research team – questioned these figures (the last sentence is not part of the abstract) (2) Associated Press, “UN’s Iraq Food Policy denounced; official quits”, Feb 16th 2000 Leon Barkho, Associated Press (3) Associated Press, Leon Barkho, Feb.16th 2000. For more information on Iraq sanctions see: http://www.seattlep-1.com/ 4) Simon Mars interview with Naom Chomsky, Dubai Business Channel, Dec 2nd 2003 5) Simon Mars interview with Noam Chomsky, Dubai Business Channel, Dec 2nd 2003 6) State Department Policy Planning Study, Feb. 23rd, 1948, cited in Noam Chomsky, on Power and ideology: The Managua Lectures (Boston South End Press , 1987, pp 15-16. 7) Tony Blair’s new friend, George Monbiot, 2003, The Guardian (8) Iraq’s Silent Dead, Jeffrey D. Sachs, The Economic Times . 2nd Dec 2004 (9) As quoted in the Independent, April 20th 2003, “the unthinkable is becoming normal, John Pilger Other reading: Naomi Klein; Smoking while Iraq burns, Nov.2004 www.guardian.co.uk Amnesty International: Iraq, for whose benefit? www.amnesty international.org. 2003 Uzbekistan – Justice is only in Heaven www.amnestyinternational.org The Hidden War against Iraq, Anthony Arnove, Internationalist Socialist Review Issue Issue 12, June-July 2000 Anything by John Pilger Anything by Noam Chomsky.