In the forthcoming discourse, I would like to discuss, Insha’Allah(God Willing), a great tragedy that has transpired, and that being the invasion of Iraq by US occupational forces spearheaded by the President of the United States, George W. Bush. What is the purpose of this invasion? The US government has been feeding lies to its own people as well as the rest of the world about the so-called threat of the now deposed Iraqi regime. The threat of global terrorism, the threat of weapons of mass destruction and the threat to world peace. The US government has initiated a campaign of propaganda aimed at painting the now deposed dictator, Saddam Hussein, as the worst enemy facing the so-called brightest beacon of democracy, The United States Of America. All things aside, without question Saddam was a tyrannical leader using intimidation and threats against his own people, however, how did that effect the security of the USA? Saddam Hussein, until this point, was a puppet regime of the US, which enabled him to seize power in Iraq as well as provide weapons in its war against Iran, a war that was provoked by the US in order to suppress Iran and its desire to form an Islamic State. But, again I ask, What is the purpose of this invasion of Iraq? Could it have anything to do with the fact that Iraq holds under its dry soil the world’s second largest oil reserve? A reserve that more than likely is causing the oil crazed Bush family to salivate at the prospect of controlling such a reserve. As presented to the American people, this invasion and occupation of Iraq was an essential component of the so-called “WAR ON TERROR”. George W. Bush was feeding on the feeling of vulnerability of the American people since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 with such colloquialisms like “smoke ‘em out” and “hunt ‘em down” in order to justify his invasion of Afghanistan and now Iraq. How sad to think of all the innocent lives lost during the bombing campaign of Afghanistan by the US. How many innocent children were killed by these bombs. Such images, obviously, were kept from the eyes of the American public. Images of a 5 year old boy who had his stomach ripped open by shrapnel from one of these bombs and how he suffered in agony for 12 hours before eventually dieing from his injuries. What did this 5 year old boy, and others like him, have to do with September 11^th? We now face the same tragedy in Iraq.

The effects of this invasion is not felt in Iraq alone, but is now being felt in the US as well. On September 7, 2003, President Bush requested another $87 billion dollars, on top of the already allotted $79 billion dollars, to pay for military and reconstruction expenses for both Iraq and Afghanistan. This is more money than the federal government of the US spends annually on education and roads combined. The US has gone from a surplus budget under the Clinton administration to a deficit of almost $500 billion dollars under the Bush administration. Another $50 billion dollars will be needed from the American tax payers if the rest of the world does not assist in the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan, which more than likely, they will not assist. Simply put, Bush’s war on terror is driving the USA into bankruptcy. This has caused Bush to make an about face as he went to the United Nations and pleaded for international support, support he so arrogantly had no use for just six months prior to that. Despite Bush’s plea for assistance, he refuses to relinquish control of Iraq in exchange for cash, troops or UN support. Obviously, compromise is not a word in the Bush lexicon.

The day before Bush made this UN address, the New York Times reported that Ahmed Chalabi, the president of the US appointed governing council, had broken with his long time White House backers and called for a much faster handover of control of the country to Iraqis as well as a cease to the insertion of more foreign troops. What was the cause of this abrupt change of heart of the US backed provisional Iraqi government? On September, 22^nd, 2003, reporter Rory McCarthy stated in the “GUARDIAN”, “Iraq was effectively put up for sale yesterday, when the US backed administration unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the economy, giving foreign companies unprecedented access to Iraqi firms which are to be sold off in a privatization windfall”. Many Iraqis resented this, feeling they would be unable to compete with the wealthy foreign companies, many of which are Jewish owned. This was in direct contradiction to the promise Bush made about its occupation of Iraq, that it wouldn’t be an excuse to loot the country. On February 12^th, 2003, Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley stated, “Iraq’s oil and other natural resources belong to all the Iraqi people, and the United States will respect this fact”. This was a bold faced lie because before the invasion, others in the administration stated that sales from Iraq’s oil would pay for the United States’ outlay for the occupation and reconstruction, much of which was already earmarked for American based corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel. Simply put, this invasion is all about oil and controlling oil. The American people have been bambuzzled into believing the lies of the Bush administration that this is a war on terror. Does Bush care about all the innocent lives that have been so cruelly taken in this campaign? Not just the lives of the innocent Iraqi civilians, but also of the countless men and women of the US armed forces who have also lost their lives in this evil campaign. Does he care about the mothers who have lost their sons, the wives who have lost their husbands and for the children who have lost their fathers in this “War for Oil”? The fact that his 19 year old troops are being used as target practice by the Iraqi resistance, a resistance that Bush labels as “Islamasists(???)” and “Terrorists”. How can you label as a terrorist one who is fighting against foreign invaders? George W. Bush has proven himself to be nothing more than a lying, greedy, tyrannical bumbling buffoon. Bush is on par with another global terrorist, that being Ariel Sharon, the Shaytan(Satan), who without question has a hand in this so-called “War on Terror”. In order to steer the United States into a preemptive “war” with a country 6000 miles away, the Bush administration had to establish five key “facts” into the minds of an American public in order to justify its deployment of thousands upon thousands of troops and spending billions upon billions of the tax payers money. They are;

1.      Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and  Al-Qaeda.

2.      Iraq illegally possessed chemical and biological weapons which were a threat to the US and its allies.

3.      Iraq was fast pursuing and might even already possess the means to build and deliver a nuclear bomb.

4.      Occupying Iraq would not only be a “CAKEWALK”, but would also find in the aftermath a nation full of people who would welcome the US and cooperate fully in the rebuilding of Iraq.

5.      Iraq is a nation which, with US aid and guidance, could become a democratic model for the rest of the region.

It is my wish, Insha’Allah(God Willing), to examine all five of these points and show how the US government, under Bush, lied to America and the rest of the world in a shameless effort to exploit the feelings of vulnerability of the American people suffering the aftermath of September 11^th, 2001 in order to propagate an invasion built on greed and money hungry ideologies to which oil is the key factor. This war was planned long before the tragic events of September 11^th, 2001 backed by pro-Zionist forces who wish to be the sole controller of the Middle East, a wish they could not obtain as long as the emerging power of Iraq still existed. The US has put themselves into a situation that they are unable to exit from and the cost will unfortunately be more innocent lives lost. At this point, let us now examine the above five lies that Bush used in order to justify his invasion of Iraq.

IRAQ HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH 9/11 AND AL-QAEDA;

On May 1^st, 2003, President Bush made this bold statement to the world on the deck of the USS Lincoln;

“We have removed an ally of Al-Qaeda.”

And yet, where was his proof? It is no secret, following the events of 9/11, that investigators determined that those who were involved in the tragedy were from both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. No mention of Iraqi involvement was ever brought to light until Bush took it upon himself to blame Iraq. Aside from oil being the motivating factor behind the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, one can also conclude that to lay the blame on Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two US allies, would be “Politically Incorrect”.

On September 15^th, 2001, at Camp David, Colin Powell made an argument against going to war with Iraq in response to 9/11 stating that, “They had nothing to do with it”. The following was Powell’s perspective, as described by Bob Woodward in his book, “Bush at War”;

“Don’t go with the Iraq option right away, or we’ll loose the coalition we’ve been signing up. They’ll view it as ‘Bait And Switch’. It’s not what they signed up for.”

Powell contended that if the US was not going after Iraq before 9/11 for alleged terrorism, then why should the US go after them now? Powell further stated that nobody could look at Iraq and say it had anything to do with 9/11. He further stated;

“Keep the Iraq option open if you get the linkage, maybe Syria, Iran-the chief state sponsors of terrorism in the 1980’s, but I doubt you’ll get the linkage.”

Curiously, the same Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who made this statement would one year later be a key player in the Invasion of Iraq. In the first weeks of the invasion, Bush claimed on Polish Television that the US had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but he later contradicted himself when he stated that Iraq refused UN weapons inspections and thus had no choice but to invade in order to determine whether or not Iraq had indeed weapons of mass destruction.

On “Meet the Press”, Dick Cheney stated that Iraq “had reconstituted nuclear weapons”; and National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, further added that Iraq could “surprise us with a mushroom cloud”. In spite of the lack of proof that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, the Bush administration were successful in its propaganda against Iraq with its lies and half truths that were being fed to the American public, so much so that because of this campaign a CBS NEWS poll determined that 51% of Americans believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Further evidence of Bush’s chicanery was brought to light on September 25^th, 2003, when Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, held a press conference. The following is a short excerpt from that conference;

QUESTION: Yesterday in the briefing, you said that information you have has said Al-Qaeda is operating in Iraq. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was asked about linkages between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein this morning. He said very definitively that, yes, he believes there are such linkages. And then the President said, talking about Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the danger is that they work in concert. Is the President saying that they are working in concert, that there is a relationship? Do you have evidence that supports this?

Mr. Fleischer: No, the President is saying that’s the danger. The President has repeatedly said that the worst thing that could happen is for people, the world’s worst dictators with the world’s worst weapons of mass destruction, to work in concert with terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, who have shown an ability to attack the United States. And that’s what the President has said.

QUESTION: So why, when Rumsfeld was saying, yes, there is a linkage between the two, what is he talking about?

Mr. Fleischer: Clearly, Al-Qaeda is operating inside Iraq. And the point is, in the shadowy world of terrorism, sometimes there is no precise way to have definitive information until it is too late. And we’ve seen that in the past. And so the risk is that Al-Qaeda operating inside Iraq does present a security threat, and it’s cause for concearn. And I think it’s understandably so.  If you’re searching, Campbell, again, for the smoking gun, again I say what Secretary Rumsfeld said, the problem with smoking guns is that they only smoke after they’re fired.

QUESTION: I’m not looking for a smoking gun. I’m just trying to figure out how you make that conclusion, because the British, the Russians, people on the Hill that you all have briefed about all this stuff say that there isn’t a linkage, that they don’t believe that Al-Qaeda is there working in conjunction in any way with Saddam Hussein. And there is a mountain of comments, both public and private statements that Osama Bib Laden has made about Saddam, calling him a bad Muslim, suggesting that there would be no way that the two would ever connect.

So I just, if there’s something, if you have some evidence that supports this, I’m just wondering why……

Mr. Fleischer: What supports what I just said is that the President fears that the two could get together. That’s what the President has said, and that’s one of the reasons that he feels so strongly about fighting the war on terror.

QUESTION: So does Rumsfeld have some information that the President doesn’t, that they are, in fact, working together now?

Mr. Fleischer: Well, I’m going to take a little more detailed look at anything that you’ve got there. I haven’t seen a verbatim quote, so I’ll take a look at that.

What Mr. Fleischer was stating is that there could exist a possible link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq based on information in their possession, that being a US intelligence agency report stating that there was tentative contact between Saddam and Al-Qaeda in the early 90’s and that no such contact had taken place since. What that contact was about remained a mystery and the fact that it took place over ten years ago leaves one wondering about Rumsfeld’s statement about the proof of linkages between Al-Qaeda and Iraq were “Bulletproof”. Basically put, the Bush administration went from telling the world that Iraq was indeed involved with both Al-Qaeda and 9/11, to telling them that the possibility was there and as such felt it necessary to invade Iraq before the two could team up and cause havoc throughout the world. Any and all evidence in their possession was questionable to say the least. This included the so-called meeting between Mohamed Atta, the apparent ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers and Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, of Iraqi Intelligence, in Prague, which was later proven to be false information by Czech Intelligence. As for the contact between between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein over ten years ago, it is no secret that Osama Bib Laden despised Saddam Hussein, however, they reached an understanding in the early 90’s, the time of their contact, that Al-Qaeda would no longer support activities against Baghdad. In a nut shell, both Osama and Saddam agreed that they would no longer try to kill each other. This hardly sounds like a plan for the overthrow of the USA. General Brent Scowcroft, former Security Advisor for Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr., wrote in the Wall Street Journal in August 2002;

“But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the September 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them. He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address. Threatening to use these weapons for blackmail, much less their actual use, would open him and his entire regime to a devastating response by the US. While Saddam is thoroughly evil, he is above all a power hungry survivor. Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for aggression. There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression. Rather, Saddam’s problem with the US appears to be that we stand in the way of his ambitions. He seeks weapons of mass destruction not to arm terrorists, but to deter us from intervening to block his aggressive designs.”

What General Scowcroft was saying is that Saddam, being anything but an angel, is only motivated by clinging to his own power base, that being the ruler of Iraq and has no interest in foreign matters, especially those that could jeopardize his stranglehold and continued dictatorship of his own people. So, in light of this information, it is safe to conclude that Iraq had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda as well as having nothing to do with the tragic events of 9/11.

IRAQ ILLEGALLY POSSESSED CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS WHICH WERE A THREAT TO THE US AND ITS ALLIES;

Let us now examine the so-called proof of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. On March 24^th, 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumefeld stated on “Face the Nation” that;

“We have seen intelligence over many months that they (Iraq) have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they’re weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established.”

Further, on June 1^st, 2003, President Bush stated;

“For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”

Or did they? Douglas Jehl and Judith Miller, writing in the “New York Times”, September 24^th, 2003, stated the following;

“…the Americans leading the hunt for banned weapons in Iraq says his team has not found any of the unconventional weapons cited by the Bush administration as a principal reason for going to war, federal officials with knowledge of the findings said today.”

Before the invasion, Iraq was described by the White House as brimming with biological and chemical weapons of all types and descriptions.

“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets”, Powell told the United Nations Security Council a few weeks before the invasion. He pointed to “vague” satellite photos that “allegedly” showed activity indicative of development, movement and storage of biological and/or chemical weapons.

Also, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld assured reporters in an interview on March 30^th, 2003, that;

“We know where Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”

This latter statement was confusing in more ways than one. If Rumsfeld knew so clearly where the illicit weapons were located, why hadn’t he bothered to share this information with UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq, before chasing them out of the country before launching the invasion? In fact, the chiefs of both the UN and IAEA teams of inspectors had already gone public with their extreme frustration at the United States’ resistance to share the intelligence that would back up its claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

It is a well known fact that after the first Gulf war of 1991, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them. Furthermore, according to an article by Seth Ackerman in Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting’s July/August edition of “Extra!” that cited a 1999 UN report;

“Using forensic techniques, the inspectors confirmed that Iraq indeed undertook extensive, unilateral and secret destruction of large quantities of proscribed weapons.”

Even if these weapons of the early 90’s were still in existence, they would have been hopelessly degraded by age and in many cases left impotent. Nerve agents “Sarin” and “Tabun” have a shelf live of only five years, “VX” a bit longer, “Botulinum Toxin” and “Liquid Anthrax”, if kept in ideal conditions, are potent for about three years. “Mustard Gas” is perhaps the most stable of the agents Iraq had possessed in the past, yet according to former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, by 2003 any remaining biological or chemical weapons stores in Iraq would have turned into, after a dozen years, harmless goo. So, we are left with White House allegations about a huge stockpile of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq despite evidence proving that they were destroyed a decade earlier and that if indeed there were some remaining, age would have left them degraded and unable to use.

Since the US took control of Iraq, not a single vile of chemical or biological weapons has been found in occupied Iraq. Also, despite being freed from Saddam’s tyranny, Iraq’s weapons scientists insisted that the country’s chemical and biological weapons stores had been destroyed earlier. According to Ackerman’s review of the press;

“With remarkable unanimity, former Iraqi scientists interviewed since the invasion about the status of the weapons programs, including VX specialist Emad Ani, presidential science advisor Lieutenant General Amer al-Saadi, nuclear scientist Jafar Jafar and chief UN liaison Brigadier General Ala Saeed, have all maintained that the regime did, in fact, destroy these stockpiles in the early 1990’s, as it claimed. According to a US intelligence official, the top scientists are all sticking to the party line, that Saddam destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction long ago, the ‘Los Angeles Times’ reported on April 27^th, 2003.”

Of course, whenever Bush is prodded by journalists about these findings, he complains that he is being abused by “Revisionist Historians”. Despite the fact that in the days leading up to the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was giving full cooperation to UN weapons inspectors, the US was adamant about its attack on Iraq.

In fact, it appeared that Saddam was one of the last to grasp the fact that the United States really didn’t care what he did or didn’t possess. Somebody was going to pay for 9/11 and Saddam had been selected. He had been selected for his visibility as it is much easier to launch an attack against a country than it is against a terrorist group like Al-Qaeda, but more importantly, Saddam had been selected because of his oil resources. The attack against Iraq was built on weak intelligence and the think-tank fantasies of a bunch of trigger-happy neoconservatives. John Brady Kiesling, a 20 year veteran of the US Foreign Service, resigned over the deceptive measures his government had taken to launch an unprovoked invasion of a foreign country. Kiesling, who was a political councilor in US embassies throughout the Middle East, stated in his letter of resignation on February 27^th, 2003 to Secretary of State Colin Powell;

“We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of the American people, since the war in Vietnam. Until this administration, it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my President, I was upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.”

Later came Gregory Thielmann, who had served as a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence until his retirement in September, 2003 and had access to classified reports that formed the basis for the US case against Saddam spelled out by President Bush and his aids. Thielmann noted that US intelligence on Iraq was spotty and inconsistent, but emphasized that the real problem lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided. Thielmann openly stated that Iraq posed no threat to either its neighbors or to the United States. Again, Bush responded to these accusations with an accusation of his own, claiming his critics were “trying to rewrite history”. What better answer can anyone expect from Bush, a man well known for tripping over his own words. Bush was confident that the Marines who controlled the ground in Iraq would find something, anything, however, such was not the case. Lieutenant General James Conway, commander of the 1^st Marine Expeditionary Force, was asked at the end of May, 2003 why his Marines failed to encounter or uncover any weapons of mass destruction that US intelligence had warned them about. His straightforwardness was refreshing;

“We were simply wrong. It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwait border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there. What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood or we certainly had our best guess, our most dangerous scenario, our most likely courses of action that the intelligence folks were giving us. We were simply wrong.”

The best excuse Bush could come up with, in light of the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, was that he believed that Saddam Hussein buried or dispersed his stockpiles of illicit weapons before the United States mounted its invasion in March, 2003, but Bush provided no evidence or basis for this bold speculation which found support in the form of British Prime Minister and Bush Puppet, Tony Blair. So, in light of the above information, we can safely conclude that Iraq was not stockpiling chemical and biological weapons.

IRAQ WAS FAST PURSUING AND MIGHT EVEN ALREADY POSSESS THE MEANS TO BUILD AND DELIVER A NUCLEAR BOMB;

Like the claim of Iraq possessing chemical and biological weapons, the charge of their possessing nuclear weapons was also built on lies and deceit. In fact, the only evidence the US government had was based on the supposed findings of the British government, which claimed that Saddam Hussein was seeking large quantities of uranium from Africa. The CIA had dispatched Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson to investigate this allegation made by the British. Wilson’s investigations took him to the country of Niger in February 2002 where, for eight days, he attempted to find the proof which would link Iraq to the purchase of uranium. No proof was found. In fact, Wilson stated that the allegations were “bogus and unrealistic” and that there was no merit to them. Later, the International Atomic Energy Agency also stated that the “Niger Documents” in possession of the British government which made the allegation were “obvious and clumsy forgeries, full of telltale inaccuracies that betrayed the fact that whoever created them (still unknown) didn’t know a thing about Niger”. A week after the (IAEA) made its statement, US Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) formally asked for an FBI investigation into the matter, stating that “..the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception aimed at manipulating public opinion regarding Iraq”. In spite of these findings, which disproved the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, President Bush, in his State Of The Union address of January 28^th, 2003, stated the following;

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

In July 2003, it would be revealed by the Washington Post that the CIA’s chief had, in fact, warned in writing the Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Bush’s chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, on October 5^th and 6^th, 2002, three months before Bush’s State Of The Union address, that the CIA had strong doubts about the Niger claim. Of course, all this went ignored. These findings would only have interfered with what the Bush Gang had already planned, the Invasion of Iraq. On July 6^th, 2003, Ambassador Joe Wilson made the following statement on “Meet the Press”;

“That information was erroneous, and they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British White Paper and the President’s State of the Union address.”

Wilson also stated on July 6^th, 2003, in the “New York Times”;

“Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

This was in support of the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report of March 7^th, 2003, where it said;

“After three months of intrusive inspections, we have, to date, found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.”

Ignoring these findings in order to pursue their own personal agenda, Vice President Dick Cheney had this to say on March 16^th, 2003, on “Meet the Press”;

“We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

However, once the truth of the matter was finally and openly revealed that Iraq had no nuclear weapons, Vice President Cheney merely brushed it off when he made the following comment on “Meet the Press” on September, 14^th, 2003;

“Yeah, I did misspeak….We never had any evidence that Hussein had acquired a nuclear weapon.”

The sheer audacity of the above statement says it all. The Bush administration is compiled of a group of renegade neoconservatives bent on waging war on whomever they please as they see fit without any regard for the human suffering they cause all the while they are safe and snug in their own little beds. What is most disheartening is how the US government can forget their own track record when it comes to nuclear weapons. In 1945, two American nuclear bombs killed some 200,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, nine countries possess a combined 31,000 nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, the Illegal State of Israel, Pakistan, India and possibly, North Korea. The Illegal State of Israel, which is occupying Palestine, has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads and is receiving annually 5 billion of American tax payer’s dollars for the construction of these weapons of mass destruction. Iraq on the other hand, which has been discovered at great cost in both Iraqi and American lives as well as money, has none.It goes without saying that any indication that Iraq was in possession of nuclear weapons had been built on false evidence and blatant lies. On February 24^th, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell had this to say about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities while visiting Egypt;

“He (Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”

Yet, the Bush administration was adamant about Iraq’s weapons capabilities and the threat it posed to the so-called free world. Regardless of the evidence which pointed to Iraq being weapons free, Bush was obsessed with invading Iraq, no matter what the cost. Bush was abusing the power that was entrusted to him by the American people. Sources from the FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency and other military agencies all agreed that the Bush White House presented a unique danger for the integrity of US intelligence and foreign policy. Former CIA officer David MacMichael had this to say about the Bush administration;

“I think the administration is indeed pressuring the intelligence system, whether it be CIA, FBI, or anyone else, to come up with the strongest possible evidence to indicate that there is a genuine and immediate threat of attack by chemical, biological, or other weapons of mass destruction by terrorist groups and in particular those associated with Al-Qaeda, and to link Iraq to that.”

The above statement clearly states that Bush would go so far as to concoct evidence that would justify his invasion of Iraq. On September 12^th, 2002, Bush told the United Nations;

“We’ve tried sanctions. We’ve tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.”

And again, on October 7^th, 2002, Bush claimed, in a speech in Cincinnati;

“The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program….Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.”

With all these claims presented by Bush, the only thing Bush didn’t present was hard, conclusive evidence. On the other hand, abundant evidence existed to the contrary. The following was taken from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Incidentally, the INR is the US State Department’s internal intelligence agency;

“Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, INR is unwilling to speculate that such an effort began soon after the departure of UN inspectors or to project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening.”

So, what was the motivating force behind Bush’s invasion of Iraq? I believe the following may shed some light on this question. Influential ex-State Department official Charles Duefler told former weapons inspector Scott Ritter the following, as related in Ritter’s book “Endgame”;

“I think it would be a mistake to focus on the issue of weapons of mass destruction. To do so ignores the larger issue of whether or not we want this dictator (Saddam Hussein) to have control over a nation capable of producing six million barrels of oil a day. We simply cannot allow Iraq to have that kind of power and influence. If you focus on the weapons issue, then the first thing you know, Iraq will be given a clean bill of health, sanctions will be lifted, and then Iraq will, at the first excuse, kick the inspectors out. We will be left with no leverage over Iraq or how Saddam chooses to spend his money.”

In light of the above statement, it’s quite obvious this invasion was all about control and the Bush administration wanted that control. Bush wanted control over a foreign country and its people. Bush wanted to dictate to Iraq not only on how it should use its natural resources, but also on how to spend its money. We must ask ourselves, what does a country want with nuclear weapons? The answer, “To deter foes from attacking it”. It stands to reason that if Iraq did indeed possess such weapons, then it would have used them at the first sign of foreign invasion. The fact that this did not happen only further strengthens the evidence that Iraq was not in possession of such weapons. So, in light of the above evidence, we can safely conclude that Iraq was not in possession of nuclear weapons and that all the false information fed to the American public and to the rest of the world, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, can be summed up in just one word, “OIL”.

OCCUPYING IRAQ WOULD NOT ONLY BE A “CAKEWALK”, BUT WE WOULD ALSO FIND IN THE AFTERMATH A NATION FULL OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD WELCOME THE US AND COOPERATE FULLY IN THE REBUILDING OF IRAQ;

The Bush government could never have been more wrong about the outcome of this invasion. The propaganda leading up to the invasion was filled with such “Macho” rhetoric and posturing, one would easily be led to believe that the US had this invasion in the proverbial “Bag”. Ken Adelman, former Assistant to Donald Rumsfeld, had this to say on February 13^th, 2002, in the “Washington Post”;

“I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: 1) It was a cakewalk last time; 2) they’ve become much weaker; 3) we’ve become much stronger; and 4) now we’re playing for keeps.”

Adelman would also state on “Newsweek” that “toppling Saddam would be both morally right and easy as pie”. This view was supported by Defense Policy Chairman Richard Perle who, when appearing on PBS’s “Wide Angle”, stated that Saddam’s regime would collapse like a “house of cards at the first whiff of gunpowder”. They figured that the US would just waltz its way into Baghdad, thanks to its awesome military technology and the support of grateful Iraqis, including Saddam’s own troops. The rest; reconstruction, democracy, and even Middle East peace would then just be a hop, skip, and jump away.

All this would be achieved at virtually no cost to either US troops or the average tax payer. As it turns out, they were at least partly right. The military battle, by most counts, was indeed a “cakewalk”, but many soon began to realize that the aftermath could best be described in one word, “Quagmire”. To date, violence in Iraq is escalating, poor living conditions and a steady succession of outgoing body bags is exacting a terrible toll on the soldiers who now find themselves enmeshed in a “guerrilla” war with invisible enemies. One female US soldier put it bluntly;

“Some of the conditions I experienced over there were deplorable. It sickens me every time I see news articles quoting dignitaries coming from there saying, ‘The soldiers are in good spirits. Morale is high’. I’m here to tell you, it’s all lies. Morale is at an all time low. Soldiers are hating life there, so much so, some are taking their own lives rather than deal with the situation. It has become that drastic.”

Iraq is now a country full of “walking dead”, regardless of whether they are inhabitants or occupational forces. They are without clean water, electricity. Simply put, Iraqis are worse off today than they were before the invasion. The Bush administration, however, is unwilling to address the situation and continue to spread lies about the whole matter. On April 30^th, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld made this false statement about the situation in Iraq;

“Coalition forces are working in close partnership with Iraqi citizens to restore order and basic services. Each day that goes by, conditions in Iraq are improving. In fact, in a number of parts of the country, people already have more food, more medicine, more water, more electricity than they had under the old regime.”

Sadly, lacking the electricity to power their radios or televisions, few Iraqis heard this “stirring” speech. It was a fitting moment of irony that revealed the yawning gulf between a willfully blind Bush administration and the “grim” reality on the ground. The “IMPERIALIST” attitude of Bush and company are resulting in the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians at the hands of US soldiers who are unable to tell the difference between friend and foe. In July, 2003, an aborted raid to capture Saddam resulted in the death of 11 Iraqi civilians, when US troops started shooting indiscriminately at motorists who approached a barbed wire fence that the US soldiers had placed, without warning, across the road. An eyewitness told the “Independent’s” Robert Fisk, “The Americans didn’t try to help the civilians they had shot, not once. They let the car burn and left the bodies were they lay, even the children. It was we who had to take them to the hospitals”. This is just one example of many. There are also incidents of “shoot to kill” by American soldiers as well as “kidnappings” and “torture” against Iraqi civilians. The death toll of Iraqis is rising, which is adding a heavy human toll to their so-called “liberation”.

In March, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz ebulliently declared, “Like the people of France in the 1940’s, they (Iraqis) view us as their hoped-for liberation”. The truth is that the Bush administration has not made any effort to serve the welfare of the Iraqi people, using rhetoric to mask its failure.

In August, 2003, the Bremer Administration released a 24 page report titled “Results in Iraq: 100 Days Towards Security and Freedom”, detailing Bush’s success in Iraq. In this “fictional” Iraq, electricity “is now more equitably distributed”, water supplies are “at pre-conflict levels”, and “healthcare, previously only available for Ba’athist elite, is now available for all Iraqis”. On October 9^th, 2003, despite increasing chaos in Iraq, President Bush in a New Hampshire speech said the situation in Iraq was “a lot better than you probably think”. While such lies may temporarily lull the American public, they are unlikely to win over the Iraqis who have to live the uncomfortable reality that Bush would prefer to deny. Who can forget the spectacle of April 9^th, 2003, when the massive statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down in Baghdad’s Firdos Square to the joy of the on-lookers. The small number of Iraqis involved, the misleading perspective of the close up shots, and the presence of INC supporters (INC are Iraqis hand-picked by Bush and co. to run Iraq) would rob the moment of its glory in the weeks that followed. Also, the young US marine who draped the American flag over the head of the statue. This would send waves of outrage throughout the Arab world. How about Bush strutting arrogantly across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1^st, 2003, with his “Mission Accomplished” attitude declaring;

“Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.”

Indeed, Bush was in his glory. With his “macho” talk and “macho” walk, he was the man of the hour. However, that would soon all come crumbling down. The entire plan to invade and occupy Iraq conceived within the Pentagon was one extended rosy scenario. An unnamed administration official told the “Financial Times” that the networks of “hawks” led by the Pentagon’s Douglas Feith “all along felt that this was going to be not just a cakewalk, it was going to be 60-90 days, a flip-over and handoff, a lateral or whatever to Ahmed Chalabi and the INC. The DOD could then wash its hands of the whole affair and depart quickly, smoothly, and swiftly. And there would be a democratic Iraq that was amenable to our wishes and desires left in its wake. And that’s all there was to it.”

Obviously, it did not work out that way. The US forces now find themselves embroiled in a battle it cannot win. In the lead up to the invasion, the Bush administration assumed that Saddam’s army would simply surrender at first sight of the advancing US army. Richard Perle declared in the summer of 2002, “Of the 400,000 in Saddam’s army, I’ll be surprised if 10% are loyal to Saddam. And the other 90% won’t be completely passive. Many of them will come over to the opposition”. According to a “Boston Globe” article, CIA officials warned Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in a formal briefing of the probability of a “guerrilla war”. This warning went ignored. The psychological toll of executing an increasingly impossible mission soon began to show. One US marine, a 21 year old private, told “Newsweek”;

“I feel like I’ve died and gone to hell….On my good days, I feel like maybe we’re at least doing something worthwhile for these people. There aren’t many good days. On my bad days, I feel like getting my machine gun and opening up on every one of them.”

As US casualties continue to mount, individual soldiers reportedly beat, rob and even kill civilians, as I stated earlier. One US soldier, a sergeant, stated on “ABC News” in regards to Bush and company;

“I’ve got my own ‘Most Wanted List’. The aces in my deck are Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz.”

Rumsfeld’s strategy assumed that a force of 160,000 US troops could rely on its immense firepower to “shock and awe” an entire nation into submission. Rumsfeld would have been better served if he would have adhered to the prophetic words spoken by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963;

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

When the UN offered to step in to help in April, 2003, arguing that international forces of seasoned peacekeepers would help secure the nation to speed up reconstruction, the Bush White House spurned the offer. It isn’t surprising that the Bush administration has little or no interest in the welfare of its own men and women in uniform. After all, this is the same Bush White House that tried to cut the allowances of the soldiers stationed in Iraq to balance its military budget. How wonderful for the soldiers stationed in Iraq to be abandoned by the very government that put them there. This goes to prove the personal agenda of Bush in regards to his so-called “War on Terror” because the reality is that the billions of dollars and thousands of lives lost in the Iraq invasion have left Americans even more vulnerable to terrorist attacks as opposed to before the invasion, due to the outrage at the actions of the Bush government. US presence in Iraq is a “Terrorist Magnet” and the US soldiers are now facing the aftermath of Gung-Ho Bush and his “Oil Crazed” mentality. As former Bill Clinton National Security official Jessica Stern pointed out in the “New York Times” on August 20^th, 2003, “America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one”. Bush, who taunted terrorists to “bring it on” from the safety of the White House, has turned his soldiers into human bait. Poorly manned and equipped, they are mired in a country that may become the epicenter of a global war, all thanks to George W. Bush. Senator Robert Byrd wrote in the “Washington Post” in August, 2003;

“What has become tragically clear is that the United States has no strong plan for turning Iraq over to the Iraqi people and is quickly losing even its ability to maintain order. The administration is stumbling through the dark, hoping by luck to find the lighted path to peace and stability.”

It is quite safe to conclude, in light of the above evidence, that the notion of a “Cakewalk” in Iraq as well as the full cooperation of the so-called “Liberated” Iraqi people is, without question, non-existent.

IRAQ IS A NATION WHICH, WITH US AID AND GUIDANCE, COULD BECOME A DEMOCRATIC MODEL FOR THE REST OF THE REGION;

Let us draw our conclusion now, there is no democracy in Iraq and regardless of what the Bush White House tells America and the rest of the world, this is indeed a war on Islam. As of this writing, President Bush was set to hand over control of Iraq to the “Hand-Picked” provisional government comprised of exiled Iraqis now returning to their so-called “Home Land”, headed up by Ahmed Chalabi, a man who hasn’t been in Iraq since 1958 at age 13 and whom the CIA had deemed a “flake” some time ago. This event is to take place this coming June 30^th, 2004 and the future of Iraqis hangs in the balance. Every attempt has been made by Bush and company to transform Iraq into a “Pax-Americana”, all the while forgetting that Iraq is perhaps the oldest civilization dating back 7000 years and is, without question, the cradle of all civilizations. Despite these efforts, Bush is failing miserably. This Bush, this false messiah who chooses to play God with Iraq, America and the rest of the world has won nothing. His attempt at “Global Domination” was to find its beginnings in Iraq, but would have later moved to Syria, Iran and any other Muslim country that did not conform to US Foreign Policy. He continually lied to his own people about Iraq all the while liberating Iraq was never really part of his game plan. The Iraqis, like the American people, were merely pawns in a global game of “empire-building” and “colonialism”. More and more US soldiers are coming home in body bags and more and more Iraqi civilians are being baselessly killed and for what? Democracy? What democracy exists now in Iraq? Did the American people understand and support the invasion of Iraq? How could they, when they were misled by Bush and company. Iraq has turned into another Vietnam, only now the American public are in fear that the battle may come to their very front door, with only their President to thank. George W. Bush may walk around with Bible in hand, quoting scriptures, but make no mistake, there is nothing Christian about this man. His war on Islam is motivated by greed and fear. Greed for oil and fear of Almighty God, but not the fear one feels when they believe in God, but rather, the fear of losing his global grip because he paints himself to be God. Bush is Masonic through and through. The only trinity he knows is, “In the name of oil, money and the new world order”. Iraqis don’t see Bush as their salvation, rather, they are turning to Islam for salvation and that is more than Bush and the Illegal State of Israel can stomach. This war is costing American taxpayers nearly a billion dollars a week. Iraq was supposed to be just the first in a series of confrontations with the so-called “Axis of Evil”. This military victory that Bush boasted about has not worked out quite as the neoconservatives wanted. Muslims are not cowering in fear but eagerly streaming into Iraq to take on the US military. Rather than an awe-inspiring superpower, the US appears embattled and overwhelmed in the eyes of the world. In its very first excursion into reality, the great imperial plan for global domination devised by Bush and company has proved to be a resounding failure.

Americans were told neither the truth about Saddam Hussein nor the foolish designs for global supremacy. Americans were mislead to such a degree, on such an important matter, that it was nothing less of a clear subversion of the spirit and law of America’s democratic system. Now both America and Iraq has to pay the price for the arrogance of a few evil minded men. America will now have to carry the financial burden of these devils, who in light of cutbacks to their local school programs and the ability to get adequate health insurance and care for their poor, have betrayed the American taxpayer. With what these shaytans(devils) have spent on this invasion, a million school teachers could have been hired and health care could have been provided for 24 million children for a year. Bush was never capable of speaking the truth to his people about this invasion and now the Americans are left feeling both less safe and less free all at the hands of a man, their President, who betrayed their trust and literally threw the American military to the lions. The Iraqis are asserting themselves in the face of US aggression as well as in the face of  an influx of Baptist Christian Missionaries who are attempting, and failing, to convert the Iraqi Muslims to Christianity. Bush will not win. He can say goodbye to his plans of installing long-term military bases in Iraq, he and Ariel Sharon can say goodbye to their planned oil pipelines into the Illegal State of Israel as well as selling Iraq at bargain basement prices to Halliburton and Bechtel.

These Free Masons can say goodbye to whatever evil induced plan they had set their minds on for Iraq. The Muslim Ummah will not be defeated. Iraq is their land. Iraq is their country and like the Palestinians, they have every right to defend what is rightfully theirs. Bush will never know peace in occupied Iraq, just as Sharon will never know peace in occupied Palestine. Bush and company may plan, but Allah(swt) also Plans, and Allah(swt) is the Best of Planners. One thing is certain, the Muslims will be victorious, ALLAHU-AKUBAR!

May Allah(swt) guide us all to the truth, Insha’Allah(God Willing).