The Palestine Chronicle, A highly distinguished and carefully selected team of American scientists just concluded a thorough and consequential mission in Iraq. The declared objective was finding Iraq's arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. But hidden within such a declaration, was the hope of unearthing a pretext for a calamitous war on Iraq that cost billions of dollars and the irreplaceable lives of thousands.
Shortly after David Kay, who headed the scientific crusade to Baghdad, briefed the US Senate and House of Representatives of his findings, or lack thereof, a declassified version of his report was released. Not only were no weapons found in Iraq, but the disposed Iraqi government, according to Kay, had no capacity to produce chemical warfare agents before the war. So much for the British government scare campaign alleging Iraq's readiness to launch a global attack using its supposed weapons within 45 minutes upon order.
But as if the war party's lack of sense was not enough, the response to Kay's report has displayed a greater lack of shame. Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, responded by saying he had no regrets. “You make judgments on the basis of the information available at the time you are required to make those judgments, and the judgment was valid,” he said, arrogantly and in startling defiance of the facts, and with no remorse for thousands of Iraqis who perished by the war allies' weapons, which, ironically were the closest in nature to the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not even possess.
British Foreign Minister, Jack Straw's statement appeared as if the man was referring to a completely different report than that of Kay, saying that the American group's report “confirms how dangerous and deceitful the (Iraqi) regime was, and how the military action was indeed both justified and essential to remove the danger.”
US President George Bush, who was struck by the nightmarish, although imperative findings that most Americans – 53 percent according to a new CBS News-New York Times poll – are now doubtful of his Iraq war, too, continued to defy common sense. “This administration will deal with gathering dangers where we find them.” Although the ambiguity, albeit arrogance of Bush's words compels no comment, they certainly raise an important subject. If what genuinely concerns Bush is “gathering dangers” then why not go after the big guns, who, in fact do possess such weapons, for example, Israel. Of course, most readers, whether opponents or proponents of US foreign policy in the Middle East understand the irony, needless to say, the impossibility of such a demand. And that is because deep within, most of us are convinced that the US foreign policy doesn't follow a moral code, rather an immoral, imperial and self-sustaining ideology only aimed at rewarding its followers and crudely punishing its antagonists.
Those living outside this immoral dogma understand that well. One is Nelson Mandela. In an interview with the American Newsweek magazine back in September, Mandela raised a seemingly simple concern. He introduced that concern by stating that Bush's objectives behind the war were motivated by the President's desire to “please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America.” Then, he added, “but what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody mentions that.”
At the time of Mandela's statement, some were still functioning based on the premise that Iraq did indeed have such weapons. Kay just told us in his report that no weapons were found. But Kay's report, or any other for that matter, leaves intact the solid and palpable fact that Israel has weapons of mass destruction.
Israel's possession of such weapons is so well known a fact, it's dubbed: “the world's most well-known secret.” In a BBC report that was aired twice, first in March and then again on June, 2003, the show host begins his communiqu
