Stop the Hogs!

Bush's Press conference July 12, 2007: historical Revisionism.

by Joan Russow, PhD.
Global Compliance Research Project

On July 12, 2007 Bush failed to dazzle the White House media with his forthright responses to their questions.

Helen Thomas, veteran Whitehouse correspondent, asked Bush when he was going to end the occupation of Iraq; she said you started the war and you can end it. Hundreds of thousands killed…and she was soon cut off

Bush answered the question by misrepresenting his efforts at the UN. He claimed that he tried the diplomatic route through the UN Security Council.

Bush neglected to mention that when he approached the UN Security Council he was trying to get the Council's support for the invasion of Iraq, and when he was unsuccessful at cajoling, intimidating and offering "financial incentives, he proclaimed the Council to be irrelevant..

He then referred to the November 8 2002 UN Security Council Resolution 1441 which had indicated that if Iraq had not eliminated weapons of mass destruction etc. there would be "serious consequences". . After the US invasion of Iraq, to attempt to legitimize the invasion, Bush and Powell both claimed that "serious consequences" included a military invasion.

The Russian Ambassador to the UN stated unequivocally that during the negotiations of the November resolution it was understood that "serious consequences" did not authorize a military intervention and that for a military intervention to be endorsed by the UN Security Council, it would be necessary to pass a subsequent resolution that specifically authorized an invasion, and that most of the members of the Council would never have agreed to if "serious consequences" had entailed the possibility of an invasion. (personal communication March 7 2003)..

Also Bush, if not responsible for, was definitely aware of Canada's working behind the scenes lobbying for a UN Security Council Resolution that would specifically authorize an invasion but would delay the invasion of Iraq by two weeks.

Canada had hoped to assist the United States and Great Britain to obtain the support of the UN Security Council – a support which under international law would have given the aura of legitimacy to the invasion.

The Liberal Government of Canada had indicated that it would support the invasion of Iraq if there were to be a UN Security Council resolution supporting the invasion. [Given, however, the irreversible health, social, environmental psychological consequences of war, under no circumstance or condition is war just or legal regardless of the UN Security Council's decisions].

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, there was an international attempt to prevent the invasion of Iraq by invoking the 1951 "Uniting for Peace" resolution and pass a United Nations General Assembly resolution which would have been a diplomatic measure.

Bush sent threatening letters to all the member states of the UN General Assembly intimating that there would be consequences to their supporting the proposed Uniting for Peace Resolution.

Bush had thwarted any diplomatic means for resolving the conflict. Evidence both credible and questionable has emerged about the time and the reasons for the invasion of Iraq; there was, however, little interest on the part of the Bush Regime to use diplomacy.

At the Press Conference today, Bush attempted to exonerate himself by indicating that he was a man of principle: "I can look in the mirror and I know that I made a decision based on principle not on public opinion".

His operative policy of "pre-emptive/preventive aggression" is diametrically opposed to the fundamental peremptory norms and principles enunciated in the purpose of the Charter of the United Nations- to prevent the scourge of war, and in Chapter VI - the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Joan Russow, PhD.
Global Compliance Research Project

Ex-Bush Official: U.S. Tortured Prisoners to Produce False Intel that Built Case for Iraq War

[ http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/23/ ... _prisoners ]

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Since the release of Senate findings earlier this month, the assumption that the CIA’s torture program’s sole motive was post-9/11 self-defense has gone virtually unchallenged. There has been almost no recognition that the George W. Bush administration also tortured prisoners for a very different goal: to extract information that could tie al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein and justify the invasion of Iraq. While the Senate report and other critics say torture produced false information, that could have been one of the program’s goals. We are joined by retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. Wilkerson helped prepare Powell’s infamous February 2003 speech to the United Nations wrongly accusing Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction. The claim was partially based on statements extracted from a prisoner tortured by Egypt on the CIA’s behalf, who later recanted his claim. Wilkerson says that beginning in the spring of 2002 — one year before the Iraq War and just months after the 9/11 attacks, the torture program’s interrogations "were as much aimed at contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad and corroboration thereof as they were trying to ferret out whether there was another attack coming like 9/11. That was stunning to me to find that was probably 50 percent of the impetus."

Transcript - This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

MORE:

[ http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/23/ ... _prisoners ]

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Bush & Cheney Should Be Charged with War Crimes Says Col. Wilkerson, Former Aide to Colin Powell
[ http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/23/ ... arged_with ]


Watch: Ex-Bush Official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: "I am Willing to Testify" If Dick Cheney is Put on Trial (2011 interview) 
[ http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/30/e ... _wilkerson ]