The State of the Union: Lies about a Dishonest War

washingtonpost.com

America Cluster Bombs Iraq

By William M. Arkin
Special to Washingtonpost.com
Monday, February 26, 2001; 12:00 AM


News media reports last week that 50 percent of the weapons fired at Iraqi
military installations missed their so-called aimpoints obscures a more
disturbing facet of the Feb. 16 attack: The U.S. jets used cluster bombs
that have no real aimpoint and that kill and wound innocent civilians for
years to come.

This is not merely some insider detail. The choice of cluster bombs, still
unnoticed by the American media, is likely to prove controversial. The
weapon that was used in Iraq is formally known as Joint Stand-off Weapon
(JSOW,pronounced jay-sow). It was first used in combat in Iraq on January
25, 1999, when Marine Corps F-18 Hornet's fired three weapons at an air
defense site.

The missile is described by the Navy, its primary developer, and Raytheon
Systems, its manufacturer, as a long-range glide bomb. Acting Pentagon
spokesman, Navy Rear Admiral Crag Quigley primly calls it an "area
munition," doggedly avoiding the scattershot reality conveyed by the term
³cluster bomb.²
Weapon of Choice


Twenty eight JSOWs were fired by Navy aircraft in the in the Feb. 16
attack, along with guided missiles and laser-guided bombs. Pentagon
sources say that 26 of the 28 JSOWs missed their aimpoints.

The 1,000 pound, 14-foot-long weapon carries 145 anti-armor and
anti-personnel incendiary bomblets which disperse over an area that is
approximately 100 feet long and 200 feet wide. In short, this weapon,
which Quigley describes as a "long-range, precision-guided, stand-off
weapon," rains down deadly bomblets on an area the size of a football
field with six bombs falling in every 1,000 square feet. So much for
precision.

The JSOW has quickly become a top weapon of choice for Navy and Marine
Corps airplanes in the no fly zone mission for at least four reasons. It
has as a range of more than 40 nautical miles when delivered from high
altitude (20,000 feet about ground level). The dispersal of bomblets
inflicts more lasting damage than a small warhead on an anti-radiation
missile. Pilots can reprogram target coordinates right up to the moment of
launch. And because the JSOW is guided by satellite, the delivering
aircraft can "launch and leave.²

"With JSOW we can attack SAMs [surface-to-air missiles] from well outside
the threat rings and destroy rather than suppress" the target, a Navy
document notes. In other words, years of bombing in Iraq have had less
than spectacular results of Iraq¹s air defenses and the U.S. military is
looking for some way of causing more permanent damage to the country's
military capabilities.
Launch and Leave


Pilots may launch and leave, but the JSOW, like other cluster bombs, is
unforgiving once aircraft deliver them. The JSOW releases its
sub-munitions about 400 feet above its target. These bomblets are also
used in the most prevalent modern U.S. cluster bomb, the CBU-87. But
unlike the CBU-87, the JSOW does not spin to disperse its bomblets. Rather
the JSOW uses a gasbag to propel the sub-munitions outward from the sides.
Once ejected, the bomblets, each the size of soda can, simply fall freely
at the mercy of local winds. A few almost always land outside of the
center point of the football field size main concentration. On average 5
percent do not detonate. These unexploded bomblets then become highly
volatile on the ground.

Recently, U.S. Air Force engineers in Kuwait found an entire unexploded
CBU-87 at an airbase that had been attacked during the Gulf War. The
weapon had apparently malfunctioned and ripped open upon impact, burying
bomblets up to six feet deep in the vicinity. To destroy them in place, a
series of 10-foot high barriers had to be built inside a 700-foot wide
safety cordon.

Already this month, there has been one Iraqi civilian death and nine
injuries from unexploded cluster bomblets, presumably all left over from
the 1991 Gulf War. On Feb. 20, Agence France Press (AFP) reported that a
shepherd was wounded near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq when an unexploded
bomblet detonated. On Feb. 15, Reuters said two Iraqi boys in western
Iraq, also tending sheep, were injured by a cluster bomblet. On Feb. 9,
AFP reported a child was killed and six others were wounded by
sub-munitions near Basra.

February, it seems, is a fairly typical month for cluster bombs inflicting
damage on innocent civilians.
A Degrading Policy


"What we have to do is make sure we continue to tell the world that we are
not after the Iraqi people," Secretary of State Colin Powell told CNN on
Feb. 12. That is a tough task given the use of a weapon which has unique
civilian impact.

Saddam Hussein relishes the cat and mouse game in and around the "no-fly"
zones, almost welcoming bombing and civilian casualties if they will
contribute to Baghdad's strategy of breaking the international consensus
on sanctions and inspections. The use of cluster bombs against minor
out-of-the-way targets, far from doing anything to ³degrade his capacity
to harm our pilots,² as President Bush said at his Feb. 22 press
conference, actually helps Iraq to achieve its foreign policy goals.

"We think we've accomplished what we were looking for in the sense to
degrade, disrupt the ability of the Iraqi air defenses to coordinate
attacks against our aircraft," Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold,
director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the Pentagon
on the day of the strikes.

The vague objective "to degrade" is straight out of the go-nowhere Clinton
playbook. We bomb, and even if virtually all of the JSOWs miss their
aimpoints, the United States proclaims: "mission accomplished." After all,
some level of degrading of Iraqi capabilities occurred.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=432201

US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
10 August 2003

American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on
Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad. The attacks caused massive
fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions.

The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and
their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of
the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a
distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an
enemy.

A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of
napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks
to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of
the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed
notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam
war.

The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used
in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near
bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.

"We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Colonel James
Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. "Unfortunately there were
people there ... you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were
Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It
has a big psychological effect."

A reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald who witnessed another napalm
attack on 21 March on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill, close
to the Kuwaiti border, wrote the following day: "Safwan Hill went up
in a huge fireball and the observation post was obliterated. 'I pity
anyone who is in there,' a Marine sergeant said. 'We told them to
surrender.'"

At the time, the Pentagon insisted the report was untrue. "We
completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on 4 April, 2001,"
it said.

The revelation that napalm was used in the war against Iraq, while the
Pentagon denied it, has outraged opponents of the war.

"Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a
horrible, horrible weapon," said Robert Musil, director of the
organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility. "It takes up an
awful lot of medical resources. It creates horrible wounds." Mr Musil
said denial of its use "fits a pattern of deception [by the US
administration]".

The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction
between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons
dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs,
and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet
fuel.

Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their
use would have been confirmed. A spokesman admitted they were
"remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental
damage.

But John Pike, director of the military studies group
GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "You can call it something other than napalm
but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated in the sense that
they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The US
is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not
aware of any other country that uses it." Marines returning from Iraq
chose to call the firebombs "napalm".

Mr Musil said the Pentagon's effort to draw a distinction between the
weapons was outrageous. He said: "It's Orwellian. They do not want the
public to know. It's a lie."

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marine Corps Maj-Gen
Jim Amos confirmed that napalm was used on several occasions in the
war.

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 06:24:27 -0500, Cub Driver wrote:


Social psychologists have for years known that when people are confronted
with a message that challenges their beliefs they suffer dissonance which
causes psychological discomfort

Psychological discomfort! That's Teddy Kennedy, all right!

There are a number of people who give me that kind of psychological
discomfort, including Richard Nixon.

It's not the message that causes the discomfort, my friend. It's the
messenger. Some people could recite the Ten Commandments, and I would
dismiss everything they say, including Richard Nixon and Teddy
Kennedy, and Adolf Hitler and Richard Dahlmer, and ...

all the best -- Dan Ford
email:

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Not to mention the fact that "social psychologists" read tea leaves,
consult the intestines of goats, etc. They are, by any reasonable
measure, not scientists and anything that they "know" is derived
from PFM. (Pure F******* Magic).

Al Minyard

gee, ain't it interesting that the object of war is to KILL PEOPLE

What's your point? End war? Nice ideal, but not possible in the current
political situation. (sorry, I'm less than sympathetic)

"Werner J. Severin" wrote in message

t...
Arming Iraq and the Path to War

A crisis always has a history, and the current crisis with Iraq is no
exception. Below are some relevant dates.

September,1980. Iraq invades Iran. The beginning of the Iraq-Iran war.
(8)

February, 1982. Despite objections from congress, President Reagan
removes Iraq from its list of known terrorist countries. (1)

December, 1982. Hughes Aircraft ships 60 Defender helicopters to Iraq.
(9)

1982-1988. Defense Intelligence Agency provides detailed information for
Iraq on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for
air strikes and bomb damage assessments. (4)

November, 1983. A National Security Directive states that the U.S would
do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing its
war with Iran. (1) (15)

November, 1983. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro of Italy and its Branch in
Atlanta begin to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq. Iraq,
with the blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased
computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments,
special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods
for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
(14)

October, 1983. The Reagan Administration begins secretly allowing
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer United States
weapons, including Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs to Iraq. These
shipments violated the Arms Export Control Act. (16)

November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given
intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical
weapons against the Iranians. (1)

December 20, 1983 Donald Rumsfeld , then a civilian and now Defense
Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and
materials support. (1) (15)

July, 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate
its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. (19)

January 14, 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States
shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items
are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and
communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a
military application. (2)

March, 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security
Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on
March 21 the US becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security
Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons. (10)

May, 1986. The US Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports
to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of
lethal strains of anthrax. (3)

May, 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade
botulin poison to Iraq. (7)

March, 1987. President Reagan bows to the findings of the Tower
Commission admitting the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages.
Oliver North uses the profits from the sale to fund an illegal war in
Nicaragua. (17)

Late 1987. The Iraqi Air Force begins using chemical agents against
Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq. (1)

February, 1988. Saddam Hussein begins the "Anfal" campaign against the
Kurds of northern Iraq. The Iraq regime used chemical weapons against
the Kurds killing over 100,000 civilians and destroying over 1,200
Kurdish villages. (8)

April, 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of chemicals
used in manufacture of mustard gas. (7)

August, 1988. Four major battles were fought from April to August 1988,
in which the Iraqis massively and effectively used chemical weapons to
defeat the Iranians. Nerve gas and blister agents such as mustard gas
are used. By this time the US Defense Intelligence Agency is heavily
involved with Saddam Hussein in battle plan assistance, intelligence
gathering and post battle debriefing. In the last major battle with of
the war, 65,000 Iranians are killed, many with poison gas. Use of
chemical weapons in war is in violation of the Geneva accords of 1925.
(6) (13)

August, 1988. Iraq and Iran declare a cease fire. (8)

August, 1988. Five days after the cease fire Saddam Hussein sends his
planes and helicopters to northern Iraq to begin massive chemical
attacks against the Kurds. (8)

September, 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons
grade anthrax and botulinum to Iraq. (7)

September 1988. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State: "The
US-Iraqi relationship is... important to our long-term political and
economic objectives." (15)

December, 1988. Dow chemical sells $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq
despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons. (1)

July 25, 1990. US Ambassador to Baghdad meets with Hussein to assure him
that President Bush "wanted better and deeper relations". Many believe
this visit was a trap set for Hussein. A month later Hussein invaded
Kuwait thinking the US would not respond. (12)

August, 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait. The precursor to the Gulf War. (8)

July, 1991 The Financial Times of London reveals that a Florida chemical
company had produced and shipped cyanide to Iraq during the 80's using a
special CIA courier. Cyanide was used extensively against the Iranians.
(11)

August, 1991. Christopher Droguol of Atlanta's branch of Banca Nazionale
del Lavoro is arrested for his role in supplying loans to Iraq for the
purchase of military supplies. He is charged with 347 counts of felony.
Droguol is found guilty, but US officials plead innocent of any
knowledge of his crime. (14)

June, 1992. Ted Kopple of ABC Nightline reports: "It is becoming
increasingly clear that George Bush Sr., operating largely behind the
scenes throughout the 1980's, initiated and supported much of the
financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into
[an aggressive power]." (5)

July, 1992. "The Bush administration deliberately, not inadvertently,
helped to arm Iraq by allowing U.S. technology to be shipped to Iraqi
military and to Iraqi defense factories... Throughout the course of the
Bush administration, U.S. and foreign firms were granted export licenses
to ship U.S. technology directly to Iraqi weapons facilities despite
ample evidence showing that these factories were producing weapons."
Representative Henry Gonzalez, Texas, testimony before the House. (18)

February, 1994. Senator Riegle from Michigan, chairman of the Senate
Banking Committee, testifies before the senate revealing large US
shipments of dual-use biological and chemical agents to Iraq that may
have been used against US troops in the Gulf War and probably was the
cause of the illness known as Gulf War Syndrome. (7)

August, 2002. "The use of gas [during the Iran-Iraq war] on the battle
field by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern... We
were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose". Colonel Walter
Lang, former senior US Defense Intelligence officer tells the New York
Times. (4)

This chronology of the United States' sordid involvement in the arming
of Iraq can be summarized in this way: The United States used methods
both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most
powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The US supplied chemical
and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using
chemical weapons against the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and
technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when
it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish
citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning
information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide,
mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked UN censure of
Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in
this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but
England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms
and technology.

So what do these events have to do with the current conflict? Just this:
If we do go to war with Iraq, it is important to know why. War will not
really be about terrorism. Twenty years ago the United States threw its
support behind Saddam Hussein in a geopolitical bid for enhanced access
to oil. The trajectory given him by our support lead directly to the
Gulf War and to the current crises. War, after all, will be about a
history of misdeeds and miscalculations. And war will not be about
morality. War will be about cynicism, deceit and a thirst for oil that
knows no boundaries.

John King
Long Prairie, MN

1. Washingtonpost.com. December 30, 2002
2. Jonathan Broder. Nuclear times, Winter 1990-91
3. Kurt Nimno. AlterNet. September 23, 2002
4. Newyorktimes.com. August 29, 2002
5. ABC Nightline. June9, 1992
6. Counter Punch, October 10, 2002
7. Riegle Report: Dual Use Exports. Senate Committee on Banking. May 25,
1994
8. Timeline: A walk Through Iraq's History. U.S. Department of State
9. Doing Business: The Arming of Iraq. Daniel Robichear
10. Glen Rangwala. Labor Left Briefing, 16 September, 2002
11. Financial Times of London. July 3, 1991
12. Elson E. Boles. Counter Punch. October 10, 2002
13. Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. Iranchamber.com
14. Columbia Journalism Review. March/April 1993. Iraqgate
15. Times Online. December 31, 2002. How U.S. Helped Iraq Build Deadly
Arsenal
16. Bush's Secret Mission. The New Yorker Magazine. November 2, 1992
17. Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia: Iran-Contra Affair
18. Congressional Record. July 27, 1992. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez
19. Bob Woodward. CIA Aiding Iraq in Gulf War. Washington Post. 15
December, 1986
20. WWW.gendercide.com http://www.gendercide.com . Case Study: The Anfal
Campaign

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:36:55 GMT, "DALing"
daling43[delete]-at-hotmail.com wrote:

gee, ain't it interesting that the object of war is to KILL PEOPLE

Err, no. That's a tactic or strategy. The object is to accomplish
whatever got you into the war in the first place. And "people" is not
an undifferentiated mass.

In article , "DALing"
daling43[delete]-at-hotmail.com wrote:

gee, ain't it interesting that the object of war is to KILL PEOPLE

What's your point? End war? Nice ideal, but not possible in the current
political situation. (sorry, I'm less than sympathetic)

"Werner J. Severin" wrote in message

t...
Arming Iraq and the Path to War

A crisis always has a history, and the current crisis with Iraq is no
exception. Below are some relevant dates.


You need not lecture me on the object of war. More than half a century
ago I soldiered my way across half of Europe (probably long before you
were born).

Served 45 months in the Army, 39 consecutive months overseas. Shipped over
on a troopship at age 18 and returned to be discharged as a Staff Sgt. six
weeks before my 22 birthday. I have seen what war does to people and
cities.

We do have the Geneva conventions and other international treaties. Too
bad we ignore them.

And the point of my post was that we were highly involved in providing
Iraq with the weapons we now condemn them for having used. And we knew
they were using them.

In article ,
Goomba38 wrote:

"Werner J. Severin" wrote:


I may agree with your evaluation of the communicator, but how about the
content?

That it doesn't belong on a cooking group, nor crossposted

So why continue to cross-post it?

OK, so HOW do you accomplish the objective? You kill people. (ever hear of
a "bloodless war?")

Some "collateral damages" are essentially inevitable. Tough - that's the
nature of the beast.

"Dick Locke" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:36:55 GMT, "DALing"
daling43[delete]-at-hotmail.com wrote:

gee, ain't it interesting that the object of war is to KILL PEOPLE

Err, no. That's a tactic or strategy. The object is to accomplish
whatever got you into the war in the first place. And "people" is not
an undifferentiated mass.

True, US supplying of Iraq was more the issue of "my enemy's enemy is my
friend" than anything else. Politics makes strange bedfellows, doesn't it?

(oh, and I got out of the army myself about 40 years ago - VietNam and all
that)

"Werner J. Severin" wrote in message

....
In article , "DALing"
daling43[delete]-at-hotmail.com wrote:

gee, ain't it interesting that the object of war is to KILL PEOPLE

What's your point? End war? Nice ideal, but not possible in the
current
political situation. (sorry, I'm less than sympathetic)

"Werner J. Severin" wrote in message


t...
Arming Iraq and the Path to War

A crisis always has a history, and the current crisis with Iraq is no
exception. Below are some relevant dates.


You need not lecture me on the object of war. More than half a century
ago I soldiered my way across half of Europe (probably long before you
were born).

Served 45 months in the Army, 39 consecutive months overseas. Shipped over
on a troopship at age 18 and returned to be discharged as a Staff Sgt. six
weeks before my 22 birthday. I have seen what war does to people and
cities.

We do have the Geneva conventions and other international treaties. Too
bad we ignore them.

And the point of my post was that we were highly involved in providing
Iraq with the weapons we now condemn them for having used. And we knew
they were using them.

"DALing" daling43[delete]-at-hotmail.com wrote in message
...
True, US supplying of Iraq was more the issue of "my enemy's enemy is my
friend" than anything else. Politics makes strange bedfellows, doesn't it?

(oh, and I got out of the army myself about 40 years ago - VietNam and all
that)

As an american citizen, I humbly apologize for what our country did to our
VietNam veterans and their families. I shudder to think what we will be
doing to our Iraqi Invasion vets.