Six on Operation Desert Storm: Iraq War: 15 Years. More Than 1 Million Dead. No One Held Responsible; How the Iraq War Destab
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"As we approach the fifteenth anniversary of the unwarranted invasion of Iraq, which we are still paying for in so many ways, it is important to remember the misuse of intelligence that provided a false justification for war. It is particularly important to do so at this time because President Donald Trump has talked about a military option against North Korea or Iran (or Venezuela for that matter). Since there is no cause to justify such wars, it is quite likely that politicized intelligence would once again be used to provide a justification for audiences at home and abroad.
In 2002 and 2003, the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency collaborated in an effort to describe the false likelihood of a nuclear weapons program that had to be stopped. In the words of Bush administration officials, the United States was not going to allow the “smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” On September 8, 2002, Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condi Rice used that phrase on CNN and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” respectively, to argue that Saddam Hussein was “using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.”
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"The New York-based news agency based its figures partially on analysis of a spreadsheet listing all 27,849 people imprisoned in Iraq in late January.
Thousands more are believed to be held by other bodies including the federal police, military intelligence and Kurdish forces.
The mass incarceration and speed of guilty verdicts raise concerns over potential miscarriages of justice and worries that jailed militants are recruiting within the general prison population to build new extremist networks, AP said.
According to its analysis, 8,861 of the prisoners listed were convicted of terrorism-related charges since the beginning of 2013 and were overwhelmingly linked to Isis.
Another 11,000 people are now detained by the Interior Ministry intelligence branch, undergoing interrogation or awaiting trial."
Survivors Need Shelter, But Shelters Need Legal Protection In Iraq
Despite the unprecedented security crisis, it remains against public policy for Iraqi NGOs to provide shelter for those escaping gender-based violence.
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"Conclusion
US military and financial imperialism was a temporary and short lived success based on the demise of the USSR, and a mono-polar world, and the launch of the global war on terror . With the military rise of Russia, and China’s dynamic economic growth, these short term advantages disappeared and all the vulnerabilities resounded. Trillion-dollar bank bailouts and prolonged military losses undercut whatever temporary advantages existed. The pillage of the domestic economy deepened domestic discontent. Trump style “national” imperialism increased profits but lost trade wars.
A speculative economy, a plundered public treasury and a militarized empire cannot restructure the economy not even with trade war rhetoric and trillion dollar tax handouts. Time is running out President Trump; the economy is preparing to plunge and the voters are turning their backs."
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York.https://petras.lahaine.org
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