By RAIL Philadelphia

Even though UN weapons inspectors have not been able to provide any proof of Amerikan Imperialism's claims that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, the Bush regime has announced that it now has "solid" evidence. According to numerous bourgeois news reports, Bush's mouthpiece Ari Fleischer has "declined to say what that evidence is," (1) but still seeks to convince the world that the burden of proof is on Iraq. By any scientific reasoning the burden of proof should be on the accuser, especially since Amerika has not been able to provide even a morsel of actual backup for its numerous claims.

When Bush was concentrating on a link to terrorism, a similar claim was made by Donald Rumsfeld who proclaimed that the U.$. had "bulletproof evidence." This claim however was never substantiated and in fact has been contradicted even by British Secret Service Agencies M15 and M16. Even Rumsfeld admitted "they're not photographs. They're not beyond a reasonable doubt." (2) Clearly it is the U.$ that continues to make claims that are nothing more than fairy-tales that attempt to provide justification for plunder, and yet Ari Fleischer has the nerve to say that "The Iraqi government has proved time and time again to deceive, to mislead and to lie." (1)

According to UN reports, testimonials of UN weapons inspectors, and various other investigations, Iraq has already been disarmed. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said two years ago that "Iraq has indeed been disarmed…the chemical, biological, nuclear, and long range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless." (3) In fact all the evidence shows that Iraq has been disarmed and the inability to find weapons of mass destruction only emphasizes this fact. Therefore the question really isn't whether Iraq was or was not disarmed, but rather whether or not they have been able to create any new weapons of mass destruction since then- and hide them.

Impossibility of New Buildup Without Detection

So how likely is the possibility that Iraq has somehow been able to build WMD in the last 2 or 3 years? As MIM has pointed out- not very likely at all. Keep in mind that the sanctions makes it virtually impossible for Iraq to get hold of anything without it going through the UN Commission. In fact it is virtually impossible for Iraq to even obtain sorely needed medicines much less the materials needed to build WMD. Thus we ask: where's the beef? If the Amerikan imperialists really do have "solid" evidence why don't they show it?

Most U$ "evidence" relating to Iraq comes from the records of what weapons the U$ and Britain sold to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. (4) But this only shows that Iraq, at one point, had weapons, which came mostly from the Imperialist countries. But as the UN weapons inspectors and the UNSCOM reports have shown, this is no longer the case. Scott Ritter explained that between 90-95% of all weapons were destroyed and the remaining 5% may very well have been used during the Gulf War. (5)

Further, and perhaps more importantly, he pointed out that "The manufacture of chemical weapons emits vented gases that would have been detected by now if they existed. We have been watching, via satellite and other means, and have seen none of this." As far as biological weapons are concerned: "For Iraq to have biological weapons today, they would have to reconstitute a biological manufacturing base. And again, biological research and development was one of the things most heavily inspected. We blanketed Iraq - every research and development facility, every university, every school, every hospital, every beer factory: anything with a potential fermentation capability was inspected - and we never found any evidence of ongoing research and development or retention." In case there is any doubt: "We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production. We couldn't account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start producing these weapons since December 1998." (5) And if they did in fact rebuild the factories they would have easily been detected. Since the UN weapons inspectors cannot find anything, since any leftover chemical and biological weapons would by now be useless, since there are no new facilities built to make more chemical and biological weapons, since there are no facilities capable of producing nuclear weapons, and since as Ritter put it "Nuclear weapons cannot be created in a basement or cave," and since there is apparently no satellite evidence, we wonder aloud: exactly what type of evidence does the Bush administration supposedly have? More importantly, if Amerikan Imperialism's motives were really to end the buildup of weapons of mass destruction, and they actually had evidence, wouldn't showing the evidence as soon as possible be the most sensible path? The UN would have to get hold of this information and the inspectors would then have to verify it. As it stands now, Amerika's "solid evidence" is nothing more than a fantasy. And lest anyone has forgotten, the U$ aided the Iraqi's during the Iran-Iraq war, not only knowing but approving of the use of chemical and biological weapons against Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians. Not to mention providing them. (6) This alone shows the contradiction between Amerikan Imperialism's words and actions. The fact is that the U$ is intent on gaining full control of Iraqi oil and resources, along with the strategic location, and thereby strengthening its domination of the world.

Was There A Vote?

There is absolutely no proof that Iraq has any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, but bear in mind that even if that were not the case, there is no legitimate reason that the U$ should be able to amass unlimited amounts of weapons of mass destruction while at the same time attempting to make sure other countries have none. And this is not even the case. Since the end of the Gulf War the U$ has sold weapons of mass destruction to the comprador rulers of it's neo- colonial puppet-states. As MIM Notes reported in 1999, then Secretary of Defense William Cohen was busy selling such weapons to other states in Middle East at the same time the Amerikan Imperialists were claiming to be for disarming that region. (7)

What it comes down to is that the U$ only wants to disarm states that present an obstacle to their hegemony. Last we checked the majority of the world's people did not vote or otherwise give permission to the Imperialists to build up nuclear, chemical, and biological arsenals while making sure any opposition was kept completely powerless. The common argument that Iraq must be disarmed because it poses a threat is a sham both because Iraq does not posses the capabilities to launch weapons (leaving aside the fact that there is no proof it even posses any such weapons), and because when Iraq did actually use those weapons it was with U$ support and aid. And of course readers should keep in mind that the U$ is the only country to drop an atomic bomb killing thousands of innocent civilians. Real and complete disarmament throughout the world is not possible under U$ imperialist hegemony nor is it possible as long as Imperialism exists. Anyone sincerely interested in working for disarmament and for and end to oppression must fight for communist revolution to overthrow all imperialism and abolish oppression of groups over groups. To do this all interested internationalists should struggle with, work with, and join MIM and RAIL.