AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES WHICH SUPPORT THE CASE FOR INSPECTIONS (NOT INACTION) AS A BETTER CHOICE THAN WAR ON IRAQ
Compiled by Norman Robbins, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
"Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security"
U.S. Diplomat John B. Kiesling, Feb. 27, 2003, lettter of resignation
"Your government proposes a course of action, against Iraq and beyond, that will lead only to one thing: the breeding of tens of thousands of baby Osamas who will be ever more desperate to tear you down"
Khalid Khawaja, Senior Intelligence Officer for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence from 1985-1987; Plain Dealer, March 7, 2003
"The internal security posture of our country…has been weakened by the diversion of attention from Al Qaeda to our government's plan to invade Iraq, a step that will in all likelihood bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the US both at home and abroad"
Coleen Rowley, FBI Agent who warned the FBI in advance of 9/11
NY Times, March 6, 2003
"We should not march into Baghdad. . . . To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into
a latter-day Arab hero . . . It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability"
President George Bush Senior, in "A World Transformed", 1998 book
White House Warns Citizens to Prepare for Loss of Life
March 19, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
"White House spokesman Sean McCormack said ……
that Bush was not accusing Iraq of being involved in the [9/11] attacks.
Bush has said he has no proof that Iraq was linked to the 2001 strikes".
(Yet, Maureen Dowd, NY Times, noted that Pres Bush referred to 9/11 many times in his press conference talk, implying justification for war on Iraq)
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A13
In October CIA Director George J. Tenet told Congress that Hussein would not give such weapons to terrorists unless he decided helping "terrorists in conducting a WMD [weapons of mass destruction] attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 18, 2003; Page A13
In his appearance Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press," the vice president argued that "we believe [Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." But Cheney contradicted that assertion moments later, saying it was "only a matter of time before he acquires nuclear weapons." Both assertions were contradicted earlier by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who reported that "there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities."
ElBaradei also contradicted Bush and other officials who argued that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment. The IAEA determined that Iraq did not plan to use imported aluminum tubes for enriching uranium and generating nuclear weapons. ElBaradei argued that the tubes were for conventional weapons and "it was highly unlikely" that the tubes could have been used to produce nuclear material. Cheney on Sunday said ElBaradei was "wrong" about Iraq's nuclear program and questioned the IAEA's credibility.
Earlier this month, ElBaradei said information about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium were based on fabricated documents. Further investigation has found that top CIA officials had significant doubts about the veracity of the evidence, linking Iraq to efforts to purchase uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger, but the information ended up as fact in Bush's State of the Union address.
In another embarrassing episode for the administration, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell cited evidence about Iraq's weapons efforts that originally appeared in a British intelligence document. But it later emerged that the British report's evidence was based in part on academic papers and trade publications.
Sometimes information offered by Bush and his top officials is questioned by administration aides. In his March 6 news conference, Bush dismissed Iraq's destruction of its Al Samoud-2 missiles, saying they were being dismantled "even as [Hussein] has ordered the continued production of the very same type of missiles." But the only intelligence was electronic intercepts that had individuals talking about being able to build missiles in the future, according to a senior intelligence analyst.
Last month, Bush spoke about a liberated Iraq showing "the power of freedom to transform that vital region" and said "a new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region." But a classified State Department report put together by the department's intelligence and research staff and delivered to Powell the same day as Bush's speech questioned that theory, arguing that history runs counter to it.
In his first major speech solely on the Iraqi threat, last October, Bush said, "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work."
Inspectors have found that the Al Samoud-2 missiles can travel less than 200 miles -- not far enough to hit the targets Bush named. Iraq has not accounted for 14 medium-range Scud missiles from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but the administration has not presented any evidence that they still exist.
"…these 34 ["coalition of the willing"] nations represent only about 10 percent of the population of the world's 197 countries outside the US. Subtracting the estimated 75 percent of their populations that opinion polls show are not in favor of war, the war supporters in the "Coalition of the Willing" countries make up only about 3 percent of the world's population" outside the US
Institute for Policy Studies, Feb. 26, 2003 (www.ips-dc.org/COERCED.pdf)
According to a CBS report on Jan. 24, the pentagon plan is to send 3-400 cruise missiles into Iraq on each of the first 2 days of war. A pentagon official comments: "the sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before……there will not be a safe place in Baghdad". Then, Harlan Ullman, one of the originators of this approach, says that this onslaught will have "a simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes" (On Aug. 6, 1945, 73,000 people instantly lost their lives and another 75,000 were dead from radiation and wounds in 6 months).
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/24/eveningnews
Consider that Baghdad has about 5 million residents, approximately half children under 18 years of age. We know that Saddam Hussein will place military installations amongst these 5 million people. If only 1% are killed by our targeted attacks, that is 50,000 innocent civilians (including 25,000 children) killed.
Consider that Andrew Cordeman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, sometime advisor to the US Dept. of Defence, predicts the " best case" (40-60% probability) war lasting 4-6 weeks, and the "intermediate case" (30-40% probability) 6-12 weeks. Plus his statement: "The US is more likely to escalate its way out of its military problems than to accept a longer war". Altogether, the risk of a difficult war is very substantial.
www.csis.org/features/attackoniraq_summary.pdf pages 5-8
Given the above, it is not surprising that a UN Contingency Planning Report predicts 100,000 iraqi civilians killed, 400,000 wounded, 3 million innocent people starving as a result of war (2 million of them children) because of inadequate food, transportation, drinking water, and pre-existing malnutrition (now, 1 out of every 4 Iraqi children). In addition, they predict almost one million refugees fleeing to the countryside or neighboring countries with no resources. And finally, they say that the amount of funds now available for all relief work is completely inadequate. (Yet the US is planning as rush to war before any substantial contingency work is completed)
www.casi.org.uk/pr/pr030107undoc.html
Similar conclusions are reached in a heavily referenced report by a branch of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War
www.medact.org/tbx/pages/sub.cfm?id=556
The above report estimates anywhere from 100 to 5,000 deaths and 300 to 20,000 wounded (Notice the wide range of estimates of American casualties, because, in contrast to those for Iraqi citizens, there are more options for minimization of casualties).
. Based on other recent wars, between 8 and 33% of our troops will suffer lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder, devastating their psychologic wellbeing. (additional references will be supplied)
The following is excerpted verbatim from an Article by Terry Neal in the Washington Post, March 7, 2003 (My comments in brackets)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56847-2003Mar7.html
A reporter asked the president why he had not shared with the public the range of cost estimates the government's numbers crunchers had come up with for various scenarios.
…[answer} "We hope we don't go to war. But if we should, we will present a supplemental."
…Bush could technically submit his request for funding to Congress after the bombs start to drop -- meaning there likely will be no meaningful public debate over the costs of war, since there is almost no way Congress would refuse to fund a war that it already gave the president authority to fight.
The Cost Scenarios
• In September, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote to Democratic leaders in Congress about potential costs, estimating that deploying troops to the region for war and returning them to their home bases afterwards could cost between $14 billion and $20 billion. Fighting the war could cost up to $9 billion a month, and post-war occupation would cost up to $4 billion a month.
Extrapolating from the CBO data, a two-month war with a two-year occupation, not including rebuilding and humanitarian costs, could cost as much as $134 billion. Because the administration has indicated it will launch a major nation-building effort aimed at turning Iraq into a model democracy after the war, it is safe to assume that the costs will be far greater. [i.e.this does NOT take into account the massive cost of the massive civilian casualties itemized above]
• Also in September, the House Budget Committee's Democratic staff concluded in a report that Lindsey's estimate of up to $200 billion in direct costs was accurate. The cost of the military operation alone, assuming a two-month conflict using up to 250,000 troops, would cost as much as $93 billion, according to this report. And that is assuming that the operation is like the one in the Persian Gulf War, "with inept enemy forces, no use of chemical or biological weapons, access to bases and airspace in most Gulf states and Turkey, and low casualties on our side."
• A new study by Steven M. Kosiak, a military budget analyst for the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, is getting a lot of notice around Washington. Released in late February, Kosiak's report www.csbaonline.org offers a range of scenarios and potential costs for war and post-war occupation.
Using numbers from the CBO report and historical data from recent U.S.-led military operations in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans, Kosiak assumes a minimum cost of $43 billion for a best-case scenario -- a one-month war using 175,000 troops and a five-year occupation using 20,000 troops. But that figure could top $200 billion, should the operation last longer and become more difficult than envisioned. [From the CBO numbers, a 5 year occupation would cost $540 billion]
• In a report from Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus, he argues that the total macroeconomic costs of war and its aftermath could reach in a worst case scenario as much as $1.6 trillion (by comparison, Bush's 2004 budget proposal for the entire federal government is $2.25 trillion). Nordhaus looks at not only the direct costs of war and its aftermath, but the potential impact on stock and oil markets.
Of course, the real wild card in all of these estimates is what happens after the war. And, with U.S. allies split on Iraq, the Bush administration could end up bearing much of the costs. Kosiak estimates post-war, non-military costs of up to $137 billion for things such as aid to allies in the region, humanitarian assistance, governing activities and reconstruction and recovery. Adding in debt relief and other related costs could push the costs up by as much as another $361 billion. Given the anger over the Bush administration's bellicose rhetoric, it is easy to assume less rather than more post-war cooperation from allies.
Kosiak estimates that even in the short-term, a war on Iraq could add as much as $100 billion to next year's predicted record $307 billion deficit. The further out you go, the less clear the budgetary impact is. But this is certain: Every dollar spent on war is one not spent on education, health care, domestic law enforcement, homeland security and other priorities.
NY Times, 3/10/03
"Urgent Diplomacy Fails to Gain U.S. 9 votes in the U.N."
In an interview on Saturday, Dr. El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: "Iraq today in our assessment, we do not have any evidence that Iraq has a nuclear weapons program or has revived its defunct nuclear weapons program. We still have work to do. This is still an interim assessment. I have said that I need at least two to three months."
7. Loss of life, health, and education for the nation and Ohio
National
According to Education Week, "States find themselves with a total of $40 billion in estimated current-year revenue shortfalls [and]... $60 billion in projected shortfalls for the next budget year." Education Week concludes, "[T]he stormclouds are building right over
school budgets."
There are now approximately 41 million US citizens without health insurance. (AARP)
The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that it will cost
states a total of $1 billion each year to comply with the testing
requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, while the federal government is giving states only $400 million in the first year of the law. The NCLB was not fully
funded from the start. Now Bush has proposed cutting $90 million from
existing funds and providing $6 billion less for Title I than the Act
calls for.
State of Ohio
Information from the Emergency Campaign to Save Ohio's Future
Health:
800,000 poor seniors, disabled and other vulnerable adults losing vision & dental services
[i.e. with loss of adequate food and medical care, we must estimate that perhaps a 1000 of more Ohioans will lose their life for lack of funds -- partly federal -- while we spend hundreds of billions on a war on Iraq supposedly to protect America]
Education:
[By cutting basic educational services and funding without Federal assistance, we are sacrificing Ohio's economic future with funds spent on war in Iraq}