Summer 2002, continued.          In June 2002, “Operation Southern Focus” begins, with U.S. aircraft dropping over 600 bombs on Iraqi air defenses up until the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. While stating publicly that the US is enforcing the “no-fly” zone over southern Iraq, the sorties actually carry out offensive strikes against both civilian and military targets in Iraq, damaging or destroying Iraqi defenses well before the invasion. Reportedly the US flies more than 21,000 sorties over southern Iraq between June 2002 and the start of the invasion in March 2003, reinforced by British flights.

June 8-24, 2002:

 

 

June 11, 2002 – Iraq’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. submits a letter to the U.N. complaining of delays by the US and UK in negotiating and agreeing upon a price for Iraq oil. Sluggish exports are causing delays worth of hundreds of millions of dollars in the food and medicine sectors of the Oil-for-Food Program.

 

 

June 19, 2002 – Gen. Franks again meets with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice about Iraq war plans. Two plans have been developed, “Running Start” and “Generated Start.”

 

Same day – The Los Angeles Times publishes a column by retired U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter in which Ritter draws attention to the White House agenda on Iraq:

 

"President Bush has reportedly authorized the CIA to use all of the means at its disposal- including U.S. military special operations forces and CIA paramilitary teams- to eliminate Iraq's Saddam Hussein. According to reports, the CIA is to view any such plan as "preparatory" for a larger military strike. . . almost no one in Congress has questioned why a supposedly covert operation would be made public, thus undermining the very mission it was intended to accomplish.

          It is high time that Congress start questioning the hype and rhetoric emanating from the White House regarding Baghdad, because the leaked CIA plan is well timed to undermine the efforts underway in the United Nations to get weapons inspectors back to work in Iraq. In early July, the U.N. secretary-general will meet with Iraq's foreign minister for a third round of talks on the return of the weapons monitors. A major sticking point is Iraqi concern over the use- or abuse- of such inspections by the U.S. for intelligence collection.

 . . . The presence of such personnel on inspection teams was, and is, viewed by the Iraqi government as an unacceptable risk to its nation's security.

       . . . The leaked CIA covert operations plan effectively kills any chance of inspectors returning to Iraq, and it closes the door on the last opportunity for shedding light on the true state of affairs regarding any threat in the form of Iraq weapons of mass destruction.

      Absent any return of weapons inspectors, no one seems willing to challenge the Bush administration's assertions of an Iraqi threat. If Bush has a factual case against Iraq concerning weapons of mass destruction, he hasn't made it yet.

      Can the Bush administration substantiate any of its claims that Iraq continues to pursue efforts to reacquire its capability to produce chemical and biological weapons, which was dismantled and destroyed by U.N. weapons inspectors from 1991 to 1998? The same question applies to nuclear weapons. What facts show that Iraq continues to pursue nuclear weapons aspirations?

      Bush spoke ominously of an Iraqi ballistic missile threat to Europe. What missile threat is the president talking about? These questions are valid, and if the case for war is to be made, they must be answered with more than speculative rhetoric."

 

June 20, 2002 – The U.S. Navy begins deploying aircraft carriers to the Iraq region.

 

June 20, about -- The Loya Jirga, Afghanistan’s remaining version of local government and self-determination, assembles to elect an interim president. More than half of the over 1500 delegates, bucking pressures from the U.S. administration, sign a statement supporting exiled Afghan king Zahir Shah. The king, however, is not the administration choice. The administration then forces a two-day postponement of the Loya Jirga and effectively ousts the former king, replacing him with the hand-picked Hamid Karzai (on a symbolic ballot with two unknown candidates, one a woman).

 

June 24, 2002 – The U.S. embassy in Niger cables Washington that the government of Niger has signed an IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) agreement safeguarding Niger uranium and ensuring that Niger’s uranium production is only for peaceful purposes. (SSCI Report, 48)

 

June 24, 2002 – Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) makes a speech in Congress, warning Congress about the White House agenda of war on Iraq. He cites the Scott Ritter article:

 

"If nothing else, Saddam Hussein has proven himself a survivor. Does anyone believe that he will allow inspectors back into his country knowing that any one of them might kill him? Is it the intention of the administration to get inspectors back into Iraq and thus answers to lingering and critical questions regarding Iraq's military capabilities, or is the intent to invade that country regardless of the near total absence of information and actually make it impossible for Suddam Hussein to accept the inspectors?

          Mr. Ritter, who as former chief UN inspector in Iraq probably knows that country better than any of us here, made some excellent points in a recent meeting with Republican members of Congress. According to Mr. Ritter, no American-installed regime could survive in Iraq. Interestingly, Mr. Ritter noted that though his rule is no doubt despotic, Saddam Hussein has been harsher toward Islamic fundamentalism than any other Arab regime. He added that any U.S. invasion to remove Saddam from power would likely open the door to an anti-American fundamentalist Islamic regime in Iraq. That can hardly be viewed in a positive light here in the United States. Is a policy that replaces a bad regime with a worse regime the wisest course to follow?

          Much is made of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, as a potential post-invasion leader of Iraq. Mr. Ritter told me that in his many dealings with Chalabi, he found him to be completely unreliable and untrustworthy. He added that neither he nor the approximately 100 Iraqi generals that the US is courting have any credibility inside Iraq, and any attempt to place them in power would be rejected in the strongest manner by the Iraqi people. Hundreds, if not thousands, of American military personnel would be required to occupy Iraq indefinitely if any American-installed regime is to remain in power. Again, it appears we are creating a larger problem than we are attempting to solve.

          Similarly, proponents of a US invasion of Iraq often cite the Kurds in the northern part of that country as a Northern Alliance-like ally, who will do much of our fighting on the ground and unseat Saddam. But just last week the Washington Times reported that neither of the two rival Kurdish groups in northern Iraq want anything to do with an invasion of Iraq."

 

Paul, a conservative Republican from a district in the southwest Houston area formerly represented by Tom DeLay, makes a series of prescient points. Unfortunately, his speech goes ignored by large media outlets.