Tomorrow is Today.....

The recent US-led invasion of Iraq

The war in Iraq is over. Duh!!! That’s just a gross under-statement of the obvious. Anyway, judging from the protests made before the US-led campaign against Iraq, I was proud to see Malaysians of all ages and races actually coming together to make a forceful stand against the war. However when images of these very people holding portraits of Saddam Hussein and shouting his name during the peace rally at Bukit Jalil were flashed on the television screen, it dawned upon me that something was just not right.

Here was a man who had authorised the use of chemical weapons against the Iranians and Iraq’s own Kurdish population that injured or killed more than 20,000 people. The mustard agent that was used, rapidly burns exposed skin, eyes, lungs and mucus membranes and is usually fatal within hours of exposure. He had even started an unprovoked war with tiny Kuwait and when faced with imminent defeat, launched missiles at Israel, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. So why isn’t the US talking of invading North Korea or even India and Pakistan who have nuclear weaponry? Well the only difference is that Saddam is the only leader who has actually used these weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Critics say that the only reason the US is attacking Iraq is because it is a Muslim country. It is a well-documented fact that during the Iraq-Iran and Iraq-Kuwait war, more than a million Arabs, who are mostly Muslims, were killed. Where were the protests then? Do not get me wrong. I’m not supporting war at any cost, but there will be civilian casualties in any war. And I believe in the long run the people of Iraq will be far better off without him in power.

Despite all this, I have to say that Britain and the US have not done a very good job in convincing the rest of the world of the justification of the war on Iraq. What was the case against Saddam? On the 3rd of April 1991, the UN Security Council approved Resolution 687 that requires Iraq to declare, destroy, remove or render harmless under UN or IAEA supervision and not to use, develop, construct, or acquire all chemical and biological weapons-usable material including related material, equipment and facilities. Has Iraq conformed to that resolution or to any of the countless others that were subsequently issued by the UN? On the contrary, only after the recent threat of war and the build-up of forces in the Gulf has it reluctantly destroyed the Al-Samoud 2 missiles. But yet in its 12,000-page dossier detailing its weapons program, there was no reference to the 2,000kg of VX nerve agent, which it previously had claimed to have in its possession. VX is a classified as a WMD because it is lethal even in minute dosages.

The UN has only two ‘weapons’ in its arsenal; namely sanctions and the use of force. For 12 years, Iraq has repeatedly contravened the resolutions and had even thrown out the inspectors from Iraq. This is where the UN has to assert its authority or risk becoming irrelevant. If Iraq is able to defy the UN today, it might set a precedence for more such defiant acts by others in the future. Even the ‘arrogant’ and ‘mighty’ US has repeatedly sought the UN’s approval for the war. The world has to see that in this case the end justifies the means.

posted by Desmond S.D. @ 3:09 PM