What the U.N. Inspectors Didn’t Find and What the U.S. News Media Hides

Mar 17, 2003

On March 7, Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, and Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, shot down several of the latest assertions by U.S. officials, about Iraq’s supposed "weapons of mass destruction."

According to Blix, contrary to intelligence claims (that is, U.S. intelligence), there was no evidence that Iraq was using trucks to move around production facilities of biological weapons, or mobile weapons production units. Of course, just because these assertions were not true, it hadn’t stopped U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, or President Bush from repeating these assertions over and over again. Blix also said that there was no evidence to support one of Bush’s other favorite lines–that Iraq was building and storing weapons underground, despite extensive investigations.

When it came to the existence of nuclear weapons, ElBaradei countered U.S. and British officials’ claims even more emphatically. In one of these claims both the U.S. and British intelligence services jointly submitted documents they said showed that the government of Niger had concluded an agreement with Iraq to sell it enriched uranium for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

ElBaradei reported that these documents were forgeries. And–they were not even good forgeries. Neither the letterhead, nor the signatures were real. Of course, what ElBaradei did not say, but what everyone had to conclude, is that both U.S. and British intelligence knew that these were forgeries all along–and almost certainly created the forgeries themselves. At the same time, ElBaradei once again shot down U.S. claims that high strength aluminum tubes that Iraq tried to purchase could be altered to be used to enrich uranium for the building of nuclear weapons.

Concluded ElBaradei, "...we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq."

Obviously, the vast operations of both the U.S. and British intelligence services have never once supplied one shred of credible evidence. On the contrary, some weapons inspectors have told the press (in reports that were not covered by the U.S. news media) that the "secret" intelligence that the U.S. and Great Britain supplied was "garbage" and "shit."

Of course, working people should have no illusions that any U.N. agencies are about to take the side of the oppressed against the big imperialist powers. After being lied to over and over by the U.S. and British governments, both Blix and ElBaradei thanked them for "strengthening" the inspection process by building up their troops and armies around Iraq. As if, these open preparations for an imperialist war that will kill hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq are not the biggest threat by far.

But even the weak and meek protests by U.N. bureaucrats and officials against the U.S. officials’ lies would be potentially devastating–that is, if they were ever really covered by most of the U.S. news media–especially the television and radio, where most people in this country get their news today. Of course, the fact that the U.S. news media ignores most of this, in order to parrot President Bush and the rest of the lying officials in this country , only shows how every major institution in this supposed "free" and "democratic" country is nothing but a mouthpiece for the policy of the rapacious ruling class based in the U.S., which is out to increase its domination of the world.