“The U.S. government… isn’t interested in disarmament; it openly states that ousting Saddam Hussein is more important than ensuring that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction.” … “The administration talks about hitting ‘military targets’ but that phrase
is so loose that President Truman, after an atomic bomb obliterated the
population of Hiroshima, said: ‘The world will note that the first atomic bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.’”
2002.08.02
Ritter, who was a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is
available for limited interviews. When asked by the Institute for Public
Accuracy if he would be willing to go to Iraq with members of Congress, Ritter
said he would consider such an option. He said today:
“The offer by Iraq
for members of Congress to go to Iraq is a positive one. Certainly, Congress
doesn’t do inspections, but there should be a dialogue between members of
Congress and the Iraqis. The U.S. government response highlights the fact that
it isn’t interested in disarmament; it openly states that ousting Saddam
Hussein is more important than ensuring that Iraq does not have weapons of mass
destruction.
“The Iraqis are making it clear they want to play ball. The U.S. is
currently president of the UN Security Council; but rather than pursuing the
proposals from Iraq, it has sabotaged them….” (On CNN on Sunday, former
UNSCOM head Richard Butler claimed: “When they [the Iraqis] threw UNSCOM
out, we furnished a final report…” But Ritter said today: “UNSCOM
was not thrown out in the end, rather Butler withdrew it to make way for the
bombing campaign Desert Fox.”) Ritter is the author of Endgame: Solving
the Iraqi Problem Once and For All.
www.ips-dc.org/projects/newinternat.htm
Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and
co-editor of Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader. She accompanied the
first and only Congressional staff delegation to Iraq in 1999.
www.vitw.org
Coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, which challenges
the economic sanctions against Iraq, Kelly is one of seven people who have
begun a 40-day fast, across from the U.S. mission to the UN, which will end on
Sept. 11. Today marks the 57th anniversary of the U.S. atomic attack on
Hiroshima and 12 years of the U.S.-led embargo on Iraq. The anniversary of the
atomic bombing of Nagasaki is on Friday.
www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html,
www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorID=97
A widely noted historian who has authored numerous books
including A People’s History of the United States and the recent Terrorism
and War, Zinn was a bombardier during World War II. He said today:
“The administration talks about hitting ‘military targets’ but that phrase
is so loose that President Truman, after an atomic bomb obliterated the
population of Hiroshima, said: ‘The world will note that the first atomic bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base.’…. The bombs that were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan, because no
invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and
American military leaders knew that…. The administration is now planning for
a massive bombing campaign on Iraq and we know that this will mean that more
Iraqi children, women and men will die….”
www.hnn.us/articles/172.html
Nobile is the editor of the book Judgment at the
Smithsonian, which reprinted the banned script of the Smithsonian’s 50th
anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Author: IPA
News Service: Institute for Public Accuracy
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