WHERE IS THE THREAT IN IRAQ?
by Frodo Baggins

As the US forces pound Iraq, meeting little of any resistance, the question quickly begins to form in the minds of observers as to just where is this horrible Iraqi threat? In fact "In southern Iraq, an entire division of the Iraqi army, numbering 8,000 soldiers, surrendered to coalition forces, Pentagon officials said." Where is the threat that we were all supposed to be so terrified ? Where is the true motive for the US engaging in "pre-emptive war"? We have all been assured for the last several months that attack by Iraq was just moments away. Well, if there was ever a time that Iraq was going to do something, anything, it was the last 22 hours. The US has tried to kill Saddam (they missed by a mile) so it's not like Saddam has any reasons to NOT use everything he has.

It has become obvious as the US military blasts everything in sight, meeting little resistance, that Iraq has been just as disarmed as the UN inspectors reported it was. Made helpless by the UN, Iraq is being ravaged by the US war machine on their way to the oil wells. In the first stages of the air campaign, 1,000 to 1,500 bombs and Tomahawk Cruise missiles were to be used against a variety of targets throughout Iraq. A senior Pentagon official said air operations will continue on a 24-hour basis all over the country. The official said that the Baghdad targets hit within the first 90 minutes of airstrikes included: command, control and communications facilities, including state-run radio and television; buildings and facilities key to Saddam's regime; Iraqi intelligence service facilities; Special Security Organization (SSO) facilities; and Republican Guard installations.

The "imminent threat" from Iraq does not exist, and indeed it never did. The comforting illusion that the US was "defending itself" in some abstract manner from some invisible threat is gone. This is simply invasion, conquest, and pillage, a mugging on a national scale, burglary and theft writ large, the taking by force of that which belongs to other people.

In our effort to liberate the Iraqi people we have left multitudes of homeless, injured and dead. CNN Correspondent Jane Arraf is in the mountains of northern Iraq where as many as 400,000 Kurds are believed to have left their homes to take refuge in the countryside.

And above it all sits the war party, rubbing their hands in glee in anticipation at their newly acquired wealth, and chuckling at how easily they fooled those who think this war was ever about weapons of mass destruction or regime change.

One more point. When dealing with a nation that has weapons of mass destruction, you never target the leader at the top, because if you kill him, control of the WMDs then passes to dozens of subordinates, making negotiations for surrender impossible, because one does not know who has the keys to the weapons. In deliberately targeting Saddam, the US just admitted it has known all along there were no weapons of mass destruction to worry about.