by Patrick Lang (bio below)
“Although our coalition has not found WMD stockpiles in Iraq, I repeat that we never had the burden of proof. Saddam Hussein did. We operated on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years and within a totalitarian society ruled by fear and secret police,” Cheney said. (Reuters)
Breathtaking in its boldness!
Let’s see! WE asserted on the basis of bogus and distorted information that Iraq was in non-compliance with a variety of UN resolutions calling on Iraq to disarm. A few trenchant points:
- The UN had withdrawn its inspectors from the country in ’98 at our instigation because we were going to bomb extensively in an attempt to trigger a revolt. Fair enough, but the point is that the IRAQIS did not run the inspectors out of the country.
- “We” believed before our invasion that Iraq still had programs and stockpiles. After the invasion we were and are unable to find any, anywhere, in the whole country. We could not find them because they did not exist. THEY DID NOT EXIST!!! If they existed, where the hell are they?
- The UN was busily engaged in inspecting all over the country in ’02 and ’03. They found nothing and said they were not being significantly obstructed. They wanted a few more months to finish and make sure. We would not give it to them and so after the invasion we used thousands of people and spent vast amounts of money to prove that the UN was right in their judgments.
- The Iraqis were asked during the UN inspection process to produce an inventory of whatever they had in the way of WMD materiel. They produced a long list which was proven correct by our later direct search of the country. Nevertheless, we insisted at the time that the list was incomplete and deliberately deceptive because some quantities of parts and raw materials that our intelligence had once believed them to have were “unaccounted for” by the UN’s inspection teams in the ’90s and were still “unaccounted for” in this inventory. This PROVED that they were hiding a secret capability in WMD. In fact, it did not prove a damned thing. This was a 3RD WORLD COUNTRY, people!. Nothing works right in 3rd World Countries and the fact that they couldn’t do a perfect paper drill on all that stuff just meant that they were inefficient. The UN was in the process of proving that when we abandoned the process claiming they were deceiving us.
Now the Vice President says that the “burden of proof” lays with the Iraqi government. In other words, it was their responsibility to prove to us that they did not have gas, biological or nuclear weapons or programs to produce them. They were unable to do that, because these capabilities and programs DID NOT EXIST.
So, citizens beware! It may become your responsibility to prove that you are not guilty of treason, sedition, being a malcontent, or whatever.
Can you prove that you are not?
Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann (interview), CNN and Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room (interview), PBS’s Newshour, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” (interview), and more .
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
Recommended Books || More BooTrib Posts
Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)
“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
“Although our coalition has not found WMD stockpiles in Iraq, I repeat that we never had the burden of proof. Saddam Hussein did. We operated on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years and within a totalitarian society ruled by fear and secret police,” Cheney said. (Reuters)
How funny it is that they always point the finger at someone else. What they fail to realise is that when you point the finger at someone there are three other fingers pointing back at the pointer.
Let’s see…first it was the CIA fault for faulty intel, then it was Clinton’s fault because he believed Saddam had WMDs and of course you can’t blame this administration because you KNOW the Dems voted to send us to war. Woodward, paging Bob Woodward, we need you now.
Yes! Basic logic gives us the age old adage; You can’t prove a negative”. Tyrannical types like Cheney choose to ignore this sim[le fact and instead insist that those they would seek to subjugate or destroy prove their innocence of charges leveled against them.
This is the rubric upon which the Soviet and Maoist “show trials” were based. It’s a totalitarian mechanism to allow the authorities to get what they want regardless of the law.
By his repetitive use of this fractured logic, Mr. Cheney demonstrates conclusively that he’s no true advocate for democracy, but rather one in favor of power derived from authoritarianism. His neocon pals have done an exceptionally thorough job of getting Cheney to fall into their own Trotskyite-style totalitarian mindset.
Last night we had Blitzer and Rumsfield working over this Iraqi WMD scam. I guess it’s what’s called a “talking point” in American English.
I would like to suggest a “talking point” that is systematically ignored by everybody- and it’s quite simple:
The Iraqi invasion was fought in a way that categorically excluded the possession of weapons of mass destruction of any nature by the enemy. US- British military intelligence knew perfectly well that there were no arms of mass destruction.
The only other explanation would be that they were criminally insane to conduct the campaign as they did.
If they really thought Saddam had all these WMDs, they should be impeached for reckless endangerment, to say nothing of either the worst incompetence in this country’s military history or a plan to aid and abet the “enemy”.
Saddam SAID he did not have wmd. He provided proof.
The UN inspectors said he did not have WMD. They provided proof.
Bushco said there WERE wmd. They did NOT provide proof.
The burden of proof is totally on Bushco.
Saddam told the truth…..Bushco lied.
How’s that for a fuckin mess when Saddam Hussein has more credibility than the fucking president of the United States of America?
Thank you for bringing this up. This reasoning made me mental during the run-up to the war. They never had any evidence. What they had barely qualified as a circumstantial case. Colin Powell stood up in front of the UN with a vial of salt and said, “If this were anthrax…” The whole case for war was like this: a lot of ifs, conjecture, and, Trust us. If you knew what we know but can’t show you because it’s classified. If a prosecutor showed up at a murder trial with that case he’d be laughed down the court house steps. And, it absolutely demonstrates the contempt these people have for the legal underpinnings of our entire system. Now, we’re holding people as “enemy combatants” with no recourse, and, most likely, evidence as conclusive as vials of salt. Have we gone back in time? Is it the Inquisition again? Should I worry about being thrown in a pond to see if I float, and burned as a witch when I don’t drown? Now, if I weigh the same as a duck…
So, citizens beware! It may become your responsibility to prove that you are not guilty of treason, sedition, being a malcontent, or whatever.
Sadly, we’re already one step beyond. An enemy combatant can be “captured” anywhere in the world, since the WoT is global. And if you’re lucky, you may not be detained indefinitely inside a secret prison, beyond the reach of any legal authority and out of sight of your family, friends and the IRC, but indefinotely detained in a offshore prison, out of sight of your family, friends and the IRC.
Graham gutting of habeas corpus passed the Senate. If the Executive branch thinks you’re an enemy combatant, you have not even the basic legal right to question the legality of your detention, let alone prove your innocence.
the burden of proof is always on the one who claims the right to pursue aggressive war against a sovereign state. We failed that burden everywhere but in the America media.
First I want proof that Cheney and Calamity George were actually legitimately elected.
Second, I want proof that Ames strain anthrax was not sent to Democrats, the US Postal Service and the press by Republicans in 2001.
Then we can pay attention to the proof that Cheney wants.
This was preemptive invasion (unprovoked attack), and we were the aggressors. The burden of proof was ours. Period.
Next time they try to invoke The Bush Doctrine, and they will, the intelligence had better be rock solid. As Bush himself said,“Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Of course, the real intelligence this time was that there was no evidence of WMD, so I guess I should say that next time the intelligence we are presented by the administration had better be the whole truth straight-up and rock solid; not jacked-up bullshit. (Even better would be to have these criminals sitting in a cell in The Hague before there is a next time, but I realize that’s a fantasy.)