Fisk: We Were Set Up for a War against Saddam

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

interesting read, Fisk hit it right on-- months
before the PNAC occupation of Iraq

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We Are Being Set Up for a War against Saddam

British journalist Robert Fisk reports, "In North Carolina last month, a woman attending a lecture I was giving asked me when America would go to war in Iraq. I told her to watch the front page of The New York Times and The Washington Post for the first smear campaigns against the UN inspectors. And bingo, right on time, the smears have begun....The inspections appear to be going unhindered in Baghdad. And what does George Bush tell us? 'So far the signs are not encouraging.' What does this mean? Simply that America plans to go to war whatever the UN inspectors find."

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full article -

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=358255

Robert Fisk: We are being set up for a war against Saddam
The inspections are going unhindered. And what does Bush tell us? 'The signs are not encouraging'
04 December 2002

In North Carolina last month, a woman attending a lecture I was giving asked me when America would go to war in Iraq. I told her to watch the front page of The New York Times and The Washington Post for the first smear campaigns against the UN inspectors. And bingo, right on time, the smears have begun.

One of the UN inspectors, it's now stated – a man appointed at the behest of the State Department – is involved with pornography. Another senior official, we're now told – again appointed at the urging of the State Department – was previously fired from his job as head of a nuclear safety agency. Why, I wonder, did the Americans want these men on the inspection team? So they could trash it later?

Actually, the official drubbing of the UN inspectors began way back in September when The New York Times announced, over Judith Miller's by-line, that the original inspections team may be on a "mission impossible". The source was "some officials (sic) and former inspectors". Now President George Bush is banging on again about the Iraqi anti-aircraft defences firing at American and British pilots – even though the no-fly zones have nothing to do with the UN inspections nor, indeed, anything to do with the UN at all. The inspections appear to be going unhindered in Baghdad. And what does George Bush tell us? "So far the signs are not encouraging."

What does this mean? Simply that America plans to go to war whatever the UN inspectors find. The New York Times – which is now little more than a mouthpiece for scores of anonymous US "officials" – has persuaded itself that Iraq's Arab neighbours "seem prepared to support an American military campaign". Despite all the warnings from Arab leaders, repeated over and over again, month after month, urging America not to go to war, this is the kind of nonsense being peddled in the United States.

more.....................

[Skittles]

1. I would venture to say

a lot of us DUers nailed it too.