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He didn't turn Iraq into client state and say..
"Come on in boys - all yours - take it..
..any terms you want - pay them any wages you want..
..don't worry about anything..
..no public services - none of that stuff..
You take what you want on terms that are totally fair with you just..
..let's make sure you give me something."
He didn't do what leaders did in Turkey and other parts of Africa..
..and Latin America and whatever else..
Instead he became an economic nationalist..
He started public education programs..
He started public health-services..
Iraq before 1991 had the highest standard of living in the Middle East
That was destroyed by a President named George Bush - George the First..
All sorts of reasons have been given by U.S. leaders..
..regarding why we must attack Iraq
Many of those same reasons were given under the reign of George the First..
When George the First decided to attack Iraq - he said:
"We have to go in because Iraq is threatening to invade Saud-Arabia"
That was false
There were no Iraqi troops massing on the Saudi border..
Even the U.S. press reported that there was no evidence of that
It's gotta be pretty blatant when the U.S. press will actually report on that
Then they said..
"Well, we've go to go into Iraq because they are committing these terrible atrocities against the Kuwaitis..
..they just took five hundred Kuwaiti babies..
..ripped them out of incubators..
..and threw them on the hospital floors..
..Iraqi soldies laughing and bayoneting these babies.."
Some of us sat there and said..
"Five hundred incubators?
..in a country with three million people..?"
All of Los Angeles county with fourteen million people has about fifty incubators..
Wait a minute - does Iraq specialize in premature babies..?
What is this..?
That story too proved to be a total fabrication..
There are all sorts of stories out there..
There was another reason for going to Iraq..
They said..
This would create jobs for the economy..
I am not kidding - secretary of state James Baker - said:
"This war will create jobs!"
He wanted the Americans interested and hyped up about Iraq..
And I thought to myself: "George the First has been in office for three years..
He has never evinced any interest in creating jobs for Americans before..
Isn't this unusual?"
And I thought - you know..
Creating jobs.. Well - you know - child *** creates jobs..
Auto accidents creates jobs..
Auto accidents are good for the economy..
I am not being funny - I am not being ironic..
I am being absolutely serious..
Auto accidents are a multibillion dollar industry..
The towers, the wreckers, the mechanics..
The emergency health clinic workers..
The plastic surgeouns..
The laywers..
The state troopers..
You could go on and on..
The police - the jobs that are created - it's good for the economy
The point I am making is that there are many things that might be good for the economy..
..that are bad for human beings
Then - in November 1990 - the George the First government came up with another reason..
A poll had just been taken..
I don't think it was even sponsored by the government..
It was a private national survey poll..
..and it said: "if Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons - would you support military action against him?"
And that was the first time the luke warm American public went up and said yes..
But even then by the way - right on the eve of the war..
The U.S. public by overwhelming majorities preferred a negotiated withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait..
..and a negotiated settlement of the conflict rather than committing U.S. forces to that place
Once the forces are committed - then many of my mindless compatriots get up there and rally around the flag..
..and God support our troops..
..and the flag happens to be wrapped around the President..
..and there's an external menace - an evil..
..and so we have to back the President for our own security..
..and that whole dynamic does kick in.
That poll was very interesting..
That was seized on by the Bush administration..
..in 1990 as the reason to go after Iraq..
..and that is the very same reason that got resuscitated just several months ago..
Isn't it?
Right here by George the Second..
We have to go in because Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction
The other reason we had to go in?
"Because of linked to Al-Qaeda"
Saddam Hussein isn't linked to Al-Qaeda..
They are orthodox fanatical muslims - Hussein was a secularist..
He has a secular state..
I mean there are mosques in Iraq but they don't love that guy..
He doesn't have links to Al-Qaeda
The Bush family has more links to the Bin Laden family..
Another reason they gave us was that Iraq refused to negotiate..
George the First said..
That was false..
The Iraqis were eager to negotiate a withdrawal..
There was even a French delegation that was making progress..
..and that was called the nightmare scenario by the First Bush administration
Another "nightmare scenario?"
"What if they get out before we can attack them..?"
It was that if we can't attack them - then we can't destroy that society..
..and if we can't destroy it - we can't get troops even more deeply stationed permanently in that region..
Well, all these reasons proved false..
And all the reasons today..
I've lost my place in my notes because I've gone beyond what I got here..
Just talk to yourselves for a minute..
Now you can do one of two things..
..let me tell you about non-compliance..
I have here the statement made in December 1998..
..by the Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs..
He said: "Why do they charge us with non-compliance?"
In fact - the United Nations brought in..
..inspection teams and they performed 427 inspections..
..at 427 different sites.
422 of those inspections..
..were proved to be in perfect compliance and cooperation.
They charged us with five cases of non-cooperation..
Five..
These were the cases..
One - they wanted to inspect a small headquarters of a political party..
The Arabic Socialist Party..
We asked them: what is the relationsship between a small headquarters of a political party..
..and the disarmenent mission?
They didn't answer..
But that twenty-fifteen minute delay - when they were questioned..
..was called non-compliance
They did go in and investigate the head-quarters..
The same thing happened with the former office of the deputy director of special security..
The Iraqi said..
"This head-quarters has been converted into a guest-house..
..it's not an official place at all."
And they argued with him..
The fact that this had delayed the inspection with 30-45 minutes..
That, too, was sighted an another example of non-compliance.
Another example of non-compliance..
..was an American named Diana Simon..
She insisted that she could go to Baghdad University..
..and interview all the undergraduates in the science college