- For almost a year, beginning in May 1991, Francis A.
Boyle worked with the International Commission of Inquiry into United States
war crimes that were committed during the Persian Gulf War. Extracted in
point form below are some of the highlights of his findings as presented
at http://www.jihadunspun.net/articles/10082002-International.War.Crimes/warcrimes6.html
- which enumerates "the basic gist of the charges
that were brought before the Tribunal against President George Bush, Vice
President Dan Quayle, Secretary of State Jim Baker, Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney, National Security Assistant Brent Scowcroft, CIA Director
William Webster, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell,
General Norman Schwarzkopf, and other members of the High Command of the
United States military establishment who launched and waged this brutal,
inhumane, and criminal war."
-
- * The Commission has held thirty hearings across the
United States and in twenty countries across five continents to expose
the war crimes that the United States government inflicted upon the People
and State of Iraq.
-
- * The success of the Arab oil boycott [1973] led several
prominent U.S. government officials in the Nixon administration, and especially
Henry Kissinger, to publicly threaten that the United States government
would prepare itself to seize the Arab oil fields ... This illegal governmental
threat was stated openly, publicly, and repeatedly during the course of
the Nixon administration, the Ford administration, the Carter administration,
and the Reagan administration. The Bush [41] administration would finally ...
carry this threat out. But only after a decade of active preparations.
-
- * Working in conjunction with its de facto allies in
the region such as Egypt and Israel, the Pentagon stockpiled enormous quantities
of weapons, equipment, and supplies in the immediate vicinity of the Persian
Gulf as a prelude to military intervention.
-
- * In October 1990, Defendant Powell referred to the new
military plan developed in 1989. After the war, Defendant Schwarzkopf referred
to eighteen months of planning for the campaign.
-
- * Sometime in late 1989 or early 1990, the Pentagon's
war plan for destroying Iraq and stealing Persian Gulf oil fields was put
into motion. At that time, Defendant Schwarzkopf was named the Commander
of the so-called U.S. Central Command ... for the purpose of carrying out
the war plan that he had personally developed and supervised. During January
of 1990, massive quantities of United States weapons, equipment, and supplies
were sent to Saudi Arabia in order to prepare for the war against Iraq.
-
- * Pursuant to this war plan, Defendant Webster and the
CIA assisted and directed Kuwait in its actions of violating OPEC oil production
agreements to undercut the price of oil for the purpose of debilitating
Iraq's economy; in extracting excessive and illegal amounts of oil from
pools it shared with Iraq; in demanding immediate repayment of loans Kuwait
had made to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War [1980-88]; and in breaking off
negotiations with Iraq over these disputes. The Defendants intended to
provoke Iraq into aggressive military actions against Kuwait that they
knew could be used to justify U.S. military intervention into the Persian
Gulf for the purpose of destroying Iraq and taking over Arab oil fields.
-
- * The Defendants showed absolutely no opposition to Iraq's
increasing threats against Kuwait. Indeed, when Saddam Hussein requested
U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie to explain State Department testimony in
Congress about Iraq's threats against Kuwait, she assured him that the
United States considered the dispute to be a regional concern, and that
it would NOT [emphasis added] intervene militarily.
-
- * Saddam Hussein simply surmised that he had been given
[a] "green light" by the United States government... [Thus],
the Defendants knowingly intended to lead Iraq into a provocation that
could be used to justify intervention and warfare by United States military
forces for the real purpose of destroying Iraq as a military power and
seizing Arab oil fields in the Persian Gulf.
-
- * On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait
without significant resistance. The Kuwaiti government itself estimated
that approximately 300 people were killed as a result of Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait, and a few hundred more as a result of the military occupation.
... Defendant Bush killed more innocent people in Panama than Saddam Hussein
did in Kuwait. (The world must never forget that the first step in the
construction of Bush's "New World Order" was his illegal invasion
of Panama and the murder of thousands of completely innocent Panamanian
civilians.)
-
- * Pursuant to the Pentagon's war plan for destroying
Iraq and stealing Persian Gulf oil fields - and without consultation or
communication with Congress - Defendant Bush initially ordered 40,000 U.S.
military personnel into the Persian Gulf region during the first week of
August 1990. He lied to the American People and Congress when he stated
that his acts were purely defensive. Right from the very outset of this
crisis - and even beforehand - Defendant Bush fully intended to go to war
against Iraq and to seize the Arab oil fields in the Persian Gulf. Defendant
Bush deliberately misled, deceived, concealed and made false representations
to the Congress to prevent its free deliberation and informed exercise
of legislative power.
-
- * Defendant Bush ... individually ordered a naval blockade
against Iraq - itself an act of war - without approval by Congress or the
U.N. Security Council. Defendant Bush waited until after the November 1990
elections to publicly announce his earlier order sending more than 200,000
additional military personnel to the Persian Gulf for offensive purposes
without seeking the approval of Congress.
-
- * Defendant Bush then strong-armed legislation through
Congress that approved enforcement of U.N. resolutions vesting absolute
discretion in any nation, providing no guidelines, and requiring no reporting
to the United Nations. Defendant Bush knew full well that he intended to
destroy the armed forces and civilian infrastructure of Iraq.
-
- * While concealing his true intentions, Bush continued
the military buildup of U.S. forces from August into January 1991.... Bush
pressed the military to expedite preparations and to commence the war against
Iraq before military conditions were optimum... [And] as a direct result
of Defendant Bush's mad rush to war, United States military personnel suffered
needless casualties. Defendant Bush has still lied and covered up to the
American People and Congress the true nature and extent of U.S. casualties
during the Persian Gulf War.
-
- * Defendant Bush repeatedly coerced the members of the
United Nations Security Council into adopting an unprecedented series of
resolutions that culminated in his securing authority for any nation to
use "all necessary means" to enforce these resolutions. To secure
these votes in the Security Council, Defendant Bush paid multi-billion-dollar
bribes; offered arms for regional wars; threatened and carried out economic
retaliation; illegally forgave multi-billion-dollar loans; offered diplomatic
relations despite human rights violations; and in other ways corruptly
exacted votes. [Sound familiar?]
-
- * Defendant Bush consistently rejected and ridiculed
all of Iraq's efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the dispute.
Defendant Bush proudly boasted that there would be no negotiation, no compromise,
no face-saving, etc.
-
- * Systematic aerial and missile bombardment of Iraq was
ordered to begin at 6:30 p.m. E.S.T. January 16, 1991, in order to be reported
on prime time TV. The bombing continued for 42 days. It met no resistance
from Iraqi aircraft and no effective anti-aircraft or anti-missile ground
fire. Iraq was basically defenseless.
-
- * The United States intentionally bombed and destroyed
centers for civilian life, commercial and business districts, schools,
hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, historical sites,
private vehicles and civilian government offices. ... The purpose of these
attacks was to destroy life and property, and generally to TERRORIZE [emphasis
added] the civilian population of Iraq.
-
- * The Red Crescent Society of Jordan estimated 113,000
civilian dead, 60% of them children, the week before the end of the war.
-
- * The U.S. assault left Iraq in near apocalyptic conditions
as reported by the first United Nations observers after the war. As a direct,
intentional and foreseeable result of this anti-civilian destruction, [as
of February 1991] over one hundred thousand people have died after the
war from dehydration, dysentery, diseases, and malnutrition caused by impure
water, inability to obtain effective medical assistance and debilitation
from hunger, cold, shock and distress.
-
- * In the first hours of the aerial and missile bombardment,
the United States destroyed most military communications and began the
systematic killing of Iraqi soldiers who were incapable of defense or escape...
The U.S. bombing campaign killed tens of thousands of defenseless soldiers,
cut off from most of their food, water and other supplies, and left them
in desperate and helpless disarray. ... Large numbers of these soldiers
were "out of combat" and therefore not legitimate targets for
military attack. (Defendant Schwarzkopf placed Iraqi military casualties
at over 100,000.)
-
- * When it was determined that the civilian economy and
the military were sufficiently destroyed, the U.S. ground forces moved
into Kuwait and Iraq ... killing thousands more and destroying any equipment
found. In one particularly shocking maneuver, thousands of Iraqi soldiers
were needlessly and illegally buried alive. This wholesale slaughter of
Iraqi soldiers continued even after and in violation of the so-called cease-fire.
-
- * The disproportion in death and destruction inflicted
on a defenseless enemy exceeded 100 to one. The Defendants conducted this
genocidal war ... for the express purpose of making sure that Iraq could
not raise a substantial military force for at least another generation.
-
- * The United States Used Prohibited Weapons Capable of
Mass Destruction...
-
- * Fuel air explosives were used against troops in place,
civilian areas, oil fields and fleeing civilians and soldiers on two stretches
of highway between Kuwait and Iraq. ... Napalm was used against civilians
and military personnel, as well as to start fires.
-
- * Oil-well fires in both Iraq and Kuwait were intentionally
started by U.S. aircraft dropping napalm and other heat intensive devices.
-
- * Cluster bombs and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs
were used in Basra, and other cities and towns, against the civilian convoys
of fleeing vehicles...
-
- * "Superbombs" were dropped on hardened shelters
with the intention of assassinating Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - a
war crime in its own right.
-
- * The U.S. intentionally bombed alleged nuclear sites,
chemical plants [and] dams[knowing] such attacks could cause the release
of dangerous forces from such installations...
-
- * Before the war started, the Pentagon had developed
computer models that accurately predicted the environmental catastrophe
that would occur should the United States go to war against Iraq. These
Defendants went to war anyway, knowing full well what the consequences
of such an environmental disaster would be.
-
- * Without authority from the U.S. Congress or the United
Nations, Defendant Bush encouraged and aided rebellion against Iraq, failed
to protect the warring parties, [and] encouraged mass migration of whole
populations placing them in jeopardy from the elements, hunger and disease.
-
- * Defendant Bush then without authority used U.S. military
forces to ... arbitrarily set up Bantu-like settlements for Kurds in Iraq
and demanded for Iraq to pay for U.S. costs. When Kurds chose to return
to their homes in Iraq, he moved U.S. troops further into northern Iraq
against the will of the government and without any legal authority to do
so.
-
- * A major component of the assault on Iraq was the systematic
deprivation of essential human needs and services, to terrorize and break
the will of the Iraqi People, to destroy their economic capability, and
to reduce their numbers and weaken their health. Towards those ends, the
Defendants:
- ** imposed and enforced embargoes preventing the shipment
of needed medicines, water purifiers, infant milk formula, food and other
supplies
- ** froze funds of Iraq and forced other nations to do
so, depriving Iraq of the ability to purchase needed medicines, food and
other supplies
- ** prevent[ed] international organizations, governments
and relief agencies from providing needed supplies and obtaining information
concerning such needs
- ** failed to assist or meet urgent needs of huge
refugee populations and interfered with efforts of others to do so, etc.
-
- * Defendant Bush [sought] to force Iraq to pay for damages
to Kuwait largely caused by the U.S., and even to pay U.S. costs for its
violation of Iraqi sovereignty... Such reparations are [a] neo-colonial
means of expropriating Iraq's oil, natural resources, and human labor.
Meanwhile, the United States government [dominated] and [controlled] the
respective governments and oil resources of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. The United States government
has successfully carried out its long-standing threat and war plan to seize
and steal the oil resources of the Persian Gulf for its own benefit. The
United States now directly controls the natural energy resources that fuel
the economies of Europe and Japan.
-
- * Acting with their de facto allies in Israel and Great
Britain, the Defendants are today [February 1991] consolidating their control
over the entire Middle East in a blatant bid to establish worldwide hegemony.
-
- * All of these aforementioned international crimes constitute
"High Crimes and Misdemeanors" as defined by the Article 2, Section
4 of the United States Constitution and therefore warrant the impeachment,
conviction, and removal from office of Defendants Bush, Quayle, Baker,
Cheney, Powell, and Scowcroft [et al.].
-
- -----
-
- It is any wonder the U.S. refuses to ratify the International
Court of Justice treaty and is busily signing bilateral agreements of immunity
therefrom with suchever other nations as will allow themselves to be so
bullied and buffaloed?
-
- And, almost as if none of the above ever even happened,
here - it seems - we go again. As the noted philosopher Yogi Berra quipped:
"It's deja vu all over."
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