I have defended Libya for ten years or so, as it was being accused of terrorist acts, from the La Belle discothèque bombing in Berlin to the Lockerbie bombing, and everything in between. I condemned the Reagan administration following the U.S raid on Libya in 1986. When [Libyans] were convicted of involvement, I condemned the Libyan government over the past ten years. Ten years in which I never agreed with or approved of a single decision taken by Colonel Kaddafi, and hence, I was very surprised to find myself on the same side as Libya on an important Arab issue. Libya requested via its representative to the United Nations, Mr. Abdel Rahman Shalgam, that the UN investigate the invasion of Iraq. However, Iraq, through its Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, considered the request to be unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of Iraq. I do not know Ambassador Shalgam except through his work in New York. Meanwhile, I consider Minister Zebari to be a friend. I have always supported the Iraqi Kurds, and respect Massoud Barzani and appreciate him. I also consider President Jalal Talabani to be a personal friend, and he refuses that I address him as Mr. President and insists on ‘Mam Jalal', as we used to call him during his days of opposition and exile. Nevertheless, the Libyan request is logical, important and objective, and the response of Hoshyar is odd, especially in light of the arguments he made to reject it, such as invoking interference in the internal affairs of Iraq as if there is a single country in the world that has not yet interfered in those affairs. This is especially valid in the case of Iran, the United States and Britain, and with the Americans staying in Iraq. The so-called withdrawal is a misnomer, as there are nearly 50 thousand U.S soldiers still there, mostly special forces "for training”. A crime has been committed against Iraq, which claimed the lives of one million Iraqis. The killing is ongoing. It is also a crime against American citizens, as 4400 Americans were killed and the United States lost three trillion dollars in this war which set Iraq decades back. Doesn't this all deserve an investigation, brother Hoshyar? It is an open and shut case, as there is enough evidence that the premises of the war were deliberately falsified. The war criminals are known, and they are: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld. There are also the Likudniks from the Israel gang, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, John Bolton and their ilk. Hoshyar Zebari, in justification of his rejection of the Libyan request, said that the latter is politically motivated, and has nothing to do with international law or the defense of human rights, and that it is inconsistent with international resolutions. There is nothing wrong with the request being political, because the whole issue is political. There are no acceptable resolutions of the so-called international legitimacy. The Bush administration invaded Iraq without a UN resolution, and sought international resolutions only after the occupation and the massacre of Iraqis at the hands of its ‘liberators', and only after terrorism began. Iraq was the hope for all of us of progress towards a better future. But then Saddam Hussein came with his brutality and ignorance, and left Iraq up for grabs by the oil gang and Israel. Today, Iraq is a failed state with daily terrorist attacks. There is no government, rule of law or public services. Power supply is insufficient and there is no clean drinking water, while the country is at the bottom of the Corruption Perceptions Index along with Afghanistan, which is also under occupation. When President Obama announced the withdrawal of U.S troops, the New York Times ran an editorial that described the war as being "a pointless war”. Of course, we all know that the same newspaper had lent its front pages to the lies of the advocates of war, including Iraqis who should be tried along with the war criminals in the Bush administration. However, this newspaper now says that the war has made the United States less safe and secure, and that George W. Bush caused a lot of damage by misleading the American people. Why does the Iraqi government want to close the war file? I apologize; there is no government in Iraq. Six months after the parliamentary elections, the winners are still fighting for seats in the cabinet, their primary motivation being the mind-blowing financial allocations; Iraq is bleeding and its government is selling its blood. (Even the looted antiquities that were returned by the United States to Iraq and turned over to the office of Prime Minister have disappeared, and ask Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie about the details). For years now, I have been calling for the prosecution of the war criminals who used the terrorist attacks of 11/9/2001 as an excuse to wage war against a country that had no ties whatsoever to al-Qaeda, and had no weapons of mass destruction. A United Nations Investigation into the war crime committed against Iraq and its people will not end terrorism or put the country back on its feet. Nor will it bring the martyrs back to life or repair electricity, but it is the bare minimum required to do justice by the living-martyred people. Tomorrow, I will return to opposing Libyan policies. [email protected]
