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It’s up to the citizens to stop the war with Iraq

Jim Chenoweth

Dear Editor,

Have you had it with Washington’s hypocrisy involving Iraq? I hear repeatedly about Saddam’s atrocities, but there is no mention that he invaded Iran with Western support, and when the war was going badly, he used chemical weapons, again with Western support. Even though his slaughter of the Kurds was well known, Bush No. 1 continued to sell him advanced technology with clear applications for weapons of mass destruction right up to the day of the Kuwait invasion.

It seems that the crimes against humanity were acceptable, but the unforgivable sin was disobeying U.S. orders by invading Kuwait. Part of Bush No. 1’s case for ordering American forces into the Persian Gulf after the invasion of Kuwait was the claim that top secret satellite images showed that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border of Saudi Arabia, threatening the key U.S. oil supplier.



But when the St. Petersburg Times acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, they showed no troops, and no tanks, only empty desert. During the Gulf War we heard a great deal about the “smart bombs” that supposedly would kill only Iraqi soldiers, but we didn’t hear that radioactive uranium 238 (depleted uranium) was being used in munitions, missiles, and tank armor and may be responsible for deadly health consequences among U.S and allied troops as well as populations in bombed areas.

British research has found that UK soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have suffered 10 times more genetic damage than the general population. Government figures show that cancer cases in Iraq increased 12-fold between 1991 and 2001.



According to a UNICEF study, sanctions alone have helped cause the deaths of more than 500,000 children under the age of 5.

Last month Bush No. 2 told reporters that an International Atomic Energy Agency study had concluded Saddam was “six months away from obtaining nuclear capabilities. I don’t know what more evidence we need.” It turns out that this “evidence” was simply a lie.

Woody Harrelson says, “The warmongers who stole the White House have hijacked a nation’s grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any country they choose to describe as terrorist.”

There is no evidence linking Iraq to Sept. 11, and Bush’s agenda has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, and Bush would like to hand pick a puppet in Iraq as he did in Afghanistan.

As a father and grandfather, and a citizen of the world, I find the deaths of more innocent children an unacceptable price to pay for oil and a boost to the economy. Our politicians have shown they will not challenge this imperial president. It falls on the shoulder of the citizens to stop this war.

Sincerely,

Jim Chenoweth

New Castle


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