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Scott Burchill
It is hard to believe that either Washington or London would relish the prospect of an open trial of Saddam Hussein. They would not want him to adumbrate their support for him - credit-by-credit, pathogen-by-pathogen, weapon-by-weapon - during the 12 years before he became an official enemy by invading Kuwait in August 1990.
Leila Montour
The name I?ve heard in nearly every conversation for the last eight years. All, and I mean ALL, of the Iraqi ex-pats and refugees in my community have peppered their conversations with this name over and over again. Not just the name representing the man, but the name as symbol of everything back home: every arrest, beating, torture, lost limb and life, humiliation, secretive whispering, paranoid thought, forced military service, tapped phone call, and missing family and friends. The stuff of division since the war began, the desire to be rid of him sometimes overcame the desire to stop the inevitable further rape and pillage of Iraq.
Bruce Kennedy
For months, reports from Baghdad have rumoured secret negotiations between Saddam and the USA. In September, several reports surfaced that were then quelled by the Washington tout rags, including CNN and Fox News. At a time when George Bush is being accused of everything from war crimes against Iraqis, to exercising a reckless disregard for the lives of America soldiers, and who is currently seen as virtually incapable of winning re-election for his gang of thugs, could it be that Bush has negotiated with his so-called No. 2 enemy?
John Pilger
Greg Dyke, the BBC?s director general, has attacked American television reporting of Iraq. “For any news organisation to act as a cheerleader for government is to undermine your credibility,” he said. “They should be… balancing their coverage, not banging the drum for one side or the other.” He said research showed that, of 840 experts interviewed on American news programmes during the invasion of Iraq, only four opposed the war. “If that were true in Britain, the BBC would have failed in its duty.” Did Dyke say all this with a straight face?
George Monbiot
I believe that there was a moral case for deposing Saddam by violent means. I also believe that there was a moral case for not doing so, and that this case was the stronger. But the key point, overlooked by all those who have made the moral case for war, is this: that a moral case is not the same as a moral reason. Whatever the argument for toppling Saddam on humanitarian grounds may have been, this is not why Bush and Blair went to war.
Gary Younge
If USA President Bush’s visit to London provides the motivation for massive demonstrations in opposition to his presence, it would be a mistake the visit monopolised their message. If the leader who is coming is a problem, the leader who invited him is no less so. As the man who led the charge to war Bush, is a worthy target of our ire. As the man who followed him, and in so doing, lent the war what little legitimacy it ever had, Blair is even more so.
George Monbiot
Those who would take us to war must first shut down the public imagination. They must convince us that there is no other means of preventing invasion, or conquering terrorism, or even defending human rights. When information is scarce, imagination is easy to control. As intelligence gathering and diplomacy are conducted in secret, we seldom discover - until it is too late - how plausible the alternatives may be.
Vijay Prashad
The recent unanimous vote at the United Nations Security Council, bestowing legitimacy on the USA occupation of Iraq, exposes the hollowness of the “unilateralism-multilateralism” debate. Such debates fail to acknowledge that the Bush administration already follows at least two multilateral approaches toward hegemony, neither of them good, and that to call its approach unilateral misses the real support it has among the world’s corrupt leaders.
Timothy J. Freeman
War, if ever justified, is supposed to be an absolute last resort. Whatever problem was posed by Saddam Hussein, it is now quite clear that there was still time, there still remained peaceful means of dealing with that problem. There is every indication that the Bush Administration, rather than doing everything in their power to avoid war and find a peaceful solution, did in fact everything in their power to avoid a peaceful solution and find a reason for war.
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