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The UN, Iraq, and Darfur

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    Did America create Saddam's powerful military machine? It can be argued we went too far in preventing an Iranian victory, but Saddam had more generous supporters. The Sunni gulf states, fearful of an Iranian victory, lent Saddam billions and funneled arms and military supplies to him. One of the main points of contention between Iraq and Kuwait was Kuwait's refusal to forgive Iraq's huge war debt.. Europe and the Soviet Union were Iraq's main source of military hardware. German engineers constructed elaborate underground bunkers and France even sold Iraq a nuclear reactor! Luckily this was destroyed by the Israelis in 1981 (53), although, of course, condemned by the entire world, including the United States in a UN resolution:

The UN Security Council, in Resolution 487 of June 19, 1981, condemned the attack and said that “Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered.” (55)

    Of all the newspapers in the United States, only the Wall Street Journal editorial sided with Israel (56). We now know this action probably stopped Saddam from constructing a nuclear weapon. After the first gulf war, it was found that Saddam had a crash program for developing a nuclear weapon. (57)

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   Remember, the last United Nations security resolution (passed unanimously) promised "serious consequences" if Saddam did not fully disclose his unaccounted weapons and cooperate with the weapons inspectors. He did neither. The United States then went back to the Security council to get a final resolution, but could not garner the votes.

    The only significant nations to actively lobby against the second resolution were France, Germany and Russia. (58) Interestingly, despite Moore's charge that the United States invaded for corporate and oil profit, the breaking oil for food corruption scandals suggests that these nations opposing the war may have had their own nefarious reasons for doing so as documented by Middle Eastern Research Institute (59). It would be interesting to ask Mr. Moore why the United States would topple Saddam if the Saudis were so opposed to the war? According to a recent Foxnews story:

.....spells out that Russian and Saudi Arabian companies were the big winners in the scheme, which was beset by bribes and kickbacks: 109 Saudi Arabian companies are listed on a document titled Exempted Arab and Foreign Companies for importing all items. (106)

    Saudi Arabia obviously didn't have that much pull if they couldn't prevent the war (all Arab countries including Saudi Arabia strongly opposed the war). 

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    On a separate issue, it is illuminating that the BBC is reporting that France is opposed to sanctions against the Sudanese:

Some one million people have fled their homes and at least 10,000 have been killed in what the UN calls "the world's worst humanitarian crisis." (107)

France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, it also has significant oil interests in Sudan. (107)

Mr Muselier [the French ambassador] also dismissed claims of "ethnic cleansing" or genocide in Darfur. (107)

"I firmly believe it is a civil war and as they are little villages of 30, 40, 50, there is nothing easier than for a few armed horsemen to burn things down, to kill the men and drive out the women," he said. (107)

Human rights activists say the Janjaweed are conducting a genocide against Darfur's black African population. (107)

Those who have fled their homes say the Janjaweed ride on horses and camels into villages which have just been bombed by government aircraft, killing the men and raping the women. (107)

According to Voanews, France's buddy Russia is also contributing to a stable situation in Darfur:

The Associated Press adds:

The top Russian and American diplomats discussed the humanitarian crisis in Sudan by telephone, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday, and were believed to have touched on Moscow's opposition to a U.S. call for U.N. sanctions against the Sudanese government. (139)

The ministry said Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Colin Powell dwelled on the crisis in the Darfur region during their talk Sunday. As many as 30,000 people, mostly black Africans, have been killed over the past 15 months, and an estimated 2.2 million are in urgent need of nutrition and medical attention. (139)

Last week, Russia was among Security Council members that moved to block efforts to threaten sanctions against Sudan for failing to prevent atrocities against civilians, objecting to the use of the word in a U.S.-drafted resolution. (139)

    And these are the countries that Moore and others seem to believe holds veto power over our attempts to stabilize the world, stop human rights violations, bring about political reform and defend our national security? It seems the exact charges that Moore and others level at the United States are actually most true when applied to our diplomatic opponents!

    On Dec. 16 the New York Times ran a story describing Iraq's new foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari delivering his harsh verdict to the United Nations:

    It is also notable that during the first gulf war Saddam was not removed because of international and Arab opposition. Former President Bush Senior and former National Security advisor Brent Scrowcroft write they didn't remove Saddam because it:

.....would have split our Arab colleagues from the coalition and, de facto, forced us to change our objectives. (108)

We were disappointed that Saddam's defeat did not break his hold on power, as many of our Arab allies had predicted and we had come to expect. (108)