“Where are the weapons of mass destruction?” That is the first of many awkward questions George W. Bush faces as the vaunted victory in Iraq unravels in chaos. Another question is: “How long will the occupation last and how much will it cost?”

Those questions come from Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, dean of the U.S. Senate, and from Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lugar shocked the White House, still preening with self-satisfaction over a short war, by warning that Iraq is in such chaos it could become “an incubator for terrorist cells and activity … I am concerned that the Bush administration and Congress have not yet faced up to the true size of the task that lies ahead or prepared the American people for it,” he said in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post. Lugar said that the real cost is estimated at 0 billion, not the .5 billion the administration has requested in its current budget.

Lugar’s column appeared as Baghdad continued its descent into chaos. Four U.S. soldiers have been killed in recent days. The city is without electricity. Amid rising hostility, Paul Bremer, the new U.S. administrator, cancelled plans for a quick transition to self rule and announced that U.S. and British occupation forces will rule directly with no timetable for withdrawal.

In a May 21 Senate speech, Byrd focused on the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction. “No weapons of mass destruction have yet turned up,” he said. “The American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of longstanding international law.”

Byrd went on to accuse Bush of “prevarication and the reckless use of power” demanding, “Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary?”

“Was the American public deliberately misled?” Byrd continued. “What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are ‘liberators’ – liberation implies the follow-up of freedom, self determination, and a better life for the common people.”

Byrd cited the lack of water and electricity, hospitals packed with the wounded and maimed, and the looting of Iraq’s historic treasures, adding, “it is becoming all too clear that the smiling face of the United States as a liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier.”

Byrd blasted the “lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry” awarded to “administration cronies without the benefit of competitive bidding.”

How can the U.S. “afford this long-term, massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious crisis in domestic healthcare, afford behemoth military spending and give away billions in tax cuts amid a deficit that has climbed to more than 0 billion for this year alone?” Byrd demanded.

Joe Volk, Washington Representative of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) told the World lawmakers “are asking questions the peace movement urged them ask last fall before the vote to authorize war on Iraq. It is tragic they didn’t ask them before so many people died.”

The FCNL has released a statement on Iraq denouncing the “failed policy of preventive war” and calling on the U.S. to accept a leading role for the United Nations in Iraqi reconstruction and transition to democratic self-government.

Scott Lynch, spokesperson for Peace Action, told this reporter, “We warned from the beginning that Iraq would be destabilized. Unfortunately, American soldiers are paying with their lives and U.S. taxpayers will be paying for years into the future. It’s all the result of the Bush administration’s horrible foreign policy. Any idea that this war has made us safer is nonsense.”

Eric Weltman, spokesperson for Boston-based Citizens for Participation in Political Action, told the World that members of the group were delighted at the razor sharpness of Byrd’s speech. “He’s the grand-daddy of the Senate, always defending their constitutional prerogatives,” he added.

Weltman said when the group held its annual dinner with Rep. Barney Franks (D-Mass.) as guest of honor, “He was very emphatic that we all had to unite behind a Democratic candidate who can defeat Bush in 2004. Certainly some of our members will support [Sen. John] Kerry but others may support Rep. Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean.”

He said the group had built a network of fifty grassroots organizations in working class and Black communities in the past year. “We are holding a grassroots conference in Boston soon to plan our next steps on issues like budget cuts, future wars and electoral action, all with an eye to building our own base and reaching out.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Originally published by the People’s Weekly World

www.pww.org

This morning's LA Times carried a story about still another US soldier shot to death, just outside Baghdad. The stories are becoming frighteningly routine. I am certainly not implying that the deaths of Americans are somehow more important than the deaths of far larger numbers of Iraqis, but they do show the Bush Administration's cynical willingness to lose hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of working class lives over years of occupation if that is what it takes to maintain control of the oil fields. Tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lost their lives over the phony issue of the Domino Theory, Americans and Iraqis are now being killed in the name of the even more ridiculous weapons of mass destruction theory. Even the reading skills-challenged Bush knew that WMD story was nonsense right from the beginning, just as LBJ knew that the attack on the US fleet by PT boats and the alleged Vietnamese plan to conquer Malaysia were fairy tales.

I'd like nothing more right now that to bugger an ornery goat. Except perhaps for a young Jamaican boy! The off to the pub to get pissed!!

I prefer to sodomize Chinese boys. They have the tightest rectums. I need tightness because I have such a tiny penis.

www.kobehq.com

We hate Muslims. Join us.

No offense to the parents of the soldier but that is what soldiers do. It is ridiculous to think that soldiering is a risk free activity. The military should of course minimize these as much as it can but the military's goal is the security of the USA.

also I understand that those lovely french have a massive death rate in their foreign legion..

Well, Cough, that comment shows a marvelous concern for human life. You must be a wonderful person; probably you are regularly nominated for Humanitarian of the Year. You also missed the point of the original posting - it was that the troops were there not to protect the security of the American people but to protect the oil fields for Bush and his billionaire friends. You can be sure that none of their sons and daughters will be shot to death while riding around in a ridiulcous humvee. Pretty good be that you won't, either.

Peacenik -

Not that oil had anything to do with this war.. BUT Have you ever considered that oil might be important to US security?

For example remember when the Axis tried to prevent russia from supplying itself with oil?

so the russians should have just ignored that because oil has nothing to do with securuty eh?

To say the Boy Emperor is some kind of visionary president is hilarious. More like hallucinatory. The Little Boy Emperor took us to war because he is just giving us warmed over Reagan policies. Huge tax cuts to the rich to stimulate the buying of yachts and derivative financial instruments(the rich aren't starting any new businesses to "give" the working class jobs,that is just more Bush palaver). Then pick on a nation who was set up and worked with the US for 25 years. Starve,and bomb it for ten years. Use weapons inspections to make sure they have no defensive capability then go in a kick the shit out of them. The conservatives don't like fair fights(i.e. Grenada, Panama, a couple of big scary nations, whoooo).

And the Bush Gang continues on it's merry way with renewed nuclear military research,more saber rattling when it comes to Iran and Syria, and more dunderheaded military policies. And who is going to pay for all this? The same people who die for it. And we all know it's not the rich. And the american people like being the planet's biggest bully.That's what the Little Boy Emperor's reappointment campaign will be all about,"I'm the president and I can bomb any nation I want. It's not about oil. It's about the killing,killing,killing. Vote for me!" And all the american people can talk about is how "cool" he looks in his little flight costume. Something he didn't wear alot of in the seventies when he was snorting up coke and drinking like a fish. That is the american voting public for you-- dumb as rocks.

Germany's development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, has joined "a chorus of criticism in Europe" over coalition forces' failure thus far to find substantial stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Associated Press reports from Berlin. "We see in the current discussion that it was about oil, it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction," she declares.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports from Baghdad that "two Iraqi brothers made their home a prison for 23 years to escape execution by Saddam Hussein's security forces, seeing daylight only after his fall." Their 67-year-old mother, identified in the report only as Zahra, says that "her husband, pregnant daughter and another son had already been executed as suspected members of the Shi'ite Muslim Daawa Party." She hid her surviving sons, Saad and Ibrahim--now 45 and 39--in a room in her house, keeping the secret even from the family's closest relatives despite constant harassment from Saddam's "security" forces:

The brothers finally emerged from hiding a week after Saddam's fall on April 9, when they were sure U.S. forces had really conquered Iraq.

"Freedom is so very important. I can't express the feelings that overwhelmed me when I finally went out on the streets. My old friends were shocked when they saw me," Ibrahim said. . . .

"I was so relieved. It was the first night in 23 years that I had a good night's sleep," Zahra said, wiping away tears.

Boy, will she be mad when she finds out it was about oil.

Germany's development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, has joined "a chorus of criticism in Europe" over coalition forces' failure thus far to find substantial stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Associated Press reports from Berlin. "We see in the current discussion that it was about oil, it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction," she declares.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports from Baghdad that "two Iraqi brothers made their home a prison for 23 years to escape execution by Saddam Hussein's security forces, seeing daylight only after his fall." Their 67-year-old mother, identified in the report only as Zahra, says that "her husband, pregnant daughter and another son had already been executed as suspected members of the Shi'ite Muslim Daawa Party." She hid her surviving sons, Saad and Ibrahim--now 45 and 39--in a room in her house, keeping the secret even from the family's closest relatives despite constant harassment from Saddam's "security" forces:

The brothers finally emerged from hiding a week after Saddam's fall on April 9, when they were sure U.S. forces had really conquered Iraq.

"Freedom is so very important. I can't express the feelings that overwhelmed me when I finally went out on the streets. My old friends were shocked when they saw me," Ibrahim said. . . .

"I was so relieved. It was the first night in 23 years that I had a good night's sleep," Zahra said, wiping away tears.

Boy, will she be mad when she finds out it was about oil.

...B.A. as no one in their right mind disagrees that Saddam was one nast Sociopathing Bastard - much like Bush. Bush just has to pretend that he is humane but actions speak louder than words. The dead, the carnage, the pillage, and the chaos wrought by the Criminal Cabal infesting the White House is apparent to any THINKING person who cares to acknowledge the truth.

I know the truth is not on your agenda, but I repeat myself.

Germany's development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, has joined "a chorus of criticism in Europe" over coalition forces' failure thus far to find substantial stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Associated Press reports from Berlin. "We see in the current discussion that it was about oil, it wasn't about weapons of mass destruction," she declares.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports from Baghdad that "two Iraqi brothers made their home a prison for 23 years to escape execution by Saddam Hussein's security forces, seeing daylight only after his fall." Their 67-year-old mother, identified in the report only as Zahra, says that "her husband, pregnant daughter and another son had already been executed as suspected members of the Shi'ite Muslim Daawa Party." She hid her surviving sons, Saad and Ibrahim--now 45 and 39--in a room in her house, keeping the secret even from the family's closest relatives despite constant harassment from Saddam's "security" forces:

The brothers finally emerged from hiding a week after Saddam's fall on April 9, when they were sure U.S. forces had really conquered Iraq.

"Freedom is so very important. I can't express the feelings that overwhelmed me when I finally went out on the streets. My old friends were shocked when they saw me," Ibrahim said. . . .

"I was so relieved. It was the first night in 23 years that I had a good night's sleep," Zahra said, wiping away tears.

Boy, will she be mad when she finds out it was about oil.

Dio, poor poor Dio --

You are experience severe delusions of adequacy.

There is no 'criminal cabal in the White House.'

That was the former administration -- the one that was impeached for malfeasance -- those were the criminals.

This President is A+++ on both character and performance in office.

What a breath of fresh air after eight long years of that Clinton asshole.

another wet fart?

My brain is a wet fart.

...I hate to burst your bubble (Not!) but Clinton is part of the Bush Mob.

He twice visited Bush's Kennebunkport compound during is first run for the Presidency.

He was Governor of Arkansas, and turned a blind eye, to Bush/Norths Drug Running operation through Mena Airport in Arkansas. Per L. D. Brown the Arkansas State Trooper in charge of Clinton's Gubenatorial Security deatail Clinton was well aware of what was going on.

All Koreans are communist pigs. America can kick Korea's ass. I'm tired of those racist Koreans watching me every time I steal something from their stores.

and all on this website!

I'm also very fond of scatology.

Why can't we have some intelligent discussion on this site? Questions like how am I going to get re-elected with the economy in a shambles, unemployment rising, and my claim that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq being ridicululed all over the world as the mumblings of a semi-literate fool? And how can we stopped teachers and those damned university professors from teaching potential trouble-makers and non-team players about such things as slavery, the extermination of the Indians, the mass murder of Filipinos after the Spanish American War, and the extreme unlikeliness of the Spaniards blowing up the Maine and therefore guranteeing that they would be attacked by an enemy who outnumbered them twenty to one and had been casting envious eyes on their colonial possessions for years? I mean some of these wise-acres are probably comparing the Maine issue to my Weapons of Mass Destruction claims. Why can't the public schools do what they are supposed to be doing - training working class kids for their futures as typists, office assistants, drivers of beer delivery trucks and Marine Corps recruits? And why can't the elite schools just train their students to be what they are supposed to be - owners of baseball teams and Presidents, like me, or charming suburban hosewives who are just educated enough to take a small part in dinner party conversations?

Fuck all you little whining bitches and the horses you rode in on!

May I drink your menstrual blood?

sfhsdhdfshsdf

sfhsdhdfshsdf

sfhsdhdfshsdf

sfhsdhdfshsdf

sfhsdhdfshsdf

Okay, where the fuck were the WMDs that we supplied to Saddam?

We got rid of them just before the war besides the stuff we took into syria when we escaped there.

Now it's time to destabilize Syria. Gosh, we sure are

sucking up to Sharon and his Lukid. Perpetual war for Oceania. And your 'proof' or are we to believe you this time, cross your heart? Your side has got ZERO creditability. This is just the plan formulated in the 70s

to break up the middle east into ethnic factions, better to control by and satisfy Israel.

"Gosh, we sure are

sucking up to Sharon and his Lukid."

You can't even help but reflexively throw out anti-jew non-sequitors at every corner.

Sad.

Here we go again screeching ANTI-SEMITE!!!

The Lukid shrieks and wails but it's getting old.

and there goes sheepdog screeching "sharon lover"

The Hamas member shrieks and wails but it's getting old.

So are your uninformed and hateful views you racist.

I HATE assholes.

I like assholes, especially tight ones. I love gay sex.

I like gay sex, too.

www.kobehq.com

C'mon. Let's see what you got? Let's see how dedicated you are? Let's see you hit us with your best shot.

You're a pussy.

You know it and we know it.

It is obvious what happened to the WMDs that the United States supplied to Iraq - they were used against Iran in the brutal war that the United States instigated and encouraged. I've got to hand it to Jimmie Carter; at first I thought he was a wimp by when he and his pal Brzysinsky pulled that one off it was like they were taking a page out of the Mossad Handbook.

I'm certainly happy that the US media is doing such a good job of branding anyone who objects to the massacres, land thefts and illegal occupations that I carry out as an anti-semite. It worked so well decades ago when anyone who was against Francisco Franco was branded as a hater of Catholic immigrants. What a good tactic; the United States turns out to be about the only country in the world where I am not regarded as a brutal thug.

"illegal occupations "

And where are these happening? Certainly not in Isreal.

Please tell me.

Oh you must mean the occupation of the land, Israel rightfully gained in '67, by those murderous "palestinian" terrorists.

Gotcha.

End the "palestinian" occupation od Gaza and the West Bank!!!

Bend over, assclown.

www.kobehq.com