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http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/05-2006/Article-20060508-14580cdc-c0a8-10ed-01d1-b9b72d6d6587/story.htmlInteresting commentary from an Arabic media outlet: International media paid considerable attention to the third anniversary of the declaration made by President Bush on May 1, 2004, that the mission in Iraq had been "accomplished". Earlier this month, I went back to what is known as "The Secret Downing Street Memo", published in the British Sunday Times issue of May 1, 2005. It proves undeniably that the American President and the British Prime Minister agreed to wage war before they asked the UN Security Council to support renewed weapon inspections as an alternative to armed conflict.
The memo was never disclaimed. Dated July 23, 2002, it was written by Matthew Rycroft, the foreign policy advisor at the time. Rycroft sent it to high-ranking officials, like the Secretary of Defense and the Foreign Secretary, who met with the British Prime Minister at his residence on the same day. This memo was duly given its attention at the time; so I will not delve into any more details. However, it is noteworthy that Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), returned from his visit to the US saying that "military action was now seen as inevitable". He added that the Americans were trying to provoke Saddam Hussein in order to drag him into war - without even consulting the UN.
However, after signing the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq on October 16, 2002, Bush said that he had "not ordered the use of force", adding, "I hope the use of force will not become necessary". He went on to say, "I've carefully weighed the human cost of every option before us".
I hope the reader will compare between the Downing Street Memo and what the President said in a later press conference. Consequently, the reader should realize that the American President has lied and that he deserves to be impeached and removed from power.
From the time the mission was "accomplished" until today, 2000 Americans have been killed and 20,000 have been injured. Iraqi deaths amount to more than 100,000. Three years have passed, and yet we still hear about people that were killed in bombings and discoveries of slaughtered corpses. Add to this Adel Abdel Mahdi's statement that around 100,000 Iraqi families have been displaced because of sectarian violence since the attack on the two holy shrines in Samarra, last February.
The worst thing about all of this is that the third anniversary arrived concurrently with recurring American talks about the partition of Iraq. It is as though the Arab country were an American inheritance to be divided among beneficiaries.
Senator Joseph Bayden, a leading US Democrat, proposed that Iraq should be partitioned into North, South and Middle, with a weak central government. This proposal came in his speech before the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, and also in an article published in the New York Times. However, a day prior to Bayden's proposal, Thomas Ricks, the eminent Washington Post writer, wrote an article entitled 'Merits of Partitioning Iraq or Allowing Civil War Weighed'. In this article, he compared views of advocates of portioning and those of civil war. Some believe that partitioning would solve the Iraqi sectarian problems, while others believe that the US has created a state of rebellion in Iraq that has to be maintained.
Hence, three years after accomplishing the mission, we have two options: partition or civil war. . . . more
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