And there has been an offer on the table which we rejected – an Iraqi offer last April – to eliminate their chemical and other and conventional arsenals if Israel were to simultaneously do the same. Noam Chomsky, Newshour 1990
Iraq was selected; it met the required conditions. The first condition is it was understood that it was completely defenceless. You don’t attack a country if it can defend itself. Secondly, it was important because it has the second largest oil reserves in the world. And it’s right at the heart of the main oil producing region of the world. Noam Chomsky, interview The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror
The reason why France and Germany are so reviled is that the governments are taking the position of the overwhelming majority of the population. And that’s considered a crime. Noam Chomsky, University of Colorado 5th April 2003
The number of people killed by the sanctions in Iraq is greater than the total number of people killed by all weapons of mass destruction in all of history. Noam Chomsky
When Britain and the US invaded Iraq, it was with the reasonable expectation that it was going to increase the threat of terror, as it has. Noam Chomsky
I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the US allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable. Noam Chomsky
Somebody’s paying the corporations that destroyed Iraq and the corporations that are rebuilding it. They’re getting paid by the American taxpayer in both cases. So we pay them to destroy the country, and then we pay them to rebuild it. Those are gifts from US taxpayers to US corporations. Noam Chomsky
Qatar-based ‘Al-Jazeera’, the most important news channel in the Arab world, was harshly criticized by high US officials for having ‘emphasized civilian casualties’ during the destruction of Falluja. The problem of independent media was later resolved when the channel was kicked out of Iraq in preparation for free elections. Noam Chomsky
More generally, the September 11 terrorist atrocities provided an opportunity and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control of Iraq’s immense oil wealth, a central component of the Persian Gulf resources that the State Department, in 1945, described as ‘a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history’ (referring specifically to Saudi Arabia, but the intent is more general). US intelligence predicts that these will be of even greater significance in the years ahead. Noam Chomsky, 3rd December 2002, ‘A Modest Proposal’
The Washington leadership has put aside non-proliferation programmes and devoted its energies and resources to driving the country to war by extraordinary deceit, then trying to manage the catastrophe it created in Iraq. Noam Chomsky
Prior to Hussein’s attack on Kuwait the Bush Administration and its predecessors treated this murderous thug as an amiable friend, encouraging trade with his regime and credits to enable it to purchase US good. Before that, Washington had supported his invasion of Iran. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
Now that the US victory in the Gulf has been secured, jingoist rhetoric has subsided, and it is possible to survey just what happened in the misnamed ‘Gulf War’ – misnamed, because there never was a war, at least, if the concept involves two sides in combat. That didn’t happen in the Gulf.
The crisis began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which left hundreds killed according to human rights groups. That hardly qualifies as war. Rather, in terms of crimes against peace and against humanity, it falls roughly into the category of the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1978, or the US invasion of Panama. In these terms it falls well short of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and cannot remotely be compared with the near-genocidal Indonesian conquest of East Timor, to mention only two cases of aggression and atrocities that continue with the decisive support of those who most passionately professed their outrage over Iraq’s invasion. ibid.
The next phase of the conflict began with the US-led attack of January 16. Its first component targeted the civilian infrastructure, including power, sewage, and water systems; that is, a form of biological warfare, having little relation to driving Iraq from Kuwait – rather, designed for long-term political ends. This too is not war, but state terrorism, on a colossal scale.
The second component of the attack was the slaughter of Iraqi soldiers in the desert. ibid.
Pentagon and other sources give estimates in the range of 100,000 defenceless victims killed ... ‘simply massacre and murderous butchery’. ibid.
The final phase of the conflict began immediately after the ceasefire, as Iraqi elite units slaughtered first the Shi’ites of the south and then the Kurds of the north, with the tacit support of the Commander-in-Chief, who had called upon Iraqis to rebel when that suited his purposes, then went fishing when the ‘iron fist’ struck. ibid.
In brief, from August 1990 there was little that could qualify as ‘war’. Rather, there was a brutal Iraqi takeover of Kuwait, followed by various forms of slaughter and state terrorism, the scale corresponding roughly to the means of violence in the hands of the perpetrators, and their impunity. ibid.
In mid-August, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani flew to Washington to seek support for guerrilla operations against Saddam’s regime. Neither Pentagon nor State Department officials would speak to him; he was rebuffed again in March 1991. ibid.
The Iraqi democratic opposition was scrupulously excluded from the mainstream media throughout the Gulf crisis. ibid.
With the mission accomplished, the disdain for Iraqi democracies continued unchallenged. A European diplomat observed that ‘the Americans would prefer to have another Assad, or better yet, another Mubarak in Baghdad’. ibid.
Despite its victory, Washington did not quite achieve ‘the best of all worlds’ because no suitable clone of the Beast of Baghdad was found. ibid.
When the United States invades Iraq, kills a couple of hundred thousand people, generates millions of refugees, destroys the country, sets off a sectarian conflict that’s tearing Iraq and by now the whole region to shreds, and on the side increases terrorism worldwide by a factor of seven just in the first year – that’s stabilization, part of our mission that we must continue for the benefit of the world. Noam Chomsky, lecture The New School New York City, ‘On Power & Ideology’, Youtube 1.16.30
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and company may even have succeeded in causing irreversible damage to Iraq’s oil fields. To support the invasion the fields are being driven to pump more than they should. Noam Chomsky, Failed States audio
If the United States can maintain its control over Iraq which has the world’s second largest known oil reserves and is located at the heart of the world’s major energy supplies, it will enhance significantly Washington’s strategic power and critical leverage over its major rival in the tripolar world that has been taking shape for the past thirty years. ibid.
Basic services deteriorated even more than they had under the sanctions: hospitals regularly ran out of the most basic medicines; the facilities are in horrid shape. ibid.
The Lancet study estimating 100,000 probable deaths by October 2004 elicited enough comment in England so that the government had to issue an embarrassing denial but in the United States virtual silence prevailed. ibid.
Halliburton – the biggest recipient of Iraqi funds. ibid.
United States sought to block Iraqi democracy … The one thing every Iraqi agrees upon is that occupation should end soon which would be in direct conflict with the US objective of constructing a US-friendly democracy that would allow America to replace its military presence in Saudi Arabia with one in Iraq that would allow America to keep shaping the regional balance of power … Democracy would be welcomed as long as it is the traditional top-down kind. ibid.
71% of people rarely gets safe clean water; 47% never have enough electricity; 70% say their sewage system rarely works; and 40% of southern Iraqis are unemployed … 80% of Iraqis favoured near-term US troop withdrawal. ibid.
The most horrendous car bombing in Beirut: in 1985 a huge explosion killing 80 people and wounding 200 mostly women and girls leaving the mosque exit where the bomb was placed, the attack aimed at a Muslim cleric was traced to the CIA. ibid.
The murderous sanctions on Iraq which murdered literally hundreds of thousands of people, strengthened Saddam Hussein and forced the population to rely on him for survival. Noam Chomsky, lecture University of Tennessee 25th January 2011
The invasion of Iraq: there was quite good evidence at the time that the invasion was undertaken with the expectation that it would probably increase terror: that’s been confirmed interestingly in the hearings that have been held in Britain recently. Noam Chomsky, lecture KGNU Radio 25th January 2013, ‘Imperial Dangers Then and Now’
As it became clearer and clearer that the US was failing to impose its will in Iraq then the actual goals of the invasion could no longer be concealed … In November 2007 the White House issued what it called the Declaration of Principles which insisted that US forces must remain indefinitely in Iraq. ibid.
All the opposition parties are agreed in calling for an immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, but most are very unhappy about the military onslaught by the US-led coalition. Edward Mortimer, journalist