WMD was not the first lie

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Amidst the current focus on the big lie of the Bush administration (and the
NY Times and many others) with respect to the claim that Iraq had tons
(literally) of weapons of mass destruction and was actively developing more,
it's easy to forget that this was not the first such big lie. Another, which
has been TOTALLY ignored by the press, was the big lie that the decade-long
campaign (escalated in the 6 months before the war) to systematically
degrade Iraq's air defense capability was part of a UN-mandated "no-fly"
zone intended to protect the Kurds and the Shia from being massacred.
Clearly, the effectiveness of those defenses over that decade (that is, the
total LACK of effectiveness) indicates that, had they been operative during
the war, the war would hardly have been prolonged, but nonetheless, that is
what that "pre-war" (more accurately, pre-invasion) air campaign was all
about - a systematic preparation for invasion, and certainly not for the
protection of anyone.

Waiting for the press or Congress to investigate this big lie will be a long
wait. Note that, while the WMD story (that is, the lack thereof) may
continue in the British press and in the major newspapers (Wash Post, NY
Times) in the US, any evidence of it on TV news or local newspapers has
totally vanished.

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