'Of course, it was all about Iraq's resources'

Simon Mars: Do you think control over energy resources was the main reason for the invasion of Iraq?
Noam Chomsky: They didn't decide to invade Eastern Congo where there's much worse massacres going on. Of course it was Iraq's energy resources. It's not even a question. Iraq's one of the major oil producers in the world. It has the second largest reserves and it's right in the heart of the Gulf's oil producing region, which US intelligence predicts is going to be two thirds of world resources in coming years.

The invasion of Iraq had a number of motives, and one was to illustrate the new National Security Strategy, which declares that the United States will control the world permanently by force if necessary and will eliminate any potential challenge to that domination. It is called pre-emptive war.

It is not a new policy, it's just never been announced so brazenly, which is why it caused such uproar, including among the foreign policy elite in the United States. They're appalled by it.
But having announced the doctrine, it needed an exemplary action, to show that the United States really meant it.

But if the United States is going to attack somebody, the action has to meet several criteria. The first and crucial criterion is that they must be completely defenseless. It's stupid to attack anyone who can shoot back. Anyone knows this.

They understood perfectly well that Iraq was completely defenseless, the weakest country in the region. Its military expenditure was about a third of Kuwait, devastated by sanction, held together by Scotch tape. Mostly dis-armed, under complete surveillance, so Iraq met that condition.

Second criteria is that the place attacked has to be important enough to matter. There's no point taking over Eastern Congo, which is also defenseless, but Iraq matters. That's where the issue of oil comes up, since the United States will end up with military bases right in the heart of the oil producing region.

The third criteria is you have to somehow pretend it's a threat to your existence. While the people of Kuwait and Iran might be delighted to tear Saddam Hussein limb from limb, they still did not regard him as a threat. No-one thought he was a threat.

But in the United States the propaganda did succeed in moving the American population, and Congress passed a resolution authorizing the use of force to defend the US against the continuing threat posed by Iraq. No matter what you think, that's just laughable.

   How many people know that Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein golden spurs back in 1983?
A little of that has begun to leak out, but how many people know that Colin Powell, the present administration moderate, was the National Security Advisor at the time of Halabja massacre, when the Reagan administration, responded by simply increasing aid to Saddam Hussein, as did the first Bush administration later.

They knew that this aid was used for chemical and biological warfare, and for developing missiles and nuclear weapons. But they did not care so the aid continued.

Nowadays, Powell moans about the graves in Halabja, but he didn't care at the time. They now claim this was because of the war with Iran, but it had nothing to do with the war in Iran. The war in Iran was over. They provided aid to their friend Saddam Hussein because of their duty to support US exporters, as they said on public record.

When Saddam Hussein was massacring the Kurds, he was also wiping out agricultural areas. They needed agricultural aid and US agro-business was delighted to have the US taxpayer pay them to send agricultural aid to Iraq. Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney thought that was just fine. Then it gets worse.

Right now, since the weapons of mass destruction have not been found, there are other excuses being used for the invasion of Iraq. In article after article, Thomas Friedman of New York Times, as well as Colin Powell, both moan about the mass graves that have been discovered.

It is true they did not see them before, but of course they knew they were there. In 1991, after the Gulf War, the US had total control of the whole region, Saddam Hussein was effectively authorized to massacre the Shiites, and to put down the rebellion that could have overthrown him.

Today, Thomas Friedman is agonizing about the mass graves, but if you go back and read him in 1991, he knew about them. He was the New York Times' Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, and he said that the best of all worlds for the United States would be an iron fisted military junta that would rule Iraq the same as Saddam Hussein, but since Saddam is an embarrassment, lets try to get someone else. And if we cannot find someone else, we will have to settle for second best, Saddam Hussein himself.

The British are an interesting case. In the US, we have pretty much the same government that was in office in 1991. But in Britain, today's government was in opposition in 1991. There were parliamentary protests in England about the gassing of the Kurds and so on, but try to find the names of Tony Blair, Jeff Hoon, Jack Straw, I think even Robin Cook. They're missing.

   What do the American public think about the situation in Israel?
The study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, PIPA, has done very interesting in-depth studies of people's attitudes towards Israel and Palestine, but they are never reported because the conclusions are unacceptable.

The PIPA study found that a considerable majority of the American population favour what is called the Saudi plan, which is the latest version of international consensus on a two state settlement that the United States has been unilaterally blocking since 1975. Yet about two thirds of the United States' population supports it.

The Poll shows that a large majority of people in the United States think that they should cut off aid to either of the two parties, Israel or the Palestinians, if they refuse to enter into goodwill negotiations.

   Next question. Suppose that both sides enter into negotiations, what should the United States do?
Give equal aid to Israel and the Palestinians.

   Then comes the next question. Should the United States be more involved in this?
Yes. Same large majority. That's a contradiction, a self contradiction. It's the United States involvement since the mid 1970's that's prevented a political settlement. Step by step, vetoes at the Security Council since 1976