HALLIDAY: ’’TO TOP OFF THE U.S./BRITISH LIES WAS THE CHARGE OF ATTACK ON THOSE TWIN TOWERS OF...

HALLIDAY: ’’TO TOP OFF THE U.S./BRITISH LIES WAS THE CHARGE OF ATTACK ON THOSE TWIN TOWERS OF CAPITALISTIC GREED IN NEW YORK CITY’’

ISTANBUL, June 26 - Denis Halliday, who served between 1994-98 as Assistant Secretary-General of United Nations, and was appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the post of UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, said on Saturday, ’’to top off the U.S./British lies and rubbish was the charge of a close Iraqi linkage to ’al Qaeda’ and the attack on those Twin Towers of capitalistic greed in New York City on September 11th, 2001.’’

Culminating session of the ’’World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI)’’ continues in Istanbul’s historical building of Darphane-i Amire.

Speaking at today’s session, Halliday said, ’’since 1990, the people of Iraq have been the victims of continuous U.S./British-driven United Nations Security Council aggression. Triggered by the Iraq take-over of Kuwait, this aggression on the Iraqi people cannot be justified. I say that in no way defending the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for there can be no justification for such aggression. The United Nations failed to protect and safeguard the children and people of Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion.’’

’’When 20 months later the Secretary-General remembered his responsibility to speak up as per Article 99 of the United Nations Charter, he mumbled off-the-record, but was sadly much too late,’’ he said.

’’U.S. President George W. Bush/British Prime Minister Tony Blair invasion of Iraq is in complete breech of international law. The war crimes committed in that blatant military aggression, the most serious of international crimes, must be charged to Bush as the Commander-in-Chief, and to Blair as the Prime Minister who abused war powers. Bush should be charged with use of State terrorism. This is the kind of state terrorism that provides a tragic reminder of the US nuclear crime of bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is the kind of state terrorism besides which small scale ’terrorist’ resistance pales in comparison. However, both forms of terrorism are internationally unlawful and unacceptable,’’ he stressed.

Halliday said, ’’The United Nations member states listened mutely and swallowed, some painfully, the false arguments of Iraqi capacity to threaten not only its neighbors, none of whom appeared to share this fear, and the physical threats to Britain and the United States. The world tried desperately to believe the nonsense of massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction residing in Iraq. And to top off the U.S./British lies and rubbish was the charge of a close Iraqi linkage to ’al Qaeda’ and the attack on those Twin Towers of capitalistic greed in New York City on September 11th, 2001.’’

’’This World Tribunal in Istanbul has the opportunity and obligation to demand full international prosecution of the U.S./British war leaders and war criminals involved in the destruction of Iraq, the lives of its people and their human rights and well being, through unlawful and unjustifiable armed invasion and military occupation,’’ he added.

Meanwhile, Eman Khammas, an Iraqi human rights activist, said in her part that 15 thousand Iraqis had been missing.

She noted that families of those missing Iraqis had been trying desperately to find them.

World Tribunal on Iraq - http://www.worldtribunal.org/

See also:

– [WTI News] Iraq is now worse than it was under Saddam - http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6653

– A former US Air Force pilot called on US troops in Iraq to "resist" - http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6640

– US caused more deaths in Iraq than Saddam - http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6624

– Bush: the world holds you accountable - http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6581