News Release

U.S. Credibility Problems

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GLEN RANGWALA
Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, exposed the British government’s plagiarism in its recent dossier which Secretary of State Colin Powell praised before the Security Council last week. Britain’s government has admitted that Rangwala is correct. He said today: “Powell’s citation of the plagiarized paper is merely a symptom of the weak case he is putting forward.” Rangwala’s reports are posted at: www.traprockpeace.org/firstresponse.html.

BARBARA OLSHANSKY
An attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, co-author of Against War with Iraq and author of Secret Trials and Executions, Olshansky said today: “The president talked today about making America a freer place. While the U.S. government has condemned other countries for military tribunals and indefinite detentions, this administration has conducted these very same human rights violations.”
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ALI ABUNIMAH
Co-founder of the new web portal electronicIraq.net, Abunimah is just back from Jordan. He said today: “Colin Powell’s Security Council presentation raised questions in the minds of many reasonable observers about Iraq’s seriousness in assisting the inspectors. At the same time, Powell’s presentation, which was filled with unsupported assertions, factual inaccuracies, and willful distortions, raised just as many questions about U.S. intentions and methods. For example, it has now become clear that U.S. government claims about a ‘terrorist poison factory’ in northern Iraq are totally unfounded.”
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JOHN QUIGLEY
Professor of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley said today: “When other U.N. member states react to the presentation by Secretary of State Colin Powell, they do so against a background of knowledge that in the past the U.S. has presented information to the Security Council on war and peace issues that later turned out to be false.” Some examples:

* On three occasions, it told the Council it was invading other states because U.S. nationals were in danger there: Dominican Republic 1965, Grenada 1983, Panama 1989. In none of these instances were U.S. nationals in danger.

* In 1954, when the elected government of Guatemala was overthrown militarily by Guatemalan military officers, the U.S. was charged before the Council with organizing the coup. It denied to the Council any involvement. In fact it organized the coup.

* In 1964, it told the Council that U.S. vessels had been attacked by Vietnamese vessels in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. This information was based on reports from U.S. vessels that the vessels’ commander soon said were in error. Nonetheless, the State Department used the information before the Council and relied on it as a major rationale for a military buildup in Vietnam.

* In 1993, after it launched missiles at the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad, the U.S. government told the Council that the circuitry found in a Renault (vehicle) at the Iraq-Kuwait border was of a type that linked it to the Iraqi intelligence service, and that the Renault was part of a plot to assassinate George Bush, who was then visiting Kuwait. As later analysis showed, the circuitry was not of a type that showed a connection to the Iraqi intelligence service.

* In 1998, the U.S. government told the Council that it had launched missiles against Khartoum, Sudan, because VX nerve gas was being produced at a factory there. In fact, no nerve gas was being produced there, as later acknowledged by administration officials.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167