Revisiting 1998 for a reason. (See below.) With respect to Mossad and the Tel Aviv connection to Iraq, I am on record many months ago that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was an Israeli covert operation from the start. Peeling back the layers of the onion, no other explanation makes sense.

If "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was not an Israeli covert operation, then the entire enterprise would appear to be complete idiocy, to wit, pointless and self-destructive from the American perspective. Washington's invasion and occupation of Iraq are now justified by a theory. We are supposedly undertaking an experiment, a leap in the dark. According to the White House, America is bringing "democracy" to the Middle East.

But that is just a hasty backup story,  produced after the WMD lie was exposed by events. This rationalization is another diversion, only better. Unlike the dangers of WMD, a theory often cannot be disproved until much later. Remember the "domino theory" with respect to Viet-Nam?

Dick Cheney and G.W. Bush are politicians, that is, straw men. Contrary to appearances, they are not idiots. There has to be a reason why they would authorize an adventure so apparently self-defeating. There is. Cheney and Bush have, in turn, made a straw man out of Uncle Sam as a favor to Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Lobby. The con which Sharon fed them and which they pretend to swallow is this: you take out Iraq before I can make "peace" with the Palestinians. A quid pro quo.

Of course, there was the chimera of oil, as the kicker. Wolfowitz stated to Conrgess that Iraq’s oil would pay for everything. Does this mean Cheney and Bush should be impeached and cashiered? Yes, it does. But impeachment will never happen. Cheney and Bush have immunity. The actual reasons for this debacle, based on a pack of lies, as George Galloway has rightly put it, cannot be allowed to surface. In any event, how could the Democrats in Washington, implicated in the same fraud, bring the case? They can’t. They are 100% part and parcel of it.

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<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk/207223.stm>

Tuesday, November 3, 1998 Published at 20:56 GMT

BBC News | UK | 'Undercover Mossad agents' in UN team

A UK MP has said that four members of the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq are Israeli spies.

Labour's George Galloway, who has campaigned against air strikes on Iraq, named four people he alleged were agents of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, working under false names and papers with the Unscom team. But Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said he had "no corroboration" of the claims, which he said emanated from Baghdad.

Mr Galloway also said a senior UN official had told him that Unscom head Richard Butler was "a congenital liar" - an allegation "utterly" rejected by Mr Cook. The clash came in Commons exchanges after the Foreign Secretary made a statement on the deepening crisis over Iraq's withdrawal of co-operation with the UN weapons inspectors.

Unscom's former chief of inspectors, Scott Ritter, has alleged the organisation received substantial aid from Mossad. Mr Galloway demanded: "Isn't the problem the total bankruptcy of Unscom as a credible player in this whole affair?

'Working under pseudonyms'

"Recently a very senior official of the UN described to me Richard Butler, the head of Unscom, as a congenital liar - and this on the basis of decades of knowledge of the man."

He said: "Scott Ritter since his resignation had admitted that he was working with Israeli intelligence whilst being the deputy head of a UN mission in Baghdad."

The Glasgow Kelvin MP went on: "In the last few hours it has been revealed that four inspectors working in Iraq under pseudonyms and carrying false passports were in fact Colonel Khadouri, Lieutenant Shamani, Colonel Rabscon and Jador Dalal Shamoni - all operatives of the Mossad Israeli intelligence."

Mr Galloway added: "All of us hope that these inspectors can get back to work monitoring these awful weapons, which exist not only in Iraq but throughout the region, not least in Israel.

"But a new and credible leadership of Unscom, and transparency in its work, will be required as a precondition for credibility to be restored."

He demanded a timescale for the ending of sanctions against Iraq, which he said were killing 6,000 Iraqi children each month.

Replying, Mr Cook said: "I have heard of the reports that there have been four people alleged by Baghdad to be working for Israel within Unscom. "I have to say to the house at the present time that I have no corroboration of these reports - and they do stem from Baghdad."

He told Mr Galloway: "I have to say in respect of Mr Butler that I strongly disagree with his characterisation. "I have known Richard Butler long before he became the head of Unscom. I am bound to say I know him to be a committed diplomat. I would utterly acquit him of the charges made against him."