Why Operation Desert Fox degrades us all: The dishonesty of the on-going bombing campaign against Iraq

December 1998: So now oil refineries are weapons of mass destruction are they? Asked Robert Fisk

(AFP/Getty)

So now military targets include the Basra oil refinery, do they? Messrs Clinton and Blair had promised us, of course, that only military targets would be hit in the Anglo-American bombardment of Iraq. But the refinery, bombed on Friday night, has allegedly been used to smuggle oil and thus – bingo! – becomes a military target. Maybe we’ll be told that oil refineries are weapons of mass destruction. It’s all on a par with the other equivocations we’ve been sold these last few days.

In Washington, we were informed that impeachment hearings against president Clinton were delayed because “American forces were in harm’s way” – when the only people apparently in real danger are Iraqis. The lads firing the hundreds of Cruise missiles at Iraq from the safety of warships in the Gulf are about as much in harm’s way as a car bomber. Even when the RAF joins in the bombardment, we’re treated to an excited newsreader on the BBC World Service announcing that British aircraft have been “in action” over Iraq – as if this was the Battle of Britain rather than the bombing of an Arab country already crushed by sanctions which are killing thousands a month.