If you recall, the original justification for invading Iraq was the countries supposed inventory of weapons of mass destruction. When these weapons were never found, and as chief weapons inspectors denounced the entire effort and stated publicly that they believed the weapons never existed, the Bush administration turned to plan B: human rights, not weapons of mass destruction.
But Human Rights Watch challenges this latest story, saying that the human rights violations of 1988 did not justify an invasion in 2002.
The true story here is that the Bush administration is using weapons of mass distraction to make people believe the invasion of Iraq is about something other than control of natural resources: namely, oil. Do you honestly believe that the United States would have invaded and taken over Iraq if the country were the world's largest producer of avocados and had no oil?
By Matthew Clark| csmonitor.com As the months roll by without any
discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Bush
administration has increasingly emphasized Saddam Hussein's brutality
and human rights violations as an important justification for the
preemptive war it launched to overthrow his regime.
After former chief US weapons inspector David Kay announced over the
weekend that Iraq did not possess any WMD stockpiles before the war, the
White House has backed off the claim that had been its main
justification for the war.
But a leading advocacy group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), released a
report Monday challenging the administration's other main justification.