OPINION:Facts were not allowed to get in the way of delusional lies driven by Washington's desire to invade Iraq, writes Tony Kinsella
MOST OF us are recovering from over-indulgence - in food, drink and close proximity to family members. Will our global economy also recover? It is not in our interest simply to wind the clock back to December 2007, for all the elements that are daily destabilising our world were already present in abundance. We need to achieve more than mere recovery. Rather like survivors of a house fire, we are still in shock - and praying that the insurance pays up. Except that we may have to rescue the insurance company as well.
We will in all probability succeed, but we should aim to achieve more than simply recreating the abode as it was before the conflagration. We need to construct something better. An essential element of that process will be learning, or relearning, to distinguish between facts, truths, delusions and lies. The possibility of independent verification is a prerequisite for establishing something as a fact. The sun rises to the East. If you can haul yourself out of bed you can confirm that every morning.
Truths are something we "hold to be self-evident", but which don't lend themselves to independent verification. Christians hold it to be a truth that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem around 2,000 years ago - even if they differ about other elements such as the nature of his conception. Although impossible to prove, truths are important for those who choose to believe in them.
Delusions are what we like to believe. They are usually harmless; I may like to think that middle-aged newspaper columnists are important, but reality quickly disabuses me.
Lies can be the lubricant of social intercourse, as when we express grateful thanks for yet another plate of overcooked turkey, or they can pose a threat to our very survival, particularly when blended with delusions. One dangerous delusional lie propounded and promoted over recent decades has been that international dialogue and institutions don't work, or at least are not something red-blooded men should take seriously.
This was compounded with the more toxic one that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed a "clear and present danger" to the rest of the world through its weapons of mass destruction. The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) factually debunks both of those lies. This body, established in 1997, has succeeded in just over a decade in safely disposing of over 40 per cent of the world's 71,000 tons of chemical weapons stockpiles.
Its 184 member states, with an annual budget of €75 million and a staff of 500, are on track to completely eliminate chemical weapons by 2012. Significant Russian and US stocks and facilities have been destroyed. Countries from Albania through India and South Korea have either eliminated their stockpiles, or are in the process of doing so.
OPCW director-general Rogelio Pfirter, Argentina's former deputy foreign minister, talked of his organisation working by consensus and noted: "Iran and the United States are very much key figures in that" at its recent annual conference.
Iranian deputy foreign minister, Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini, referring to the Iran-Iraq war, told the conference: "As the last victim of chemical weapons, the Islamic Republic of Iran strongly believes that promoting international peace and security is subject to the realisation of a world free from the threat and existence of weapons of mass destruction." Even when he noted that the "chemical and nuclear weapons of the Zionist regime [Israel]" were the "most dangerous threat to regional and international peace", the US ambassador, Eric Javits, sat quietly. Ambassador Javits later reflected that his role was ". . . to get everyone to feel like a partner".
All of this contrasts sharply with the removal from office in April 2002 of Rogeli Pfirter's predecessor, José Bustani. Bustani, an experienced Brazilian diplomat, had been unanimously re-elected for a four-year term in 2000, only to be torpedoed by the White House and Downing Street. He had been negotiating with Baghdad for OPCW inspectors to have full access to Iraq's purported chemical weapons arsenal, and it looked as if he might succeed. This would not only have made a nonsense of Washington's raison d'être for the coming war, it would have exposed the lies both capitals were peddling. Therefore, Bustani was ousted.
Remember the US warnings that the smoking Iraqi gun would be a mushroom cloud? Or Tony Blair's assertion that chemically armed Iraqi missiles could hit "British territory" within 45 minutes? The nuclear and chemical warheads did not exist, the missiles were, at best, on the drawing board, and the British territory in question was an Royal Air Force base in Cyprus.
Facts could not be allowed to get in the way of delusional lies driven by Washington's still incomprehensible desire to invade Iraq. No weapons were ever found, and maybe half a million deaths later, US forces are going home. Bustani eventually won compensation for unfair dismissal and he donated his entire severance award to the International Co-operation programmes of the OPCW.
In 15 years the OPCW will probably have rid our planet of particularly horrific weapons, less than a century after European nations first used them in the killing fields of Flanders. A remarkable triumph of fact-based international co-operation over truths, delusions and lies.
So there's hope for us all yet.
Happy New Year.