Letter from Sa'doon Hammadi to Congress




The Honorable Speaker of the US Senate,

The Honorable Speaker of the US House of Representatives,

The Honorable Members of the US Congress,

Assalamu Alaykum

My colleagues in the Iraqi National Assembly and I have watched with interest statements made by a number of US legislators, such as Senator Arlen Specter and Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, in which they remind President George W. Bush that, according to the Constitution of the United States of America, it is the authority of the US Congress to wage war, including the now threatened war against Iraq. This has prompted me, encouraged also by my fellow legislators in the Iraqi National Assembly, to address this letter to you

Sirs,

One of the biggest problems that has existed since 1990 between our people and country on the one hand, and the successive US administrations on the other, along with the stubborn injustice and incessant aggression and destruction inflicted upon our country and people, and the comprehensive blockade unjustly imposed on our population for twelve years now, has been the absence of all channels of dialogue between our two countries, the channels that might have helped develop a language of understanding between our respective representatives. This has meant that your Congress and, hence, the American people, have unfortunately been deprived of any genuine opportunity to see the facts of the situation for what they really are, in order that your judgments and decisions, on behalf of your people, might have been based on sound assessments in both objective and practical terms. This would, no doubt, have presented your representative bodies and those involved in political affairs with the opportunity they need to see and observe the situation, and then state their view and involve themselves on the basis of solid facts, so that they would neither do themselves the injustice of deciding and acting on ignorance, nor bring injustice to those affected by their decisions.

This lack of communication has been the root cause of the actions taken against our country since 1990. Had the naked facts been put to you, and indeed to others, as they are; and had we been able to allow dialogue the chance it deserved both objectively and practically, then things might have taken a different course. In this regard, you may well remember the theatrical act presented by Naira* about the incubators episode, which turned out to have been a most effective factor in swaying congress in 1990 towards adopting the war decision against Iraq. The Naira-incubators act was later exposed for the hoax that it was; but then again too late for the damage caused to be redressed.

The picture we have been up against since then has been one in which the US administration might well have been furnished with information from sources, some of which do have their own agenda, or their own way of imagining things. Such sources and such information have invariably contributed towards military action to be launched by the US government against Iraq with troops mobilized in an orchestrated chain of developments in which one aggression would lead to another bringing more death to the people of Iraq and further destruction to their country. Still, we are yet to witness real attempts to discover the truth and distinguish right from wrong.

Sirs,

We believe that we know what is right and what is wrong and what facts on which to establish our judgments. But our knowledge is not enough to halt any US-led aggression against our country and people. This is why we would like to see your Congress, and indeed all fair-minded people and authorities leading or shaping American public opinion, especially the media, to have a change to see the facts on the ground as they truly are, and not as they may be doctored or painted to you in the same way as the Naira episode was staged. This will help you see the truth from both ends, while losing nothing, but maybe gaining the benefit of a more objective decision, regardless of the direction it may take.

Honorable Congressmen,

This, indeed, has been the essential problem through which my country has endured the unendurable, losing in the process, more than one million of its children alone, a figure confirmed by the relevant agencies of the United Nations as well as by the various other competent international organizations, not to mention fatality amongst youth and the elderly. This have been the problem which, on the basis of it being unresolved, is being used by the US administration to threaten invading Iraq. Hence, our hope that you, and your fellow-Congressmen may help overcome this problem by seeking to see the true fact through direct dialogue, and then reach your own conclusions, and decide accordingly as you see fit.

While I hope that you find what I am trying to propose in this letter to be worthy of your attention and consideration, I hereby extend, on behalf of the National Assembly of Iraq, an invitation for a delegation to visit Iraq, comprising whatever number of Congressmen you see fit, accompanied by experts in the fields you deem relevant to the purpose of the visit, i.e. chemical, biological, and nuclear. The members of such a delegation will no doubt be equipped with whatever data your government chooses to supply them with in substantiation of its misguided claim that Iraq has produced chemical and biological weapons, and is in the process of constructing nuclear weapons. This claim has been stated now and again by officials in the US government and echoed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Once your delegation and experts from all relevant fields have had the change to see and search in Iraq for the places which your information insists are amongst those established to produce biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, while being hosted as our guests for, say, a period of three weeks, during which time they will be given every facility needed to search and inspect any plants and installations allegedly producing, or intended to produce, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, however deep underground such facilities may be thought to exists, the decision will subsequently still be yours; and I do not think that you stand to lose anything if you were to take your decision after you have seen the truth as it is on the ground.

Accept, please, by best regards and highest consideration.

Dr. Sa'doon Hammadi
Speaker of the National Assembly
Of the Republic of Iraq
5th/August/2002


*Naira was a young Kuwaiti girl who was brought to the Senate, a few days before the war was launched in 1991, to give "tearful" testimony, in which she alleged that she had herself been in Kuwait where she watched, amongst other things, Iraqi soldiers rip off newborn infants from their hospital incubators in order to steal those incubators. As it turned out later, Naira was the daughter of the then Kuwaiti Ambassador to the USA, and she had never been in Kuwait during the events After August 2nd 1990. Her story had been staged with expert assistance fro Hill & Knowlton, a Washington-based PR firm, in order to sway Congressional vote, along with US public opinion, towards war action on the basis of totally false information.