Ironic untold story

The Times (December 6) carried a half page article by the US Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, Alan P. Larson. Mr Larson told us how strongly the Iraqi economy is coming on since his country invaded it under the false pretext of going in to enforce a UN resolution forbidding Iraq from stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

I confess to being highly impressed and disturbed watching US Secretary of State Colin Powell address the UN Security Council showing us one aerial view after another of supposed factories, weapons stockpiles and missile launch pads all ready for use by Saddam Hussein's regime. I am sure that millions of people all over the world felt as I did that day in the face of such "overwhelming" evidence that, if an impotent UN would do nothing about such flagrant violation of a UN resolution, the US was right to go it alone.

But like millions of others I was deceived as this "overwhelming" evidence turned out to be nothing more than hogwash.

The tune has now changed and the US President's slant on the issue is that the war was justified because of the tyrannical nature of Saddam's regime. So what next? Are we going to see the US invade Zimbabwe and North Korea, home to equally tyrannical and undemocratic governments? Is the US now the self-appointed promoter of democracy throughout the world and has it granted itself the licence to act in such a manner when it deems fit? I suspect not, unless the country in question holds at least a tenth of the world's recoverable oil reserves.

At this point I would like to politely ask Mr Larson who have been the main beneficiaries of the regeneration of the Iraqi economy. From the pictures that arrive into our living rooms every night it certainly does not look like it is the Iraqis themselves.

Could Mr Larson explain how much of the revenue being generated by the Iraqi oil revenues is going straight into the coffers of American multinational companies such as Haliburton, of which Dick Cheney, the US Vice President was CEO?

The Iraqis have had their homes destroyed by the Americans and are now paying the Americans to have them rebuilt.

Following the November presidential election in the US, American commentators have remarked that it was ironic that working class Americans voted in a President who promised tax breaks for the rich at the expense of lower benefits for the working class. I wouldn't call it ironic. Gullible is more the sort of term that comes to mind.

Mr Larson, gullible we are not on this side of the Atlantic. Your "Untold story" holds no water with anybody who has followed the war in Iraq over the past 30 months and should have indeed remained untold.