Conspiracies: The Facts * the Theories * the Evidence (19 page)

considering any aspect of this theory: if something as historic as the Moon landings didn’t take place as we have been told, then

what did? However, as pol s show, the numbers of doubters are

slowly growing, and previous chapters have made clear that there

are many precedents for huge deceptions which might have been

kept quiet at the time, but which are coming under scrutiny now.

Increasing awareness of the more questionable aspects of history

can only encourage a new alertness to the potential diversions of truth which would appear to be continuing all around us today.

iii) Weapons of Mass DesTruCTion,

Wikileaks, Mps’ expenses,

phone haCking anD oTher

MainsTreaM DisillusionMenTs

Authorities Diminished

If Vietnam and Watergate blasted away significant amounts of trust in authority, leading people to question events as momentous as the Moon landings, what might the cumulative effect have been from

other unfortunate revelations in the decades since? Particularly

since 9/11, in the Western world at least, a steady stream of events has further eroded public faith in politicians, perhaps explaining why, by that event’s tenth anniversary, a significant proportion of the world’s population no longer believed the official story (
see
p. 171).

The ‘War on Terror’ launched by the USA in the wake of 9/11

enabled fear and patriotism to eclipse common sense in many

areas, fundamental y weakening long-established civil rights

and spawning a domino effect of Middle Eastern wars. It also

generated developments that extensively damaged any lingering

respect for governments.

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Iraq and the Weapons of Mass Destruction

Given that Osama bin Laden had been official y identified as the

perpetrator of 9/11 – although proof for this was never produced

– the war in Afghanistan necessary to hunt him down and weaken

the now-demonstrable threat from his al-Qaeda terrorist network

could be justified to a degree. But when the remit began to widen out to countries with more tenuous connections, questions

were raised. Once Iraq, as led by the undoubtedly cruel dictator

Saddam Hussein, fell into the gunsight as the next great threat to civilization around 2002, public discomfort set in. Alleged Iraqi links to al-Qaeda barely held water, and the collective gut sensed that oil and Western imperialism, rather than terrorism concerns, were the primary drivers this time around, while conspiracy

theorists smelled New World Order agendas.

As objectors against a planned allied invasion of Iraq took to

the world’s streets to protest in huge numbers unseen for years,

something more was apparently needed to bring everybody

‘on-message’. When anxiety over Hussein’s contravention of his

people’s human rights wasn’t enough, and pious talk of helping to create a new and better world failed to move the pol s (with plenty of other oil-free countries under worse oppression), the old tool of public fear was reached for, championed largely by US President

George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who

loudly beat the war drum. At least avoiding a false-flag event this time around, instead a (now-infamous) ‘dossier’ was produced,

purporting to demonstrate firm intelligence that Hussein was

preparing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that could be deployed

within ‘45 minutes’ against the West, maybe chemical, maybe even

nuclear. The evidence for this was too sensitive to be shared with the populace, natural y, and cynicism remained. But the resulting uncertainty shifted public opinion just enough, in the USA and

UK anyway, to permit military action against Iraq, which went

ahead in March 2003 with devastating consequences.

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The campaign itself, which saw thousands (mostly Iraqis)

dead or injured, was almost eclipsed by the dismal aftermath,

which, with barely a plan drawn up for its rehabilitation, left Iraq a faction-torn wasteland, with thousands more dying of disease,

hunger and sectarian in-fighting in the years following. Many

NWO theorists believe this masked a conscious intent: to create

a weakened Iraq which would be open to greater manipulation in

the grand plans for the region.

Whether through incompetence or design, the greatest public

shock, as the ‘liberated’ Iraq was picked through, was the gradual realization that the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the linch-pin that had waved the action through, weren’t there – just as most people had felt so strongly in their bones. Worse, it soon became evident that parts of the vital dossier had been works of fiction, almost absurdly derived in part from a student thesis found on the internet and augmented for dramatic purposes. Tony Blair and his chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell appeared to be responsible for much of it.

Shuffling excuses were made about ‘intelligence errors’, but few felt much sympathy towards this in the light of the costly (in every way) destruction that had been wreaked, seemingly for no reason.

Even as the path to war was building, high-profile diplomats

and intelligence officers had tried to signal the unlikelihood of the WMD programme, with one of the main United Nations weapons

inspectors, Dr David Kel y, even having gone to the BBC to express his concern. In turn, Kel y was blasted by the Blair government as a discredited irrelevance, one so weak and remorseful he committed

suicide soon after in the wake of his public shame. Or did he? Most people believe it more likely that Kel y was assassinated, to remove a dangerously vocal informant (
see
chapter 5).

Overal , it seemed patent that a war had been desired, and so

a war was what we got, regardless of evidence, the opinion of

experts or the views of voters. Although little sympathy is felt

today towards the fate of Saddam Hussein (eventual y tracked

down and executed under Iraqi law in 2006), even less is reserved 114

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for Blair and Bush, both of whom are widely seen in Britain as

liars and war criminals. The actual term is not necessarily heard in regard to the Iraq war, but it is by definition another conspiracy theory ful y supported by the population at large, no matter how

many official inquiries absolve the perpetrators.

Previous Fraud Concerning Iraq

The realization that action against Iraq was most likely encouraged by fraudulent means should not real y have shocked anyone; it

may already have happened once before. Back in 1990, shortly

after Iraq’s notorious invasion of Kuwait, tales began to circulate of atrocities carried out by the advancing soldiers. One report,

which was fundamental in kindling allied action to expel Iraqi

forces, concerned a harrowing tale given as a first-person account by a teenage girl called Nayirah. Testifying to the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus in October 1990, she tearful y and

convincingly described Iraqi soldiers entering a Kuwaiti hospital and pulling premature babies out of their incubators, leaving them on the ground to die. Nayirah’s account generated widespread

horror and demands for action throughout the Western media.

Several senators, together with President George Bush Senior,

loudly cited it in their cal s for a military response, and it was an acknowledged major factor in garnering public support. However,

if the reaction was genuine, it is very possible that the story was not.

When convincing corroboration failed to materialize, and

investigations following the eventual liberation of Kuwait in

1991 found only evidence of fleeing Kuwaiti doctors abandoning

babies, and not Iraqi assaults against them, the ‘incubator’ story began to sound less like an authentic narrative and more like the classic ‘atrocity’ propaganda that always circulates in the face of undoubtedly unscrupulous behaviour from invaders. But by then

its job had been done.

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The doubts over the incubator tale were confirmed when

Nayirah, the only real witness, was in fact revealed to be the

daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the USA, Saud Nasir

Al-Sabah, and not a chance observer, as had been claimed. At

this, accusations flew that she had been hired all along to front an inflammatory fiction. Although the family denied that

Nayirah was lying, it soon became clear that much of the story

had at the very least been heavily filtered through a PR company, Hill+Knowlton, supposedly working on behalf of Citizens for a

Free Kuwait, an organization that, if it was ever real (some assert it was set up on the orders of US intelligence purely to front the atrocity claim), was hardly likely to be unbiased in its reporting.

The ultimate shape of this probable deception can be summed

up by the findings of the corporate investigation firm Kroll

Associates, hired by the Kuwaiti government to get to the bottom

of the story. Kroll carried out around 250 interviews, including a detailed cross-examination of Nayirah, where her original account fell apart and it became clear that, even if she had been present at the hospital in question, she had perhaps witnessed seeing a

single baby out of its incubator for ‘no more than a moment’, in

very uncertain circumstances that probably had nothing to do

with soldiers. Contrary to her original statement, it also emerged that she was not a hospital volunteer, but had merely ‘stopped by for a few minutes’ for reasons unknown. No reliable evidence to

support the incubator story was ever produced, yet a spokesman

for the PR company still managed to describe the essential y

dismissive Kroll verdict as a ‘vindication of Hill+Knowlton’.

Libya Propaganda

The revelations behind the Kuwaiti incubator story (much

covered in the
New York Times
)
took some years to come to light, and by then seemed historical enough to generate some public

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disapproval, but nowhere near enough outrage – an apathy that

authorities appear to rely on to pursue similar strategies. The

later weapons of mass destruction ruse thus fits into this earlier pattern of blatant propaganda with regard to Iraq, which is almost certainly maintained today when Western action is required, or

merely desired, in a growing list of other ‘rogue states’.

Significant disil usion was felt towards the US and UK

governments in the wake of the WMD admissions yet, despite

this, the arrogance of power has kept the same games rolling along since, while the public in turn, either bored or simply despairing, allows them to continue unchallenged in any meaningful sense.

We perhaps have only ourselves to blame when the world fails

to change in a positive direction. But the media, seen by most

truthseekers as wittingly or unwittingly complicit in perpetrating or concealing conspiracies, also plays a crucial part.

On 24 August 2011, as the Western-aided ‘civil war’ in Libya

came to a head and rebel fighters began to corner the remains of

Colonel Gaddafi’s army, BBC1’s
Breakfast Show
broadcast ‘live’

images purporting to show crowds in Tripoli’s Green Square,

celebrating the imminent fall of their former leader; except that slightly closer scrutiny revealed that the flags being waved were not Libyan . . . but Indian. The crowds themselves were also

identifiably Indian. It appeared to be a blatant misuse of stock

footage to fill a visual hole and generate a false impression.

When a few eagle-eyed souls complained to the BBC that it was

putting out barefaced propaganda – not for the first time – the

video was quietly withdrawn. A statement from BBC producers

claimed it was a simple live feed error, whereby footage was

accidental y broadcast through ‘international agencies’, showing a ral y in India. But many were dubious, sensing instead an attempt to show the world that Gaddafi was about to fal , just before he

did. Error or not, it made for a useful propaganda coup which

might have been helpful with influencing this very outcome if it

encouraged a final push from the Libyan rebels.

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Given that the soon-identified Indian rallies (held in support

of the anti-corruption campaigner Anna Harare) had taken place

four days before their presentation as images from Tripoli, how

would this footage have made its way onto BBC screens as ‘live’?

There are many procedures in place to prevent the broadcast of

live images that might be violent or unsuitable for the time of day, so why was this ‘live feed’ not checked for accuracy and vetted

before it was connected through? It should in any case quickly

have been apparent to those in the control room that these were

not scenes from Libya, had anyone glanced at the flags and the

faces. More disturbingly, it is as likely that this recording was especial y sequestered from the news archives for broadcast. But, as the Harare story was not featured in the programme that day,

nor was it due to be, why would it have been retrieved to be ready for showing? No full response to address the detail of the concerns over this footage has ever been issued by the BBC, despite several attempts to extract one.6