JACQUELINE CABASSO
ANDREW LICHTERMAN
Cabasso is the executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, a nuclear disarmament advocacy group in California; Lichterman is the program director. They have co-authored a series of papers on nuclear weapons and related high-tech weaponry; the most recent is “The End of Disarmament and the Arms Races to Come.” Cabasso said today: “Whether Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction remains to be seen. Meanwhile its chief accuser, the United States, is blatantly brandishing its own. The ‘National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ released by the White House just last week, combines the worst features of the ‘Nuclear Posture Review’ and the September 2002 ‘National Security Strategy of the United States’ by openly threatening the first use of nuclear weapons. This deadly international double standard is a recipe for endless arms racing and endless death and destruction. The Bush administration has turned the concept of non-proliferation on its head and made a mockery of international law. If having weapons of mass destruction and a history of using them is a criteria, then surely the United States must pose the greatest threat to humanity that has ever existed. Sustainable global security will require the elimination of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons — without exception.”
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ANDREAS ZUMACH
A Geneva-based UN correspondent with the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung, Zumach has obtained an unedited copy of Iraq’s 12,000-page report to the United Nations, including portions on how Iraq acquired its weapon capability from Germany, the U.S. and others.
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PHYLLIS BENNIS
A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of the new book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis, Bennis is available for interviews on Iraq and the UN as well as U.S. companies that helped arm Iraq’s weapons program. She said today: “U.S. government officials do not have the authority to declare a nation in material breach….”
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JEREMY SCAHILL
Scahill is an independent journalists who spent five out of the last eight months reporting from the ground in Iraq where he interviewed numerous Iraqi and UN officials. In August, Scahill broke the story of Donald Rumsfeld’s meeting with Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials in Baghdad in 1983 and again in 1984. Scahill said today: “Just as Iraq was beginning its use of chemical weapons, Rumsfeld was not trying to stop it, but was restoring diplomatic relations. Now, Iraq’s use of these weapons is being used as a pretext for massive invasion.”
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NATHANIEL HURD
Consultant to the Mennonite United Nations office, Hurd is in contact with various diplomats at the United Nations. He notes that the U.S. government has refused to give UNMOVIC information it claims to have on Iraqi weapons, though UN resolution 1441 calls on member states to do so.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
