In the second half of 2002, the RAF and American Air Force dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq as they had
during the entire previous year. Allied aircraft apparently flew 21,736 sorties, dropped 600 bombs, and destroyed 391 "selected targets." Many recent stories coming out of the UK indicate that these bombing sorties were not enforcing the "no-fly zones" in Iraq, but were actually used to "lay the foundations" for the future war by degrading key defenses.
This is a violation of international law, though that only troubles the Blair administration. But who authorized this air war on Iraq in the US? Certainly not Congress, who has the sole right to declare war. And who was writing the checks for this expensive enterprise? Certainly not Congress, who alone has oversight over finances.
This is where the impeachment begins.
As far as I know, no one has successfully connected the story of Bush's secret air war with Bob Woodward's observation that, during July of 2002, the Bush Regime secretly and illegally diverted $700 million dollars from the funds Congress appropriated for Afghanistan so that they could be used as a war chest in the build up to the war with Iraq.
The coincidence between this transfer and a secret air war seems clear: these funds
must have been financing the air war, the "spikes of activity" refenced in the DSM, which were designed to provide an Iraqi "casus belli."
Follow the money. If the public continues to question the wisdom and necessity of this war, the fact that the Bush Regime stole $700 million dollars to finance an illegal air war designed to provoke an unnecessary conflict could land many administration officials in prison.
The Times Online
THE American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.
Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 “carefully selected targets” before the war officially started.
The nine months of allied raids “laid the foundations” for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions.
If those raids exceeded the need to maintain security in the no-fly zones of southern and northern Iraq, they would leave President George W Bush and Tony Blair vulnerable to allegations that they had acted illegally.