Washington (FN), July 26 - On 20 March 2003, 130,000 US troops began to invade Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime with support from the British and several allied troops. Before the overthrow, former US President George W. Bush left Saddam Hussein 48 hours to step down, yet Saddam refused. Bush then ordered the US military to launch Tomahawk missiles into Baghdad. In early April of that same year, Baghdad had completely fallen into the hands of the US, and the statue of Saddam Hussein was also destroyed.
The US has also fought with Iraq, claiming that Saddam Hussein’s regime had nuclear weapons, but after the end of the war, the international and the US itself found no evidences that Baghdad possessed nuclear weapons. Instead, many international experts accused Bush of lying to the American citizens and people around the world about Iraq’s weapons. Bush had at the time ordered the CIA to write reports confirming that Saddam Hussein is developing the nuclear weapons, although the US intelligence agency told him Iraq has no nuclear weapon.
The intention to overthrow Saddam was proposed since George H. W. Bush, father of George W. Bush. In the late 1990s, Saddam Hussein ordered troops to invade Kuwait but months later, the US forces under George H. W. Bush's orders liberated Kuwait, yet left Saddam Hussein in power.
In January 1998, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) sent an open letter to former US President Bill Clinton, warning that the US would face a major threat from the Middle East due to the nationalism ideology of Saddam Hussein, making it the reason that Saddam shall be overthrown.
Bill Clinton did not consider this warning until George W. Bush came to power in the US presidential election in 2001. He appointed senior military officials who have previously worked under his father's leadership.
To begin the war with Iraq, Bush has linked ties between Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda terrorist group and accused Saddam Hussein regime of mass-destruction weapons. However, many international experts thought that US war with Iraq was to proliferate the American democratic standard of oil and to be an example for leaders in Syria, Iran, Libya, and North Korea. On the other hand, some circles also claimed that the US wanted oil from Iraq rather than politics.
In fact, the CNN article published on 15 April 2013 also said the US war with Iraq was for oil, but before the war in 2003, the Iraqi oil industry was not nationalized for foreign companies. Ten years after the war, the industry became private and allowed foreign companies to invest. For example, US oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron have all set up their own bases in Iraq.
The CIA had informed US policy makers that there had no specific information on the type or quantity of Iraqi mass-destruction weapons.
"We do not know for sure whether Iraq has weapon of mass destruction,” Bush declared in December 2002.
In the 2016 US national election campaign, current president Donald Trump once said that George W. Bush had lied to the Americans by stating Iraqi had weapons of mass destruction.
The 2003 Iraq war ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and even today, even though ISIS has been defeated, Iraq does not have peace. Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging on 30 December 2006.
The Wall Street Journal recently published a fabricated report, baselessly accusing the kingdom of signing secret deal with China over the use of military base at the kingdom’s coastal province.
In response to such fake news and fabricated reports, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced through Fresh News on 22 July 2019 that the report on “Cambodia-China signing deal to use military base in the kingdom” is the worst form of fabricated news against Cambodia.
Minister of National Defense Tea Banh reiterated that the Wall Street Journal's report on 21 July 2019 over the alleged Chinese military base in Cambodia aimed to destroy the kingdoms and regional peace, speaking Friday morning in Phnom Penh at the closing ceremony for training capsule on the United Nation peacekeeping mission.
A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian denounced a fake news published by the Wall Street Journal “It [Saying China is building Chinese military base in Cambodia] is a fake news and fabricated reports. China and Cambodia only have cooperation on military trainings and logistic supports and that such bilateral cooperation does not target any third country,” Wu Qian addressed to the press.
Some 73 local and foreign journalists including Puy Kea, a veteran Cambodian journalist who works for foreign media, Kyodo News, were taken to the alleged site of a secret agreement between Cambodia and China on Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville on Friday.
Puy Kea and spokesman of Cambodia’s defense ministry Chhum Socheat confirmed there is no Chinese military here at Ream.
Apart from Fresh News and major media in Cambodia, a number of foreign news agencies also looked at the navy base, including AP, Reuters, VOA, Cambodia China Times, AFP, Xinhua, Cambodia China Friendship Radio and Japanese TV.
=FRESH NEWS
