Russian parliament speaker urges UN investigation into US crimes against humanity

The United Nations should launch an investigation into Washington’s crimes against humanity, Russian State Duma (parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has said.

Volodin on Sunday blasted the infamous February 5, 2003 speech by then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council, during which he lied to the world about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to prepare the ground for the invasion of the country, RT reported.

Volodin called the United States an “empire of lies.”

Writing on the 20th anniversary of Powell’s speech at the United Nations Security Council, Volodin said that February 5 marks “one of the biggest deceptions of the global community by the United States.”  

He recalled that during the landmark Security Council meeting Powell “accused Iraq of producing weapons of mass destruction, providing a vial with ‘white powder’ as proof.”

During the speech, Powell said the vial could be used to store anthrax. The UN did not approve of the Iraq invasion. The US however still invaded the country.

“Half a million civilians fell victims, the president was executed, the country was gone,” Volodin wrote.

He pointed out that Powell later admitted that the vial stunt was “a hoax.”

Read more:

Bush, Blair plotted Iraq war 1 year before the invasion had started: White House memo

“All policies of the United States and the collective West are based on lies,” the Russian parliament speaker noted.

He wrote that the same applied to NATO’s promises not to expand eastwards after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, as well as to the 2014 and 2015 Minsk Agreements.

These accords “also turned out to be a deception – but [former German Chancellor Angela] Merkel and [former French President Francois] Hollande acted as Powell did,” Volodin said.

The lawmaker was referring to the confessions by the two former European leaders, who admitted in December that the Minsk Agreements were simply meant “to give Ukraine time” to strengthen its army.

“The UN should investigate Washington’s crimes against humanity. And the decision-makers should be punished for the millions of victims, refugees, broken destinies, destroyed states,” Volodin added.

Dan Welch: Mourn the millions of victims of US war policy, not its chief apologist

American political commentator Daniel Patrick Welch decries the use of official funerals like Colin Powell

In February 2003, Powell presented false American intelligence to the United Nations that then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.  The presentation led to the Iraq War and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

In March 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding WMDs; but no such weapons were ever discovered in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as the result of the US-led invasion, and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

The US war in Iraq cost American taxpayers $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, according to a study called Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

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