------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Jan. 10, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE: FOCUS ON IRAQ CLOUDS ANTHRAX QUERY January Actions to Demand No War, No Sanctions By John Catalinotto As 2002 begins, Washington still has the Baghdad government and the Iraqi people in its sights as the possible next target of the so-called war on terror. U.S. anti-war activists have in turn called for a week of activities Jan. 15-21 to demand an end to sanctions against Iraq and no new war. According to recent reports, forces from within and outside the Bush administration pushed so hard to pin either the Sept. 11 attacks or the anthrax threat on Iraq that they may have disrupted the latter investigation. Failing to find any real evidence against Iraq, they have raised the old charges that Baghdad plans to use "weapons of mass destruction." Iraq is an attractive target for the U.S. rulers because, along with its political importance, it sits on 10 percent of the world's known oil reserves. The latest call by these reactionary forces appeared on the op-ed page of the Dec. 28 New York Times. In "The U.S. Must Strike at Saddam Hussein," Richard Perle calls the destruction of the Hussein government "essential to the war against terrorism." Perle, former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and a veteran Cold Warrior, is one of a group of current and former officials known as the "Wolfowitz cabal." This group includes Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Newt Gingrich, former CIA head James Woolsey and about a dozen other right-wing strategists. Since Sept. 11, this group has aggressively promoted a campaign to replace the current government in Baghdad with a pro-U.S. client regime. While Perle laid out no plans in his essay for just how to do this, others have proposed a strategy patterned on the recent Afghanistan experience. THE DOWNING PLAN An article in the Dec. 27 Washington Post reported that "three years ago, the man who is now White House counter- terrorism chief," retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, "drew up a plan for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein" that he presented to Congress. "Downing believed that victory would be achieved through a potent combination of U.S.-backed insurgents, massive enemy defections, elite special operations units and U.S. air power." According to the Post article, many in the Pentagon and in the Clinton administration considered this strategy foolhardy, calling it a recipe for another "Bay of Pigs"-- the 1961 invasion of Cuba that ended in tremendous victory for the new Cuban Revolution. Now the apparent success in Afghanistan has emboldened the militarists and given this plot new life. Whatever the outcome of this plot, it would mean the death of untold numbers of Iraqis from heavy U.S. bombing and from a war that would have to be fought in major Iraqi urban areas. The Downing proposal is reportedly being debated within the Bush administration. Its opponents within the government also have no compunctions against continuing sanctions that kill thousands of Iraqi children each month. But they argue that the Downing plan will fail unless Washington makes a massive commitment of U.S. troops. This could mean many U.S. youths would also die in the battles there. This debate within the establishment here over tactics has aroused fears among its European allies that they will be dragged into a war they would rather avoid. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair has spoken against a campaign aimed at Iraq at this time. But they have left open the possibility of joining the crusade should the U.S. show that Iraq had something to do with Sept. 11. NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, Britain's former defense secretary, expressed Blair's position when he said: "Clearly if there was evidence pointing towards Saddam Hussein being responsible in any way for the atrocities of September 11, or if it was found that he was harboring people who were intimately connected with that, then I think the world would jump automatically to the conclusion that he represented a bigger threat." (The Independent, Dec. 27) In other words, if the U.S. could find or manufacture evidence of Iraqi involvement in Sept. 11, its NATO allies would follow along into a war on Iraq. This position gives Washington reason to manufacture charges against Iraq. ANTHRAX INVESTIGATION SABOTAGED According to an article in the Dec. 22 New York Times, the pressure to find Iraq guilty disrupted the government's investigation of anthrax. "Shortly after the first anthrax victim died in October," the article read, "the Bush administration began an intense effort to explore any possible link between Iraq and the attacks and continued to do so even after scientists determined that the lethal germ was an American strain, scientists and government officials said." It continued, "Scientists also repeatedly analyzed the powder from the anthrax-laced envelopes for signs of chemical additives that would point to Iraq. "'We looked for any shred of evidence that would bear on this, or any foreign source,' a senior intelligence official said of an Iraq connection. 'It's just not there.'" The article reports that the FBI allowed Iowa State University to destroy the university's large collection of anthrax spores. This may have destroyed clues that could lead to the identity of the person who sent the anthrax. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge issued a statement in which he said, "Now, based on the investigative work of many agencies, we're all more inclined to think that the perpetrator is domestic." Despite the evidence, it remains possible that the U.S. government will find a way to blame Iraq, if only to provide a cause for another Pentagon-led war on that country. 'STOP THE WAR, END BLOCKADE!' Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, both former directors of the United Nations "Oil for Food" program in Iraq, wrote an article in the Nov. 30 British Guardian demanding that the sanctions against Iraq be ended and that no new war be waged against Iraq. These sanctions have already killed more than 500,000 Iraqi children. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark of the International Action Center and Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit have scheduled a news conference on Jan. 2 in Washington, D.C., to press these same demands. The anti-war coalition ANSWER--Act Now to Stop War and End Racism--has called for internationally coordinated days of protest Jan. 15-21 on the same theme. ANSWER organized large protests Sept. 29 in Washington and again in 80 U.S. cities on Oct. 27 against the Pentagon war on Afghanistan. In its call to action, ANSWER writes that the protests, meetings and teach-ins were set then because Jan. 15 is "the birthday of the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and commemorations of his life will continue through Jan. 21. Jan. 16-17 will be the 11th anniversary of the start of the Gulf War." ANSWER plans to raise demands to stop the war; stop racial profiling and racist attacks; no new war against Iraq--end the sanctions now; defend civil liberties, civil rights and immigrants' rights; money for jobs, housing, education and healthcare, not for war or corporate giveaways. Activities across the country are listed at www.InternationalANSWER.org. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
