------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 10, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
WHITE HOUSE NULLIFIES AGREEMENT ON WEAPONS INSPECTIONS: MOVEMENT FROM BELOW NEEDED TO STOP INVASION By Fred Goldstein With its summary rejection of the negotiated arrangement between the Iraqi government and Hans Blix, head of the UN weapons inspection team, the Bush administration has once again emphatically and arrogantly reaffirmed its absolute determination to launch an unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq, come what may. After two days of negotiations in Vienna, Iraq and the UN came to an agreement on Oct. 1 about how to proceed with weapons inspections. Negotiating with a gun to their heads, the Iraqis agreed to allow full, unfettered, unannounced inspections of any and all sites, as specified in a 1998 UN resolution. In addition, the Iraqis turned over four CDs containing weapons information. A timetable was set up for inspections to begin as soon as Oct. 16. The Iraqis abandoned their previous position of limiting inspections of key government buildings, including the Defense Ministry and the headquarters of the Republican Guard. However, with respect to eight presidential sites, the 1998 resolution specifies that the inspectors have to give 24 hours notice and must be accompanied by diplomats. Both sides in the current negotiations agreed that those limitations would stand, in accordance with the 1998 resolution. POWELL NULLIFIES AGREEMENT Just hours after Blix and General Amir Al Sadi, Iraq's chief negotiator, held a press conference on Oct. 1 announcing the results, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called his own press conference at the State Department to virtually nullify the results. Powell declared that no inspections could take place until the UN Security Council passed a new resolution. He said that the 1998 resolution was useless and that nothing was going to happen until a new U.S. resolution currently being pushed down the throats of Security Council members by Washington and London was passed. According to press accounts, Washington's resolution on inspections is said to be the equivalent of the first phase of a war, with inspection teams to be accompanied by U.S. and British troops. The resolution would contain provisions for an invasion of Iraq if the Iraqi government in any way resisted the U.S. provocation. Negotiations are now under way between, on the one hand, the U.S. together with the subservient British government of Tony Blair, and on the other the French, Russian and Chinese governments. Whatever the final form of the resolution, Washington's goal is to clear the way for war. If it is not passed, Bush has threatened again and again that Washington intends to invade anyway. What is clear is that the Iraqi government has made great sacrifices in national security and its own sovereignty in order to buy time. It is trying to deepen the differences among the imperialist allies. It is trying to call Washington's phony bluff about wanting to get rid of weapons of mass destruction--weapons which the Iraqis insist they do not have now, and which they have just given the imperialists permission to search for. The Iraqis know what all the people of the Middle East know. This war is about destroying the vestiges of Iraq's 1958 revolution, seizing its 100 billion barrels of oil reserves-- the second-largest reserve in the world--and beginning the re-conquest of the Middle East by U.S. and British imperialism. The current jockeying gives the anti-war movement time to mobilize in a massive way in the Arab world, in Europe and in the U.S. The only thing that will stop the war is the popular movement worldwide. OPPOSE BUSH'S DEMANDS FOR INSPECTIONS! While the Iraqis have been compelled to make concessions, the movement in this country is duty-bound to fight tooth and nail against any and all demands by Bush for inspections. Such demands are a violation of the sovereignty of an independent country, formerly dominated by foreign powers, trying to thwart imperialist aggression. Weapons inspections are nothing more than an opportunity to set up a provocation and a pretext for gathering intelligence preliminary to an invasion--which Bush has told the whole world he intends to carry out. If anything, as part of its struggle against the war, the movement should demand inspections of the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons, fragmentation bombs, and all the other weapons of mass destruction that the Pentagon has stored in its arsenal of death. Along with this it should demand an end to the U.S.-imposed sanctions that have brought death to well over a million Iraqis. Sanctions are a true weapon of mass destruction. The world should be reminded that the only government ever to use nuclear weapons is the U.S.--which bombed the heavily populated cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing close to 200,000 innocent civilians with two bombs. It is pure hypocrisy for Washington to declare its right to invade Iraq because it is alleged to be in breach of a UN resolution. The Pentagon has been bombing Iraq for 11 years since the Gulf War in 1991. In fact, the U.S. has already begun the first phase of its intended new war with the bombing of Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq. It has bombed the civilian airport there twice. When the Russians raised some objections to this bombing, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the Russian complaint as 'nonsensical,' " reported the Los Angeles Times of Oct. 1. "But other administration officials had said last week that there had been an 'inter-agency' decision to escalate the bombing missions in Iraq as a signal to the population that the United States is serious about overthrowing Saddam Hussein." White House press secretary Ari Fleischer gave a flavor of the gangster atmosphere in Washington at a press conference Oct. 1 where he virtually called for the assassination of Saddam Hussein. Addressing questions about the cost of the war, he replied that "the cost of one bullet if the Iraqi people take it on themselves" would be cheaper than an invasion. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 1) If the Security Council were anything but a tool of imperialism, it would give priority to indicting Washington-- not just for violating a particular resolution, but for violating Article II of the United Nations Charter itself. It forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." This has been pointed out by the Iraqis numerous times, but the entire imperialist establishment has ignored it. A ONE-SIDED DEBATE The entire debate over Bush's plans to go to war against Iraq, both in the Security Council and in the U.S. Congress, has taken place strictly within the framework of how best to subdue Iraq. The Republican and Democratic senatorial moderates have introduced a resolution "authorizing the use of the United States Armed Forces pursuant to a new resolution of the United Nations Security Council ... or pursuant to the right of individual or collective self- defense if the Security Council fails to act." (New York Times, Oct.1) The so-called liberal opposition of Al Gore and Senator Edward Kennedy is hardly likely to deter the hawks of the Bush administration. They each made one speech and then disappeared from the arena, having made the record--and that was basically to say that plunging ahead with this war might damage U.S. imperialism's alliances and its world reputation. Not a word about the fact that it is an illegal, unconstitutional, genocidal assertion of military power intended to intimidate the world. This is what passes for debate under capitalist democracy. The different factions of the capitalist class get to state their opinion about how best to proceed in retaining Wall Street's ascendancy in the world--whether by building military coalitions or by unilateral action. Meanwhile, the masses of people, who will be called upon to kill or be killed in such a war and will have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in war costs, get no say in the matter whatsoever. Imperialist democracy is democracy for the imperialists. They own the media and the government. For example, when Jim McDermott, a Congress member from Washington state, had the audacity to go to Baghdad and voice opposition to the war on the basis of sympathy for the suffering Iraqi people, and accused President Bush of "misleading" the people, he was pilloried in the media. McDermott went to Iraq along with Rep. David Bonior of Michigan. McDermott was shown on CNN standing next to the hospital bed of an Iraqi child suffering from cancer and unable to get treatment because of the sanctions. By doing so he crossed over the line drawn by the establishment. He was called "an agent of the Iraqi government" by Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, denounced by Senator John McCain and virtually called a traitor on various talk shows. The demonization of McDermott is part of a concerted effort to stifle and downplay any opposition from below. To listen to the big business media, you would think the world was in lockstep behind the campaign against Iraq. But while the Bush administration has been steadily pulling the entire establishment to the right, down below the opposition is steadily growing. OPPOSITION FROM BELOW The capitalist press here virtually censored the massive demonstration of 400,000 in London and the many tens of thousands more who demonstrated in Italy and Spain the weekend of Sept. 28-29. In this country campus demonstrations are beginning to spread. Disruptions of government hearings have taken place. A mass regional demonstration has been called for New York City on Oct. 6, at which many thousands are expected. An international day of demonstrations will take place on Oct. 26, with its centerpiece in Washington, D.C., where organizers expect 100,000 people. On the same day there will be demonstrations in San Francisco and throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America. There has been little mention of these demonstrations in the capitalist press, which has been busy touting the so-called support for the war. Only brief notice was taken of the Zogby poll released Sept. 30 that showed only 41 percent of the people would support the war if there were heavy U.S. casualties. (New York Times, Oct.1) No mention at all has been made of the strong resolution condemning the war and supporting both the Oct. 6 and Oct. 26 demonstrations by the 1199/SEIU hospital workers' union in New York City. Or the strong opposition by the West Coast ILWU dock workers' union, which is presently under the gun of lockout by the bosses. In addition, numerous politicians have reported that phone calls, letters and emails are running heavily against the war. Every investigation into what concerns the public shows that the masses are worried most about the deteriorating economic conditions of life. Poverty is on the rise. Corporate layoffs are continuing, as the worldwide capitalist economy fails to lift itself out of a crisis of overproduction. Millions have lost retirement money because of the decline of the stock market and corporate swindling. These and many other hardships will only be intensified when the people are forced to pay for the Pentagon's war. The strategic objective of the anti-war movement must be to reach out to the workers and oppressed. They are the ones who will suffer the most from war. They are also the class that can put an end to imperialist war by getting rid of capitalism and establishing a socialist society, where the economy is no longer the private property of a few and can be organized to meet the needs of the people, not for profit and wars of conquest. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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