------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
UN VOTE PAVES WAY FOR BUSH'S WAR By Fred Goldstein Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations Muhammad al-Douri announced on Nov. 13 that his government had accepted a Nov. 8 UN Security Council resolution on weapons inspections, while at the same time denying that Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction. "This is part of our policy vis-à-vis to protect our country, to protect our nation, to protect our region also from the threat of war, which is real. And everybody knows it," said the ambassador. (New York Times Web site, Nov. 13) One day earlier the Iraqi Parliament had recommended the rejection of the resolution, denouncing it as "provocative, deceitful and a preamble for war." (Reuters, Nov. 12) The resolution "seeks to create crisis" and it "violates international law and the sovereignty of this country," declared Parliamentary Speaker Saadoun Hammadi. This sentiment undoubtedly reflects the feelings of the broad masses of Iraqi people. At the same time, the Parliament and everyone around the world fighting against war recognize that the Iraqi government has a gun to its head-a gun held by an imperialist super-power with more weapons than the rest of the world combined. NO TIME TO SLOW DOWN The Iraqi government has the right to do what it chooses to maneuver with the U.S. government under such an unfavorable relationship of forces. But the anti-war movement in this country has the duty to escalate its mass mobilization. It should not be slowed down for one moment by any illusions that Iraq's acceptance of inspections will deter the White House, the Pentagon and the oil companies and giant corporations behind them from moving toward war. Nor should anyone have believed for a minute that the UN Security Council resolution demanding inspections in Iraq was the Bush administration's attempt at "one more chance to avoid war." On the contrary, this bellicose, arrogant resolution was crafted in the Pentagon and the White House and negotiated by Secretary of State Colin Powell with the express purpose of strengthening the hand of Washington in its war drive against Iraq. Just two days after the UN resolution passed, the Washington Post and the New York Times published articles based on plans leaked by the Pentagon that call for the use of 250,000 troops to establish strongholds in northern and southern Iraq and create a pincer movement to take Baghdad. Whether or not these war plans correspond to what the Pentagon is really planning, their release was a message to the world not to think for one moment that the Security Council resolution had slowed down the war drive. On Nov. 11 the Wall Street Journal carried an article reiterating Washington's plans for a military occupation of Iraq. "Officials expect the U.S. military would directly govern Iraq for at least three or four months," wrote the Journal. "A group of Iraqi exiles advising the State Department has drafted three lists for possible prosecutions [of Iraq leaders], ranging from a dozen members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle to 120 military and political leaders across the country." "In a meeting of Mr. Bush's principal advisers," continued the Wall Street organ, "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued the transitional administration should be headed by an American who reports directly to him"--presumably Gen. Tommy Franks, overall commander of the war. The Journal did not mention previously announced plans for the U.S. military to take over Iraq's oil fields. U.S. BOMBINGS OF IRAQ ESCALATE While the Security Council was voting, U.S. planes were escalating their attacks on Iraq. In a Nov. 11 dispatch Reuters news agency reported that "daily patrols of no-fly zones over Iraq by U.S. and British aircraft have become a dress rehearsal for war and a chance to dent Baghdad's military in a run-up to battle ..." The targets have changed from anti-aircraft batteries to command and control centers and bunk ers. "The new tactics were on display when Lt. Eric Doyle and Lt. John Turner, of the VFA 115 fighter attack squadron, each dropped two massive 2,000-pound JDAM satellite-guided bombs. Their target was described as a reinforce concrete command bunker near Talil, 160 miles south of Baghdad." The resolution, which grossly violates the sovereignty of Iraq, is a massive violation of the UN Charter and international law. Every signatory is a party to the infringement of Iraq's sovereignty, its right to self- determination and to self-defense. But the Bush administration, with the tireless efforts of Secretary of State Powell and his faction in the ruling class, achieved a 15-0 vote in order to claim an international mandate for its planned war of unprovoked aggression. By passing this resolution, the Security Council has put the Iraqi government in the excruciating position of having to choose between agreeing to open up its country to massive imperialist intrusion and face provocation and eventual war, or refuse to open up and face immediate attack. Thus, the so- called "multilateralists" in the ruling class have maneuvered to further isolate Iraq while setting the stage for a war in which Washington will be on stronger ground. A COVER FOR PROVOCATION The resolution is laden with language that gives the Bush administration legal cover for every imaginable provocation to start a war. The Pentagon had the decisive role in crafting the fundamentals of the resolution. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney were opposed to going to the UN in the first place. When they lost that battle, they were opposed to putting forth any resolution at all and wanted to simply tell the UN that Iraq was in breach" of UN resolutions and that the U.S. was going to war. When Bush decided to shove a resolution down the throat of the Security Council, all factions in the administration agreed upon so-called "red lines" for inclusion. According to the Washington Post of Nov. 10, these included the declaration that Iraq was in "material breach" of a 1991 resolution declaring a cease-fire. The resolution demanded "harsh new inspection guidelines" and, says the Post, promised "serious consequences" for defiance, "a code word for war." Among the crucial points in the process was getting the French imperialists to go along. No one has revealed what oil concessions in the post-invasion period were promised to the government of Jacque Chirac. But Washington gave the French face-saving language by agreeing to another meeting to "consider how to respond" if Iraq did not comply with the draconian demands of the resolution. "Secretary of State Powell," according to the Post, "said that the United States would not be 'handcuffed' by what the Council did or did not do." But "in return for these concessions, the United States got what an official called 'a lot of little triggers' for possible future action by the Security Council and future military action by the United States." Some of the "little triggers" are, in themselves, flagrant provocations. RIGHT TO KIDNAP IRAQI OFFICIALS AND THEIR FAMILIES For example, referring to the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency, provision 5 of the resolution states that the Security Council "DECIDES that Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records and means of transport which they wish to inspect, as well as access to all officials and other persons whom UNMOVIC or the IAEA wish to interview in the mode or location of UNMOVIC's or the IAEA's choice ... further decides that UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that, at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and the IAEA, such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraqi government." The resolution also declares that "UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right ... to seize and export any equipment, materials, or documents taken during the inspections, without search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or officials or personal baggage." Thus Washington's agents in the inspections teams can virtually kidnap Iraqi officials and their family members, do with them what they please; seize any materials they want, doctor them as needed, and produce "evidence" of "violations" and declare war. The resolution is replete with bellicose statements, declarations that Iraq has a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, has relations with terrorism, is a threat to the security of nations, etc., ad nauseam. As such this resolution is most of all an expression of the determination of U.S. imperialism to eradicate the very conception of sovereignty for Iraq, and by extension, all oppressed countries. It is a resurrection of the colonial rights of the Great Powers to openly impose their will upon the peoples of the Middle East. Except that this time, instead of the British and French imperialists being in charge of dividing up the region, as they were after World War I, it is the U.S. oil magnates, bankers and industrials, represented by the Pentagon, who are declaring themselves the supreme power. WHY FRANCE, RUSSIA, CHINA VOTED The attempts by the French, Russian and Chinese governments-- all members of the Security Council who could have exercised their veto power--to argue that their acquiescence in this resolution is in the interests of preventing the war are just a subterfuge to mask collaboration with and/or capitulation to the dictates of Wall Street. The French and the Russian oil magnates and industrialists have interests in Iraq that they are seeking to protect. Neither one of them prefers war, because they are both weak powers. But they are both afraid of being frozen out if the U.S. government succeeds in conquering Iraq and gaining total control of the oil and other commanding positions in the Iraqi economy. If Washington goes to war, they each want to protect their cut of the loot. As for the government of the People's Republic of China, its vote is a shameless betrayal of internationalism and a cynical display of bourgeois power-politics style diplomacy. The PRC leaders long ago gave up the historic internationalist position pursued by the Chinese socialist revolution in its earlier stages. It is no accident that international solidarity with the oppressed peoples struggling against imperialism has been increasingly abandoned as the "reformers," advocates of the so-called "socialist-market" economy, gain a greater grip on power. And it is no accident that this new level of collaboration with Washington coincides with the 16th Party Congress, where the entry of capitalists into the Communist Party of China has been officially sanctioned and rationalized with a false doctrine. The deepening inroads of capitalism and the erosion of socialist institutions at the expense of the masses of workers and peasants goes hand and hand with growing reaction in foreign policy. This runs directly contrary to the anti-colonial sentiments and class interests of the Chinese masses. Hopefully they will find a way to resist the growing tide of capitalism and return China to the socialist road in the wake of the open reaction displayed at the 16th Party Congress and in the Security Council. This latest resolution, a virtual declaration demanding Iraq's total subordination to imperialism, is an illustration that the United Nations is composed of governments and states that overwhelmingly represent propertied classes. These governments are either imperialists or dominated by imperialism and, as such, can never become the instrument to oppose imperialist war. Only the mobilization of the movement, and ultimately of the working class and the oppressed at home and abroad, can stay the hand of the war makers. - 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] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ 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]>
