------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
WITH MEDIA SPOTLIGHT ON INSPECTIONS, PENTAGON PREPARES FOR BIG WAR By Fred Goldstein Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has succinctly summed up the Bush administration's real attitude toward the inspections process that is about to begin in Iraq. Rumsfeld was giving an interview and taking calls for Infinity Broadcasting on Nov. 15. According to a CNN dispatch of that day, a caller asked Rumsfeld, "What if no weapons of mass destruction were found by U.N. weapons inspectors inside Iraq?" "What it would prove would be that the inspections process had been successfully defeated by the Iraqis," said Rumsfeld. Thus, after laboring mightily to force the UN Security Council to pass a belligerent, threatening resolution demanding inspections, everything Washington is doing and saying indicates that the Bush administration regards the entire process as nothing but a stepping stone in the preparation for war. "With the United Nations chief weapons inspector in Baghdad readying his team to start work next week," wrote the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 19, "the Bush administration is quietly pressing him to make key changes in his organization, including doubling the number of inspectors and accepting what he says are generous offers of U.S. equipment and transportation.... "U.S. officials also are combing through intelligence reports to come up with a list of priority sites for immediate inspection and crucial scientists to interview," continued the Journal. "U.S. officials say they want the earliest and most intrusive test" of the Iraqi government. "The U.S. has already held three to four hours of discussion with Unmovic [the UN agency involved] about possible inspection sites." The U.S. was pushing to add its own intelligence officials to the inspection team, but Hans Blix, the head of the team, declined. Both sides settled for a Canadian official. Washington is trying to completely take over the inspections process in order to be in a better position to declare the Iraqi government "in breach" of the UN resolution and also to gain valuable military information to assist in an invasion. WORLD OPINION DECISIVELY AGAINST THE WAR But Blix has multiple problems with Washington. First of all, he has to maintain the credibility of the UN force. "The credibility of the last UN weapons-inspection team was badly damaged," continued the Journal dispatch, "by disclosures that it had worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain's MI6 and Israel's Mossad- passing on information that was potentially useful for military strikes." Second, he has to cope with world public opinion, including both the masses and governments, who are overwhelmingly opposed to a U.S. invasion. With the exception of the British, most of the other imperialist governments are being dragged into the war reluctantly. This is not because they are pacifists. On the contrary, these ruling classes have a history of engaging in the most bloody colonial enterprises in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Their reluctance stems from the fact that Wall Street is holding all the cards by virtue of its gigantic, high-tech military machine. For the other imperialists there is little to gain and much to lose by a U.S. war to conquer Iraq. The European and Japanese imperialists would much prefer to confine their competition with the U.S. ruling class to the economic and political sphere, where the playing field is more level. They all have giant industrial, financial and commercial monopolies capable of doing battle with Wall Street. But none of them can hold a candle to the Pentagon. As for the billions of workers and peasants, and the general worldwide population, the vast majority opposes not only a U.S. invasion of Iraq but Washington's intervention anywhere. These are the pressures on Blix and the UN inspection team. RESOLUTION CONTAINS TRIGGER FOR WAR In the last analysis, however, Blix must satisfy the overlords in the White House and the Pentagon who are demanding a pretext for war. During the preparations in Washington for submitting the U.S. resolution to the UN Security Council, Blix and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el Baradei, were brought to Washington for an interview. "A crucial moment in the Washington end game," wrote the Washington Post of Nov. 10, "came 10 days ago when Powell invited chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed Baradei--both deeply disdained at the Pentagon as weaklings incapable of standing up to Hussein-to meet with Bush, Cheny, Rice and Wolfowitz. "The meetings helped convince Bush that Blix wanted the same tough inspections that he did, and that a pared-down version of the original resolution guidelines would still guarantee intrusive, unyielding inspections. 'They acquitted themselves really well,' a senior official in Powell's camp said of Blix and el Baradei. Carping at the Pentagon stopped." Indeed, the Wall Street Journal article said that most Washington officials "believe that [Blix] will do the right thing," that is, give the U.S. the excuse to go to war. The resolution, which was roundly denounced by the government of Iraq even as it was forced to accept the inspections, has an inherent trigger for war that was set by Washington. A Dec. 8 deadline was set up as a moment for the Iraqis to basically confess to the offense of which they have been accused by the Bush administration. The very idea that a formerly colonial country should have to submit to weapons inspections and have its entire infrastructure examined by hostile imperialist powers bent on recolonizing the country is an outrage. For the U.S. government, which has invented, stockpiled and used nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, to have the right to go into Iraq and destroy any part of its arsenal is a complete violation of sovereignty, the right of self- determination and the right to self-defense. Nevertheless, the Iraqis have declared that they have no weapons of mass destruction. The inspections are presumably to determine whether or not they exist, yet Washington has told the government of Iraq that it must disclose its biological, chemical and nuclear program by Dec. 8. Washington--and the UN Security Council, for that matter-- have demanded a confession in advance of any proof of the offense. This is a setup to create a provocation and to justify an invasion. BRITAIN AND U.S. ORGANIZE 'IRAQI' CONFERENCE The London Guardian reported on Nov. 20 that "A conference is to be held in Britain of Iraqi opposition leaders after they were told by U.S. officials that they must meet by December 10-two days after the UN deadline for Baghdad to give a full declaration"of its weapons. The British Foreign Office, under the direction of Washington, is organizing the conference. Whether the U.S. is planning to make Dec. 8 the critical moment is yet to be seen. But the Wall Street Journal reported on Nov. 19 that "U.S. officials say they don't expect the teams to go after the most sensitive or potentially most fruitful sites until after Dec. 8, when Iraq is required to declare its full holdings of proscribed weapons. 'We're not going to pick a fight until after they declare what they have,' says one top official." The anti-war movement should not become fixated on or pin its hopes on the inspections process. Instead it should keep its eyes firmly fixed on what the Pentagon is doing. According to a New York Times dispatch of Nov. 19, "Next month Gen. Tommy Franks will direct exercises at Al Ureid [a military base in Qatar] with 600 officers from the military's Central Command in Florida in what analysts say is a dry run for using the base as a command post for an invasion of Iraq." This is the Pentagon's answer to the Saudi refusal to allow the Pentagon to command the invasion from there. A day earlier the Times had run a major piece about war preparations. Washington is rushing to set up the invasion before hot weather arrives. "American diplomats and senior military officials-including Gen. Tommy Franks-have fanned out across Europe and Southwest Asia in recent weeks discussing basing agreements for American troops and aircraft, and to determine which nations may contribute forces or equipment to an offensive." "We're making preparations every day," declared Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and a hawkish architect of the war. "The administration has already begun laying the groundwork with dozens of countries for a possible attack," wrote the Times. Heavy military equipment for 30,000 troops is already in the region. More M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers are to be shipped from the U.S. soon. B-2 bombers are being positioned in Britain and in Diego Garcia, a former British base in the Indian Ocean taken over by the U.S. The Central Command is setting up a headquarters in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. The Marines and Special Forces have taken over what used to be the largest French foreign military base, Camp Lemonier. They are conducting amphibious invasion exercises, including "capturing" towns in Djibouti. In Kuwait the U.S. military is conducting menacing operations. "The United States Army has quietly doubled the number of its troops in Kuwait," wrote the Times on Nov. 20, "and is practicing offensive operations against Iraq close to the border. ... Army combat engineers trained to blow paths through mine fields. They rehearsed erecting bridges under fire so armored forces can continue their thrusts into enemy territory." Troops are using howitzers and Apache helicopters in terrain identical to Iraq's. USING NATO FOR THE DIRTY WORK Bush is on his way to a NATO summit in Prague to strong-arm the European imperialists into formally endorsing the U.S. war drive, as embodied in the UN resolution. He will also bring a proposal for NATO to become formally integrated into the U.S. war machine. According to the Times, "one country could provide a unit trained for mountain warfare, another could contribute decontamination teams for troops facing chemical or biological weapons, another military police." Rumsfeld has also proposed that NATO work on a high-tech, rapid deployment force of 20,000 troops to supplement U.S. imperialist invasion forces. Another integral part of the war preparations is the campaign by the Justice Department to place hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the U.S. under surveillance. It is a terror tactic to whip up the population into a state of racist paranoia against Iraqis as well as a way of laying the groundwork for a concocted domestic provocation by framing up Iraqis in the U.S. The attempt to assign NATO to a menial role as a lowly assistant to the Pentagon and to openly make the United Nations a pure appendage of the State Department is a measure of the expansionist mentality that prevails in the White House and at the summits of the U.S. ruling class. Given this militaristic, expansionist and repressive orientation of the capitalist class, its political machine and its media, the only antidote to this war drive is a truly mass mobilization to stop it. - 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]>
