------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 10, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AS "SOVEREIGNTY" DATE NEARS: CIA PICKS IRAQI PRIME MINISTER Resistance Pushes Bush Clique into Deeper Crisis By Fred Goldstein The process of forming an interim government, preliminary to the June 30 "transfer of sovereignty" to Iraq, has only highlighted the complete failure of the U.S. occupation to subdue the Iraqi people. After a year of occupation, Washington was only able to come up with a new version of the discredited Iraqi Governing Council, which is widely hated as a complete puppet of the U.S. government. Previous to his recent overthrow, the most prominent pro-U.S. figure on the Governing Council was Ahmad Chalabi, a rich exile and wheeler-dealer known to be a creature of the Pentagon. Chalabi was toppled as a result of the war between the Pentagon, on the one hand, and on the other the CIA, State Department and U.S. military leaders angry with the Rumsfeld/ Wolfowitz group for their conduct of the war. Chalabi has now been replaced as the pre-eminent puppet by a new interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a creature of the CIA and MI6, the British spy agency. In his first speech, Allawi declared that the Iraqis do not like living under occupation, but nevertheless "We will need the participation of the multinational forces to defeat the enemies of Iraq. We will enter into alliances with our allies to accomplish that." Thus, Allawi made the requisite declaration to enter into a status-of- forces agreement giving legal cover to the U.S. military to continue its de facto occupation after its de jure status as occupier is over on June 30. He also used Bush/ Rumsfeld speak to condemn the Iraqi resistance fighting for national independence, declaring them to be "the enemies of Iraq." ALLAWI IMPRESSED WESTERN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES Allawi, a former Baathist, was a student leader in Iraq and Britain in the 1970s who defected to the British security services. He then went into business, using Saudi contacts. "He was charming, intelligent and had a gift for impressing Western intelligence agencies," wrote the London Independent of May 29. After the 1991 Gulf War, he founded the Iraqi National Accord with the aid of the CIA. "He is the person through whom the controversial claim was channeled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be operational in 45 minutes," continued the Independent. "In the mid-1990s ... Dr. Allawi began to move from the orbit of MI6 to the CIA. He persuaded his new master that he was in a position to organize a military coup in Baghdad," wrote the Independent. The U.S.- and British-backed coup failed. But after the U.S. capture of Baghdad last year, Allawi and the INA set up in Iraq. "There were few signs that they had any popular support," continued the Inde pen dent. "During an uprising in the town of Baiji, north of Baghdad last year, crowds immediately set fire to the INA office." The composition of the so-called "interim government" is so thoroughly bankrupt that it is generating gloom and pessimism in U.S. ruling class circles. The Washington Post of June 2 moaned that UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had failed as a "one-man nation builder." "In the end, hemmed in by hovering U.S. officials and their present and former Iraqi allies, Mr. Brahimi acquiesced to a cabinet led by the same former exiles and Kurdish politicians who populated the discredited Iraqi Governing Council." But the Post noted the real dilemma: "Perhaps he had few alternatives: Iraq appears to be bereft of political leaders who are popular, capable and willing to cooperate with the U.S. plans for political transition." After a bloody war of aggression and a year of occupation, the U.S. government and military and anyone associated with them are hated in Iraq. There is no way around it. For the minority who still do not hate them for their brutal military raids, their torture at Abu Ghraib, the death and destruction visited on Falluja, Najaf and countless other cities, and their imperial arrogance, fear of being tainted by association with the occupiers keeps them away from even appearing to collaborate. Everyone knows that there is no way to transfer "sovereignty" to a group that relies on the U.S. militarily, financially, politically and is hated by the Iraqi people in whose name they are supposed to be exercising sovereignty. WASHINGTON QUIETLY PLANNED TOTAL CONTROL Right now negotiations among the imperialist powers are going on in the United Nations Security Council over how much "sovereignty" to give Iraq. The axis of the debate is whether or not to put forward a time table for U.S. withdrawal, how much say the Iraqis will have in U.S. military operations, the command over the Iraqi army and police, access to finances, and so on. This debate is largely one of form. "As Washington prepares to hand over power, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and other officials are quietly building institutions that will give the U.S. powerful levers for influencing nearly every important decision the interim government will make." (Wall Street Journal, May 13) Washington has established advisers at every level of government and in every ministry. The advisers, either U.S. or Iraqi proxies, will serve multi-year terms and will have authority to award contracts, conduct investigations and direct troops. The new government will "be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval." The Office of Inspector General will put appointees in every ministry for five- year terms. The Board of Supreme Audit will review all contracts and investigate any agency that uses public money-- most of which will come from the U.S. government. "The nerve center of the U.S. presence in Iraq," reported the Journal, "will be the massive new embassy." It will employ 1,300 people from the U.S. and 2,000 or more Iraqis. Ambassador John Negro ponte will be the new proconsul of Iraq, assisted by two deputies: James Jeffrey, formerly of the Army Special Forces, and Ron Newman, another military figure. In addition to having 140,000 troops in the country, the Pentagon is going ahead with plans to establish 14 permanent military bases in Iraq. Washington has set up intricate consulting relationships, auditing programs and other secret methods of controlling Iraqi oil money. MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED The point is, however, that the Iraqi people know all this. And no Bush- orchestrated phony "transfer of sovereignty" can conceal the plans to hold the country in subjugation. This is what has fueled the resistance and will continue to do so. The June 30 transfer was originally conceived of last December, as part of Bush's election strategy. It was supposed to be a moment of triumph. Oil was supposed to be flowing and oil profits were supposed to be recycled into U.S. corporate coffers. The process" was supposed to be in full swing as a prime mechanism for U.S. multinationals to get a complete lock on the Iraqi economy. A stable puppet regime was supposed to be in place and on display for the world--a cover for the U.S. imperialist takeover. The riches were supposed to be flowing into Wall Street and the ruling class would be content; media critics would be silenced. The Bush-Rumsfeld triumphalist doctrine of preemptive war and unilateral world conquest would be vindicated. Bush's poll numbers would rise irresistibly on his way to the election. June 30, 2004, was supposed to reverse the humiliating after-effects of Bush's "mission accomplished" landing on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003. That would-be presidential campaign photo-op subsequently turned out to be a disaster. Today, no one can ignore the fact that an isolated group of puppets has been selected behind the scenes, in secret back-room deals, protected by the highest security inside the U.S. Occupation Authority Green Zone. The site and time of the presentation of the new "interim government" was kept a secret. But that did not keep the Iraqi resistance from setting off a car bomb outside the Green Zone to coincide with the ceremonies. While the new group was speaking, smoke was billowing up in central Bagh dad near the Green Zone. Four mortar-like explosions were heard in the same area. Gunfire erupted near one of the entrances to the zone. The U.S. military had to rush soldiers from the convention center toward the al-Rashid Hotel while aircraft hovered overhead. The capitalist media tried to minimize these events, but the presentation of the interim government will turn out to be a strong show of the weakness and isolation, not only of the puppet group, but of the U.S. occupation itself. On both occasions, May 1, 2003, and June 1, 2004, the U.S. imperialists suffered from the same fundamental miscalculation. They completely discounted the determination of the Iraqi people to resist and to fight for national liberation from colonialism--just as they had done in Vietnam, just as the French did in Algeria, just as all ruling classes do. The U.S. imperialists discounted the politically conscious masses of people who, with their long history of anti-colonialism, are a fundamental factor that must be taken into consideration. The struggle of the Iraqis has forced the Bush administration to pull back in Falluja and Najaf. It has forced the Penta gon to seek relief. The timing of the pullback has been influenced by the exhaustion of the U.S. soldiers who have been kept on extended tours, sent in to fight a dirty war, and demoralized by the exposure of horrendous tortures at Abu Ghraib prison and the subsequent attempt by the high command to dump it all on low-ranking enlisted soldiers. The pullback has also been dictated by Bush's election needs. The growing discontent of the people in this country with mounting casualties, the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into the occupation with no real end in sight, and the Abu Ghraib revelations have sent Bush's poll ratings to record lows. WARNING: SPLIT IN RULING CLASS DOES NOT MEAN PULLOUT The relentless Iraqi resistance has split the ruling class, the military and the media. Where there was once uniform praise for the war, now there is massive and growing criticism and disillusionment with the course of the occupation. Bush could not afford another major military and political setback in Iraq, either in Falluja or Najaf. Because of the resistance, the occupation is truly in crisis. Talk of setting an exit date is beginning to show up in the media and from various advisors to U.S. imperialism, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Gen. William Odom and others. Creeping defeatism is setting in among sections of the ruling class. But the anti-war movement should not be lulled into inactivity by all the splits and criticisms. The Pentagon is on the ground. The stakes for U.S. imperialism are high. Its goal of reconquering the Middle East with Iraq as its strategic centerpiece looks dim right now. But no one should count on them to pull out. They are coming toward a situation where they will eventually be faced with a stark choice between defeat and an escalation in their Iraq military adventure. John Kerry is trying to put forth a program that would pull their irons out of the fire. His program for Iraq is to internationalize the occupation, internationalize the oppression and the exploitation of the Iraqi people. Share the plunder with imperialist allies in return for troops on the ground. That itself is an imperialist solution that is unacceptable to the Iraqi people and should be unacceptable to the anti-war movement. But Kerry speaks for a section of the ruling class that says "defeat is unthinkable." He has said as much, declaring that "the stakes are too high." And in the event that the other imperialists cannot be persuaded to take Washington off the hook, and until that should happen, he is firmly committed, as is a large section of the military, to sending in more U.S. troops. Of course, he does not say where these troops will come from. No one mentions the draft in an election year. But a draft is inevitable should the U.S. ruling class decide on the adventure of escalation. The combination of the determined Iraqi resistance, the splits growing in the ruling class, the exhaustion of U.S. troops, the need for a new military strategy, and the needs of the Bush election campaign have produced a moment in which many are watching the politics of the election and the maneuvers of the U.S. government in Iraq in the hope that there will be some sort of peaceful resolution of the situation. The only course to pursue, now that the occupation is in a crisis, is one of independent anti-war struggle, without falling prey to the "anybody but Bush" syndrome. It is time to escalate the anti-war struggle and point the finger at the giant capitalists, the imperialists who want to exploit and dominate the world. They are the true war makers and war criminals. - 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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