Statement by the
International Secretariat
of the Committee for a Workers International
7 February 2003.
Tony Benn, the veteran British socialist, described
the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in its coverage of Iraq as a “weapon
of mass deception”. This could be applied with equal if not greater force to
Colin Powell’s 80-minute ‘report’ on Iraq to the United Nations Security
Council on 5 February. It has not succeeded in its intended aim to roll back
the worldwide mass wave of opposition to the Bush junta’s plans for a bloody
invasion of Iraq. Few doubters or sceptics would have been won over by the
barrage of ‘facts’, the “smudgy old photos and blurred taped conversations”
(Daily Mirror, London) as a justification for going to war. This was certainly
not the ‘smoking gun’, irrefutable proof of Iraq’s secret arsenal of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD), nor was it the ‘Adlai Stevenson moment’ (during the
Cuban missile crisis in 1962 the then US ambassador to the UN dramatically
utilised photographs of the deployment of Russian missiles in Cuba to win
support).
It is true that Joseph Biden, the
senior Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is now a ‘believer’.
Previously complaining that the US administration had failed to make the case
for war, he has now declared, “If I had this evidence before an unbiased jury,
I’d get a conviction.” He is a lawyer by profession, as are many US ‘legislators’
(75% of the world’s lawyers are in the US). But Powell, now a paid up member of
the ‘hawk’ wing of the Bush regime, has not succeeded in proving the case for
war before the court of world public opinion and particularly in the eyes of
working-class people internationally, who will be called upon to pay the
ultimate price for Bush and Blair’s onslaught against Iraq.
The USA, Britain and other major
capitalist powers have no right to intervene in Iraq or other countries. They
are planning this military onslaught, not out of concern for the plight of the
Iraqi people but to secure control of the oil fields and not because of weapons
of mass destruction allegedly held by Iraq. It is the task of the Iraqi people,
with the support and assistance of the international working class, to
overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and not that of US
imperialism and its allies. However, even by the ‘criteria’ of the ruling
class, the case presented by Powell
to the UN Security Council was flawed on each substantial charge.
In judging the veracity of Powell’s
speech we should not forget that both Bush and Blair produced dossiers last
September which were supposed to be crushing indictments of the Iraqi regime’s ‘non-compliance’.
These have now been shelved because they were totally discredited by the
weapons inspectors’ findings, which did not bear out their accusations. Former
UN weapons inspector, Count Hans von Sponeck, has now stated: “The inspectors
have found nothing that was in the Bush/Blair dossiers of last September. What
happened to them? They are totally embarrassed by them. But I have seen
facilities in pieces in Iraq which US intelligence reports say are dangerous.
The Institute of Strategic Studies referred to the Al Faluja’s three castor oil
production units and the Al Dora foot and mouth centre as ‘facilities for
concern’. In 2002 I saw them and they were destroyed, there was nothing. All
that was left was shells of buildings.”
Despite its length, Powell’s speech
was thin on conclusive evidence to back up the main claims to justify a war.
Robert Fisk, the trenchant critic of the US’s international role and exposer of
the hypocrisy of the Bush regime in particular, described Powell’s performance
as worthy of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. He described Powell’s
presentation as a “mixture of awesomely funny recordings of Iraqi Republican
Guard telephone intercepts, à la Samuel Beckett, that just might have been some
terrifying little proof that Saddam is really conning the UN inspectors again,
and some ancient material on the monster of Baghdad’s all too well known record
of beastliness. I’m still waiting to hear the Arabic for the state department’s
translation of ‘OK buddy’ - ‘consider it done, sir’ - this from the Republican
Guard’s ‘Captain Ibrahim’, for heaven’s sake.” He goes on to describe, “Some
dinky illustrations of mobile bio-labs whose lorries and railway tracks were in
such perfect condition that they suggest that the Pentagon did not have much
idea of the dilapidated state of Saddam’s army… We were forced to listen to
Iraq’s officer corps communicating by phone - ‘yeah,’ ‘yeah?’ ‘yeah’ - it was
impossible not to ask oneself if Colin Powell had really considered the effect
that this would have on the outside world.” (The Independent, London, 6
February)
On the main charges against Saddam,
Powell’s case is ‘not enough’ and remains ‘unproven’. On the issues of chemical
and biological weapons, Iraq is accused of having 100-500 tonnes of chemical
weapons agents and 16,000 battlefield rockets, with 65 factories producing a
range of munitions. Moreover, four different sources have confirmed, in the
view of Powell, that Saddam had seven sophisticated mobile biological weapons
labs loaded on 18 lorries that could be used to make anthrax, smallpox or
ricin.
It is possible, even probable, that
Saddam, despite the claims to the contrary, does possess chemical and
biological weapons. These are probably being kept in reserve for possible use
in the event of an invasion. He has used chemical and biological weapons
against the Kurdish people in the north of Iraq and in the Iran/Iraq war, as
mentioned by Powell in his speech. Conveniently forgotten, however, is that
these weapons were initially supplied by US imperialism and that Saddam was
personally endorsed by Rumsfeld during a visit to Iraq in the 1980s. The ‘monster
of Baghdad’ is the Frankenstein monster created by US imperialism.
Powell’s recycled material
Most of the evidence produced by
Powell and by the US administration is recycled material and no case has been
made that, in their terms, these weapons, as with nuclear weapons, pose a ‘clear
and present danger’ either to the neighbouring countries around Iraq or to the
US. Holding up a phial of ‘anthrax’ to indicate the danger of biological
weapons and linking this via Iraq to the deaths of US workers in the aftermath
of 11 September 2001 was totally dishonest of Powell. Is there little wonder
that half the American population now believe that it was Iraqis who were
behind the 11 September attacks, when it was clearly perpetrated by non Iraqi’s?
On the issue of nuclear weapons,
Powell once more rehashed previous arguments of Saddam’s acquisition of
high-resolution aluminium tubes which can be modified into centrifuges to
produce enriched uranium for a nuclear device. This is despite the fact that
the weapons inspectors themselves have suggested that these tubes are for the
making of conventional artillery rockets. Conscious of the weakness of his
argument, Powell did acknowledge “different views” on this issue. But as an ‘old
soldier’, he was right and others were wrong.
Dan Plesch, senior research fellow
at the Royal United Services Institute, said that what was missing was any
evidence of a bomb factory or bomb-making equipment. He also added: “All Powell
could come up with was one possible component. Scarcely proof of an effective
bomb programme. Powell has also alleged materials were being moved after leaks
from UN inspectors. Hans Blix, head of the inspectors, has flatly denied this
and said they saw no fresh tyre tracks at bases visited or any evidence of
banned toxic materials in soil samples.”
But as the radical Campaign Against
the Arms Trade pointedly commented: “It is all very well demanding war on Iraq
for allegedly failing to open up to weapons inspectors. America is the world’s
biggest developer of weapons of mass destruction and of exploiting loopholes to
keep research secret.”
Moreover, many countries now possess
the capability of producing nuclear bombs but they are not threatened with
invasion by US imperialism. For instance, the Financial Times reported on 29
January: “Japan yesterday admitted that 206 kilograms of plutonium - enough to
make about 25 nuclear bombs - is unaccounted for at a nuclear reprocessing
facility.”
The disintegration of the former
Soviet Union, a consequence of the collapse of Stalinism, has left a completely
‘degraded’ nuclear industry which allows potential terrorists to acquire the
knowledge to assemble a nuclear device. There is an abundance of caesium in
this region, as in the US itself, that would allow the construction of ‘dirty
bombs’ which could have the same effect through radioactive fallout as the
deployment of nuclear weapons themselves. The most horrifying threat is posed
by the North Korean Stalinist regime of Kim Jong-il, which is partly or mainly
the consequence of the lunatic policy of the Bush regime towards North Korea
(see Socialism Today 72 February 2003). In the past few days, it has been
reported that the North Korean regime is moving fissile material out of its
nuclear facilities, which it has been suggested can be sold by the regime, as
they have done in the past, to nuclear or potential nuclear states and
terrorist organisations. This was
linked to the deployment of 24 B-52 and B-1 bombers to strengthen the USA
forces in South Korea. According to Pyongyang the USS Kitty Hawk has also taken
up strike position.
The US has opted to confront the
danger by ‘diplomacy’ but it has leaked into the press that some sections of
the US administration have even contemplated a ‘pre-emptive’ strike against
North Korea which, in these circumstances, would involve the use of nuclear
weapons by the US with the danger of retaliation from North Korea and all the
calamitous consequences that flow from that.
US imperialism has now embraced the
doctrine of the pre-emptive strike which will increase instability and conflict
in international relations. It will open the prospect of other regimes
attempting to launch a pre-emptive strike to advance their own interests.
Michael R Gordan wrote in the New York Times that following September 11 the ‘Bush
administration has turned pre-emption from an option into a cardinal principle
of its foreign policy’. He rightly warned that ‘The doctrine tends to leave the
door open to others who want to claim the same right’. (International Herald
Tribune 27/1/03). Within two weeks of
this warning the North Korean regime threatened that pre-emptive strikes were
not the preserve of the Bush administration.
As to the link which Powell has
allegedly established between al-Qa’ida, and Osama bin Laden personally, and
the Iraqi regime, it has been dismissed as not serious even by capitalist
commentators and ‘terrorism experts’. On matters of detail Powell was
completely wrong. He referred to ‘decades’ of contact between Saddam and al-Qa’ida
and yet the latter only came into existence five years ago. As Robert Fisk
acidly comments: “Bin Laden - decades ago - was working against the Russians
for the CIA, whose present-day director was sitting grey-faced behind General
Powell.”
Even the International Herald
Tribune, which has now become largely an apologist for Bush, commented that
Powell “did not succeed in drawing a direct line” between Saddam and bin Laden.
The charge that al-Qa’ida operatives worked out of north-eastern Iraq - in the
Kurdish region - with some of them domiciled in Baghdad was not proof of
connivance with al-Qa’ida terrorists. There was no mention of course of US
support for Israel and its occupation of Palestinian land. Powell invoked Iraq’s
support for the Palestinian organisation, Hamas, without mentioning that the
same organisation has offices in Beirut, Damascus and Iran.
In bolstering his case for an
Iraq/al-Qa’ida link, Powell, even according to British ‘security sources’, was “jumping
to conclusions” (The Guardian, London). “A plot” hatched by Musab al-Zarqawi in
Iraq to set up a network of terrorists to carry out “poison and explosive
attacks” allegedly resulted in an attack in Britain where “one British police
officer was murdered” (The Guardian, London). But British “security sources”
said there was “no solid evidence to support Powell’s allegations. He was “jumping
to conclusions”.
The reality, however, is that al-Qa’ida,
more of a broad ‘holding company’ for like-minded terrorists than a centralised
organisation, is now present in most of the countries of Western Europe. This,
however, has not elicited a threat to bomb these countries or wage war on them
as faces Iraq. Powell’s testimony before the UN was not, however, tailored to
persuade and convince but to bully and intimidate the rest of the capitalist
world to fall into line behind US imperialism’s war plans.
The fact that Powell is now firmly
in the camp of the ‘hawks’ is proof of the determination of the wing of the US
ruling class, which is behind the Bush administration, to go to the end in a
war to topple Saddam. Powell spoke in the same language and with the same
threats as Bush did when he spoke to the UN in September. He warned that unless
the Security Council backed the US it would become an “irrelevancy”, a
latter-day League of Nations.
A decision by the United Nations to
support a military assault may temporarily increase support for the war -
especially in the USA and Britain. However, such a decision would also eventually
lead to the undermining and discrediting of the UN. At the same time if it
fails to support a war it will be increasingly seen as an irrelevance when
faced with the might of US imperialism.
Powell’s speech was couched in the implicitly brutal terms used by Bush
after 11 September: “Either you are with us or you’re against us.” This means
that the ‘train of war’ has left the station and will not be stopped or
derailed by any obstacles on the track. Bush in his State of the Union speech
made it absolutely clear that Saddam will be overthrown, with or without UN
approval, and in a ‘time-line’ determined by US imperialism. Powell’s speech is
cast in the same mould as his master.
He was perceived, wrongly, as a ‘dove’,
a ‘voice of reason’ in an otherwise bellicose US administration by sections
even of the anti-war movement in Western Europe and elsewhere. He is nothing of
the kind, as his record as the general commanding the troops which invaded
Grenada and Kuwait demonstrates. He is a multi-millionaire, as is his son, and
an integral part of the US ruling class. His differences with the ‘hawks’ are
those of procedure, of posture, and of seeking a ‘coalition’ behind an invasion
of Iraq. But it seems that the Europeans were asking for ‘more time’ for the
inspectors to do their job and this has tipped Powell into the camp of the
hawks. In so doing he is showing the steely and brutal determination of the
Bush regime, with the oil and gas capitalists celebrating in their rear, to
overthrow Saddam and grab the second-largest oil reserves in the world. They
expect that this re-colonisation of Iraq, to give it its right name, will
enormously enhance the US ‘empire’ and force the peoples of the world,
particularly in the neo-colonial world, to recognise their ‘impotence’ in the
face of such awesome power. The consequences of this will represent a social
and political earthquake in the Middle East and internationally.
Philip Stephens commented in the
Financial Times: ‘There is still too little appreciation of the scale of the
coming geopolitical earthquake. American occupation of Iraq - and let us not
delude ourselves, this will be a long term commitment - will do more than
redraw the region’s strategic map. It will mark the moment when the US takes
upon itself a role that it has disavowed since the annexation of the
Philippines more than a century ago - the role of the imperial power. For the
past 50 years America has ruled a virtual empire,….’ (FT 7/2/03).
In the medium and long term, they
are doomed to failure. In the Middle East, where the Palestinians should
already be cowed and intimidated according to the schema of the Bush
strategists, the limits of US power have been glimpsed. This will be further
underlined in the tumultuous events in the future.
In the short term, however, given
the overwhelming military superiority of US imperialism, the US is likely to
prevail in any war. How is it possible, given the massive opposition to war,
unprecedented in its scale and depth to anything we have seen before, that the
US ruling class can proceed with war? In a sense, as the political journalist
John Pilger has commented, the proponents of war, particularly Bush and Blair,
are ‘isolated’, Blair in his own backyard and Bush from a world point of view.
Thomas L Friedman, the American columnist, and an erratic commentator recently
on the prospects of war, has given a stark warning to the Bush regime one day
after Powell’s speech. He writes: “In talking with Bush administration
officials of late I am struck by an incredible contrast. It is the contrast
between the breathtaking audacity of what they intend to do in Iraq - an
audacity that, I must say, has an appeal to me - and the incredibly narrow
basis of support that exists in America today for this audacious project.” He
professes that he is not worried about the reaction of the Arabs and Turks, of
the volatile ‘Arab street’, or even of opinion in Iraq. What worries him is the
mood of the US population on the issue of war: “I have had a chance to travel
all across the United States since September, and I can say without hesitation
there was not a single audience I spoke to where I felt there was a majority in
favour of war… I don’t care what the polls say, this is the real mood.”
It is true that after Bush’s State
of the Union speech, support for a war began to increase in the US, as it
probably will after Powell’s speech. The proviso in all these polls, however,
is that it should be conducted ‘through the UN’. However, even if the US
decides to proceed unilaterally it is likely that initially support will
increase and will grow in the event of a relatively quick victory by US
imperialism.
In Britain, however, Blair is not
guaranteed to garner political credit from a military victory. This will partly
depend upon the character of any victory, the degree of suffering of the
Iraqis, etc. The war has already provoked bitter mass opposition to Blair who
could be toppled as a consequence of his pro-war policy. One worker on a
British TV panel addressed Blair in a debate as the Right Honourable Member
(Member of Parliament) for Texas North! The determined opposition to Blair
reflected on this programme was then followed by the ‘acute international
embarrassment’ of the British government following the revelation that its
latest dossier on Iraq of “intelligence material” included material copied from
thesis prepared by academic and students - some of them several years old. This
same document was sighted by Powell in his speech to the UN Security Council.
The prospect of war against Iraq has
opened the biggest rift between some of European capitalists - especially
France and Germany - and the USA since the end of the second world war. This
conflict has revealed the underlying inter-imperialist clash of interests which
exist. At the same time the mass opposition to the war in these countries has
been decisive in pushing Chirac and Schroder to oppose US policy. The
disastrous election results for the SPD in recent elections in Lower Saxony and
Hessen (in which the SPD got its lowest level of support ever) reflect the mass
opposition which exists to the neo-liberal policies of the German government
despite Schroder’s opposition to the war. This underlines that an anti-war
policy is not enough and it must also be linked to a socialist alternative to
capitalism.
It is possible that Chirac, despite
mass opposition to the war in France will capitulate at the Security Council.
However, if he does this, the anti-war mood could be galvanised into mass
action in France.
Can war be stopped?
The question has to be answered by socialists and Marxists who have
pointed towards the unprecedented pressure which is being exerted on Blair and
Bush to desist from war: why then are they able to proceed in the teeth of this
opposition - that could reach or exceed ten million people on worldwide
demonstrations on 15 February - along the bloody path of mayhem and destruction
in Iraq?
This demonstrates that when vital
strategic interests of the ruling class are at stake, or a faction of the
ruling class perceives that this is the case, then despite any unpopularity
they will go to war. In this situation, mass demonstrations alone, overwhelming
opposition to a war, are not sufficient in and of themselves to stay the hand
of capitalism. Such mass movements can act as a check on the ruling class, to
delay and complicate its war plans. For example, John Howard has become the
first Australian prime minister in a century to lose the support of the Senate
when it passed a motion of no confidence in his pro-US policy on Iraq. But only
if these movements are allied to clear mass action, a general strike and the
overthrow of the government and of the system that it represents, can we
guarantee that war can be prevented.
Bush and Blair undoubtedly calculate
that with a quick victory over Saddam, as with the Gulf war, Kosova and
Afghanistan, the opposition will quickly subside and they will be able to bask
in the glory. However, to paraphrase the 19th century British prime minister and
general, the Duke of Wellington, a victory sometimes brings with it as many if
not more problems than a defeat. Friedman comments that the Bush administration
is “gearing up for the rebuilding of Iraq, along the lines of the rebuilding of
Germany and Japan after World War Two, and Americans are geared up, at best,
for the quick and dirty invasion of Grenada.” He then goes on to demand that it
is “time the president levelled with the country - not just about the dangers
posed by Saddam, but about the long-term costs involved in ousting him and
rebuilding Iraq. This is not going to be Grenada.” He warns that it will “take
years” to achieve the aims of Bush and the circle of so-called ‘democratic’
imperialists in Iraq. The purpose is not just to overthrow Saddam but to
reconstitute Iraq as a ‘democracy’.
On the basis of rotted capitalism
and landlordism throughout the Middle East, this schema is just that, a pipe
dream. On the contrary, the world crisis of capitalism - exemplified in
particular by the deepening recession in the US with the loss of two million
jobs since 2001 and one million completely dropping out of the labour force -
means that US imperialism will not be able to economically underwrite, even if
it controls Iraqi oil, its grand vision for the region. Its occupation of Iraq,
because it will be more long term than its previous short, police-type
interventions, will pull it into the quagmire which Iraq has always
historically meant for invading armies.
Afghanistan is a warning to US
imperialism of what lies in store for it in Iraq. All the promises that al-Qa’ida
and the Taliban were decisively beaten, that an endless flow of billions of
dollars would stream into Afghanistan to transform the economic, social and
political landscape, and that US and British forces were there ‘for the
duration’ have turned to ashes. A veil of silence, particularly as far as the
US population is concerned, has been drawn over the present situation in
Afghanistan. No mention was made by Powell at the UN of the catastrophic
situation left in the wake of the US and British invasion, which was
foreshadowed by the Marxists at the time. Peace remains an illusion as a
process of steady erosion of the forces of US imperialism is under way. Nightly
attacks on US and other troops take place, there is anarchy in the cities
outside Kabul and warlordism and drug trafficking are as entrenched as ever.
Al-Qa’ida has a radio station operating in Afghanistan with an estimated 25% of
all weapons brought into Afghanistan after an alleged ‘successful’ war against
al-Qa’ida and the Taliban. US forces have retreated from positions on the
Afghan/Pakistan border. For instance, in December, US troops abandoned a
military outpost at Lwara after nightly rocket attacks. The Afghan allies of
the US were driven out days later by al-Qa’ida fighters who took over this
former US compound and burned it to the ground. Once more, al-Qa’ida and the
Taliban have set up training camps, with battles between the US and Taliban
forces in and around Kandahar. A US citizen has been killed in Khost and 15
civilians were blown up by a landmine outside Kandahar.
The ugly reality of Afghanistan is
not, however, allowed to blur the rosy future sketched out for Iraq in its
post-Saddam phase. In reality, the US could be drawn into an economic, national
and ethnic abyss. The Kurds will utilise any war to either move towards their
own separate state or at the least demand autonomy within a federal Iraq. Such
is the hatred of the Ba’ath party, the foundation of the Saddam regime, that
the Iraqi masses could take revenge on the most hated figures, with US forces
forced to come to their defence to prevent a bloodbath. The Shias could decide
to settle accounts with the Sunnis with civil war looming as a real prospect
and the US attempting to hold the ‘ring’. Moreover, unlike 1992, the US will
not be able to take the begging bowl to Japan, Germany or Saudi Arabia to pay
for its occupation and the ‘economic flourishing’ of Iraq.
The legacy of an attack on Iraq will
be a colossal spiralling of threats from Islamic terrorists bent on revenge
against the war which appears to them to be ‘against Islam’. One of the factors
in the long-term plans of the Bush junta’s desire to occupy Iraq is to
construct a ‘safety net’ against the doomsday scenario of Saudi Arabia falling
into the hands of bin Laden-type sympathisers. Islamic terrorism is one thing;
a state which pursues such a policy is an absolute nightmare for the peoples of
the world, not least in the Middle East. The ‘Islamic experts’ who surround
Bush perceive that control of Iraq’s oil would give them an ace card in
confronting and ‘blackmailing’ a hostile Saudi Arabian regime and could
ultimately allow it to break the power of Opec in determining oil prices. This,
in turn, by driving down the price of oil, could be the fillip, they believe,
that could provide an economic springboard for the development of world
capitalism.
They will be proved wrong. Their
measures will enormously compound the problems of the Middle East and of the
world. An era of war, the first stages of which will be the Iraqi war,
accompanied by a worsening and stagnating world capitalist economy, could be
the main features of this period. Unemployment worldwide has reached 180
million, 20 million more than two years ago. One of the most disturbed periods
in history could ensue. It will not quieten the movement of the working class,
the youth and the poor. Alongside of devastating war in Iraq we witness the
hundreds of thousands who demonstrated in Porto Alegre in Brazil and the very
significant victory, temporary though it might be, in the left forces’ defeat
of the forces of counter-revolution which sought to overthrow the Chávez
government in Venezuela. The mass anti-capitalist movement is dovetailing with
an anti-war mood which in the next period can turn into an overtly socialist
movement in which the forces of socialism and Marxism will grow.
No war for oil!
For mass protests and strikes
against the war!
Support the mass demonstrations on
15 February!
Fight capitalism and imperialism!
Fight for a socialist world!
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