Halt US Plans To Slaughter Iraqi People

 Prakash Karat

  BUSH’s preparations for a war against Iraq have now shifted its focus to the ongoing UN weapons inspections within Iraq. After the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1441 unanimously to send back weapons inspectors into Iraq, the Bush administration is now engaged in hectic manoeuvres to undermine or influence the inspection process much before the inspectors are to submit their report to the Security Council on January 25, 2003.

For the overwhelming members of the Security Council the resolution, though toughly worded, is a means to resolve the dispute peacefully and avert military action against Iraq. After the adoption of the resolution, the representatives of France, Russia and China in the Security Council issued a joint statement declaring that the resolution does not provide any “automacity” for launching a military attack on Iraq.

IRAQ’S COOPERATION THE UN

As the weapons inspectors scour sites in Iraq looking for any evidence that Iraq possesses chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or the facilities to produce weapons of mass destruction, the United States continues a barrage of propaganda fabricated to malign the Iraqi government. The Iraqi authorities are fully cooperating with the UN inspection teams. 70 inspectors have now been deployed and they have begun searching every possible site including the presidential palaces. The world media is also present and the Iraqi authorities are allowing them into the premises after the inspection teams have finished their work. So far, there is no shred of evidence to show that Iraq has revived production facilities for weapons of mass destruction since the last inspections were carried out in 1998. 

The Iraqi government has also submitted a 12000-page declaration to the Security Council within the deadline set for December 8. The United States has brazenly taken possession of the set of documents without any authorization. Even before the UN decided how to examine the document, the United States had already got the Columbian Ambassador who is currently the president of the Security Council to hand over the documents. Within days the Bush administration has declared that a preliminary reading shows that Iraq is concealing information and has not made full information available.  Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, whom Harry Belafonta, the noted singer has aptly called the “house slave” has already declared the documents to be suspect.

As the Iraqi government is meticulously complying with all the steps set out in the Security Council resolution, the US administration has begun to put out false news manufactured by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. So far the United States has been unable to provide a shred of evidence to link Iraq to the Al-Qaeda. In October last year, it was claimed that one of the chief conspirators in the September 11 attack Mohd. Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Samir Ani, in Prague in April 2001. It was on the basis of this reported link between the Iraqi government and the September 11 attackers that Washington began its campaign for an attack on Iraq as part of the so-called “war against terrorism”. The New York Times reported one year later in October 2002 that the president of the Czech Republic, Havel, has informed the US government that there is no evidence of such a meeting. This has not prevented the Bush administration to continue to leak out stories about Iraq’s links with the Al-Qaeda. The latest such report is that Iraq has supplied a nerve gas VX to Islamic extremists affiliated to the Al-Qaeda over the land route through Turkey. There is no official statement made regarding this latest charge but it has been widely reported in the American media.

Iraq has challenged the United States and Britain to produce any evidence that Iraq still has any weapons of mass destruction and any programmes to develop them.  The voluminous document submitted by Iraq explains how Iraq developed its nuclear energy programme till January 1991 when the United States began bombing Iraq. The work on the nuclear programme stopped at that time.

With all the spy satellite technology and espionage resorted to by the United States, it has not been able to provide any evidence whatsoever that Iraq has maintained its stocks of dangerous weapons or their production facilities.

The US which possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction is hypocritically denouncing Iraq, which has been devastated by a decade of sanctions and dismantling of its weapons facilities by UN inspectors, of threatening the world with such weapons. In order to ratchet up its aggressive posture, the Bush doctrine now sanctions preemptive military attacks against an enemy suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction. Further, it announces US willingness to use nuclear weapons against anyone who uses chemical or biological weapons against its troops. The classified version of the strategy leaked to the press obviously has Iraq in mind. Bush is now threatening Iraq with retaliation with nuclear weapons if it seeks to put up resistance to US military aggression. The Iraqi people are to take the destructive punishment meted out by the US military might if Iraq does not succumb to its will.

Iraq has been virtually disarmed after the 1991 war by strict sanctions and by the UN inspectors dismantling its weapons facilities for six years till 1998. It now possesses only conventional weapons, much of it outmoded due to the embargo imposed on it. Waging a full-scale war against Iraq in these conditions means a slaughter of its people and armed forces.

PREPARATIONS FOR AGGRESSION

For the United States, taking up the issue of Iraq through the Security Council is nothing but a manoeuvre to meet the pressure of its allies not to act unilaterally and to go through the United Nations multilateral forum. Even as resolution 1441 began to be implemented, Bush repeatedly stated that if the US is not convinced that Iraq has disarmed completely, it will not hesitate to take military action on its own.

The preparations for America’s war are going on uninterruptedly. A new military command centre has been set up in Doha, Qatar, which would serve as the US Central Command’s operational headquarters for the war. Military exercises are being held in Kuwait on the borders with Iraq. Serious efforts are on to soften the reluctant Arab allies of the US in the region to ensure their cooperation in the war effort. Even Japan which in the 1991 war supplied only money for “Operation Desert Storm” has sent a destroyer to the Indian Ocean to show its support for the US war effort.

What is planned is a full-scale occupation of Iraq. The US State department is busy working out the plans for the civilian set up in Iraq after the war. To this end a meeting of Iraqi opposition groups was held in London recently. The meeting was attended by all the major groups financed by the United States. The conference has set up a 65-member transition committee to act as the puppet regime for the US so that an Afghan style democracy can be implanted in Iraq.

There is a sixty-day deadline for the weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix to finish their work and submit their report to the Security Council by January 25. This would be the crucial time. The United States would have to determine by that time how to go ahead with its war plans. During president Putin’s recent visit to China and India the bilateral declarations made in Beijing and New Delhi reiterated that the solution to the Iraqi problem should be found within the framework of the UN resolution and charter. It is important that this basic position be asserted and international opinion be mobilised so that the United States and Britain are forced to abide by the decisions taken collectively through the United Nations.

The Vajpayee government has taken a more categorical position in the recent period advocating a solution through the UN and avoiding war. After the statement made by prime minister Vajpayee on November 19 against any military attack violating Iraqi sovereignty, the foreign minister Yashwant Sinha made a statement in the Rajya Sabha at the conclusion of a debate on the West Asia situation. He stated: “Our stand has been principled, our stand has been consistent and a stand that satisfied the Iraqi government. We will keep a close watch on the situation. We will continue to endeavour that military action is avoided and that whatever has to be done is done through the United Nations, it is done through peaceful means and that the world peace and security are not threatened as a result of the adventure of any particular country.”

The Indian government must stick to this clear-cut position. Given the pro-US orientation of the Vajpayee government, there are views still being advocated that it is better to strike a deal with the United States to get some assurance that India’s interests would be protected in the region in return for support to the US war. It is essential that in the coming days all sections of the Indian people are mobilised and public opinion strongly voiced that India should firmly oppose the US war moves and stand by Iraq.