People's Democracy

American Sabre-Rattling Against Iraq

Yohannan Chemarapally

BARELY has an American administration been so isolated or as out of sync with international opinion as the Bush administration is today. As a cabal of senior right-wing officials in the Bush administration ratchet up the war rhetoric over Iraq, America’s traditional allies are raising their voices. Even the British premier, Tony Blair, seems to be having second thoughts about the American plans. He said in the first week of September that he would prefer the UN Security Council to be more involved in Iraq. German chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, was among the first of Washington's close allies to openly voice his objections to the American military gameplan in the Middle East.

US STANDS

ISOLATED

Now the German government has gone a step further after the defence minister, Peter Struck, warned in the last week of August that his country would withdraw its specialised nuclear, chemical and biological warfare unit from Kuwait, if America attacks Iraq. The French president, Jacques Chirac, has also come out strongly against the Bush administration’s plans for a military offensive against Iraq. He described the Bush administration’s moves "as attempts to legitimise the unilateral and preemptive use of force." On his part, the UN secretary general Kofi Annan has been stressing on several occasions recently that the UN is against military action against Iraq.

The Russian government’s response has been to sign a new 40 billion dollar business deal with the government in Baghdad in the middle of August. The American defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld promptly warned that the Russian government’s relations with countries that Washington considers enemies, would not stand it in good stead. By his recent actions, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has made it clear that he would not forget Russian commitments to countries which find themselves targeted by Washington. One of Washington’s closed allies, Japan, has also indicated that it is not too keen to participate in any new military adventure in the Gulf. The Japanese government has clearly indicated its priorities by announcing that the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, would be soon visiting North Korea ---identified by Washington as one of the three countries which constituted the so called "axis of evil."

The Arab regimes which are close to Washington have publicly distanced themselves from the Bush administration’s plans for waging a war on Iraq. The foreign ministers of both Qatar and Oman, where important American military bases are located, have assured the international community that they are not with the Bush administration’s attempts at effecting a "regime change" through military means. In South Asia, both the Indian and Pakistani governments have signaled their objections to the plans of the Bush administration in West Asia. Musharraf, one of President Bush’s favoured heads of state, has publicly voiced his opposition to any attack against Iraq.

DISINFORMATION

CAMPAIGN IN INDIA

The Indian government was initially rather circumspect on the issue. It was reported that the Bush administration had send top emissaries like the former secretary of state James Baker to Delhi, in an effort to persuade the Indian government to downgrade diplomatic and commercial links with Baghdad. During the last visit of the American secretary of state Colin Powell to the region, the issue did not figure at all in the bilateral talks held in Delhi. The Indian side, however, raised the issue during the latest visit by the deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage. Senior Indian officials said that they had made known their "serious reservations" about the American determination to implement a "regime change" in Iraq.

But certain sections of the Indian establishment, including the media, still seem to be the thrall of the West. An English daily, Hindustan Times, has been prominently repeating a story claiming the expose links between some Indian companies and Iraq in the production of the weapons of mass destruction. The story claims that seven Indian companies have been supplying technology and expertise to Iraq’s missile and chemical weapons programme. The newspaper quoted Indian Department of Revenue officials as saying that equipment used in the production of rocket fuel and missile technology is being applied by the Indian firm to Iraqi "front" companies in the Gulf.

The Iraqi ambassador to India, Sallah al-Mukhtar, is dismissive of these claims. But at the same time he says that the timing of the article (the allegations were again repeated in the last week of August) made his suspicious. The Iraqi diplomat said that the source of the disinformation campaign was the British High Commission. Al-Mukhtar pointed out that only one Indian publication had bothered to carry the "baseless" story. He said the paper wanted to give credibility to the story by claiming that they got their facts from Indian government sources while in fact their sources can be traced to American and British intelligence. The Iraqi diplomat said that allegations of Iraq producing weapons of mass destruction appearing in Indian papers would help the Americans in their disinformation campaign against his country.

TAKING WAR RHETORIC

TO FEVERISH PITCH

Top Bush administration officials like the vice president Dickey Cheney, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and national security advisor Condoleezaa Rice, are meanwhile continuing to raise the rhetoric of war to a fever pitch. In a speech in the last week of August, Cheney virtually said the American government was committed to overthrowing the government in Iraq, sooner than later. Cheney’s brinkmanship comes at a time when the American public, lawmakers and even senior Bush administration officials are expressing grave doubts about the plans to invade to Iraq. Secretary of state Colin Powell has been conspicuous by his reticence to endorse the hawkish views of his colleagues. Instead, he has also been talking about the need to engage the UN Security Council and get the weapons inspectors into Iraq once again.

President Saddam Hussein said in the first week of September that America wants to subdue Iraq so that it would be able to control the energy resources of the entire region. Iraqi officials are warning that if the Bush administration manages to implement its militarist blueprint in the region, the US will run roughshod over the established international order, redrawing borders and ousting government’s Washington does not like.

There has been talk in the upper echelons of the Bush administration on fulfilling other agendas after the task in Iraq is accomplished. Iran has already been identified as part of the "axis of evil." Saudi Arabia, one of Washington’s closest allies till a few years ago, is now being openly targeted by the American right wing. There is talk of dividing not only Iraq but also other Arab countries. According to the Iraqi ambassador to India, all Arabs are fully aware that the Americans are implementing the Israeli agenda for the region.

At this juncture, Iraqi officials do not think that the Americans will dare to send combat troops to fight inside Iraq. Instead, they feel that the likely scenario could once again be massive aerial bombardment. This will not lead to either a military victory or a regime change, feel Iraqi officials. It is estimated that a full-scale invasion of Iraq by the American forces will need a budget of around 100 billion dollars. The last Gulf War cost the west 60 billion dollars.

WHY TO

DEFEND IRAQ

"Defending Iraq now will save other countries in the future. The American agenda today is for recolonising the world," said Sallah al-Mukhtar. The Iraqi ambassador said his country is ready for any eventuality. The Iraqi people he said are willing to fight any kind of a war forced on them. "Every village is now a military command post. The people will wage a guerilla war. This is not like the Gulf war. We are fighting for our existence and for the principles recognised by the international community for the last two hundred year. We are determined to humiliate the US," said the Iraqi diplomat.

Iraq’s pragmatic diplomatic stance has been reflected by its offer to once again let the UN weapons inspectors into the country. The government has guaranteed them unfettered access provided that a timetable is fixed for the lifting of the draconian UN sanctions on Iraq. The economic embargo has already resulted in the deaths of more than a million Iraqis, many of them women and children. The lifting of the sanctions, once Iraq has been found free of weapons of mass destruction, has been mandated by article 22 of the UN Security Council resolution 687.

Iraq has also demanded that the US government scrap the Liberation (sic!) of Iraq Act passed by the US congress in 1998. Iraq wants a comprehensive timetable for the lifting of sanctions before allowing the UN arms inspectors in. As a goodwill gesture, the Iraqi government has also invited the US congress to send a delegation to have a first-hand look at the sites where weapons of mass destruction are allegedly being produced or stored. It has been obvious to the international community that Iraq has been free of weapons of mass destruction since the late nineties. It has also been evident that the American government would allow the lifting of sanctions only after it installed a puppet regime in Baghdad.