Phase 2 Iraq: U.S. Lies and Pretexts

In the aftermath of September 11, powerful forces within the U.S. ruling class have been engaged in a campaign of lies, disinformation, and speculation to pin blame for the World Trade Center attacks and the anthrax mailings on Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Over the past decade, more than a million Iraqis have died as a result of U.S. bombs and sanctions. Now, the allegations against Iraq are being used as justification for calls to target this already devastated country in "Phase Two" of "America's New War."

On November 26, the U.S. president himself delivered a threat against Iraq. Declaring that "Afghanistan is still just the beginning," Bush demanded that Saddam Hussein submit to new UN weapons inspections -- "to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction." Asked what the U.S. would do if Hussein refused, Bush said, "He'll find out." Later that day, Secretary of State Colin Powell told CNN that Hussein should consider Bush's threat as "a very sober, chilling message."

While it's clear that there is a strong view within the U.S. power structure as a whole that the Hussein regime should be toppled, there seem to be sharp differences over how to do that. There are reportedly intense debates within the ruling circles, including among Bush administration officials, over what the next stage of their worldwide "war on terrorism" should be.

But as the cries to "take the war" to Iraq intensify, it is important to look at the reality behind the U.S. campaign of lies and disinformation that could be laying the groundwork for escalating attacks-possibly a new war -- on Iraq.

Years of Intensifying Campaign Against Iraq

Long before September 11, U.S. accusations against Iraq and calls to overthrow or assassinate Saddam Hussein had been growing louder. The New York Times (10/11) reported that U.S. officials had been trying to link Iraq to Osama bin Laden for eight years -- since the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center -- but had found no such links. In 1998, former government officials proposed a 9-point strategy for "bringing down Saddam and his regime." Ten of the endorsers of this strategy are now senior members of the Bush administration -- including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his assistant, Paul Wolfowitz. The Republican Party platform for last year's election called for "a comprehensive plan for the removal of Saddam Hussein."

These rumblings against Iraq grew louder as international support for the U.S.'s killer sanctions on Iraq (under a UN cover) has weakened. This July the Wall Street Journal called for the U.S. to "take swift and serious measures to remove Saddam Hussein from power." The Journal also reported, "Senior officials have held almost weekly meetings on the issue to discuss whether to push for the [Hussein] government's ouster." In August, the U.S. launched its most savage air attack on Iraq in six months.

With the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the calls for war on Iraq have grown louder. As Kabul fell, the Wall Street Journal editorial, titled "Keep Rolling," said that the combination of B-52's and proxy armies "is a lesson worth recalling as the war moves into its next logical phase, especially into Iraq."

On November 18, Condoleeza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, said in a TV interview, "We do not need the events of September 11 to tell us that [Saddam Hussein] is a very dangerous man who is a threat to his own people, a threat to the region and a threat to us." The next day, the lead U.S. official at the Geneva conference on biological weapons conference targeted Iraq as a threat.

And as Bush delivered his threat against Hussein on November 26, 3,000 U.S. soldiers staged provocative maneuvers along Iraq's southern border, and U.S. planes bombed the southern Iraqi province of Nasiriyah.

After 9/11: Creating New Pretexts

Even before the dust and smoke had cleared from September 11, high-level officials and advisers were meeting behind closed doors, plotting to expand the war to Iraq. The New York Times reported that on September 19-20, a "tight-knit group of Pentagon officials and defense experts outside government... met for 19 hours to discuss the ramifications of the attacks of September 11. The group agreed on the need to turn on Iraq as soon as the initial phase of the war against Afghanistan was over." The group is reportedly known as the "Wolfowitz cabal" in the State Department and Congress, after Rumsfeld's deputy. According to the Times, the group's strategy "envisions the use of air support and the occupation of southern Iraq with American ground troops to install an Iraqi opposition group based in London at the helm of a new government... American troops would also seize the oil fields around Basra, in southeastern Iraq, and sell the oil to finance the Iraqi opposition in the south and the Kurds in the north."

There was no evidence of Iraq's involvement in the September 11 attacks. Iraqi intelligence may have met with bin Laden allies several times since the late 1990s. But the Wall Street Journal (9/19) noted that "few U.S. officials believe that any real alliance between Iraq and Al-Qaeda ever emerged... The two groups share few aims and have very different motivations..." According to the New York Times (10/11), intelligence officials from Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia also said there was no serious Hussein-bin Laden connection.

For the last decade the Iraqi government has focused efforts on lifting U.S. sanctions and, in recent years, had made headway in winning support for its efforts. The Wall Street Journal acknowledged, "Being held responsible for such a terrorist act would endanger the years of effort Iraq has made to restore foreign commerce, air routes, investment in oil production, relations with its neighbors, its much damaged infrastructure and its military capacity."

The lack of evidence for Iraqi involvement did not deter those clamoring for war against Iraq. According to the New York Times, the same "cabal" that met on September 19-20 sent former CIA chief James Woolsey to London on "a mission" to gather "evidence" linking Hussein to the September 11 attacks. The group drafted an open letter to Bush arguing that if the U.S. did not take the war to Iraq, the result would be "an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism."

Woolsey began raising various charges against Iraq: that Iraqi agents met with Mohammed Atta, one of the alleged hijackers and the "ringleader" in the September 11 attacks; that Iraq provided fake passports for all 19 hijackers; that an al Qaeda member traveled to Baghdad in 1998 to celebrate Saddam Hussein's birthday; that Iraq trained al Qaeda members; and that Iraq was linked to anthrax. There was no solid proof for any of these charges; nonetheless, the media picked up and ran with some of themÉ

A Blood-Soaked Debate

At this writing, the U.S. and Russian governments have agreed to extend the current sanctions program against Iraq for another six months. The Iraqi government has rejected renewed UN weapons inspections, stating: "Anyone who thinks Iraq can accept an arrogant and unilateral will of this party or that, is mistaken."

It is unclear exactly where the U.S. rulers are heading in their war. Some ruling class figures argue for an all-out attack on Iraq; others fear that such a move will hurt U.S. interests by destroying its current coalition, and they advocate other options and other targets. A former official of the Jordanian government, a close ally of the U.S., warned, "If America moves to Iraq, people would not accept it is [against] terrorism. People would start to question the motivation even for striking Afghanistan. People will begin to suspect that terrorism is just a pretext."

Some things are clear. First, no actual proof of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks or the current anthrax scare has surfaced -- and there is lots of evidence suggesting the contrary.

Second, evidence indicates that Iraq probably does not have "weapons of mass destruction" in any significant quantity.

Third, this disinformation campaign shows -- yet again -- that the U.S. "free press" is just another cog in the imperialist machine of oppression and war, whose function is to systematically deceive the people.

And finally, the threats against Iraq show that "America's New War" has nothing to do with protecting the people -- here or around the world. It's a war of empire to strengthen U.S. domination of the oil-rich Middle East and to assert its position as the world's number one imperialist superpower.

As the U.S. prepares to carry out more brutality and deadly assaults against Iraq, the people of Iraq are already losing 5,000 children a month because of the ongoing U.S. bombings and sanctions -- a disaster on the scale of the losses at the World Trade Center every 30 days.