🚀 go-pugleaf

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


PENTAGON, BIG OIL DICTATE CLINTON POLICY

By Leslie Feinberg

By launching repeated bombing and missile attacks against Iraq on
the eve of the inauguration of Bill Clinton, the Pentagon and Big
Oil are putting the world on notice that they will continue to
dictate U.S. policies in the new administration.

The attacks were carried out on the flimsiest of excuses. They
were so unprovoked, so flagrantly an example of ruthless
aggression in the strategic oil-rich Middle East by the world's
most formidable military power, that the coalition pulled
together by Washington for the 1991 Gulf war is now falling
apart. It is proving impossible for even the closest imperialist
allies to defend the Pentagon's moves.

Nor is this latest projection of military power clearly over. On
Jan. 19 the carrier USS John F. Kennedy, with its 80 aircraft and
a naval battle group, was ordered into the eastern Mediterranean
for further possible strikes on Iraq.

Twenty-four hours earlier, U.S. war planes had taken off from
Saudi Arabia and rained bombs on southern Iraq--the third major
assault in six days. In northern Iraq, U.S. aircraft launched
missiles at air defense radars near Mosul and dropped cluster
bombs on Bashiqa airfield.

The biggest attack began on Jan. 17. First a U.S. fighter
aircraft destroyed an Iraqi missile battery in the south claiming
it had turned on its target radar. Later an Iraqi plane that
ventured into airspace over its own northern zone was shot down.

LIES ABOUT `NO-FLY ZONES'

The media have led people to believe that all this has been
authorized by the United Nations, but in fact the UN Security
Council has not endorsed the "no-fly zones." They were
established arbitrarily by the U.S., France, Britain and Russia.

Later on Jan. 17, Navy ships in the northern Persian Gulf and in
the Red Sea launched 45 Tomahawk cruise missiles tipped with
984-pound explosive warheads. Most of them zeroed in on the
Zaafaraniya industrial complex eight miles southeast of downtown
Baghdad. It was the first U.S. attack on the Iraqi capital since
the end of the Persian Gulf war.

The factory complex was destroyed. Iraq says it was a civilian
industrial plant, and UN teams had visited it and know it. U.S.
officials alleged the complex was part of an Iraqi nuclear
weapons program.

New York Newsday on Jan. 19 gave a different picture of why the
U.S. wanted to destroy the multi-billion-dollar complex. "Further
U.S. raids on such facilities could chip away at Iraq's civilian
manufacturing base, analysts said. A senior military official
said that the Iraqis have been using equipment at the Zaafaraniya
complex to `reverse engineer,' or copy, the assembly of
Volkswagen cars."

While the excuse for firing the huge cruise missiles was that
they were aimed at "weapons of mass destruction," several of them
in fact hit Baghdad.

CASUALTIES IN BAGHDAD

One of the 21-foot weapons slammed into the courtyard of the
al-Rashid hotel in the heart of Baghdad--site of an Islamic
conference condemning U.S. imperialist aggression and also a
center for journalists. The blast gouged a crater 10 feet deep
and 20 feet across, and reportedly killed two hotel workers.

Amidst the wreckage, an outraged hotel worker cried out "Bush has
blood on his hands!" Later, as a funeral cortege for the hotel
victims passed by, mourners shouted "Murderers!" when they
spotted Western reporters.

From CNN to ABC, talking-head generals were immediately given air
time. They speculated that Iraqi anti-aircraft shells were to
blame. Confronted with hard evidence--a fragment with U.S.
markings--the Pentagon admitted that "some missile had been
routed near or over the hotel."

The Iraqi News Agency reported that a number of civilian, tourist
and cultural targets had been struck that same day, resulting in
another 21 deaths and bringing the official death toll to 43.

`KILL BUSH!'

Associated Press reports revealed what the scene of the nightmare
looked like from ground zero.

"Kill Bush," shouted Fouzisalman al-Bandar to a reporter visiting
the residential community of Karrada. Al-Bandar's 70-year-old
neighbor Buthena Kambaraga had been killed by a cruise missile.
Karrada is about three miles away from the factory complex
supposedly "pinpointed" by the sophisticated missiles.

The blood of Mohsen Ali Muhammad's three small injured daughters
smeared the doorjamb to their kitchen. "I should not clean up. I
should leave this place as a museum for killings," Muhammad said.
"I cannot afford to buy new glass because of the sanctions
imposed by Bush." Neighboring homes were destroyed and damaged.

The excuse for the missile attack quickly wore thin. "Defense
Secretary Dick Cheney, for his part, appeared to undercut the
military rationale for the attack," noted the New York Times on
Jan. 18, "when he said on the ABC News program `This Week' that
Iraq's military infrastructure had been badly damaged in the gulf
war and that the economic sanctions imposed after the war had
denied Saddam Hussein the opportunity `to develop weapons of mass
destruction.' "

Earlier charges that Iraq had "raided" Kuwait were exposed when
the commander of the UN force along the border verified that he
had given Iraqi workers permission to go in and retrieve
equipment from Iraqi installations that the UN had given to
Kuwait when it moved the border between the two countries. (AP,
Jan. 11) The border shift has also denied Iraq its former access
to the Gulf and to some of its richest oil fields.

HUGE ATTACK FORCE ASSEMBLED

The small country of Iraq is now surrounded by hostile U.S.
military forces. The U.S. Air Force has at least 50 planes in
Turkey. While its bases in Saudia Arabia are not openly
acknowledged, the New York Times (Jan. 13) reported that the
Pentagon keeps some 60 fighter planes there, including stealth
jets, ground-attack aircraft and planes capable of dropping both
laser-guided and unguided bombs. The Navy has additional attack
planes, bombers and air-to-air fighters in the region as well as
13 ships floating in the Gulf and two submarines.

An additional 2,000 troops have been dispatched to Kuwait--an
armored, battalion-sized force--to join 300 special operations
forces already stationed there who are conducting a "training
exercise" near the Iraqi border.

Far from "provoking" the U.S., on Jan. 12 the Iraqi
representative to the UN delivered a letter to the Security
Council saying Baghdad wanted to try to resolve outstanding
differences. A Pentagon official said the decision to attack had
already been made. "It's just a matter of when to pull the
trigger." (New York Times, Jan. 13)

CRACKS IN THE COALITION

Popular sentiment is rising against the U.S. militarists, and not
just in the Arab countries.

France openly broke ranks with the coalition on Jan. 20 when
Foreign Minister Roland Dumas remarked during a Cabinet meeting
that the cruise missile attack on a Baghdad factory overstepped
the UN mandate. (AP, Jan. 20.) The largest French trade union
federation, which includes many workers from North Africa, has
called on the government to get out of the U.S.-led coalition.

British Prime Minister John Major immediately rejected the French
criticism. But a senior aide, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said Major had telephoned Bush and urged caution over a raid
planned for last Friday and this had delayed the attack.

The Russian government of Boris Yeltsin, enormously weakened by
the economic chaos of the capitalist reforms there, has been
going along with Washington's foreign policy hoping for financial
assistance. But a senior Russian official criticized the latest
U.S.-led attacks and demanded that the U.S. and other allied
powers seek explicit approval from the United Nations before
launching military actions. On Jan. 19 the 15-member Security
Council, at Russia's request, scheduled closed-door consultations
on the matter.

ARAB GOVERNMENTS FEAR MASS ANGER

Right after the first wave of bombings, the Jan. 14 New York
Times noted that planes from Arab nations were "conspicuous by
their absence."

Four days later the Times reported that Syria and Egypt, which
joined the war against Iraq in 1991, expressed their "deep
regret" at the allied air raids this time.

The Cairo-based Arab League, Libya and Yemen also criticized the
U.S. action. Newspapers in Gulf countries pointed to Israel's
defiance of a UN Security Council resolution ordering it to take
back more than 400 expelled Palestinians. Jordanian Information
Minister Mahmoud Sharif said, "We deplore this two-faced policy."

BUSH AND CLINTON

Will the incoming Clinton administration fashion a "kinder,
gentler" foreign policy, specifically in regard to Iraq?

Clinton did say in an interview printed in the Jan. 13 New York
Times that while he "would not rule out renewing the ground war
against Iraq," he could "imagine" a normal relationship with the
Iraqi government. He was immediately attacked by media hawks.
Within 24 hours he backtracked and said he had been
misinterpreted.

Clinton, Jan. 13: "I support the action that the United States
took today."

Clinton, Jan. 14: "It was the right decision, done in the right
way."

Clinton, Jan. 18: "I fully support President Bush's actions."


                               -30-

Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 West 21st
Street, New York, NY 10010; e-mail: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org or
workers@mcimail.com.



+        Join Us! Support The NY Transfer News Collective        +
+       We deliver uncensored information to your mailbox!       +
+ Modem: 718-448-2358 FAX: 718-448-3423 e-mail: nyxfer@panix.com +