The time and place was a closely held secret. The participants feared an attack from Iraqi insurgents. The new interim Prime Minister Allawi is a long time recipient of CIA funds and runs the CIA-crafted political party called the Iraqi National Accord. In Washington, spokesmen for the Bush administration hailed the event as the return of ‘sovereignty’ for the Iraqi people. That same day, battles took place across Iraq as the Pentagon worked on plans to send more U.S. troops. The new ‘prime minister’ was quick to ask for the occupying forces to remain in Iraq indefinitely – to protect him from the Iraqi people.

Fake Sovereignty

Real sovereignty for Iraq would mean the right of Iraq to govern itself, free from any outside interference. It would mean that the U.S. would completely withdraw from the country. As things stand, Washington will continue to have final say on matters of Iraqi security and the interim government will not be able to enact new legislation or overturn laws imposed during the U.S.-led occupation, which began in March 2003.

Alongside U.S. military commanders, the newly appointed ambassador John Negroponte is the most powerful man in Iraq. Negroponte, a former official in the Reagan administration was among the architects the wars on the peoples of Central America which left hundreds of thousands dead. From his post as ambassador to Honduras, he helped direct the brutal contra war against the progressive and revolutionary government of Nicaragua and the bloody counter-insurgency wars in El Salvador and Honduras.

Washington’s new embassy in Iraq will be the largest U.S. embassy in the world. It is anticipated that about 1000 Americans will be posted there, along with an Iraqi staff of over 700. The estimated 2005 budget for the embassy alone is $1 billion. Even so, embassy officials will have their hands full directing the U.S. ‘advisors’ who function in all of the ministries of Iraq’s puppet government, and who are working to extend their reach into all facets of Iraqi society. U.S. embassies often serve as operations bases for the CIA. The embassy in Iraq will have special counselors on hand to help personnel deal with the stress resulting from constant attacks.

The Bush administration says that its troops, numbering over 130,000, will remain in Iraq at least through 2005. Maintaining troops and building fourteen military bases shows that the U.S. is still occupying the country and that it is not willing to turn over control to the Iraqi people.

The main evidence to come to light in the legal proceedings against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is that Iraqis do not run Iraq. Those sitting in judgment are there because the U.S. put them there. The organizer of the trial Salem Chalabi is a leader in the CIA-backed Iraqi National Congress and was appointed by Bush advisor Condoleezza Rice. Chalabi then appointed the judge. Saddam Hussein is still being held by prisoner by U.S. troops. Censors from the U.S. military controlled the broadcast from the court appearance. Saddam was right to observe that the trial is “political theater” to benefit the Bush administration.

When the Bush administration projected the June 30 deadline for turning over sovereignty last year, it had three goals in mind: scoring points in the upcoming U.S. elections, legitimizing an Iraqi puppet government and gaining international support for the war and occupation. Administration officials did not anticipate the power and determination of the Iraqi resistance. As a result, Bush failed on all three fronts. Among the American people, the war is more unpopular than ever. Prime Minister Allawi and the other U.S. appointees do not have the support of the Iraqi people because they do not represent Iraqi interests. And while some of the other western powers might welcome fake sovereignty because it might someday pave the way for them to get their hands on Iraq’s oil resources – as shown by the maneuvering at the NATO summit in Istanbul – they fear the Iraqi insurgents and they won’t send troops.

The Resistance

The scope and intensity of the Iraqi resistance has thrown the occupation and the Bush administration into a political crisis. In the early days of the Iraq occupation, Defense Secretary Rumsfield promised quick victory over a “handful of dead enders.” A little more than a year later, it is the handful of ‘dead enders’ in the Bush administration who are facing defeat.

Entire cities, Fallujah being the most well known example, are outside the control the Iraqi central government and U.S. troops. None of the roads between major cities are secure and ambushes of coalition convoys take place on a daily basis. Even the most stubborn right-wing commentators acknowledge the resistance has grown dramatically since the onset of occupation. More than 1000 American, British and other coalition troops have died since March of last year.

Between October and April, the percentage of Iraqis who view the United States as an occupier rather than a liberator more than doubled, from 43% to 88%, according to the Center for Research, an Iraqi polling firm that works for several U.S. contractors. The majority of Iraqis polled want the occupiers to leave Iraq immediately and allow the Iraqis to manage their own affairs. Only 1% of thpse Iraqis agreed that the goal of the U.S. was to establish democracy in Iraq.

The Iraqi resistance movement has developed into a popular war, where a growing section the people are actively participating in and assisting the insurgency – a shift that has changed the entire dynamic of the occupation. U.S. and British troops tend to remain in their bases. When they come out it is to carry out a military objective. Routine patrolling, where troops attempt to mingle with Iraqi civilians, has by and large come to an end.

As a result, occupation forces increasingly rely on terror and the widespread use of torture. While torture has long been a practice of U.S. intelligence agencies and armed forces, be it in Latin America or Vietnam, its use mushroomed in Iraq as the insurgency expanded. Top officials in the administration gave the word to ‘get tough’ and soon jailers at Abu Ghraib were carrying out sexual assaults and beating prisoners to death.

The U.S. has also closed Iraqi newspapers, illegally searched homes, wrecked trade union offices and detained innocent Iraqis without cause. The U.S. military continues to fire upon peaceful protests in attempts to silence demonstrators.

Days after assuming office, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced measures to suspend civil liberties, including the right to assembly, in an attempt to combat the insurgency.

U.S. Out Now

The ongoing occupation has led to a series of political disasters for the Bush administration. The pretexts for the war have been exposed as lies. The widespread use of torture and repression make any talk of democracy or human rights ring hollow. Occupation is the opposite of liberation.

There is growing opposition to the war amongst the rank and file of the U.S. military and their families. Some soldiers have denounced the war and openly refuse to fight. The military brass has ordered troops to condemn neither the war nor Defense Secretary Rumsfield in press interviews. Military families have deluged the Congress with complaints about the extended tours of duty.

Among the U.S. elite, there is growing controversy about Bush’s conduct of the war. U.S. politicians are the best that money can by, so big corporations spend alot on them. In turn they expect that the White House and the Pentagon will insure stable climates for their investments and access to the land, labor and natural resources of the Third World. This is what the Defense Department means when it says one of its top priorities is the creation of ‘free-market democracies.’ Now some of them are worried. The result of this is that many of the big Democratic politicians attack war profiteering, the use of torture or the lies that were used to justify the war. But they are in a bind. Even if they think the war was a ‘mistake,’ they can’t stomach the idea of the empire of the dollar being pushed out of Iraq. So they talk about sending even more troops than Bush. By doing this they make it harder to get Bush out of office this November.

Everything behind this war is big. Big Oil. Big Corporations. And the big ideas of small men dreaming of world domination. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The people of this country have no stake in this war. Success for Bush and Cheney means that the hands of those who attack our rights and livelihood will be strengthened. Setbacks for them are an advance for all poor, working and oppressed people here. All U.S. troops should be brought home now.

The people of Iraq doing what anyone would do in their position – they are fighting to free their county from foreign domination. They deserve our support.

The anti-war movement is helping to turn the tide against the war on Iraq. Bush is the one who is outside of the mainstream. The protests at the Republican convention in New York will be huge. Everything possible should be done to build done to make them as powerful as possible. The time has come to end the occupation of Iraq.

U.S. out of Iraq! Bring the troops home!

#Iraq #AntiwarMovement #Editorials #IraqiResistance #IraqWar #IraqiElections #MiddleEast

In the face of challenges to the Iraq occupation, the U.S. is now threatening nearby Syria – one of the few countries in the Middle East that is serious about safeguarding its national independence. The unraveling of the occupation of Iraq, where large areas of the country have passed out of the control of the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, signals a deepening crisis for U.S. policymakers.

Elections

So far the Bush administration has nothing to show for its ‘election’ in Iraq, other than a barrage of media hype. We are told that millions participated; we are shown pictures of people standing in line. However, the only international observers were in Jordan and journalists were restricted to relatively high-turnout areas. The claimed total of 7 million voters is less than 40% of those eligible.

No party with a stated program for U.S. withdrawal was allowed to participate in the election. ‘Security’ was only obtained by a round-the-clock mobilization of U.S. troops, armor and helicopters – Iraqi forces were not considered reliable enough.

The U.S. media reports the political parties under religious leadership in southern Iraq took a big lead in the vote count. This bears out administration fears that there would be little participation in the center of the country, the regional heart of the resistance, where around 45% of the people live.

This is bad news for the occupation. The corporate media likes to talk about the Sunni-Shiite divide – a conflict along religious the lines. There are large Shia communities throughout central Iraq, but the turnout in these communities was low, like that in Sunni communities. Many Shia forces boycotted the elections, including the followers of nationalist Shia clergyman Moqtada al-Sadr.

The post-election period has shown no drop in violence. For example, The Jerusalem Post reported four U.S. soldiers killed in roadside bombings on Feb. 5. On the same day, U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said he could give no date when Iraqi police and armed forces could take over.

Most significantly, the U.S. military has gone on series of offensives, killing and imprisoning pro-resistance Iraqis. Employing a tactic that was used in Vietnam, U.S. forces are surrounding villages and cities in central and northern Iraq. They cut the urban areas off from the surrounding countryside, conduct interrogations and house-to-house searches and take into custody anyone they think is connected to the insurgent movement.

‘Democracy’ at the point of an outsider’s gun, backed up an invader’s artillery and aircraft, is the opposite of anything that resembles a real democracy. It is the dictatorship of an empire based in Washington D.C. U.S. imperialism has a chain of command that extends downward from the Pentagon and the White House (and its corporate backers) to the puppets who spend their days in the Green Zone, the fortified area of central Baghdad. The Green Zone is where the U.S.-backed Iraqi government conducts its business, along with the U.S. embassy, the subsidiaries of Halliburton, foreign mercenaries and others who dream of growing rich from the land, labor and resources of Iraq.

Crisis Deepens

The Jan. 30 ‘elections’ may well be Washington’s last shot at setting up a puppet government in Iraq.

The first U.S. overlord in Iraq, General Jay Garner, only lasted three weeks. Then Paul Bremer was sent in to establish the Iraqi Governing Council with the help of the UN. Within a few weeks the Iraqi resistance demolished the Baghdad headquarters of the UN and showed itself to be a potent and political force. Patriotic Iraqis viewed Bremer with hatred and contempt. In the end he had to leave.

Next Washington set up the Interim Governing Authority under CIA agent Iyad Allawi, and John Negroponte replaced Bremer. Negroponte had the right credentials – he had presided over a U.S.-sponsored ‘counterinsurgency’ bloodbath in Central America in the 1980’s.

Through all of these changes the Iraqi resistance grew in scope and intensity. The predicament of the occupation steadily became worse. Now Negroponte will come home to run U.S. intelligence efforts.

The significance of the elections for the U.S. was stated in the Jan. 7 Washington Post by Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official and now senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said, “Our success more and more depends on, not on our skill at war, but whether the Iraqis as political leaders can lead and govern, whether Iraqi security and military forces can take up the burden of the counterinsurgency battle and whether Iraqis can form a state. If they fail politically or fail to govern or fail to provide adequate military or security forces, nothing we do military or politically or with our allies is going to matter.”

For the Iraqi side, Harith al-Dhari, chairman of the patriotic Muslim Scholars Association, told Al-Ahram Weekly on Jan. 22, “The Iraqis do not feel that these elections will lead to the fulfillment of their main demand, which is the end of the U.S. occupation. They simply do not see a light at the end of the dark tunnel…Therefore, if the Americans want to bring an end to the problems and reach stability, they should commit themselves to a declared schedule for withdrawing their troops from Iraq.”

Al-Dhari spoke of, “the total or the near total destruction of the cities of Najaf and Falluja. How can people be expected to have elections under such circumstances? The major demand for which Iraqis have undergone such suffering [the end of the occupation] will not be obtained through the elections. The Iraqi people do not expect these elections to produce anything but a government that will always do America’s bidding, and all indications are that the forthcoming government under U.S. occupation will be weak and rubberstamp every American wish.”

One reaction in the White House to the defeats at the hands of the Iraqi resistance is to lash out at and threaten other countries in the Arab world that safeguard their national independence, in particular Syria and Iran.

U.S. Out Now

The people of Iraq and people of the United States share a common enemy – the Bush administration and its corporate sponsors.

As the Bush administration continues to pour money needed for the U.S. people into the unjust occupation of Iraq, it is important that the anti-war movement continues to be active and vocal. We need to expose the lies that continue to be told by the media – lies that the U.S. is liberating the people of Iraq, or that any election under occupation can be free and fair.

We must insist that Iraqi people have the right to choose their own destiny. Iraqis who are fighting to free their country of foreign domination are doing nothing wrong. They are doing what occupied peoples have done time and time again – standing up to take back their own country.

In the months ahead its vital for all of us come out into the streets and demand U.S. troops out now! The second anniversary of the beginning of the war on Iraq comes on March 20, and demonstrations against the occupation will be taking place across the United States. Everything possible should be done to build these protests.

#Iraq #Editorial #IraqiResistance #IraqWar #MiddleEast

In the course of the testimony and questioning before congress there was talk of the occupation continuing another five years or more. Figures in the Bush administration have compared the occupation of Iraq with the U.S. military presence in south Korea, an occupation that has extended more than half a century.

In a speech two days later, Bush endorsed Petraeus’s recommendations, including a plan to ‘draw down’ U.S. troops to pre-surge levels. Practically, this means that the current number of U.S. troops, about 168,000, may be reduced to about 130,000 to 140,000 by next summer. The key phrase here is ‘may be.’ What’s certain is that the Bush administration and the Pentagon are planning an indefinite occupation of Iraq and that Bush is delivering on his promised ‘war without end.’

In part this planned pullback from the current escalation could well be linked to military necessity. Testifying before a congressional committee last fall, the former commander of the Iraq war, Army General John P. Abizaid stated, “We can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect.” He then added, “But when you look at the overall American force pool that’s available, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.” In other words, the military needs more troops if there is to be greater escalation of the war.

The response from Democratic leadership in the Senate and House underscores the fact that left to their own devices, U.S. politicians will continue the war. In the last congressional elections voters cast their ballots against the war. Instead of working for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, most Democratic politicians are talking about legislation that tinkers with troop rotation schedules, ‘narrowing the scope of the mission’ or phony timetables. None of the leading Democratic candidates for president are backing an immediate withdrawal or supporting moves that actually end funding for the war.

Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton takes the position that if elected she would call a meeting of her advisors in the first 60 days of her term and develop a plan to start withdrawing or redeploying some troops. Given that a lot can change between now and then, and that Clinton has never repudiated her initial backing of Bush’s invasion, this does not amount to an consistent, anti-war position. The same can be said of almost all of the other presidential hopefuls.

The basic issue is this: The U.S went to war to gain control of Iraq’s oil, to strengthen its domination of the Middle East (in part through eliminating the government led by Saddam Hussein) and to be in a better position to contend with its European rivals. It was all about maintaining an empire for corporate profits. Leopards do not change their spots, but the resistance of the Iraqi people spoiled their plans.

Among U.S. ruling circles, a rough consensus has emerged that the occupation should continue in one form or another. This is sometimes expressed in the view that, “victory is unobtainable and defeat is unacceptable,” and accompanied by bitter recriminations among those who backed Bush’s march to war. The relatively narrow but intense debate in Washington D.C. reflects this.

The result is an unfolding political crisis at the highest levels that has shipwrecked the Republican agenda in congress and led to one shakeup after another in the Bush administration. It has also created openings for people on the ground to make gains.

Terror and resistance

Since the troop surge began the number of political prisoners, or ‘detainees’ being held in U.S. facilities has skyrocket by about 50%. U.S. military authorities admit holding about 25,000 Iraqi prisoners. Forces of the U.S.-sponsored puppet government, by its own estimate holds about 60,000 detainees. These jails are nothing short of hell on earth where torture, rapes and murders are routine.

Increasingly the U.S. has relied on air power, destroying neighborhoods in the cities and villages in the countryside.

Terror is used because the occupation has no support among the Iraqi people. They want their country back. So many have joined resistance organizations. Some have taken up arms. Others are going to demonstrations. The vast majority are angry and want the occupation to end. Now.

The Iraqi resistance is growing, more unified and is striking back harder and faster. The past three months saw 331 deaths and 2029 wounded amongst U.S. troops, the worst three months for the occupation thus far. The formation of the Patriotic National Islamic Front for the Liberation of Iraq this July marked a step forward in the growing unity of the Iraqi resistance forces. This new resistance front has offered to negotiate a withdrawal with the U.S.

The corporate media in the U.S. report attack on civilians in order to portray the U.S. presence in Iraq as a ‘peacekeeping’ force. And yet, out of the current 1100 attacks carried out per week by resistance forces, according to the figures of the Department of Defense, only 8% of these attacks are made against civilians. On the other hand, 75% of these attacks are directed against U.S. occupation troops and 17% toward the puppet Iraqi security forces. Also, many of the attacks on civilians are carried out by elements of the Iraqi government.

The puppet regime in Baghdad is facing disaster. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is barely holding on to power following the resignation or boycott of 17 ministers, nearly half of his cabinet. The collapse of the Maliki government only brightens the spotlight on the political crisis around Iraq and in so doing serves to further discredit the war in the eyes of the American people.

At home

The movement against the war is growing. This past summer alone has seen a strong gathering of anti-war and social justice activists and organizers at the U.S. Social Forum. The student movement is quickly gaining momentum with the reformation of the Students for a Democratic Society. Veterans are denouncing the war and some soldiers are refusing to fight. More in the trade unionist movement are speaking out.

The immigrant’s rights upsurge has the reactionaries split, and despite the wishes of the ruling class, the glaring inequalities of racist, national oppression in the Gulf Coast and larger Black Belt South highlighted by Hurricane Katrina simply will not fade.

And if that were not enough domestic troubles, all of those billions of dollars are being spent on a futile attempt to control and rob Iraq of its oil. Meanwhile our cities are quite literally falling apart, as we so recently saw with the tragic collapse in Minneapolis of the structurally unsound 35W bridge..

This fall, the anti-war movement is poised to make big advances. The war is already the main question in the elections and it is a burning issue in the minds of most people. In the months ahead the movement against the war can assist the effort to end the occupation and to bring the troops home.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Analysis #Iraq #troopSurgeInIraq #IraqiPrisoners #IraqiResistance #NuriAlMaliki

“We were not surprised that the inhabitants of the occupied Green Zone signed off on the so-called security agreement with U.S. occupation forces,” said the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI), a popular religious association that supports the Iraqi resistance, in a statement on Nov. 17. “They [the Green Zone puppet government] are part of the occupation, and they want a commitment by the occupation forces to maintain their presence in order to acquire political and factional interests at the expense of greater Iraq and its oppressed people.”

Although the text of the SOFA states that the United States must withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 2009 and from the country as a whole by the end of 2011, it remains extremely unlikely that this will happen. Without the muscle provided by the U.S. military, the Green Zone government would certainly fall to the patriotic armed, social and political Iraqi forces. The U.S. military is very clear on this point. “Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time,” said Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in playing down the significance of withdrawal dates. “And, if we get to a point where this SOFA is agreed to, and have a relationship with the government of Iraq tied to it, that we will continue to have discussions with them over time, as conditions continue to evolve.”

The U.S. and the occupation government’s Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, are declaring the SOFA as a victory for Iraqi sovereignty. It is true that the agreement would require Joint Committees to be established between the Green Zone government and the U.S. military to address issues of security. But the text of the agreement is meaningless when one considers how unequal the partners to it are.In reality the agreement further erodes Iraqi sovereignty and ensures the continued domination of Iraq by the U.S. and their local Iraqi allies, based in the Green Zone of Baghdad. It ensures the United States will remain for at least another three years and potentially much longer.

Popular movement demands “U.S. Out Now”

An estimated 150,000 Iraqis took to the streets Oct. 18 to rally against the draft agreement. Resentment and anger at the occupation and its local allies runs high among Iraqis. Sameer al-Rashid, a civil servant, told the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman, “How do you expect me to accept signing a security agreement with someone who has occupied my country? What security the U.S. can bring to us after all the calamities we have passed through?” Another Iraqi, Abdullah Karim, said, “It [the agreement] will not succeed. It is going to fail because it is another form of occupation or mandate. There is no occupier who looks after the interests of those occupied. Occupiers always look for their own interests and put them above everything else.” (Azzaman, Oct. 31)

After the approval of Iraq’s Council of Ministers, the SOFA now faces a test in the country’s Green Zone parliament. With provincial elections looming in January 2009, each political faction is seeking to appear more patriotic and anti-occupation than the next. Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers have at times fought against the U.S. military and at times cooperated with it, has warned against the puppet parliament approving the security pact. A spokesperson for Sadr’s parliamentary bloc, Ahmed al-Masoudi, said, “If the agreement is signed, not only the Sadr movement will use arms but so will all the Iraqi resistance groups, both Shiite and Sunni.” (Washington Post, Nov. 15)

With a vote in the puppet parliament set for Nov. 24, the eyes of the world will be on Iraq. The people of Iraq have spoken decisively against the agreement and demanded the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces. The true test of Iraqi sovereignty does not lie in passing the SOFA, but in its rejection. The anti-war movement in the U.S. must also intensify its work in demanding the immediate end to the unjust occupation of Iraq.

#Iraq #News #Occupation #IraqiResistance #SOFA #GreenZone #MiddleEast