10 YEARS AFTER GULF WAR:  NEW ERA OF STRUGGLE GIVES HOPE TO IRAQ

By Sara Flounders

On Jan. 16, 1991, jet bombers, aircraft carriers and almost  a million troops from 17 nations began an all-out assault on  Iraq under U.S. command.

This year is the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War, which  provides an opportunity to put it in historical perspective.

As the son of George Bush prepares to sit in the White House  with the same advisors and generals who conducted the 1991  assault on a small, developing nation in the Middle East,  it's important to evaluate what U.S. imperialism achieved-- and what it did not.

U.S. imperialism used both massive, overwhelming military  force and the harshest economic sanctions in history against  Iraq. Yet it did not accomplish its aims.

The United States did not succeed in dismembering Iraq,  although its murderous policy has killed over 1 million  Iraqis.

Nor has Washington been able to reduce Iraq--a country that  ranks second in the world in oil reserves--to a puppet  regime.

The question of who owns and controls oil is vital to the  handful of major corporations and banks that decide  development on a global scale. After a decade of military,  economic, financial, media and diplomatic warfare, the  immense oil profits of Iraq are still not in the hands of  U.S. corporations.

In fact, the sanctions are crumbling. Iraq is breaking out  of its U.S.-imposed isolation.

Despite Washington's fierce resistance, flights to Iraq are  now almost a daily occurrence. Demonstrations across the  world and many solidarity delegations show Iraq is not  alone.

The struggle in the Middle East is on the rise again. The  Palestinian struggle is in a sustained revolutionary mood.  The U.S. government is more hated than ever.

U.S. PRESENCE SPARKS OUTRAGE

Using the war against Iraq as a pretext, the Pentagon was  finally able to permanently position U.S. troops in the  Middle East and establish bases throughout the oil-rich  Persian Gulf. This region holds two-thirds of the world's  oil reserves.

But the presence of U.S. troops and mass awareness of the  enormous suffering in Iraq caused by U.S.-imposed sanctions  has raised the level of anti-imperialist outrage throughout  the Arab world.

U.S. soldiers are under orders to keep a low profile. Bases  are almost hidden.

U.S. officials hardly dare to leave their embassies. U.S.  consulates have closed throughout the region. Families have  been sent home.

The huge U.S. aircraft carriers and destroyers must fuel  offshore. Even offshore, these death machines are a target.  Consider the fate of that most advanced high-tech destroyer,  the USS Cole.

Bush Jr. can't carry out his father's program, even if he  stocks his administration with all the same right-wing and  militarist faces.

It has little to do with intelligence or skill. This is an  altogether different epoch.

'THE NEW WORLD ORDER'

In 1990 the growing crisis in the socialist camp gave  enormous leverage to U.S. imperialism. The working-class  movement and developing nations that had relied on aid,  solidarity and protection from the Soviet Union were  overwhelmed.

For decades, the developing nations and liberation struggles  had had an alternative. Total isolation couldn't be enforced  as long as there was an alternative world system in conflict  with the imperialist powers.

So the setbacks in the socialist camp were a serious blow.

With the 42 days of massive bombardment of Iraq, the  Pentagon moved militarily against the Arab people in a way  that had been impossible when the Soviet Union was strong.  What the senior Bush termed the "New World Order" was really  an aggressive effort to re-colonize the globe.

Today, in contrast, it's a capitalist crisis that is  looming.

The brutal impact of imperialist globalization has  devastated many countries. Resistance to the dictates of the  capitalist market is growing. The tide is turning against  the U.S. ruling class's effort at conquest.

Military strength doesn't always reflect political strength.  It's increasingly clear that even with unopposed control,  Wall Street's system creates far more suffering than  development.

International support and acquiescence to the sanctions are  crumbling. Even the other members of the U.S.-engineered  alliance of robbers and pirates, which were willing to join  in the looting of Iraq 10 years ago, have grown increasingly  restive as they realize they did not benefit from the war.

Why is this happening? Because Iraq has managed to organize  and resist, and because the world movement has refused to be  silent.

Millions have been mobilized in solidarity with the Iraqi  people, especially as the murderous consequences of the  sanctions have become clear.

GULF WAR SYNDROME AND BALKAN SYNDROME

The U.S.-led war against Iraq was a testing ground and an  advertisement for every new weapon. The media were awash in  descriptions of U.S. high-tech military technology. This  included laser-guided smart bombs, cruise missiles, Patriot  missiles and a new generation of tanks equipped with  depleted-uranium shells.

Despite endless wild descriptions of Iraq's "weapons of mass  destruction," Iraq had no weapons in its arsenal with which  to defend itself against this high-tech barrage.

The Pentagon flew over 110,000 bombing sorties--one every 30  seconds for 42 days-- with impunity. "Collateral damage" was  a euphemism coined by the Pentagon to cover up its targeting  of civilians.

Over 100,000 Iraqis were killed in the bombing. U.S. deaths  numbered a mere 148, and more than half of these U.S.  casualties were from friendly fire.

Ten years later, the impact of the war--particularly the  consequences of the radioactive DU weapons first used  against Iraq--is finally coming back to haunt the U.S.  government.

Conventional weapons made with depleted uranium made every  weapon in Iraq's arsenal obsolete. Because of the material's  density, U.S. tanks could shoot twice as far. Their range  was two miles. The Pentagon seemed invincible.

Rank-and-file U.S. soldiers had no idea what the  consequences would be.

In the years since, over 120,000 of the 697,000 U.S. troops  who were stationed in the Gulf region have become  chronically ill with undiagnosed diseases labeled the Gulf  War Syndrome. Many experts, soldiers and activists connect  the extremely high rates of illness in healthy young people  to radioactive and toxic poisoning from the depleted-uranium  weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

In Iraq the impact is still greater. Cancer rates have  increased five-fold and 10-fold, as have immune diseases and  deformities in children.

U.S. Army documents prove that the generals and military  contractors understood the danger of using depleted uranium  during the Gulf War.

Now the issue has exploded in Europe. The political storm  has reached a level that threatens relations in the  imperialist NATO alliance.

It has even brought into question the continued  participation of some European nations in the occupation of  Kosovo.

Governments across Europe are outraged by the number of  cancer deaths of soldiers stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo.  The U.S./NATO bombardment of Bosnia in 1995-1996, and of  Yugoslavia in 1999, with tens of thousands of rounds of  ammunition made with depleted uranium is linked to what is  being called the Balkan Syndrome.

SANCTIONS: A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

From the Vietnam War, the Pentagon had already learned the  limits of its weapons against a people determined to free  themselves from colonial occupation.

Carpet-bombing, napalm, strategic hamlets, concentration  camps and a half-million well-armed U.S. soldiers could not  sustain the occupation of Vietnam in the face of a people's  war.

In Iraq the brass were determined not to repeat their past  miscalculation. U.S. troops did not march on and occupy  Baghdad, even though the Iraqis had no weapon to resist  them.

The generals were afraid that they could not hold the  country in the face of an aroused anti-imperialist movement.  And they feared that any U.S. casualties would awaken mass  opposition at home.

Instead they expected that comprehensive and complete  economic sanctions leveled against every sector of Iraq's  economy would grind the country down. They expected  sanctions to bring about a total government collapse and the  rise of a puppet regime willing to follow Washington's  dictates.

To that end, U.S. bombing systematically targeted Iraq's  infrastructure. Every industry connected to food production,  water purification and irrigation was targeted for  destruction.

A baby formula plant, pharmaceutical plants, fertilizer  plants, pesticide plants, food warehouses, storage,  refrigeration, every grain silo in the country, electrical  generation and communication plants--all were destroyed in  order to intensify the sanctions' impact.

Iraq's government was demonized and isolated. Air travel,  phone calls, the Internet, satellite communications--all  these were denied to Iraq.

Billions of dollars of Iraqi oil revenues were frozen in  banks around the world. All imports and exports were banned.

Iraq was a country cut off from the rest of the world.

The sanctions aren't just paper resolutions. The U.S. Navy  has stopped and boarded over 12,000 ships in the Gulf in an  effort to stop all forms of trade.

Today one-fifth of the total Pentagon budget is dedicated to  the military occupation of the Gulf.

In December 1998, in an effort to further intensify the  impact of sanctions, the United States and Britain began a  campaign of continual low-level bombing of Iraq's  infrastructure. In the past two years they have flown over  20,000 combat sorties.

Incredibly, Iraq has survived and is breaking out of its  absolute isolation.

Baghdad has re-established relations with Syria and Iran.  Since the visit by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in  September, Iraq has again been involved in international  conferences. It is once again a force in the Organization of  Petroleum Exporting Countries.

On this 10th anniversary of the Gulf War, the Iraqi people  and the movement in solidarity with them have many reasons  for optimism. But the sanctions and the war have not ended.  The U.S. government--whether led by Republicans or Democrats- -is firmly committed to overturning the Iraqi government and  seizing control of the country's resources.

The sanctions won't fall by themselves. It will take the  continued determination and renewed commitment of the world  movement to resist this ongoing imperialist crime.

The writer is an organizer of the fourth Iraq Sanctions  Challenge, which is taking 50 delegates and two tons of  medical aid to Iraq in mid-January.

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