By Sara Flounders

There are ominous signs that a new wider offensive against Iraq is in the planning stage in Pentagon war rooms. An Aug. 26 French Press Agency (AFP) report states that a new UN Security Council resolution may provide the cover for an aggressive new onslaught. The British representative is expected to introduce the U.S.-backed resolution at a meeting of foreign ministers of the member states of the Security Council in mid-September.

"If it is adopted, the resolution will provide the United States and Britain with a new legal tool to take measures against Iraq," writes the AFP.

It is vital that the movement to end sanctions against Iraq responds to these new threats. The International Action Center has begun preparing a new campaign to oppose the relentless bombing and the continuing sanctions that are starving the Iraqi people. The IAC proposes an Iraq action week September 27 to October 2, 1999.

In December 1998, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in emergency mass protests against the four-day U.S./British "Desert Fox" bombing campaign against Iraq. All across the Middle East and in the U.S. and Britain there were large-scale protests. Earlier, in February 1998, Washington was forced to postpone a planned offensive in the face of mass opposition. Then an outraged meeting of young people confronted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger at a so-called Town Meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

Groups from all over the world began openly challenging U.S. policy. Grassroots organizations gathered medical supplies. Delegations from the Iraq Sanctions Challenge and others traveled to Iraq to defy the sanctions.

Delegations from some countries came with planeloads of supplies. Cuba sent a whole medical teams of doctors, nurses and medical technicians along with supplies to Iraq. Then the Pentagon changed its tactics. Since December 1998, it has carried out a relentless but unpublicized series of air strikes on Iraq. The major corporate media has intentionally downplayed the continuing low-intensity campaign, yet over 1,100 missiles have targeted 359 sites in the last 250 days. This is triple the targets that the Pentagon struck in the December campaign.

These relentless bombings have prevented reconstruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, industry or communications.

Until two weeks ago these targeted sites were all in areas U.S. and British forces have unilaterally declared as "no- fly" zones. In reality, these are free fire zones for U.S. and British jet bombers in northern and in southern Iraq.

On Aug. 19, U.S. warplanes struck, positions outside the no-fly zones. The excuse for all these attacks is that Iraq’s acting within its own borders somehow threatens foreign jet bombers continually flying over the country.

Now, Washington and London, the region’s old colonial ruler, are attempting to impose new conditions and a new deadline on Iraq. According to AFP, they will propose a UN Commission on Inspection and Monitoring to replace the current weapons inspection committee. If unmet the conditions will be the excuse for a far more extensive bombing campaign.

The earlier weapons inspection commission became completely discredited when it was revealed that some inspectors had reported to the CIA, fabricated evidence and were involved in helping establish U.S. bombing targets and in efforts to assassinate Iraqi government officials. Now under a new cover the Pentagon wants to again resume these intrusive inspections.

The sanctions the UN Security Council imposed on Iraq starting August 1990 are now in their tenth year. UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and other international agencies have documented in great detail and in numerous reports since 1991 these sanctions’ enormous toll in human life in Iraq.

Washington insists the sanctions continue as part of the ongoing destabilization campaign against the Iraqi government.

The "oil for food" deal that allows Iraq to sell $5.2 billion of oil every six months has done little to alleviate hunger in Iraq. Oil profits for the big oil monopolies have been kept higher than if Iraqi oil were part of the world market. These corporations have received more than $2.8 billion directly from the program as compensation payments from the war. This program allows the U.S. government, through the special sanctions committee, to interfere in almost every aspect of Iraq’s economy. Iraq’s every order for supplies must pass through a lengthy approval process.

The committee has rejected orders, saying they have possible military usage, no matter how far-fetched this is or how necessary the goods are to the Iraqis. Life- sustaining contracts have been held up for years by demands for more information or review. It has rejected orders for pencils for school children, chlorine to purify water, pipes to deliver water and ambulances—until international campaigns forced the sanctions committee to allow a trickle of supplies into the country.

The U.S. government spends over $50 billion a year to keep aircraft carriers, troops, satellite reconnaissance and jet bombers in the oil-rich Gulf region. These same funds are ripped out of the social programs here in the U.S. Washington has spent other hundreds of millions of dollars to create a totally corrupt Iraqi opposition.

To the Pentagon and the giant oil monopolies’ frustration, none of these brutal tactics have succeeded in bringing down the Iraqi government. Washington wants to establish a totally compliant regime in Iraq, like those in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other client states in the Gulf region.

The anti-sanctions movement must oppose the new Pentagon offensive now in the planning stage. This movement has grown internationally through the past decade to oppose both sanctions and war. It will be tested in the months ahead.

Demonstrations, vigils, meetings and all possible forms of protest will again be vital to push back the Pentagon’s war plans.

Back to: IAC Reports and Statements on Iraq

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