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		26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 International	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Truth as casualty
As the US and Britain mobilise their ground troops in and around Iraq the American anti-war movement responds in kind, writes Faiza Rady

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Protesters chanting "inspections not war" disrupt US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's opening remarks at a congressional hearing on Iraq, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. The protest erupted as Rumsfeld was beginning his prepared statement before the House Armed Services Committee
Last Monday was a brisk and busy fall day for transnational arms' dealers in Washington DC. Hosting their annual arms bazaar in the US capital, Lockheed, Boeing and a multitude of corporate powerhouses displayed their newest hi-tech hardware, while scrabbling to grab highly-coveted government contracts. The day's wheeling and dealing concluded with a keynote speech by United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, this year's guest of honour at the bazaar.
Although eloquent and finely-tuned to his corporate audience, Rumsfeld's speech was at times inaudible. It was rhythmically drowned out by protest chants from across the street, where the anti-war coalition Act Now to Stop the War and End Racism (ANSWER) demonstrated against the war in Iraq. Led by the New York-based International Action Centre (IAC), an anti-war group focusing on Iraq and Palestine, the protestors demanded "no new war against Iraq"; "stop US aid to Israel"; and "money for jobs, education and healthcare -- not war".
Following the street protests, IAC activists decoded the Bush administration's propaganda war against Iraq. They prefer to use euphemisms in lieu of designating the real thing, said Deidre Griswold. "This is because the constitution explicitly forbids in its very first article what the president is doing. The constitution specifies that only congress can declare war."
From Korea, more than half a century ago, by way of Vietnam, Grenada, Nicaragua and Panama to operations "Desert Storm" in Iraq and the most recent "Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan -- a string of US presidents have all "intervened" rather than waged wars of aggression.
In the case of Iraq "intervention" is already in high gear, explained Griswold. "The quiet build-up includes the presence of up to five nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, each with an attack force of between 70 and 80 jets in and around the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. There are also several US Marine expeditionary forces, infantry battalions with helicopter gunships, tanks and armoured personnel carriers on special assault ships," she added.
Press reports have fleshed out details of the military deployment. The Asia Times reported last month that the numbers of ground troops have soared since January, when an estimated 50,000 US and British troops were stationed around Iraq's borders. In March and June, the stationing of soldiers accelerated. The US army built a new airfield in Qatar, out of which thousands of troops were flown into Iraqi Kurdistan. In August, thousands of more American soldiers conducted joint military exercises with the Jordanian army. Reinforcement battalions were also added to US troops in Kuwait, another vital American base in the Gulf. The Asia Times and other sources now estimate that US troops have swelled to over 100,000 along the Iraqi borders and in Iraqi Kurdistan.
But there is more. Last month, the Turkish army joined the assault against Iraq. The Turkish daily Hurriyet reported on 9 August that a contingent of 5,000 Turkish soldiers invaded northern Iraq and took over an Iraqi air base north of Mosul.
While the international media is locked into guessing games about if, when, and how the Bush administration will finally strike -- assaults are on the rise. Besieged by Turkey to the north, Jordan to the west, Kuwait and Qatar to the south-west, the noose around Iraq's neck is tightening. Camouflaged and under- reported, the as yet undeclared war is quietly picking up steam. "But an 'undeclared' war can be every bit as bloody and destructive as a declared one," commented Griswold.
Reportedly, American and British troops are merely mapping out targets and making plans. But major attacks are underway and have recently accelerated. On 15 September, US and UK war planes, flying out of American bases in Kuwait carried out 38 sorties, bombing an air defence communications centre near Tallil, about 160 miles southeast of Baghdad. An earlier offensive on 5 September, involved a fleet of 100 British and American planes hitting an air defence command and control facility at a military airfield, 240 miles west of Baghdad.
Since January, US and UK bombers have hit the north and the south of the country at least 35 times -- this averages out to one bombing per week.
The usual "collateral damage" included the killing of 18 people, when a bomber "inadvertently" destroyed an apartment building in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.
A euphemism for the killing of civilians, "collateral damage" is regarded as an integral part of the new "humanitarian" war. "They never have anything against the people they bomb," said Michel Collon from the Belgian branch of the IAC. "Their wars are always humanitarian. But the experts warn: an invasion, even if limited, will kill a million Iraqis by dismantling the centralised system that provides them nourishment under the conditions of the embargo."
But "collateral damage" is besides the point, as the 1991 Gulf War poignantly illustrated. "We hit the country with 110,000 aerial sorties, dropping 88,500 tonnes of bombs," said former US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, founder and director of the IAC. "We killed more people every day for 42 days than those who died here on 9/11. And with the sanctions we killed a million and a half Iraqis."
So, what is the point of the war? To crush Saddam Hussein because he has weapons of mass destruction and poses a threat to the US? Brian Becker, co-director of the IAC and a spokesperson for the ANSWER coalition dismissed the charges as "farcical".
Concerning the weapons of mass destruction, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter told the BBC last year that by the time he left Iraq in 1998, the country's capacity to produce such weapons had been destroyed as a result of the 9,000 odd inspections that UN inspection teams conducted between 1991 and 1998. Notwithstanding the expert's testimony, the Bush team pledged to disclose new facts about Iraq's alleged capacity to produce nuclear weapons, said Becker.
On 6 and 7 September, major US dailies carried front page stories relating "new evidence of Iraq's nuclear threat". The media blitz started with The New York Times reporting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had produced satellite pictures revealing new significant activity at nuclear sites in Iraq. This information was quick to reach the major networks and talk shows that proceeded to barrage the news with "clear proof" that the Bush administration had been on the right path all along when they stepped up the offensive against the "evil regime" in Baghdad.
Interviewed by CNN on 8 September, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that "waiting to attack Iraq is not an option." Cheney then asked his audience to imagine if "they" (the Iraqis) had used nuclear weapons on 11 September. "It wouldn't be 3,000 dead but tens of thousands dead," asserted the vice- president. Never mind that there is no evidence linking the Iraqi government with Al- Qa'eda. Regardless, Cheney ingeniously killed one bird with two stones by relating "clear evidence" of the Iraqi's regime nuclear capabilities to the threat they ostensibly pose to the US.
"But the whole story, like most of its kind, was false," commented Becker. "It provided three consecutive days of propaganda against Iraq to prepare the population for war, but it was based on hype."
On 8 September, the IAEA denied that the satellite photos showed any clear or obscure evidence of nuclear activity. Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesperson for the agency, said that the news stories were based on a quote by a single misguided nuclear inspector.
However, despite the IAEA's denial of the "evidence", the media blitz has achieved its purpose and swayed public opinion in favour of the warmongers. "The rulers of the largest nuclear power in the world appear every day before the world media to howl about Iraq's nuclear threat," said Becker. "The truth is a casualty in the war of publicity that precedes the actual war."

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