Invasion Plan Revealed

U.S. Bullies Iraq

BY PHYLLIS BENNIS
_______________

Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has escalated its threats to overthrow the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. A detailed plan for a U.S. invasion involving 250,000 troops was revealed on July 5.

The plan has not been approved and debate over how to eliminate Hussein continues. Some prefer relying on covert operations. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recently voiced opposition to a full-scale invasion, fearing the death of thousands of U.S. soldiers and the possible failure to eliminate Saddam Hussein. European and Arab allies are also opposed.

Throughout the 1980s, Iraq was one of Washington’s principal allies in the Persian Gulf. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, however, the U.S. launched a devastating war against its former ally. More than 100,000 Iraqis were killed. Iraq’s military was utterly defeated. A UN inspection team reported that “most means of modern life support have been destroyed.”

Since the Gulf War, 12 years of crippling U.S. economic sanctions have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The UN reports that each month 5,000 children under the age of 5 die as a result of the sanctions. U.S. bombings in the so-called “no fly zones” are continuous and further contribute to Iraqi hardship.

NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Before sanctions Iraq reached First World levels of child health, education and general welfare. In 1989 indicators for children’s lives in Iraq were so high that UNICEF was about to close its Iraq program as unnecessary. Today Iraq’s UNICEF program is the second largest in the world. (See “Smart Sanctions Devastate Iraq.”)

So why is the U.S. so determined to attack Iraq?
Weapons of mass destruction?—not very likely. After the Gulf War UN arms inspectors, despite Baghdad’s lack of full cooperation, found and destroyed the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs during six years of intrusive searches. As early as February 1998, UNSCOM chief Richard Butler reported that his team was satisfied that Iraq no longer possessed any nuclear or long-range missile capability. And he said that UNSCOM was “very close” to completing the chemical and biological inspections.

Do some scraps of chemical or biological material still exist? Very likely—after all, the U.S. authorized shipments of biological seed stock for anthrax, e-coli, botulism and other dread diseases to Baghdad throughout the 1980s. But that doesn’t mean there’s any capacity to turn those scraps into strategic weapons that could threaten the U.S.

Others argue that, some time in the future, Iraq might rebuild its weapons of mass destruction and might then turn them over to unknown terrorist groups, who might then attack unknown targets. However, this speculative argument hardly justifies a full-scale war on the already devastated Iraqi population. And international law prohibits preemptive wars.
Human rights?—not a chance. The Iraqi regime has always been harsh and repressive. In fact Baghdad’s worst violations, the anti-Kurdish campaigns and the use of illegal chemical weapons, took place during those years of U.S.-Iraqi chumminess. The Iraqi general responsible, now in exile, recalls that the U.S. even provided targeting information for the poison gas attacks.

WHY THE U.S. WAR DRIVE?
Washington’s drive for “regime change” is more likely motivated by two other factors.

Oil. Iraq is home to the second largest oil reserves in the world. First place Saudi Arabia is increasingly destabilized by the unpopular presence of U.S. troops, along with U.S. support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine, so maintaining control of other major oil sources remains a U.S. priority.

Domestic politics. So much political capital has been invested in “getting Saddam Hussein” that the political risk of advising against military engagement has risen sky-high. Coming out against military strikes threatens anyone with the potentially career-destroying epithet of being “soft on Iraq.”

In the 12 years since Iraq invaded Kuwait, the people of Iraq have lost lives, children, homes, cities, water systems, education and cultural institutions. Sanctions have stripped them of the right to work, the right to travel, to study and to learn. A further attack now, whether by full-scale invasion or covert actions, threatens to further undermine the lives of already desperate Iraqi civilians.

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and author of the forthcoming BEFORE & AFTER: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis.

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