Target Iraq

"Tens of thousands of marines and soldiers [will invade Iraq] from Kuwait. Hundreds of warplanes basedin as many as eight countries, possibly including Turkey and Qatar, would unleash a huge air assault againstthousands of targets, including airfields, roadways and fiber-optics communications sites. Special operationsforces or covert CIA operatives would strike at depots or laboratories storing or manufacturing Iraq'ssuspected weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to launch them."

New York Times , July 5, 2002

This isn't a fictional scenario from a Tom Clancy novel. It's a real scenario from "CentCom Courses ofAction"--the latest U.S. plan for war on Iraq.

Leaked to the New York Times, the plan calls for attacks on Iraq by U.S. air, land, and sea- basedforces from the north, south, and west, in coordination with covert operations inside Iraq by the CIA andvarious Iraqi groups. As many as 250,000 U.S. troops could be involved. The goal: to overthrow the Iraqigovernment and install a pro-U.S. regime.

In the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Iraqis. A new U.S. warcarried to Baghdad could make that bloodbath pale in comparison.

The Central Command plan reveals the rulers’ determination to wage war on Iraq, and how advanced theirplanning is. Yet the establishment treated their disclosure as routine -- as if the U.S. has an undisputedright to openly plot wars on whomever, whenever.

No big outcry came from Congress -- leading Democrats vocally support "regime change" in Iraq. OneRepublican backed congressional hearings "as a way of building public support for potential militaryaction." Mainstream editorials focused on tactics and timing - not justice.

Military Preparations Underway

Since September 11 there has been intense discussion within the ruling class over how to seize upon theattacks to advance U.S. global interests. Much of this discussion has focused on Iraq - most of it behindclosed doors.

The options reportedly being considered include a CIA-organized coup against the Hussein regime; acampaign--modeled after the U.S. war in Afghanistan--involving a combination of air strikes, a limited numberof U.S. Special Forces, and anti-Hussein forces in Iraq; a full-scale U.S. invasion; and various combinationsof all three.

The New York Times notes that "Courses of Action" may indicate that war planners favor alarge-scale invasion: "Most military and administration officials believe that a coup in Iraq would beunlikely to succeed, and that a proxy battle using local forces would not be enough to drive the Iraqi leaderfrom power."

Meanwhile, the U.S. has been actively preparing for battle. The Washington Post (6/16) reports thatearlier this year, Bush "signed an intelligence order directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive,covert program to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to use lethal force to capture the Iraqipresident." One official told the Post that these plans were not a substitute for war but"should be viewed largely as `preparatory' to a military strike."

In the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. built up an extensive network of military bases throughout theregion. Today there are some 20,000 U.S. troops in Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait and another 5,000 in SaudiArabia. These bases are being beefed up, expanded, and readied.

The New York Times reports, "Thousands of marines from the First Marine Expeditionary Force atCamp Pendleton, Calif., the marine unit designated for the Gulf, have stepped up their mock assaultdrills," and the "Air Force is stockpiling weapons, ammunition and spare parts, like airplaneengines, at depots in the United States and in the Middle East." Troops are reportedly arriving inTurkey, and military aid to Jordan is being increased.

U.S. officials have been touring the pro-U.S. regimes in the area to line up support--Defense SecretaryRumsfeld visited Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar in June. In April the CIA brought officials from Kurdish groupsbased in northern Iraq to the U.S. for secret meetings. Some 70 former Iraqi military officers met in Londonduring the week of July 8 to discuss their role in a U.S. war. And U.S. support for Israel's brutal invasionsof the West Bank and Gaza--as well as hypocritical and empty words about a Palestinian "state"--areaimed at extinguishing the fires of the Palestinian uprising in preparation for war against Iraq.

According to the New York Times (7/10), "Once a consensus is reached on the concept, the stepstoward assembling a final war plan and the element of timing for ground deployments and launching an air warrepresent the final decisions for President Bush to make." The Times also reports (7/5) that"senior administration officials continue to say that any offensive would probably be delayed until earlynext year, allowing time to create the right military, economic and diplomatic conditions." Of course,such timetables are speculative and subject to change by global events.

Preparing Pretexts

War preparations are also well underway on the propaganda front. At his July 8 press conference, Bushdeclared, "The world would be safer, more peaceful if there is a regime change" in Iraq. The U.S.accuses Iraq of possessing or developing "weapons of mass destruction." Yet a number of former UNarms inspectors say that Iraq has largely been disarmed, and even Pentagon officials admit that Iraq's currentmilitary is only one-third its 1990 size.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is boosting its already staggering military budget by another $50 billion, and nowembraces preemptive wars and first use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. has troops stationed in every corner ofthe globe and is at this moment bombing Afghanistan, organizing counterinsurgency campaigns in the Philippinesand elsewhere, and backing Israel's murderous assaults on Palestinians.

The Bush administration demands that Iraq accept intrusive, U.S.-controlled arms inspections - in otherwords spies must be allowed to roam throughout Iraq as the U.S. prepares its war. After talks between Iraq andthe UN on return of arms inspectors recently broke off, the State Department called Iraq "a threat toregional security, to the nations in the region."

Iraq argues that any agreement on arms inspection must be part of an overall agreement on exactly whatconstitutes compliance with all UN resolutions. Such terms have never been clearly spelled out -- allowing theU.S. to claim Iraq is "non-compliant" no matter what steps it takes.

This is the prime U.S. excuse for maintaining sanctions, which were extended again in May. In 1999, UNICEFfound that one Iraqi child in seven dies before the age of 5. This means that 5,000 more children in Iraq dieeach month today than before the U.S. war and sanctions. UNICEF also reported that 22 percent of Iraq's youngchildren are chronically malnourished.

An Imperialist Agenda

After September 11, the U.S. rulers aggressively pushed forward their pre-existing agenda of recastingglobal relations to extend and solidify U.S. global dominance. And waging war on Iraq has been central to thiswhole vision.

The Wall Street Journal (6/14) revealed that within days of the September attacks, top Bush advisers"argued over whether to launch a strike on Iraq"-- even though there was "no real evidence thatSaddam Hussein's regime had anything to do with the terror attacks."

In the view of those running the empire, Iraq's defiance undermines U.S. hegemony in the oil-rich MiddleEast and tarnishes its standing as the world's dominant superpower.

By toppling the current Iraqi government and installing a pro-U.S. regime, the U.S. hopes to tighten itsgrip on Persian Gulf oil-- and all who depend on it. These global predators view war on Iraq as key toredrawing the region’s political map and intimidating anti-U.S. resistance. According to the New YorkTimes, top officials argue that "an Iraq under new governance could become a new Western ally,helping to reduce American dependency on bases in Saudi Arabia, to secure Israel's eastern flank and act as awedge between Iran and Syria."

Waging war on Iraq is also seen as a crucial test of the so-called "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptivewars against any the U.S. considers a threat. Those running the empire are determined to show the world thatthe U.S. is willing and able to crush any challenger, or sweep away any impediment to its power.

U.S. plans for war against Iraq--and the whole "Bush doctrine"--have nothing to do with"protecting the world" or "saving the lives of American people." They’re about nakedimperialist power politics--gangsterism on a global scale.

In 1991, on the eve of "Operation Desert Storm," George Bush Sr. declared, "We have noargument with the people of Iraq; indeed, we have only friendship for the people there." Eleven yearslater, over one million Iraqis are dead thanks to U.S. bombs and sanctions.

Any new U.S. war on Iraq will no doubt be undertaken in the name of helping Iraq's people. But such a warwill once again inflict enormous destruction, suffering, and death on ordinary Iraqis.

People around the world -- especially those of us who live in the U.S. itself -- must oppose such an unjustand cruel war with all our hearts.

Larry Everest is a correspondent for the RevolutionaryWorker newspaper and the author of Behind the Poison Cloud: Union Carbide’s Bhopal Massacre.He traveled to Iraq in 1991 and shot the video Iraq: War Against the People.