IRAQ
How U.S. policies made the UN a target
By Sara Flounders
Whoever bombed the United Nations headquarters
at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad on Aug. 19, killing 23 and
injuring over 100, mostly UN personnel, the act has raised
questions about the UN's role in Iraq.
The Bush administration has tried to use the bombing to
deepen its hold on Iraq. The White House is already working on
new UN Security Council resolutions to pressure many countries
to commit troops to this criminal occupation.
But the UN bombing also exposed the occupation's weakness.
This may undercut U.S. efforts to bribe other governments to
send the foot soldiers Washing ton needs as additional cannon
fodder.
Though this may come as a surprise to some, the UN hardly
played a humanitarian role in its recent history in Iraq. Its
own former officials will testify to how the UN has made itself
hated among Iraqis.
UN role in Iraq
Dennis Halliday, a former assistant secretary general and
senior UN official in Iraq, resigned in 1999 rather than
administer the UN blockade. He is a predecessor of Sergio
Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative killed in the
Aug. 19 bombing.
Halliday, who was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize,
described the UN role in Iraq: "The West sees the UN as a
benign organization, but the sad reality in much of the world
is that the UN is not seen as benign. The UN Security Council
has been taken over and corrupted by the U.S. and U.K.,
particularly with regard to Iraq, Palestine and Israel.
"In Iraq, the UN imposed sustained sanctions that probably
killed up to 1 million people. Children were dying of
malnutrition and water-borne diseases. The U.S. and U.K. bombed
the infrastructure in 1991, destroying power, water and sewage
systems against the Geneva Convention. It was a great crime
against Iraq.
"Thirteen years of sanctions made it impossible for Iraq to
repair the damage. That is why we have such tremendous
resentment and anger against the UN in Iraq. There is a sense
that the UN humiliated the Iraqi people and society. I would
use the term genocide to define the use of sanctions against
Iraq. Several million Iraqis are suffering cancers because of
the use of depleted uranium shells. That's an atrocity. Can you
imagine the bitterness from all of this?" (Sunday Herald, Aug.
24)
Hans von Sponeck, a former assistant secretary general and
the senior UN official in Iraq who replaced Dennis Halliday,
also resigned in protest of the UN role in 2000. On Aug. 20 Von
Sponeck said on the radio show "Democracy Now" that while the
attack on the UN was horrible it could be "expected" because
the Iraqis were so provoked by the U.S. occupation.
The UN exists in a world where the capitalist market
ruthlessly decides political and economic relations. It is a
body that almost exclusively represents capitalist governments
that do not represent the people or their interests. The United
States, as the undisputed military and economic super-power,
has overwhelming influence.
The UN's humanitarian agencies provide assistance to war
refugees, food to famine victims and medical care to people in
impoverished countries. These agencies' thousands of civil
servants may be deeply committed to providing emergency relief.
But the UN budget for humani tarian assistance is not even a
band-aid.
To put it in perspective: Socialist Cuba, a relatively poor
country with only 11 million people, provides more free doctors
and medical teams to developing countries than the UN World
Health Organization.
1991 war and sanctions
One of the greatest crimes against humanity--the 1991
bombing of Iraq and the 13-year starvation sanctions levied
against that country--was carried out as a UN-authorized
action.
Based on resolutions that the United States pushed through
the UN Security Council, the devastating 42-day bombing of Iraq
in 1991 took place under the UN flag. The bombs reduced Iraq's
earlier accomplishments of free education, free health care,
electrification and modern infrastructure to rubble.
Then 13 years of devastating sanctions were implemented
through the UN Security Council. The sanctions caused the death
of more than 1.5 million Iraqis.
U.S. veto power kept the sanctions ruthlessly in place once
the UN Security Coun cil had voted for them. For the people of
Iraq there is little perceived difference.
As an international movement arose to demand an end to the
sanctions, the United States implemented--again through the
Security Council--the Oil for Food Program. This program
allowed UN sanctions to continue while allowing Iraq to sell a
severely restricted amount of oil. The controls were so onerous
that they drove both Halliday and von Sponeck to resign.
The entire sanctions regime was an effort to totally destroy
Iraq, based on the now exposed myth that Iraq was hiding
weapons of mass destruction.
The UN Security Council, through UNSCOM, carried out more
than 9,000 intrusive weapons inspections. Vital Iraqi
industries were systematically destroyed because the sanctions
program judged countless industrial processes to have a
potential dual military-civilian use.
The entire UN inspections program was later exposed as a
thinly veiled U.S. spy operation. The UN weapons inspectors
were always based at the Canal Hotel.
It was only in March 2003 that the UN Security Council
refused to pass a vote authorizing U.S. bombing and invasion of
Iraq. Nevertheless, the Bush administration rushed ahead with a
war that was unprovoked, criminal and illegal against a
sovereign but defenseless country.
A month after the Pentagon blasted its way into Iraq and the
sheer brutality of the war had overwhelmed the mass movement,
the same UN member states that had refused to authorize the war
voted, with the exception of Syria, for a resolution that gave
the United States and British military occupation full
"authority."
This was the most sweeping authorization for colonial
domination in UN history.
After the Baghdad government collapsed there was a growing
effort to again make the UN part of the U.S.-British occupation
machinery and to line up countries to send foot soldiers, while
keeping total U.S. command and control.
On Aug. 14, the UN Security Council passed a resolution
welcoming Washing ton's handpicked "Iraqi Governing Coun cil."
The UN vote established the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq,
called UNAMI.
UNAMI sent 300 advisors to Iraq to work on such
"humanitarian" missions as training a new Iraqi police
force.
In the Aug. 20 British Independent news paper, reporter and
Middle East expert Robert Fisk wrote that the Aug. 19 bombing
of the UN building "proves that no foreign organization, no
NGO, no humanitarian organization, no investor, no businessmen
can expect to be safe under America's occupation."
Who are the foreign terrorists?
Virtually all the U.S. and British corporate media claim
foreign forces are pouring into Iraq to fight the U.S.
occupation. They accuse the Al Qaeda network, the Ansar
Al-Islam group, Syrians, Saudis and Iranians of slipping across
the border. The Financial Times speculated that 3,000 Saudis
volunteers had infiltrated Iraq from the north--although the
Saudi border is on Iraq's south.
These unsubstantiated reports are a feeble attempt to
downplay the breadth and depth of Iraqi resistance. Iraqis are
skilled, highly educated, have military training and are
furious over the U.S. occupation. They can organize their own
resistance.
A guerrilla struggle has quickly developed using a diverse
range of tactics involving ambushes, land mines, trip wires,
car bombs, drive-by shootings and rocket-propelled grenade
launchers.
Today, Iraqis consider the more than 140,000 U.S. troops and
10,000 British troops to be the main foreign terrorists in
Iraq.
Meanwhile the Bush administration is in a wild scramble to
increase foreign inter vention in the service of the U.S.
occupation. Through bribery and heavy political
arm-twisting
Washington has forced others to pledge support.
Forty-four countries have agreed to send some military
forces to operate under the Pentagon's command. Five other
countries are discussing the possibility. Although few troops
have actually arrived, approximately 22,000 are pledged.
UN under U.S. command
Less than 48 hours after the explosion at the UN offices in
Baghdad, Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the UN to
press for a new resolution that would convince member states
such as France, Russia, India, Pakistan and Turkey to provide
troops for a proposed multinational force.
Powell made it clear that the United States is unwilling to
give the UN authority in Iraq. The other imperialist powers,
which are in competition with U.S. corporate power, seek some
"authority"-- meaning some say in the multi-billion-dollar
reconstruction budget and in contracts for oil exploration,
development, pumping, transport and sales.
According to Philip Gordon, a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institute, a U.S. think tank, the Bush administration has
decided after weeks of internal debate to refuse to transfer
any significant authority to the UN, a strategy he considers an
error. (Aug. 20 International Herald Tribune)
But the UN bombing undercut U.S. efforts. The most immediate
fallout from the attack is the decision by Japan to postpone
"until next year" sending 1,000 troops.
Poland immediately scaled back its unpopular decision to
send its troops. Polish troops were to be stationed in the
central area between the British and U.S. forces.
Ukrainian troops were to operate under Polish command. This
would have freed up thousands of U.S. troops. Polish Foreign
Minister Cimoszewicz stated that access to Iraqi oilfields "is
our ultimate objective."
In a rerun of the old Spanish Empire, Spain's troops were to
command troops from El Salvador, Honduras, the Domin ican
Republic and Nicaragua. Today these countries are all U.S.
neo-colonies. The death of a Spanish civilian at the UN
headquarters has opened a new debate and renewed opposition
within Spain.
The decision in The Netherlands to send Dutch troops is
already under dom estic attack because of the radiation danger
due to the U.S. use of depleted-uranium weapons.
Italy's commitment of troops was already unpopular and is
expected to meet new resistance.
Adding to the problems, the UN, while declaring that it will
remain in Iraq, is cutting its staff more than in half. The
International Monetary Fund has withdrawn its staff.
Within the U.S. ruling class there is a growing split over
the involvement of the UN. Some in the Bush administration are
determined to go it alone. Others are increasingly concerned
about the mounting crisis, the vulnerability and isolation of
the U.S. position. Clearly the U.S. occupation is in
crisis.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfo witz, touring Iraq on
July 20, made the incredible statement: "I think all foreigners
should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq."
Wolfowitz, a key architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
should realize that only by bringing the U.S. troops home now
could his statement come true.
Reprinted from the Sept. 4, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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