As 'sovereignty' date nears
CIA picks Iraqi prime minister
Resistance pushes Bush clique into deeper crisis
By Fred Goldstein
The process of forming an interim government,
preliminary to the June 30 "transfer of sovereignty" to Iraq,
has only highlighted the complete failure of the U.S.
occupation to subdue the Iraqi people.
After a year of occupation, Washington was only able to come
up with a new version of the discredited Iraqi Governing
Council, which is widely hated as a complete puppet of the U.S.
government.
Previous to his recent overthrow, the most prominent
pro-U.S. figure on the Governing Council was Ahmad Chalabi, a
rich exile and wheeler-dealer known to be a creature of the
Pentagon. Chalabi was toppled as a result of the war between
the Pentagon, on the one hand, and on the other the CIA, State
Department and U.S. military leaders angry with the Rumsfeld/
Wolfowitz group for their conduct of the war.
Chalabi has now been replaced as the pre-eminent puppet by a
new interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a creature of the CIA
and MI6, the British spy agency. In his first speech, Allawi
declared that the Iraqis do not like living under occupation,
but nevertheless "We will need the participation of the
multinational forces to defeat the enemies of Iraq. We will
enter into alliances with our allies to accomplish that."
Thus, Allawi made the requisite declaration to enter into a
status-of-forces agreement giving legal cover to the U.S.
military to continue its de facto occupation after its de jure
status as occupier is over on June 30. He also used Bush/
Rumsfeld speak to condemn the Iraqi resistance fighting for
national independence, declaring them to be "the enemies of
Iraq."
Allawi impressed Western
intelligence agencies
Allawi, a former Baathist, was a student leader in Iraq and
Britain in the 1970s who defected to the British security
services. He then went into business, using Saudi contacts. "He
was charming, intelligent and had a gift for impressing Western
intelligence agencies," wrote the London Independent of May 29.
After the 1991 Gulf War, he founded the Iraqi National Accord
with the aid of the CIA.
"He is the person through whom the controversial claim was
channeled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be
operational in 45 minutes," continued the Independent.
"In the mid-1990s ... Dr. Allawi began to move from the
orbit of MI6 to the CIA. He persuaded his new master that he
was in a position to organize a military coup in Baghdad,"
wrote the Independent. The U.S.- and British-backed coup
failed. But after the U.S. capture of Baghdad last year, Allawi
and the INA set up in Iraq.
"There were few signs that they had any popular support,"
continued the Inde pen dent. "During an uprising in the town of
Baiji, north of Baghdad last year, crowds immediately set fire
to the INA office."
The composition of the so-called "interim government" is so
thoroughly bankrupt that it is generating gloom and pessimism
in U.S. ruling class circles. The Washington Post of June 2
moaned that UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had failed as a "one-man
nation builder."
"In the end, hemmed in by hovering U.S. officials and their
present and former Iraqi allies, Mr. Brahimi acquiesced to a
cabinet led by the same former exiles and Kurdish politicians
who populated the discredited Iraqi Governing Council."
But the Post noted the real dilemma: "Perhaps he had few
alternatives: Iraq appears to be bereft of political leaders
who are popular, capable and willing to cooperate with the U.S.
plans for political transition."
After a bloody war of aggression and a year of occupation,
the U.S. government and military and anyone associated with
them are hated in Iraq. There is no way around it. For the
minority who still do not hate them for their brutal military
raids, their torture at Abu Ghraib, the death and destruction
visited on Falluja, Najaf and countless other cities, and their
imperial arrogance, fear of being tainted by association with
the occupiers keeps them away from even appearing to
collaborate.
Everyone knows that there is no way to transfer
"sovereignty" to a group that relies on the U.S. militarily,
financially, politically and is hated by the Iraqi people in
whose name they are supposed to be exercising sovereignty.
Washington quietly planned total control
Right now negotiations among the imperialist powers are
going on in the United Nations Security Council over how much
"sovereignty" to give Iraq. The axis of the debate is whether
or not to put forward a time table for U.S. withdrawal, how
much say the Iraqis will have in U.S. military operations, the
command over the Iraqi army and police, access to finances, and
so on.
This debate is largely one of form. "As Washington prepares
to hand over power, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and other
officials are quietly building institutions that will give the
U.S. powerful levers for influencing nearly every important
decision the interim government will make." (Wall Street
Journal, May 13)
Washington has established advisers at every level of
government and in every ministry. The advisers, either U.S. or
Iraqi proxies, will serve multi-year terms and will have
authority to award contracts, conduct investigations and direct
troops. The new government will "be unable to make major
decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S.
approval."
The Office of Inspector General will put appointees in every
ministry for five-year terms. The Board of Supreme Audit will
review all contracts and investigate any agency that uses
public money--most of which will come from the U.S.
government.
"The nerve center of the U.S. presence in Iraq," reported
the Journal, "will be the massive new embassy." It will employ
1,300 people from the U.S. and 2,000 or more Iraqis. Ambassador
John Negro ponte will be the new proconsul of Iraq, assisted by
two deputies: James Jeffrey, formerly of the Army Special
Forces, and Ron Newman, another military figure.
In addition to having 140,000 troops in the country, the
Pentagon is going ahead with plans to establish 14 permanent
military bases in Iraq. Washington has set up intricate
consulting relationships, auditing programs and other secret
methods of controlling Iraqi oil money.
Mission not accomplished
The point is, however, that the Iraqi people know all this.
And no Bush-orchestrated phony "transfer of sovereignty" can
conceal the plans to hold the country in subjugation. This is
what has fueled the resistance and will continue to do so.
The June 30 transfer was originally conceived of last
December, as part of Bush's election strategy. It was supposed
to be a moment of triumph. Oil was supposed to be flowing and
oil profits were supposed to be recycled into U.S. corporate
coffers. The process" was supposed to be in full swing as a
prime mechanism for U.S. multinationals to get a complete lock
on the Iraqi economy.
A stable puppet regime was supposed to be in place and on
display for the world--a cover for the U.S. imperialist
takeover. The riches were supposed to be flowing into Wall
Street and the ruling class would be content; media critics
would be silenced. The Bush-Rumsfeld triumphalist doctrine of
preemptive war and unilateral world conquest would be
vindicated. Bush's poll numbers would rise irresistibly on his
way to the election.
June 30, 2004, was supposed to reverse the humiliating
after-effects of Bush's "mission accomplished" landing on the
USS Lincoln aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003. That would-be
presidential campaign photo-op subsequently turned out to be a
disaster.
Today, no one can ignore the fact that an isolated group of
puppets has been selected behind the scenes, in secret
back-room deals, protected by the highest security inside the
U.S. Occupation Authority Green Zone. The site and time of the
presentation of the new "interim government" was kept a secret.
But that did not keep the Iraqi resistance from setting off a
car bomb outside the Green Zone to coincide with the
ceremonies.
While the new group was speaking, smoke was billowing up in
central Bagh dad near the Green Zone. Four mortar-like
explosions were heard in the same area. Gunfire erupted near
one of the entrances to the zone. The U.S. military had to rush
soldiers from the convention center toward the al-Rashid Hotel
while aircraft hovered overhead.
The capitalist media tried to minimize these events, but the
presentation of the interim government will turn out to be a
strong show of the weakness and isolation, not only of the
puppet group, but of the U.S. occupation itself.
On both occasions, May 1, 2003, and June 1, 2004, the U.S.
imperialists suffered from the same fundamental miscalculation.
They completely discounted the determination of the Iraqi
people to resist and to fight for national liberation from
colonialism--just as they had done in Vietnam, just as the
French did in Algeria, just as all ruling classes do. The U.S.
imperialists discounted the politically conscious masses of
people who, with their long history of anti-colonialism, are a
fundamental factor that must be taken into consideration.
The struggle of the Iraqis has forced the Bush
administration to pull back in Falluja and Najaf. It has forced
the Penta gon to seek relief. The timing of the pullback has
been influenced by the exhaustion of the U.S. soldiers who have
been kept on extended tours, sent in to fight a dirty war, and
demoralized by the exposure of horrendous tortures at Abu
Ghraib prison and the subsequent attempt by the high command to
dump it all on low-ranking enlisted soldiers.
The pullback has also been dictated by Bush's election
needs. The growing discontent of the people in this country
with mounting casualties, the hundreds of billions of dollars
being poured into the occupation with no real end in sight, and
the Abu Ghraib revelations have sent Bush's poll ratings to
record lows.
Warning: Split in ruling class does not mean
pullout
The relentless Iraqi resistance has split the ruling class,
the military and the media. Where there was once uniform praise
for the war, now there is massive and growing criticism and
disillusionment with the course of the occupation. Bush could
not afford another major military and political setback in
Iraq, either in Falluja or Najaf.
Because of the resistance, the occupation is truly in
crisis. Talk of setting an exit date is beginning to show up in
the media and from various advisors to U.S. imperialism,
including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Gen. William Odom and others.
Creeping defeatism is setting in among sections of the ruling
class.
But the anti-war movement should not be lulled into
inactivity by all the splits and criticisms. The Pentagon is on
the ground. The stakes for U.S. imperialism are high. Its goal
of reconquering the Middle East with Iraq as its strategic
centerpiece looks dim right now. But no one should count on
them to pull out. They are coming toward a situation where they
will eventually be faced with a stark choice between defeat and
an escalation in their Iraq military adventure.
John Kerry is trying to put forth a program that would pull
their irons out of the fire. His program for Iraq is to
internationalize the occupation, internationalize the
oppression and the exploitation of the Iraqi people. Share the
plunder with imperialist allies in return for troops on the
ground.
That itself is an imperialist solution that is unacceptable
to the Iraqi people and should be unacceptable to the anti-war
movement.
But Kerry speaks for a section of the ruling class that says
"defeat is unthinkable." He has said as much, declaring that
"the stakes are too high." And in the event that the other
imperialists cannot be persuaded to take Washington off the
hook, and until that should happen, he is firmly committed, as
is a large section of the military, to sending in more U.S.
troops.
Of course, he does not say where these troops will come
from. No one mentions the draft in an election year. But a
draft is inevitable should the U.S. ruling class decide on the
adventure of escalation.
The combination of the determined Iraqi resistance, the
splits growing in the ruling class, the exhaustion of U.S.
troops, the need for a new military strategy, and the needs of
the Bush election campaign have produced a moment in which many
are watching the politics of the election and the maneuvers of
the U.S. government in Iraq in the hope that there will be some
sort of peaceful resolution of the situation.
The only course to pursue, now that the occupation is in a
crisis, is one of independent anti-war struggle, without
falling prey to the "anybody but Bush" syndrome. It is time to
escalate the anti-war struggle and point the finger at the
giant capitalists, the imperialists who want to exploit and
dominate the world. They are the true war makers and war
criminals.
Reprinted from the June 10, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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