news analysis - iraq: from bad to worse
WORKERS, OCT 2005 ISSUE
US VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney said in June that the insurgency in Iraq was "in its last throes". He earlier said that January's elections would mean "the end of the insurgency". Rumsfeld said on 26 June, "The insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on for five, six, eight, ten, twelve years." Blair said on 27 June, "I think two years will be enough and more than enough to establish security." Three different estimates — it just shows that they will say anything to get their way. What they will not do, until we make them do so, is withdraw the troops.
Death toll
From March 2003 to 3 August 2005, 1,826 US soldiers had been killed and 13,000 had been wounded. 93 British soldiers and 101 other Coalition soldiers had also been killed, as well as 4,895 Iraqi soldiers and between 23,209 and 26,264 civilians. The CIA has admitted that Iraq is now a more effective training ground for Islamic militants than Afghanistan was under the Taliban.
The Attorney-General admitted in his Confidential Note to Blair of 26 March 2003, "it must be borne in mind that the lawfulness of any occupation after the conflict has ended is still governed by the legal basis for the use of force". As the attack was unlawful, so the ensuing war against the Iraqi people's sovereignty and political independence is unlawful.
International law
Security Council Resolution 1483 of 22 May 2003 did not legitimise the invasion or the occupation. It called on the occupying powers to conduct the occupation in accordance with international law. (Similarly, the UN has not legitimised the Israeli occupation when it called on Israel to conduct its occupation of the occupied territories in accordance with international law.) Resolution 1483 stressed "the right of the Iraqi people freely to determine their own political future and control their own natural resources" and asserted "that the day when Iraqis govern themselves must come quickly".
The US government is preparing to attack Syria on the grounds that it houses a specific location from which foreign fighters are coming into Iraq. This is the same phoney excuse that the US state used when it sent forces to invade Laos and Cambodia during its illegal war of aggression against Vietnam. Polls suggest that 60% of US citizens now want the troops out of Iraq. Only 42% approve of Bush — the lowest rating of any second-term President since Nixon during Watergate.