World on the Brink of War By: Sam Bartlett
The Big Issue in Scotland
August 8-14, 2002
Conflict is coming.
'Regime change' may mean greater world security, but it all depends on which regimes change, and how.
Freedom lovers would sleep easier in their beds if Baghdad was bombed into oblivion, says President Bush.
Saddam Hussein probably had similar ideas when planning ex-CIA director George Senior's assassination before the Gulf War. (Rewind just a few years before that and the US intelligence agency was confident enough to admit its role in putting the Butcher of Baghdad into power, and helping him stay there. "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch," said one candid senior official.) But times have changed, and Hussein is back as public enemy number one, following Osama Bin Laden's vanishing act. So is the US's avowed aim of regime change in Iraq based on unfinished family business, or making the world a safer place in the light of "incontrovertible evidence of weapons of mass destruction"? Could it be a handy distraction from domestic accountancy and oil scandals? Or revenge for the atrocities of September 11, despite the lack of evidence linking Iraq with Al Qaida's actions? As the propaganda leaks, smoke and mirrors, and government spin cycles go into overdrive, it's not just the awkward squad who are voicing fear and the need for caution.. On Sunday, Lord Bramall, the top ranking member of the British armed forces until 1985, likened an attack on Iraq to Britain's ill-fated military intervention in Egypt in 1956. "This is a potentially very dangerous situation, in which this country might be swept into a very, very messy and long-lasting Middle East war," he warned, speaking on BBC Radio's Today Programme. He called the evidence for any attack "sparse", before adding that America may use September 11 to justify conflict amid a "wave of emotion and feeling of revenge." This is a view shared by David Potorti, whose brother James was killed in New York's Twin Towers on September 11 last year. Potorti told The Big Issue In Scotland he is appalled that any military action against Iraq may justified by President Bush "in his brother's name". "More than a million civilians have already died in the ten years of sanctions against Iraq, among them 500,000 children," he says. "Given the depth of my family's despair over the loss of one member, the idea that a nation already suffering from such devastating civilian losses would be subjected to an additional attack is just unthinkable. "It is unthinkable because civilians would unquestionably be doing most of the dying in a new attack - as they already have." Potorti and other relatives of 9/11 victims have seen no evidence from their government or security services that links Iraq with Al Qaida. An attack on Iraq is "coming out of nowhere", he believes, and sees the only chance for a permanent resolution through legal and democratic means. Military action would be against international laws and the Geneva Convention - laws that should be bolstered and respected so they can protect all citizens, while being used to prosecute the guilty, Potorti argues. "This aggressive military action seems to be exactly what it is - an aggressive military action," he adds. "Hussein is clearly a bad guy. He is clearly responsible for a lot of bad things. "But this kind of military action, I fear, will have the unanticipated effect of bolstering his support rather than reducing it. "Coupled with the idea that 'tactical' nuclear weapons could be used, we are dealing with a war that could quickly get out of hand and become far more dangerous and devastating than anything we could imagine. "The only beneficiaries would be the people who make weapons, and they are a very powerful force which benefits from fear and disorder." He fears that oil is at the root of Bush's aggressive stance, citing the US's massive public and military consumption. "Iraq is a large supplier of oil, particularly to American economic rivals like Germany and Japan," Potorti continues. "While no one can doubt the need to protect our country against terrorism, there is also a longstanding need to keep troops in the region to guard our access to the oil. "These issues cannot be separated." Potorti is East Coast co-ordinator for Peaceful Tomorrows, an American advocacy group campaigning for non-violent responses to terrorism, and has met with groups from Israel, Palestine, Japan, Afghanistan, and the UK, among others, to urge 'ordinary people' to make their voices heard. In the UK, Potorti's plea for non-violent protest is echoed by retired MP Tony Benn's call for peaceful civil disobedience against any attack, and has been adopted by a coalition of anti-war groups. In Scotland, more than 700 people have signed a Scottish Coalition for Justice Not War pledge. Despite next month's deployment of aircraft carrier Ark Royal to 'military exercises in the Mediterranean', Phill Jones of Scottish CND, part of the coalition, believes Tony Blair may be seeking a way out of military action. "I think Blair is opening a back door for himself so he can say: 'I had doubts about military action all along,'" Jones says. "Then he can claim credit for limiting US action against Iraq. "Certainly the parliamentary labour party is starting to turn on Bush's statements, saying they don't want to attack Iraq. "However, even if the British government wanted to stop war, it would be very difficult if the Americans were determined to act unilaterally." America could use military force to pay back weapons manufacturers and the oil lobby among Bush's presidential campaign backers, Jones says. "For some of the people who paid money, war would be the best thing for them in terms of profits," he continues. "But for the American public, he may have to raise taxes to pay for war, which wouldn't go down well with the electorate. "I think Bush will have to back down because of the economic problems that the US is facing, and because there are cracks appearing in his support. "The big question is, will he decide the best way to deflect popular criticism is to be at war, or is a war the last thing the US economy needs?" The US Congress must by law debate any military action. In the UK, the House of Commons is in recess, with no legal requirement to discuss sending troops into battle - despite 161 MPs signing Alice Mahon's early day motion that Blair should push the resumption of weapons inspection, rather than pursuing military means. The EDM has been signed by all SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs, 18 Lib Dems, and 133 Labour MPs. "The House of Commons doesn't reconvene until October 15, so we could be at war without any parliamentary debate, making it imperative for people to continue lobbying their MPs and MSPs, by letter, fax, email, and signing the pledge," Jones concludes. The pledge was started in England by Active Resistance to the Roots of War (ARROW), whose spokesman, Milan Rai, sees British support for Bush, or its withdrawal, as crucial to whether military action goes ahead. "President Bush is absolutely determined to launch a major attack on Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein," he says. "He can be stopped but only by considerable domestic and international pressure, and probably only if Britain deserts his side. "It's crucial to pressure MPs, MSPs, religious and other leaders, and campaign by extra-parliamentary means to force Tony Blair to disengage from the war effort and commit himself to the legal means available - negotiations and inspections - as a way of resolving the weapons issue." Despite a number of opinion polls showing more than half the British public opposes war with Iraq, Tony Blair insists he has "incontrovertible evidence of weapons of mass destruction". "No hard evidence has been produced," Rai counters. "Evidence from defectors is limited and in some cases suspect - David Albright, a former nuclear inspector in Iraq has lost faith in one Iraqi defector he previously sponsored." Albright said he blamed himself for the defector becoming a 'monster'; rather than simply supplying useful inside information on the Iraqi regime, he had also been recycling information he had read in Western newspapers. The solution to Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction is to re-establish the UNSCOM inspection and monitoring regime, Rai argues. "It was destroyed in 1998 when the US ordered UNSCOM to leave and then bombed Iraq, before the international community learned how US intelligence had used UNSCOM to spy on the leadership of Iraq," he says. "On the basis of the information available, and UNSCOM reports, it seems almost impossible for Iraq to retain or to have developed a functioning chemical or biological weapon. "It is flatly impossible for Iraq to have a nuclear bomb. Against the backdrop of war, both Western leaders and Saddam Hussein stand accused of ignoring the humanitarian needs of ordinary Iraqi people, as cited by David Potorti, and backed by ARROW and others. "However the international community decides to solve the 'Saddam Hussein question'," says Rai, "we have to separate that from the question of sanctions and the humanitarian crisis they have created in Iraq. "We must lift the economic sanctions now, unconditionally, to allow Iraq's children a chance to live, whatever we decide to do in relation to Iraq's leadership. "The children of Iraq cannot be made to pay for policies they have no control over." Ends For more information contact: The Scottish Coalition for Justice not War on 0141 423 1222 or go to www.justicenotvengeance.org or www.peacefultomorrows.org Side Bar: On attacking Iraq: "Everyone is saying this is a bad idea. If it seems America says we want to hit Baghdad, that's not what the Jordanians think, or the British, the French, the Russians, the Chinese, and everybody else." King Abdullah of Jordan "You don't have licence to attack someone else's country just because you don't like the leadership. Nowadays, you are supposed to get UN backing for all this." Lord Bramall, top ranking member of British armed forces until 1985 "We have a political dispute with the Iraqi leadership and we have killed one million of their children under sanctions. It stinks." Glasgow Kelvin MP George Galloway "An attack on Iraq would be both immoral and illegal and that eradicating the dangers posed by malevolent dictators and terrorists can be achieved only by tackling the root causes of the disputes." Declaration signed by new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, The Tablet