BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
After more than a year of constant provocations against
Baghdad and repeated preparations for a military assault, U.S.
president William Clinton ordered "Operation Desert Fox"
against Iraq December 16. The massive aerial attack began at
1:00 a.m. Baghdad time. U.S. warships in the Arab-Persian Gulf
launched a volley that totaled more than 200 cruise missiles
without warning, as U.S. planes began bombing raids. British
war planes are also deployed as part of the attack force.
This is the largest military action against Iraq since the end of the 1991 U.S.-organized Gulf war. U.S. military officials said the second night of attacks called for using 15 B-52 bombers armed with long range cruise missiles, firing from outside Iraq's borders.
"I have ordered a strong, sustained series of attacks against Iraq," Clinton declared, less than 20 hours before the House of Representatives was scheduled to begin debate on impeaching him. "They are designed to degrade Saddam [Hussein's] capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction."
Pentagon officials said the imperialist onslaught could last up to four days, suggesting some White House officials wanted to end it before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Clinton said in his televised address to the nation, "For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world and, therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we made in the Middle East."
But U.S. war secretary William Cohen declared there was no set time frame. "We intend to carry out our mission, how long it must take."
"It seems that Clinton...wants to kill some people in a hurry out of respect for Ramadan," Amin Jadir, an Iraqi government worker, sarcastically told a reporter in Baghdad.
"Maybe the Arabs and Muslims will stand with us after seeing how much injustice we are facing," remarked Abu Ali, a grocer in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 Palestinians took to the streets of Nablus in the West Bank December 17, chanting "Death to Clinton," "Death to America." The demonstrators burned a dozen U.S. flags, including those that had been distributed by the Palestinian Authority several days earlier to cheer the arrival of Clinton in the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem.
"Two days ago, Clinton was here and we thought he carried a message of peace," said Majeda Masri, a teenage protester. "But now it is clear that he is a murderer."
In Baghdad, doctors at a hospital said the first wave of attacks killed at least five people and injured 30 others. One of the missiles hit Karada, a commercial and residential neighborhood, bursting a water main that flooded a one-and-a- half-mile stretch that included streets in downtown Baghdad. Workers were shown on television trying to patch the bubbling pipe.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton said December 17 that the first night's missiles had leveled headquarters buildings of Iraqi special forces and intelligence operations in Baghdad. Four of the five barracks housing special guards were also destroyed, he asserted.
Tehran radio reported a missile hit the city of Khorramshahr, inside the Iranian border.
More troops for imperialist slaughter
Washington currently has some 24,100 military personnel, 22
warships, the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, and 201
warplanes in the region. London has 22 combat planes, including
more than a dozen Tornado fighter bombers, deployed in the
area. The U.S. rulers plan to beef up their massive armada with
the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its 60 combat
aircraft, at least 10 F-117 Stealth fighter jets, and a brigade
of ground troops due to arrive in the Gulf on December 18.
At a December 16 new conference, General Shelton stated the additional soldiers are "elements of a division-ready brigade to reinforce our troops already on the ground in Kuwait as part of Exercise Intrinsic Action." He said, "We're also in the process of deploying additional military forces to southwest Asia to U.S. central command's area of operation to bolster our already substantial military presence in the Gulf region." He noted that the Clinton administration was preparing a "crisis response force" that included an "air expeditionary wing" of 36 combat aircraft.
Washington launched the military attack after chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler ordered UN "monitors" to leave Baghdad. Butler claimed the Iraqi government had reneged on its promise to allow the UN snoops access to any area of Iraqi territory. On December 9 some 12 UN spies were blocked from entering a Baghdad branch office of the ruling Baath Party. An Iraqi official said the "inspectors" tried to enter the building "in a provocative way and with no notice."
Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Azziz said the provocation and Butler's report were "intended to trigger an American and British military strike on Iraq." Hell-bent on launching bombing raids against the Iraqi people, "the Clinton administration did not inform other nations, even NATO partners, in fear that word of the attack would reach Iraq before the attack was set," wrote Bill Gannon in the December 17 Star Ledger, published in Newark, New Jersey. Plans for the assault were limited to London and "other strategic partners" in the Arab-Persian Gulf, such as Tel Aviv.
One month ago, Clinton called off the first stage of a massive bombing mission on November 14 at 8:45 a.m., just 15 minutes before Washington's war machine prepared to rain 300 cruise missiles on Iraq. At the time British prime minister Anthony Blair declared if Baghdad didn't go along with every demand of the UN snoops the next time there will be "no warnings, no wrangling, no negotiations, no last-minute letters.... The next withdrawal of cooperation and [Iraqi president Saddam Hussein] will be hit."
The U.S. government provoked that crisis as well as the previous ones by trying block any steps by Baghdad toward easing the draconian embargo imposed on the Iraqi people. On October 31 Hussein announced his government would prohibit inspections or monitoring, after Washington excluded a section from UN resolution 687 in its draft review of Baghdad's compliance with the UN inspection program.
That section explicitly states that once Iraqi is declared free of "weapons of mass destruction" the oil embargo will be lifted. Iraqi officials state that due to shortages caused by the embargo some 5,000 children die each month from the effects of malnutrition and other ailments.
"We saw that the U.S. is not going to let the UN ease sanctions, regardless of what we do," said Iraqi ambassador to the UN," Nizar Hamdoon.
Paris has pushed for the sanctions to be lifted, dreaming of the day when French oil companies can regain prominent trade positions in the gulf region. Highlighting the accelerating interimperialist tensions, Paris condemned the U.S. air strikes. "France deplores the escalation which led to the American military strikes against Iraq and the grave human consequences which they could have for the Iraqi people," the French government declared in a statement. The Chinese and Russian governments, also opposed the attack. "We are very displeased and were urge the United States to stop its military action towards Iraq," said China's foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi in Beijing.
"Russia demands an immediate end to military action," said a statement issued by President Boris Yeltsin December 17, "to show common sense and restraint and not to allow further escalation of the conflict, which could result in the most dramatic consequences not only for the Iraqi settlement but for the stability of the entire region."
As Clinton ordered the assault on Iraq, debate ensued in Congress on the timing of attack. The bipartisan support for Washington's war moves remain.
"While I have been assured by administration officials that there is no connection with the impeachment process in the House of Representatives, I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time," Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Both the timing and policy are subject to question."
"This operation has been carefully planned over a period of time," Republican Sen. John Warner, incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The House of Representatives adopted a resolution December 17 supporting the assault on Iraq, with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 417-5.