The U.S. government and other intruding powers should remove every single one of their "inspectors" and soldiers from Iraq and the entire Middle East. Iraq doesn't belong to them - it belongs to the Iraqis.
Who is Washington - with the blood of Hiroshima and Nagasaki permanently on its hands - to lecture others about weapons of mass destruction? The issue of the "United Nations inspectors" and of biological and chemical warfare is simply a pretext for continuing to pressure the Iraqi government. The real goal of the wealthy U.S. rulers is to weaken and eventually overthrow the Iraqi government and replace it with a regime that will meekly do the bidding of Wall Street.
The U.S. government, however, faces some problems with its imperialist rivals and other states represented in the UN Security Council. While obtaining a Security Council statement that condemned the government of President Saddam Hussein, Washington faces conflicts of interests with Paris, as well as with Moscow, in trying to get official UN cover to unleash a direct military attack on Iraq.
In November, the Clinton administration carried out similar provocations against Iraq and moved to the brink of a large- scale military assault. But the U.S.-led "coalition" quickly unraveled and that intervention plan failed. The immediate threat of military action receded. This was due not to gains won in struggle by working people, but to conflicts between the imperialists themselves. So the interimperialist tensions have grown and the war fuse continues to burn.
In fact, the relative political weakness of the Clinton administration makes it more dangerous, not less. It is more likely to lurch into a military adventure. Meanwhile, those who advocate unilateral U.S. military action from a position of strength - the clearest voice being ultrarightist politician Patrick Buchanan - have been boosted.
The war threats against Iraq are simply an extension of the U.S. employers' war against working people at home, from the attacks on bilingual education to bosses' attempts to fire militant workers.
The drive to war is caused not by bad individuals in office, but by the need of the U.S. billionaire rulers - the "Sixty Families" - to salvage their increasingly volatile world order. That capitalist order is in trouble, as seen today in the Asian financial catastrophe and, above all, the looming crisis in Europe.
What our class needs to do is organize protests that get out the truth about the U.S.-led war moves. Daily, systematic political work is needed inside factories and mills, at plant gates, in Black and other working-class neighborhoods, to get into the hands of fellow workers the Militant and books that explain Washington's march toward fascism and war. This is the only way to find, get to know, and fight together with other worker-militants and youth who are attracted to the perspective of building a working-class party capable of leading millions toward a revolutionary struggle to disarm the war-makers by taking state power.