BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
"The momentum propelling the United States toward bombing Iraq appears inexorable," a news article in the New York Times stated January 25. Washington has begun a "countdown" to war against Iraq with initial plans for carpet bombing, to start possibly in mid-February, the big-business daily reported the next day.

"There'll be one final round of diplomacy, and then an ultimatum, and then we act," an unnamed National Security Council official told reporters after a January 24 meeting of President William Clinton's top foreign policy advisers. Several days later the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, declared the military attack would be "decisive and devastating."

The meeting of the White House officials included U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen, national security adviser Samuel Berger, CIA director George Tenet, and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations William Richardson. According to the Times, they discussed "what may become the biggest bombing campaign" since the 1991 U.S.-led slaughter against Iraq and debated prohibiting the Iraqi government from flying any planes within its borders. The U.S. military has already imposed a "no-fly zone" over northern and southern Iraq.

Three naval combat groups in the Arab-Persian Gulf - two from the United States and one from Britain - now form the largest military deployment in the region since the Gulf War. Over the last few months, the U.S. Navy has deployed more cruise missiles than were launched during the 1991 slaughter, according to the January 24 Washington Post. Some 28,800 U.S. troops are currently in the Gulf region, with about 375 war planes stationed there and in Turkey. The British aircraft carrier Invincible arrived in the Persian Gulf January 25 bringing six Royal Air Force attack jets, eight other war planes, and 11 helicopters. London has also doubled its troops there to 2,000.

The commander of the U.S. military operation in Persian Gulf, Gen. Anthony Zinni, declared he was prepared to attack the "Republican Guard units that keep [Iraqi president Sadaam Hussein] in power, his own infrastructure, and command and control systems."

Pretext of arms `inspectors'
The Clinton administration has escalated its military threats in the name of destroying Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction," under the pretext that Baghdad is supposedly hiding evidence that it has biological and chemical weapons. Without presenting any evidence, Richard Butler, the executive chairman of the UN "weapons inspection commission," claimed January 26 that the Iraqi government has biological weapons loaded onto missiles that could be put on mobile missile launchers and driven away to avoid being hit by bombs. Butler had also claimed that the government was conducting "possible biological testing on human beings" at a prison facility, though other UN officials said his supposed evidence proved nothing.

Richard Spertzel, chief of the UN Special Commission of "biological experts," alleged January 23 that Baghdad was operating a secret biological weapons facility.

"We challenge Spertzel," said Iraqi government official Hussam Mohammad Amin. "We say, `visit this site you talk about where you claim the factory is, with representatives of the international media, to end any doubt, to show the truth, and uncover the lie.' " He added, "We are not surprised that such cheap lies should be issued by one of the main American officials."

Baghdad had blocked a group of UN weapons "inspectors" from snooping into the government's intelligence headquarters January 13, after accusing the team's head, Scott Ritter, of being a spy. The Iraqi government also complained that 14 out of 16 of the inspection team were U.S. and British officers. While U.S. officials immediately denied that Ritter was a spy, the January 14 Washington Post reported that he was an "intelligence officer" with several commendations on his record while he was a captain in the Marine Corps for seven years. He was assigned to headquarters of the U.S. Central Command in the gulf during the 1991 war and has been part of the UN weapons inspections operations since then. On January 21 Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz proposed a freeze until April on discussions with UN "weapons inspectors" on granting them unconditional access to Iraqi territory. Aziz said his government did not want to discuss access for the inspectors until after the country's compliance with disarmament requirement has been evaluated by new teams of UN "technical experts" scheduled to meet in Baghdad February 1. The experts' meetings are reportedly scheduled for the entire month of February. Head weapons "inspector" Butler is supposed to report to the UN Security Council in early April on the progress of Iraq's disarmament program.

Washington prepared to act alone
It appears unlikely Washington will get the backing from Paris and Moscow necessary to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution providing explicit cover for its assault. The U.S. rulers, however, are determined to steam ahead for a military assault, alone if necessary. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said January 27 he "didn't think we've ruled anything in or out," including using nuclear weapons. The day after Aziz's proposal, New York Times columnist William Safire stated, "In the Persian Gulf, preventive war is becoming more necessary every day."

As part of its war preparations, the Clinton administration is planning trips abroad to reinforce its military and political dominance. Secretary of State Albright departed for Europe January 28 for meetings with British, Russian, and French foreign ministers to discuss military action. "I'm not going anywhere to seek support," she declared. "I am going to explain our position." Albright will later head to the Persian Gulf joined by Defense Secretary Cohen to press the governments in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to accept the planned slaughter. U.S. Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will also travel to France during the last week of January.

While several "diplomatic options" are reportedly debated among Clinton's advisers on how to resolve the crisis, "We are certainly at least as far as we were in late November" toward pursuing the military option, a senior White House official was quoted as saying in the January 24 Washington Post.

Clinton and his top aides began a public campaign through interviews on the November 16 Sunday morning television news programs to "inform the American people of the dangers of biological warfare." Their aim was "to prepare the country for war," the New York Times stated a week later.

Leading up to this decision, the Clinton administration orchestrated a string of provocations with its inspectors, pushing Baghdad to expel U.S. officers. The U.S. media ballyhoo included the charade of Defense Secretary Cohen waving a bag of sugar on the television screen, proclaiming that if it were anthrax, it would kill half the population in Washington, D.C. Washington then amassed an enormous armada in the region in preparation for carpet bombing, after accusing Baghdad of illegally manufacturing biological and chemical weapons.

The Clinton administration suffered a setback a few days after its November 14 decision to launch the assault, when Paris and other imperialist allies refused to support military strikes, as did the governments of China, Russia, and many countries in the Middle East. Only London showed solid support for military action, and the White House was forced to accept a diplomatic solution negotiated by Paris and Moscow. Ever since that setback, the White House has been probing for another pretext to execute what is projected to be the biggest slaughter meted against the Iraqi people since 1991.

Washington's 1991 assault on Iraq
The Bush administration organized a military blockade of Iraq following Baghdad's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in August 1990. Over the following months, Washington built up a military force of some 450,000 U.S. and 200,000 allied troops in the region. On Jan. 16, 1991, the Pentagon unleashed six weeks of incessant air and sea bombardment on Iraq. U.S., British, French, Canadian, Saudi, and other war planes dropped 88,500 tons of bombs, destroying the country's infrastructure, including factories, bridges, electrical power stations, irrigation facilities, sewage systems, and everything else near them. This was followed by a four-day "ground war" that some U.S. military officers likened to a "turkey shoot." By conservative estimates, 150,000 human beings were slaughtered.

The Bush administration called a halt to the killing short of an invasion of Baghdad, which would have led to substantially higher U.S. casualties. In doing so the U.S. rulers thought they had achieved their aim and would be able to replace the Iraqi regime with one more subservient to Washington's dictates. Bush recently acknowledged that one reason for not continuing the slaughter was fear that the U.S.- dominated "coalition" would shatter.

As it became clear the outcome of the Gulf War would not lead to a U.S. protectorate in Iraq, Washington continued to pursue its aims through maintaining the draconian embargo against that country. As a result, more than 1 million people have died - over 600,000 of them children. Scientific studies conducted by international researchers also unequivocally confirmed that Washington used banned weapons and ammunition enriched with depleted uranium in its military assault against Iraq, exposing vast tracts of territory to contamination.

Baghdad is allowed to sell a limited amount of oil under the terms of the UN embargo, with the proviso that the revenue go only to pay for food, medicine, and war reparations. French president Jacques Chirac said January 27 that Baghdad should be allowed to double its exports within this framework. French oil and gasoline companies have been negotiating future production deals in Iraq. Likewise, Moscow supports easing the sanctions, as the Russian company Lukoil signed a production-sharing pact with Baghdad last March, which is valued at $3.8 billion.

Bipartisan support for military strikes
Clinton has garnered bipartisan support for his war moves, including a string of Republican Party leaders who have lined up behind the president. "We are unified in our opposition to Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction," House Speaker Newton Gingrich told reporters at a January 26 Republican party leadership meeting.

"If there are sustained and serious air operations, then I would be one of the first to defend [Clinton's] actions," declared Republican Sen. John McCain.

The next day, in response to Clinton's State of the Union address, Senate majority leader Trent Lott said, "Despite any current controversy, this Congress will vigorously support the president in full defense of America's interests throughout the world." He was referring to the reports that Clinton had a sexual relationship with a former White House intern and then urged her to lie about it.

The New York Times editors asserted January 25 that Washington's military moves "must be insulated from the pressures now bearing down on Mr. Clinton."

One group of Republican party leaders drafted a letter ostensibly defending Clinton's war moves against charges that he is creating a military crisis to deflect the sex scandal plaguing him. The document tells Clinton "at least some Republicans will support you," said Robert Zoellick, undersecretary of state in the Bush administration and a signatory.

Robert Kagan, a former Reagan administration official who also signed the letter, proposed sending in ground troops. In an article to be printed in the Weekly Standard, Kagan declares that only an invasion force can accomplish Washington's objectives of toppling the Iraqi government, the Washington Post reported January 25.

The planned assault on Iraq has had the backing of many liberals for some time now. The December 1 Newsweek magazine featured an article titled "Why we should kill Saddam" by George Stephanopoulos, former senior adviser to Clinton. He wrote, "The gulf-war coalition is teetering and we have not eliminated Saddam's capacity to inflict mass destruction. That's why killing him may be the more sensible - and moral course over the long run."

The course the White House is now on is closer to that of "unilateral" action supported by ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan as well. In a syndicated column published November 19 Buchanan wrote, "France, China, and Russia all oppose U.S. military action, and our Arab allies have defected. With the exception of the British, America stands alone in the Gulf... Multilateralism has been discredited: a new era of American unilateralism is upon us." He followed up with a column that argued, "If deterrence - the threat of massive retaliation - worked against Stalin and Mao, why would it not work against an Iraq with no navy or air force and a GDP [Gross Domestic Product] that is but 1 percent of our own?"

As Clinton prepares for war, Iraqi citizens have begun posting notices in neighborhoods and on university campuses throughout the country calling on people to volunteer for military exercises.

Meanwhile, the U.S. press is attempting to gain acceptance for the idea of massive civilian casualties when Washington launches its onslaught against the Iraqi people. Charging that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "has not hesitated to put civilians in harm's way," a January 28 article in the New York Times complained that air strikes aimed at biological and chemical weapons sites would be difficult to "pinpoint" in Baghdad, a city of four million people. "People will die," the article stated, since government installations "are scattered around the city near residential and business neighborhoods."  
 
 
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