BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
"What we are doing is serving the role of the indispensable nation," declared U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright at the close of a February 18 "international town hall meeting." The massive bombing of Iraq that Washington is about to unleash will aim to "make the world safer for . those people around the world who follow the rules," Albright asserted. Defense Secretary William Cohen and national security adviser Samuel Berger joined Albright on the stage for the meeting, which was organized as part of the Clinton administration's final war preparations.

The event didn't come off quite as planned, though. Some 6,000 people attended the "town hall" meeting at Ohio State University in Columbus, which was televised live around the world by CNN. Among them were a couple dozen who disrupted Albright's opening remarks for several minutes with chants of "1, 2, 3, 4 we don't want your racist war." And during the hour-long question and answer session, the White House officials appeared stunned by the range of critical questions they got.

The first questioner to speak was an assistant professor at Ohio State who is from the Mideast. "The American administration has the might and means to attack the Iraqi state," he said. "But does it have the moral right to attack the Iraqi nation?"

Other hostile questions came from a range of liberals as well as right-wingers who demanded the Clinton administration "finish the job." This has become the slogan of many pro- imperialist forces, including people like liberal New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. In a February 19 column, Herbert lamented the "suffering of the Iraqis," while insisting that "something must be done" to drive Iraqi president Saddam Hussein from power. He complained that continuing the "devastating economic sanctions and the periodic massive attacks against Iraq" had to be combined with Clinton formulating "an exit strategy for Saddam Hussein."

Seeking to justify slaughter
Cohen's performance at the Ohio State University arena included showing a photograph of a woman and child he claimed were killed by Iraqi nerve gas - the same picture he showed on national television February 15. "This is what I call Madonna and child Saddam Hussein-style," he declared. The war secretary piously denounced the Iraqi president for using "these weapons repeatedly against his own people as well as Iran." Baghdad waged an eight-year war against Tehran with Washington's backing following the 1979 revolution in Iran.

One of the moderators at the Ohio meeting asked the Clinton administration officials about a comment made the day before by former U.S. president James Carter, who estimated that Washington's bombing raids would slaughter 100,000 Iraqi civilians. "Is that realistic?" she asked.

By conservative estimates, as many as 150,000 Iraqis died in the six-week bombing campaign and the subsequent 100-hour invasion in January and February 1991.

"We care more about the Iraqi people than Saddam Hussein," Albright responded. "We have provided food... I personally wrote the resolution that allows there to be oil sold for food" - a resolution that stipulates that nearly half of Iraq's oil revenues must go to pay "reparations" from the Gulf war. She did not mention that the seven-year-long U.S.-led embargo against Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million people.

Opposition from Russian government
Washington is pressing ahead for a new slaughter in spite of vigorous opposition from Moscow. "I would like to relate to you our deep concern over the possible aspects of Russian-U.S. relations in the military field, especially if military actions are taken," Russian foreign minister Igor Sergeyev told Cohen at a February 12 meeting in Moscow. "That would hurt our relations," he added. "Is America ready for all the possible consequences?" "`Nyet' is not `no' for the United States under these circumstances," Clinton retorted the next day.

"By his actions, Clinton might run into a world war," Russian president Boris Yeltsin declared the previous week. Yeltsin made the warning twice in the same week.

The Clinton administration is using the impending military action in the Persian Gulf to prepare the regimes in the prospective new NATO member states - Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic - for what will be expected of them. Moscow is vehemently opposed to this expansion of the imperialist military alliance, which would station U.S. troops on its border with Poland.

Hungarian foreign minister Laszlo Kovacs and his counterparts were recently in Washington where they participated in Senate discussions on ratifying the agreement to expand the North Atlantic military alliance. On his return to Hungary, Kovacs demanded Parliament open the country's airspace and military airports for U.S. warplanes to launch bombing raids on Iraq.

Polish deputy foreign minister Radek Sikorski said February 10 that his government would make available 120 - 150 chemical weapons experts for Washington's military operation. "At such a crucial time, we have to show our resolve," he said. "That we can be security providers, not just security consumers."

In the Czech Republic Petr Necas, chairman of the defense committee in the lower house of Parliament, asserted February 15 that the government would supply chemical weapons experts like it did in the 1991 imperialist slaughter, when 270 Czech soldiers patrolled the northern Saudi Arabian desert. All three NATO aspirants participated in Washington's last assault on Iraq. The Hungarian regime opened its airfields and sent a small medical unit and the Polish government sent hospital ships into the region with hundreds of medical personnel.

Diplomacy charade almost over
Claiming the need to destroy "weapons of mass destruction," Clinton said the massive bombing planned by Washington will leave the Iraqi government "significantly worse off." Speaking at the Pentagon February 17, he demanded Baghdad allow UN weapons "inspectors" to go anywhere inside Iraqi territory. He did not set a deadline for the ultimatum, saying only it would be "soon." One administration official explained no date was set because the president did not want to appear "bloodthirsty," while the White House is still going through the motions of diplomacy.

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan announced the same day that he was traveling to Baghdad, supposedly in a last-ditch effort to avert a military strike against Iraq. After initial opposition from Washington, the UN Security Council finally endorsed his trip, but U.S. officials insisted on strict restrictions on what he could negotiate. Clinton called Annan and, according to an unnamed administration official, instructed him, "Don't jam me. Jam the Iraqis."

Many Iraqis view Annan's trip as the "last act in a show put up by the US to pretend it wants a diplomatic solution," London's Financial Times reported February 18. "Kofi Annan will just come here show that diplomatic efforts have been exhausted," said an Iraqi trader, "and then they will strike." CNN news reported February 18 that some UN personnel have begun leaving the country in anticipation of the coming military assault.

Washington has assembled 30,000 troops, 450 combat warplanes, and 250 cruise missiles for its war against Iraq. The Pentagon announced February 17 that it would send up to 6,000 additional GIs from the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia, to the Persian Gulf.

U.S. warplanes patrolling no-fly zones over southern Iraq, have been practicing bombing raids on targets for the past three months, and in some cases carrying munitions they would use to destroy buildings on a combat mission. According to media reports, Clinton's "Operation Desert Thunder" will resemble the 1991 Operation Desert Storm. It will be a round- the-clock air war of about 1,000 sorties for nearly one week - about one bomb attack every 10 minutes.

The big-business media has stepped up emphasizing Washington's supposed concern about using "smart" bombs and limiting "collateral damage," the euphemism U.S. officials use to describe the slaughter and devastation of the Iraqi civilians. On Feb. 13, 1991, F-117 fighters dropped two 2,000- pound laser-guided "smart" bombs onto an underground bomb shelter in Baghdad, killing 204 people, who were pulled from burning rubble in front of television cameras. The Air Force says its "smart" weapons are smarter now, claiming they hit 97 percent of their targets during the U.S. bombing raids in 1995 against Bosnia. "Also, in an effort to minimize civilian casualties," the February 17 Wall Street Journal reported, Washington plans to drop 2,000- to 5,000-pound bombs without warheads that "would cause buildings to collapse" and presumably "bury poisonous chemicals safely under rubble" - along with any people inside. Targets for the "smart" bombs include hospitals that are considered "dual use" facilities since they are the "best place to make biological weapons" where viruses can be cultivated.

Other regimes in Mideast fear response
Feeling pressure from the expected outrage of working people in the region, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak complained, "We are going to face a hell of a problem." He and other Arab head of states have been unwilling to express public support for Washington's impending slaughter. "You will not find one Arab leader who will say publicly, `We support the air strikes,'" he asserted.

No Middle Eastern official, however, will put up much of a fuss when Washington launches its bombing raids. When pressed by intellectuals to condemn the imperialist intervention, Mubarak replied that Egyptians had to recognize their weaknesses. He appealed to Baghdad to give the UN inspectors "the green light without preconditions."

Some governments in the region, concerned about crossing Washington, have banned demonstrations against the U.S. war drive. The Jordanian government barred protests on February 10 and the Palestinian Authority outlawed demonstrations February 8.

Hundreds of people defied the ban in Jordan February 13, organizing a rally to support the Iraqi people. More than 80 people were arrested in the protest. Hundreds of Palestinian students marched in the streets of Bethlehem February 17 to condemn the U.S. war. That same day some 600 students at Cairo University in Egypt rallied against the imperialist intervention.

A section of the U.S. rulers are nervous that the impending slaughter will unleash uncontrolled forces in the region. The Saudi regime's reluctance reflects "in a powerful way the growing uneasiness within Saudi Arabia and the Arab world about Washington's role in the region," said an article in the February 17 New York Times, recalling the bomb attacks on U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia in November 1995 and June 1996 that killed 24 U.S. soldiers. "There are elements within Saudi society that would like to drive the United States military from the country."

The government of Turkey has also balked at participating in Washington's military operation. The regime expressed anxiety that the U.S. government aims to partition Iraq and set up a puppet Kurdish state in northern Iraq, which could exacerbate the Kurdish struggle for self-determination inside Turkey.

After an arm-twisting visit by Gen. Joseph Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Marc Grossman, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for European affairs, Ankara now "suggests" that Washington may be able obtain permission to use the Incirlik air base to launch bombing missions. The Turkish regime had beefed up its military force at the Iraqi border by adding 7,000 troops. Turkish F-16 jets and helicopter gunships bombed Kurds in northern Iraq February 11.  
 
 
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