Militant/Dan Fein

Socialist Workers campaigners distribute leaflets July 11 and collect signatures in Crown Heights section of Brooklyn to put SWP slate on New York state ballot.

The White House strategy consists, first and foremost, of “taking the fight to the enemy,” Bush said. Washington is also “working with friends and allies and international institutions to isolate and confront the terrorists and outlaw regimes,” he added, citing the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency. A third element, Bush said, is what he called “bringing democracy” to the broader Middle East.

The president detailed what U.S. imperialism had accomplished in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, and noted plans for taking on other adversaries, particularly the governments of Iran and north Korea.

This U.S. government offensive also includes dealing with “threats within our own country,” Bush said. He described Washington’s use of the Patriot Act, greater collaboration between federal spy agencies and “law enforcement officials,” and focusing the FBI on “terrorism” as part of “homeland security.”  
 
Libya and ‘nonproliferation’
Citing the case of Libya, Bush pointed to centrifuge parts and processing equipment for uranium that the government in Tripoli, after years of heavy U.S. pressure, had surrendered eight months ago. In the name of opposing “nuclear proliferation,” the Pentagon transported them to the United States and stored them at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where Bush delivered his July 12 speech. “Libya is dismantling its weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile programs,” Bush said.

The Libyan government announced last December that it would dismantle its nuclear and chemical weapons programs and allow United Nations inspectors to verify compliance. Tripoli did so, effectively surrendering a good part of its sovereignty. The decision came after Washington and London made it clear that the Libyan regime might face a fate similar to that of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein unless it bowed to U.S. demands on “weapons of mass destruction.”

Tripoli’s decision was hastened by the aggressive pursuit of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) by Washington and its allies.

“In the fall of 2003, American and British intelligence were tracking a large shipment of nuclear equipment bound for Tripoli aboard a German-registered cargo ship,” Bush said in his Oak Ridge speech. “We alerted German and Italian authorities, who diverted the ship to an Italian port where the cargo was confiscated. We worked together. These events helped encourage Libya to reconsider its nuclear ambitions. That was a dramatic breakthrough, achieved by allies working together.”

Bush first proposed the PSI on the eve of a June 2003 summit of the G-7 group of imperialist governments. The initiative was launched in September 2003 at a U.S.-organized meeting in Paris of representatives of 11 states. According to a White House statement, the founding members drew up a plan of action to “combat trafficking to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, and related materials.” The plan calls for boarding, searching, and seizing “suspect” vessels or their cargo, not only in ports and territorial waters but also on the high seas. By the time of the first anniversary meeting of the PSI in Krakow, Poland, more than 60 governments had signed on.  
 
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
Turning to South Asia and the Mideast, Bush noted, “Three years ago, Pakistan was one of the few countries in the world that recognized the Taliban regime” in Afghanistan. “Al-Qaeda was active and recruiting in Pakistan, and was not seriously opposed…the United States was not on good terms with Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders.”

As part of tightening the squeeze on the regime in Islamabad, Washington strengthened its military cooperation with the Indian government, an adversary of the Pakistani ruling class.

“Today, the governments of the United States and Pakistan are working closely in the fight against terror,” Bush said. “President Musharraf is a friend of our country,” he said glowingly about the military ruler, in a telling statement about the limits of Washington’s pursuit of bourgeois democracy in that part of the world.

Under U.S. pressure, Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s regime arrested and forced confessions from top Pakistani nuclear scientists, including Abdul Qaeder Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. According to a statement that Pakistani authorities released February 1, Khan said he and other scientists had been “involved in leaking nuclear know-how outside Pakistan to groups working for Iran, Libya, and north Korea.” U.S. spy agencies reportedly uncovered this trail after Tripoli surrendered its nuclear program and other files about a month earlier.

In mid-June, the Pakistani government launched its third major offensive this year along the border with Afghanistan, unleashing 20,000 troops against local groups accused of opposing the regime and of collaborating with al-Qaeda forces. U.S. officials said in July that the decision by NATO to deploy its Response Force to Afghanistan would free up U.S. troops there to do the “heavy lifting” along the Afghan-Pakistan border, that is, launching assaults on pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the area in collaboration with the Pakistani military.

“Three years ago, terrorists were well-established in Saudi Arabia,” Bush said at Oak Ridge. “Inside that country, fund-raisers and other facilitators gave al-Qaeda financial and logistical help, with little scrutiny or opposition. Today, after the attacks in Riyadh and elsewhere, the Saudi government knows that al-Qaeda is its enemy. Saudi Arabia is working hard to shut down the facilitators and financial supporters of terrorism. The government has captured or killed many first-tier leaders of the al-Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia—including one last week.”

A May 29 raid on a compound housing oil company employees in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, by forces opposed to the Saudi monarchy, and earlier attacks, provided new openings for Washington to work with the most pro-American elements of the royal dynasty to boost the U.S. military presence in the country. After having withdrawn most of its troops from Saudi Arabia a year earlier, the U.S. rulers showed the Saudi monarchy that they need the U.S. military for protection. On June 2, Riyadh announced it was shutting down all international charity organizations operating from its soil, saying that some had channeled millions of dollars to so-called terrorist groups.

“Saudi Arabia has seen the danger and has joined the war on terror,” Bush said.  
 
Iraq, Iran, and rationalization for war
“Three years ago,” the U.S. president stated, “the ruler of Iraq was a sworn enemy of America, who provided safe heaven for terrorists, used weapons of mass destruction, and turned his nation into a prison.”

Taking the offensive against liberal critics of his administration who have questioned some of the White House rationalizations for launching the imperialist invasion of Iraq, Bush argued, “Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq. We removed a declared enemy of America, who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder, and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.”

Bush praised the work of the CIA and other spy agencies in the so-called war against terrorism. Acknowledging that the Senate Intelligence Committee had identified some flaws in Washington’s spying methods, he said the committee’s report on the matter, scheduled to be released July 22, would help the U.S. government improve its intelligence agencies. “Our nation needs more intelligence agents…to cover the globe,” he said. “We must have the best, cutting-edge techonology to listen and look for dangers.”

The White House received a boost from a recent report by Robin Butler on behalf of an intelligence committee for the British House of Commons. It said that, in the months leading up to the March 2003 assault on Iraq, Bush’s claim that Baghdad had sought weapons-grade uranium in the West African country of Niger “was well-founded.” (See article below.)

In a column in the July 19 New York Times, William Safire said that “the 16 words” used by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union address to outline this argument for war “were pounced on by the wrong-war left to become the simple centerpiece of its angry accusation that ‘Bush lied to us’.”

Safire said former diplomat Joseph Wilson, who led “the he-lied-to-us charge,” was sent by the CIA to Niger on the recommendation of his wife, a CIA operative, to check out the story and came back saying there was nothing to it. “Two exhaustive reports came out last week showing that it is the president’s lionized accuser, and not Mr. Bush, who has been having trouble with the truth,” Safire asserted, referring to the Butler inquiry and a similar report released by the U.S. Senate days earlier.

Concluding his speech, Bush said the “war on terrorism” was in its early stages. “We’re working with responsible governments and international institutions to convince the leaders of North Korea and Iran that their nuclear weapons ambitions are deeply contrary to their own interests,” he said.

Although the Iranian government has insisted its nuclear program is being developed solely for energy generation purposes, Washington has made it clear, with broad bipartisan backing, that Tehran remains in the U.S. rulers’ crosshairs. Bush told reporters in the Oval Office July 18 that Washington was actively investigating reports, including allegations by the bipartisan 9/11 congressional commission, that a number of those who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had traveled through Iran. “As to direct connections with September the 11th,” Bush said, “We will continue to look and see if the Iranians were involved.”
 
 
Related articles:
Butler report boosts war party in UK  
 
 
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