[Peace-discuss] new lit on Iraq, please comment

[Ricky Baldwin]

With very helpful input from several AWARE folks, I've
prepared the following updated pamphlet on Iraq for
use at the Farmers' Mkt, Sweet Corn Festival, Quad
Day, etc.  Any mistakes are naturally mine, and I may
not have adequately addressed some of the suggestions
folks made, so-o-o-o... 

Since we won't have another meeting before the Sweet
Corn Festival, it would be great if folks could look
this over and point out any obvious mistakes ASAP.

We can, of course, always revise it as we go along
over the next couple of weeks, too.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Ricky

[Text without graphic follows.]


‘LIBERATION’ OR OCCUPATION?

What have been the consequences of the war in Iraq?


• Over 6,000 Iraqis killed

• Over 1,000 US troops killed or wounded

• Up to $615 billion estimated costs

• No ‘weapons of mass destruction’ found

• Terrorist threat worse than before

• Iraq under military rule

Who supports our troops?
As temperatures in Iraq top 120 degrees and “guerillas
attack Americans daily,” the US commander in Iraq
announced that all troops in Iraq should expect to
remain deployed for at least a year (AP 8/13/03).
The occupation could even last 5-10 more years, some
experts say.
And since the President declared the “major
hostilities” at an end, rising numbers of US troops
have been killed or seriously injured in postwar Iraq
– now officially 1000, unofficially perhaps 4000
(London Guardian, DN! 8/4/03).
Clearly this is not what the troops, their families,
or war-supporters expected.  Neither is the postwar
cost of up to $615 billion (AP 8/12/03).
Groups of military families like ‘Families Speak Out’
are outraged, – yet the Republicans in Washington
still try to cut veterans’ benefits.
So the anti-war movement is saying the best way to
‘support the troops’ is to bring them home – now.

But aren’t we making the world safer?
The world is certainly no safer for the many Americans
and Iraqis killed in the invasion. 
Early on, the UN and Red Cross were “alarmed” by the
thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths (AFP, 4/4/03),
announcing that Iraqi hospitals are overflowing with
casualties “too high to count” (AP, 4/9/03).
At least 400 of these civilians died in Iraqi
hospitals bombed by US warplanes (NYT, 4/8/03; AP,
4/9/03).   
No one really knows how many died, but the most
comprehensive survey to date documents over 6000
civilian deaths and 16,000 civilians injured (LAT,
Reuters, Democracy Now! 8/4/03;
www.iraqbodycount.net). 
This is not counting the half a million Iraqi
civilians who died during 11 years of sanctions.

But aren’t Iraqis leading better lives now?
Actually, growing numbers of Iraqi civilians have been
killed postwar – like the six Iraqi civilians shot and
killed by US forces as they tried to get home before
the 11pm curfew imposed by the US (AP 8/11/03).
Days before, US troops had fired on a street market in
Iraq where guns were for sale. The head of the local
hospital said five Iraqi men and a child were shot
dead. The US army called them "suspected former regime
loyalists trafficking illegal arms".  A US army
spokesman said that people in the market had "material
that can make up improvised explosive devices, such as
wires and switches" (AFP 8/8/03). 
US troops have also shot and killed dozens of Iraqis
at anti-occupation demonstrations across Iraq since
the fall of Baghdad (AFP 4/15/03; NYDN 4/30/03,
5/1/03).
Such examples increase daily, each death fanning the
flames of anger against the US occupation in Iraq.

But at least the Iraqis are free, right?
Hardly.  An estimated 8000 Iraqi civilians have
disappeared since the Iraqi government fell, as many
as 5000 held y US forces “incommunicado, without
access to lawyers or even the right to contact their
families,” often under conditions described by Amnesty
International as “cruel, inhuman or degrading”
(Newsweek 8/17/03).
And US troops recently gunned down the 13th journalist
killed in Iraq, an award-winning Reuters cameraman
shot in broad daylight while filming outside a US-held
prison (AP 8/17/03).
In addition, thousands of Iraqi children as young as 9
years old reportedly now “toil in Dickensian
desperation” 12 or more hours a day salvaging litter
from the war to sell (SF Chronicle 8/13/03).
Electricity is only gradually being restored, water is
short, and food aid is still slow in coming to the
millions of Iraqis – mostly children – who face
starvation after the collapse of UN-sponsored, Iraqi
government-run rationing programs (AP 3/21/03).
Disease and crime are spreading throughout Iraq as a
result.
Meanwhile, well-connected US corporations – like
Halliburton, Bechtel, MCI and Stevedoring Services of
America – rake in billions in US government contracts,
spending Iraqi oil money without the consent of the
Iraqi people (Reuters 4/19/03).
Vice Pres. Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, in particular,
reported revenues “skyrocketing” to almost $4 billion
last quarter – $26 million in clear profit (Financial
Times, 8/3/03).
US forces have also established martial law in Iraq
and appointed a very unpopular puppet government.  The
US administrator in Iraq has final say on all
decisions.

But wasn’t war needed to fight terrorism?
The war with Iraq immediately inspired rising
terrorist recruitment, just as the CIA had predicted
before Congress (AP 4/1/03).
In fact, before the invasion of Iraq was over, US
allies had discovered new terrorist plots in a dozen
cities around the world (AFP 3/28/03).
One British-based research group recently ranked the
US as fourth most likely to suffer a terrorist attack
in the coming year, after Colombia, Israel and
Pakistan.
“Another Sept. 11-style terrorist attack in the United
States is highly likely,” the group reports.  “US-led
military action in Afghanistan and Iraq has
exacerbated anti-US sentiment,” (AP 818/03).  

And the ‘weapons of mass destruction’?
The White House has been forced to admit publicly that
the accusations about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons
program, included in the President’s State of the
Union address, were false.
It has also become clear the accusations made by Sec.
of State Colin Powell before the UN in February were
inaccurate, too (AP 8/11/03).
In fact, US officials and experts have had to retract
one alleged find after another.  
For example, military officials announced that they
had found a “chemical facility” in Najaf, only to
later admit the site contained no chemicals (Dow Jones
3/24/03).
Then officials announced that troops had found a
mobile weapons lab, only to quietly retract the story
weeks later (NYT 4/28/03).
And Hussein Kamel’s testimony, which the US had used
for years to prove that Iraq was keeping banned
weapons, was revealed to contain one important detail
that US officials omitted: Kamel said Iraq had
destroyed the weapons (Newsweek 3/3/03).

So what should be done instead?
The US must immediately turn over administration of
Iraq to the UN, which will arrange for democratic
elections.  
The US must pay war reparations, and release frozen
Iraqi assets for a democratically elected government
to arrange reconstruction.  
Our government must also stand behind UN decisions –
especially “regional disarmament” for the Middle East
and Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian
territories – instead of selective enforcement and
unilateralism.  
The US must back the International Criminal Court
without reservation, to see that all terrorists and
war criminals come to trial, even US allies or
officials.

What Can You Do?
• Protest with AWARE the first Sat. of every month
2-4pm, on N. Prospect & Marketview in Champaign.
• Meet with AWARE every Sun. 5-7 pm at the IMC, 218 W
Main St. in Urbana.
• Keep informed: www.anti-war.net, www.indymedia.org,
www.zmag.org, “News from Neptune” Sat. 10-11am and
“Democracy Now!” weekdays 4-5pm on WEFT 90.1 FM,
“Media Matters” Sun. 1-2pm on WILL 580 AM.


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