Kenneth Chrane
"Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't."
Sun Sep 22 04:47:55 2002
208.152.73.168

> BAGHDAD, AUTUMN 2002: CITY OF DOOM
>
> By Norman Solomon
>
> BAGHDAD -- When Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz
> described the box that Washington has meticulously
> constructed for Iraq, he put it this way:
> "Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't."
>
> It would be difficult to argue the point with Aziz,
> and I didn't try. Instead, during a Sept. 14 meeting
> here in Baghdad, I joined with others in a small
> American delegation who argued that the ominous
> dynamics of recent weeks might be reversable if -- as
> a first step -- Iraq agreed to allow unrestricted
> inspections.
>
> Despite Iraq's breakthrough decision that came two
> days later to do just that, I'll be leaving Baghdad
> tonight with a scarcely mitigated sense of gloom.
> While the news from the Iraqi capital has been
> positive in recent days, the profuse signs of renewed
> acquiescence to war among top Democrats on Capitol
> Hill are all the more repulsive.
>
> Boxed in, the Iraqi government opted to accept arms
> inspectors as its least bad choice. Gauging the odds
> of averting war, Iraq chose a long shot --
> appreciably better than no chance at all, but bringing
> its own risks. Several years ago, Washington used
> UNSCOM inspectors for espionage totally unrelated to
> the U.N. team's authorized mission. This fall, new
> squads of inspectors poking around the country could
> furnish valuable data to the United States,
> heightening the effectiveness of a subsequent military
>
> attack.
>
> Aziz, a very analytical man, hardly seemed eager to
> grasp at weapons inspections as a way to stave off
> attack. Instead, he told our delegation -- which
> included Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and former Sen.
> James Abourezk -- that a comprehensive "formula" would
> be needed for a long-term solution.
>
> Presumably the formula would include a U.S. pledge of
> non-aggression and a lifting of sanctions. No such
> formula is in sight. Instead, the White House remains
> determined to inflict a horrendous war. Meanwhile, the
>
> Democratic Party's "leadership" in the Senate,
> pursuing some sort of craven political calculus, is
> lining up to put vast quantities of blood on its
> hands.
>
> I would like to take Tom Daschle to visit a 7-year-old
> girl, suffering from leukemia, who I saw in a Baghdad
> hospital a few days ago. He might spare a few
> senatorial moments to look at the I.V. connected to
> her wrist, the uncontrolled bleeding from her lips,
> the anguish in the dark eyes of her mother, seated on
> a bare mattress. Years of sanctions, championed by
> moralizers in Washington, have left Iraq without
> adequate chemotherapy drugs.
>
> Now we're hearing about a resolution that -- unless
> people across the United States mobilize in opposition
> -- will sail through the House and Senate to authorize
> a massive U.S. military attack on Iraq.
>
> I can hear the raspy and prophetic voice of Sen. Wayne
> Morse, who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin
> Resolution, roaring 38 years ago: "I don't know
> why we think, just because we're mighty, that we have
> the right to try to substitute might for right."
>
> After leaving Tariq Aziz's office, our delegation met
> with Sa'doun Hammadi, speaker of Iraq's National
> Assembly. "We are now a country facing the threat of
> war," he said. "We have to prepare for that."
>
> Hammadi is an elderly man. While he's now in frail
> physical health, his mind and articulation remain
> acute. If the U.S. invaders come, Hammadi said, "the
> Iraqi people will fight." As those words settled in
> the air, the gaunt old man paused and then added: "I
> will fight." And for a moment I thought that I could
> see the dimming of light in his eyes, like embers
> in a dying fire.
>
> During the current heavy dance of death, the U.S.
> government leads with every major step. And the sky
> over Baghdad seems to foreshadow new horrors;
> unfathomable and avoidable.
>
> With an all-out war on Iraq shadowing the near
> horizon, what are Americans to do if they want to
> prevent such carnage from happening in their names
> with their tax dollars? For one thing, they -- we --
> can speak up. Now. The fact that the odds are dire
> should spur us into creative action, not anesthetize
> us into further passivity. "And henceforth," Albert
> Camus wrote, "the only honorable course will be to
> stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words
> are more powerful than munitions."
>
> __________________________________
>> Norman Solomon is executive director of the Institute
> for Public
> Accuracy
> (www.accuracy.org), which sponsored the U.S.
> delegation to Baghdad in
> mid-September.
>
====================================================================

"THE OVERTHROW OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, Part 17"

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