Iraq

The Iraqi opposition in 1991

Crushed by Saddam Hussein while the West looked on Almost immediately with an agreement of a ceasefire at the end of the last Gulf War, early in March 1991, the Shi'a people of the south of Iraq rose up in rebellion. In the north the Kurds also launched a rebellion. These movements were not welcomed by the US and its allies. Clive Bradley looks at events which may be repeated in a war on Iraq in 2003. The Shi'a (sometimes called "marsh Arabs" because of the marshy terrain) - the smaller of the two main Islamic sects - are a majority of the Iraqi population; by some estimates, Sunnis, although...

No to war! No to Saddam!

The AWL National Committee on 30/11/02 passed a resolution on the planned US/UK war in Iraq. 1. US strategists evidently believe that they are "on a roll", and should seize the chance to tidy up another problem. With enough "smart bombs", they can crush Saddam's regime quickly, set up an alternative, and then withdraw. At small cost they will have secured the end of the malodorous and ineffective UN sanctions against Iraq, established a reliable government over one of the world's major oil powers, and stabilised a crucial region. Even if we thought that the gung-ho US strategists were...

Anti-War movement:Vicious circles closing in

An interview with Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, journalist and one of Germany's leading authorities on human rights in Iraq, published originally in Ha'aretz in early October 2002. Reposted from http://www.wadinet.de Ha'aretz: When did you first realize that the Iraqi regime was not just another Middle East dictatorship? Von der Osten-Sacken: "When I first came to Iraq, I very quickly realized that I could not compare the situation there to other Middle Eastern countries I had been in, like Syria, Jordan or Egypt. This country was hell. We were the only Europeans in a city called Amara in the...

Organised working class key for anti-war drive

Downloadable here (pdf, 100k) is a small Socialist Alliance leaflet against the drive for war on Iraq, one which argues for the need to oppose the war on a democratic, working-class and internationalist basis.

Is George Galloway MP a 'mouthpiece' for Saddam Hussein?

From Solidarity 3/4, 29 March 2002 By Sean Matgamna The House of Commons is a strange place, governed by its own sometimes incomprehensible rituals. In the early 1990s the Unionist MP Ian Paisley was suspended from the House for shouting "liar" at a minister who denied that the government was having secret talks with Gerry Adams and the IRA. Everybody knew that what Paisley said was true: secret talks - ultimately they led to the Good Friday Agreement - were taking place and those who denied it were, indeed, liars. Truth was less important than the fact that Paisley had overstepped the bounds...

Campaigning against War on Iraq

The truth about Saddam. Cathy Nugent looked at Labour Against the War's 'counter-dossier' produced in advance of the Government's dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction Labour Against the War How do we stop Blair's war drive? By Gerry Byrne Frontline Poetry: Phrase Book Defend Iraqi Kurds and Iranian asylum seekers The truth about Saddam What is the truth about Saddam's chemical and biological weapons? In The dishonest case for a war on Iraq LATW examine some of the same evidence as the Government's dossier - which is, after all, an aggregate of information including a lot...

A working class answer to US imperialism and Saddam Hussein

Solidarity 3/12, 12 September 2002 US strategists evidently believe that they are "on a roll", and should seize the chance to tidy up another problem. With enough "smart bombs", they can crush Saddam's regime quickly, set up an alternative, and then withdraw. Rhodri Evans surveys the background. The US administration wants to go to war against Iraq. Not only socialists and radicals in the USA and worldwide, but also large sections of the US ruling class and of the USA's usual bourgeois allies worldwide, think this is folly. At small cost the US strategists will have secured the end of the...

Questions and answers on Iraq

From Solidarity 3/12, 12 September 2002 Come and join us on the streets, and in the meetings, so that we can build a strong anti-war movement on a clear internationalist and democratic basis. Is Saddam Hussein a threat? Yes. A threat to his own people - he rules them by terror. A threat to Iraq's oppressed national minority, the Kurds - he has massacred them. A threat to neighbouring peoples - in 1980 (against Iran) and in 1990 (against Kuwait) he went to war to make his state the regional "big power" in the Gulf. He is in no position to attempt a new war of expansion now, but given half a...

Three tasks on 28 September

From Solidarity 3/12, 12 September 2002 On 28 September, and in the run-up to it, socialists have three tasks. First, to build the broadest possible mobilisation. Second, to establish on the demonstration a visible internationalist and democratic counter-presence to the Islamists and their "left" allies. Third, to work for a strong "Unions against War" movement. The demonstration on 28 September against war on Iraq will be huge. Supported by ten national trade unions and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, it should outstrip the demonstrations last year against the USA's war in Afghanistan...

Stop the war drive!

by Pete Radcliff A great tragedy for the Middle East is being prepared by US President George Bush and the gang of politically inadequate bourgeois thieves and gangsters with which he has surrounded himself. Bush is hell-bent on war with Iraq to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime. The governments of Europe and the Middle East oppose the war which the USA is proposing - with one exception: Tony Blair. It will be a good day for all the peoples of Iraq when Saddam Hussein is sent to join Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin in hell. But the full-scale war which Bush is preparing to launch will kill...

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