Not a Dossier but an Attempted Justification for War

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Not a Dossier but an Attempted Justification for War

Jack Straw Continues to Threaten War with Iraq

The Response of Iraq

The government dossier published on Tuesday morning as the House of Commons was recalled demonstrates how far reaction and irrationality are being taken under the signboard of opposing "evil".

WDIE has no hesitation in declaring the dossier nothing but an exercise in disinformation, in which the monopoly media play their crucial and integral role – a pretext and an attempted justification for war and violation of sovereignty. It is an act of desperation, attended by an orchestrated fanfare that no one can escape, to dredge up "evidence" for a course of action for which no justification is possible. Nothing in the dossier can be said to constitute evidence of the constantly repeated phrase "weapons of mass destruction", let alone give a coherent account of any "threat" to use them. In focusing on this "threat", the government is attempting to divert attention from the matters of principle that are being raised in opposition to its attempts to tear up international norms and the rule of law internationally. It is an attempt to divert serious discussion on the issues and circumvent the massive opposition to stepped up aggression.

The Prime Minister’s statements to parliament were as unsubstantiated as the document itself. It had the character of bluster in the face of the stand of the Iraqi government that weapons inspectors can be allowed into Iraq without restriction. The demand for the introduction of weapons inspectors, who it is well documented were nothing but spies for the US when they were last thrown out by Iraq, was itself nothing but a pretext for war against Iraq. Tony Blair’s allegations about the evil of Saddam Hussein are nothing but medievalism in modern garb, while his allegations about Iraq’s capabilities could be used more appropriately against any number of other countries, including Israel, and not excluding Britain itself.

It is the British government, as the junior partner of US imperialism, that is threatening to engulf the world in conflict and war.

Following the publication of the much heralded government dossier on Iraq yesterday, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, made the opening speech to the debate on Iraq in the House of Commons.

Both the publication of the government's dossier and the speeches of its leading figures, such as the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, make it clear that the government is engaged in a massive propaganda offensive, aimed at overcoming the growing opposition to its plans for an unjust war against Iraq. In his speech Jack Straw was at pains to refute charges that the government's motives for its campaign against Iraq are not those that it has stated, and that in any case the use of force against Iraq is unjustified. Amongst other things the Foreign Secretary attempted to respond to the criticism that there are other countries, which have developed "dangerous arsenals of weapons of mass destruction," and that the "international community" is "guilty of double standards". It cannot be forgotten that it is the US, Britain and the other big powers that control the biggest stockpiles and "dangerous arsenals of weapons of mass destruction", that have repeatedly used and maintained the threat of using such weapons, and that they are the biggest traffickers of such weapons throughout the world. It was immediately evident from the Foreign Secretary's speech that the government felt that the dossier and previous propaganda had not succeeded in answering such charges. Indeed even in the parliamentary debate it was clear that the government has not even been able to convince its own members of parliament of the justness of a war against Iraq.

The Foreign Secretary's speech shows that the government, acting on behalf of Anglo-American imperialism, is using exactly the same logic as it did during the Gulf War, during its military intervention in the Balkans, Sierra Leone and in Afghanistan. It is attempting to present the view that it is acting for humanitarian reasons, and in order to bring stability and peace. But the Foreign Secretary found it extremely difficult to explain why, if this were the case, the government acts as it does in relation to Palestine, where it supports the state terrorism of the Israeli Zionists, and attempts to thwart the legitimate demands of the Palestinian people. The intervention of Britain and the other big powers is now seen by growing numbers of people as dictated not by humanitarianism, but by the strategic and economic motives of the big monopolies and the need to impose Anglo-American values and the "New World Order". Their armed intervention has not made the world a more stable and peaceful place, quite the contrary, and a war against Iraq threatens to bring even greater instability and grave dangers, not only to the peoples of Iraq and the Middle East, but also to people throughout the world.

Echoing the views of the US President, Jack Straw even tried to suggest that the UN now faces a similar choice to that faced by the League of Nations in the 1930s. That the "ultimate enforcement of international of the rule of international law had to be by force of arms". But the fact is that League of Nations was weakened by the machinations of Britain and the other big powers of that time, just as the UN has been similarly weakened today, both by the flouting of international law by countries such as Britain and the US and their manipulation of it for their own purposes, as is the case over Iraq.

The British and US governments are determined to step up their armed aggression against Iraq, to bring about "regime change" in their own interests and increasingly to use force in international affairs to pursue their strategic and economic aims. An extremely dangerous situation is being created in the world. It is in this situation that the working class and all peace loving people must strengthen the movement to stop the militarism of the British government and demand that it stop supporting the US. They must strengthen their programme and movement for the alternative, for a new just society and an end to the danger of war.

Iraq signalled immediate readiness to open the sites listed in the government’s "dossier" to inspection. Presidential adviser Amer Saadi said following its publication that "UN weapons inspectors will have unfettered access" after practical arrangements are made for their visit likely next month and could go "wherever they want to go". He said he expected UN inspectors to arrive in Iraq in mid-October if there was "no interference from an outside party".

Amer Saadi said of Tony Blair: "His allegations are long, his evidence is short." The report, he said, is a "hodgepodge of half-truths, lies and short-sighted and naive allegations which will not hold after a brief investigation by competent and independent experts in the related fields".

The Iraqi Culture Minister, Yousif Hummadi, told a news conference in Baghdad that the dossier was "baseless".

Yousif Hummadi accused Tony Blair of taking part in what he called a Zionist campaign against Iraq.