Focusing on Saddam Hussein while Raping the World

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Focusing on Saddam Hussein while Raping the World

"Removing the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction"

US Uses Thermobaric Bomb for First Time

No Responsibility: Physicians Denounce Administration Decision to Abandon Nuclear Weapons Commitment

The recent statements of Tony Blair and Jack Straw on the alleged threat posed by Saddam Hussein are attempting to focus the eyes of the people on the "evil" of this "tyrant" who possesses "weapons of mass destruction".

Thus is the strategy of the British government’s "war against terrorism" unfolding. Right from the day of September 11 itself when Tony Blair declared that henceforth the main agenda was to be the eradication of the "evil of mass terrorism", the government has set itself against looking at the objective problems facing society and solving them. A spectre of the "evil of mass terrorism" was to be raised instead.

When the world’s peoples have been demanding that the way to the progress of society be unblocked and pointing out that a different world is possible, the Anglo-American imperialists have responded by "re-ordering the world", in Tony Blair’s phrase. This has been an attempt to snuff out the initiative of the people on the one hand, and to win them over to the imperialists attempts to conquer the world under the signboard of "globalisation" on the other.

First Afghanistan, next Iraq. At the same time, the British government has been intervening through the Commonwealth, it has been intervening in Africa, it is manoeuvring in South Asia, in the Middle East, it has been lecturing North Korea. There is scarcely a place on the globe that Tony Blair has not visited in seeking to impose the Anglo-US agenda. Meanwhile, US troops are straddling the globe, moving into the Philippines, Georgia, and bolstering their presence wherever they deem necessary, stirring up trouble.

The US imperialists and the British government, in short, are now focusing on the "evil" of "terrorism" while raping the world. This is consistent with their agenda of neo-liberal globalisation which is screwing up to the utmost all the features of imperialism – its parasitism, its monopoly, its domination of finance capital, its drive to dominate the world, its moribund nature, its abandonment of the national economy and the needs of the people, its drive for maximum profit at the cost of war on a global scale.

The British working class and people must not be taken in by this imposed agenda, but must continue to develop the workers’ and people’s movements to their conclusion, must militantly step up their struggles on the line of march to a new society.

Tony Blair began preparing Britain for the second phase of the war on terrorism last week when he said that Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction was a threat to world stability.

In a heightening of the rhetoric against Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair virtually lined himself up behind President Bush’s portrayal of Iraq as part of an "axis of evil". "It is an issue that those who are engaged in spreading weapons of mass destruction are engaged in an evil trade and it is important that we make sure that we take action in respect of it," he told Australia’s ABC Television shortly before leaving for the Commonwealth summit in Australia.

He added: "The accumulation of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq poses a threat, a threat not just to the region but the wider world, and I think George Bush was absolutely right to raise it. Now what action we take in respect of that, that is an open matter for discussion."

Tony Blair has said the death of eight US soldiers in Afghanistan reinforces the threat from terrorism facing the world. Speaking at the Commonwealth summit in Australia, Tony Blair called for efforts in Afghanistan to be redoubled.

Tony Blair is to travel to Washington in April to see the President Bush for what is increasingly being seen as a war summit.

In an article for The Times of March 5, the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw writes that the threat from Iraq to international security is not receding. The newspaper reports that this could be a political prelude to an attack on Iraq.

In his article, Jack Straw reiterates that the international community's most pressing demand is for Iraq to allow UN officials to return and inspect weapons programmes.

"As long as (Saddam) refuses, we can only suspect the worst – and this obliges us to look at other ways of limiting his capability", he writes. "Intense diplomatic efforts will continue... but if he refuses to open his weapons programmes to proper international inspection, he will have to live with the consequences."

"There is evidence of increased efforts to procure nuclear-related material and technology and that nuclear research and development work has begun again. Without the controls which we have imposed Saddam would have had a nuclear bomb by now," Jack Straw wrote.

No decisions have been taken, the Foreign Secretary notes in conclusion, "but let no one – especially Saddam Hussein – doubt our resolve".

Speaking in Australia, the Prime Minister raised the possibility of new military action in the Gulf, indicating a concerted attempt by the government to prepare public opinion for such a course of action.

"What we do about these weapons of mass destruction, that's an open issue. I will be going over to the States in a few weeks' time to discuss this issue. Let us wait and see exactly what happens but it's clear we need to deal with this issue," Tony Blair told Australia's Channel Nine television.

Downing Street said: "We are discussing ALL the options. The threat from weapons of mass destruction is serious and must be addressed."

Tony Blair admitted there was no evidence linking Saddam to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. However he added: "But as for weapons of mass destruction, there is no doubt they pose a threat."

Downing Street said: "We are not saying that is all over, but we have more time and space to move on and address the issues we have identified on weapons of mass destruction."

"September 11 sharpened people’s focus on the real threats from Iraq."

Secret services are helping dissidents inside Iraq to undermine Saddam. CIA insiders revealed that a covert US plot to topple Saddam by arming rebels and stoking unrest with radio broadcasts is already under way. Agents plan to give weapons to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq and train and equip Shiite Muslims in the south. They also hope to start broadcasting radio messages to encourage ethnic groups to take up arms and persuade soldiers to defect.

President Bush has already agreed to finance the building of a £700,000 radio transmitter in the Kurdish enclave of Iraq, the US State Department confirmed. Programmes for the new FM radio channel will be produced in London, according to Iraqi National Congress opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi.

President Bush will also bankroll a meeting of several hundred Iraqi military defectors in Europe in the next two months. A plan has already been approved for an all-out strike involving air attacks and a ground assault by up to 200,000 troops if the covert operation fails.

The thermobaric bomb has been used by US forces for the first time in Afghanistan, a military official acknowledged.

The thermobaric bomb BLU-118S was among the more than 80 pieces of ordnance dropped on Saturday by US warplanes south of the Afghan city of Gardez where intelligence had discovered a concentration of Taleban and al-Qaida fighters.

"We used one thermobaric bomb in that operation," Navy Lieutenant Commander Matthew Klee, a spokesman for the Central Command, told AFP. "It was the first time we used it."

The bomb, which belongs to the category of so-called fuel-air munitions, is capable of penetrating deep underground to reach hidden command bunkers or caves and explode upon hitting its target, according to experts and defence officials.

Its explosive charge is designed in a way that allows the attacker to practically pulverise all occupants of the underground structure.

"It works as a combination of a shock wave and a fuel explosion," Klee explained. "The first explosion spreads flammable aerosols through the underground complex. Then, the second ignites the fuel."

According to independent experts, the bomb, once detonated, produces rapidly expanding shock waves flattening anything near the epicentre of the aerosol fuel cloud, and capable of causing extensive damage far beyond the immediate strike area.

In addition, shock waves produced by the BLU-118S are capable of navigating underground labyrinths and literally leaving no stone unturned, according to Klee.

"When the shock wave from a normal bomb hits a wall it stops," said the spokesman. "With BLU-118, the shock wave goes around the corner."

In a letter sent in February 2000 to Vladimir Putin, then Russia's acting president, the group warned that fuel-air explosives, which are compared by some experts to low-yield nuclear bombs, could cause massive loss of life especially in or near populated areas.

"Their use against populated areas would violate international norms on indiscriminate attacks," said Joost Hiltermann, Human Rights Watch's top weapons expert.

Klee said the US military was aware of Moscow's use in Chechnya of a bomb built on a similar concept but assured that the US BLU-118S "falls under the guidelines of the Geneva Conventions."

The spokesman declined to disclose why the Pentagon had chosen to use such a powerful munition against a cave complex near Gardez, saying only that "a pocket of Taleban and al-Qaida resistance" had been discovered in the area.

Physicians for Social Responsibility, it is reported from Washington, denounced a change in US policy announced this week by Under-secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton that the United States would no longer respect a long-standing agreement to limit consideration of a nuclear response only to attacks from a nuclear-armed foe.

President Carter made the no-nuclear-use pledge in 1978 as germane to U.S. commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has been honoured implicitly by all subsequent administrations, and was explicitly re-affirmed by then Secretary of State Warren Christopher in 1995.

"Breaking such a serious commitment will compromise the United States in all its relationships with other nations," said Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., Executive Director and CEO of PSR. "This international insult brings the United States to a new low, where we function as a loaded nuclear weapon pointed at the head of our allies and enemies alike."

The pledge not to use our nuclear forces against countries without nuclear weapons was reiterated by Christopher as the United States continued negotiations on the Non Proliferation Treaty. The four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council similarly embraced pledges on nuclear weapons use. The pledge has been included as part of a resolution adopted by the Security Council in April 1995.

"Morally, no nation can claim the right to use the supremely destructive force of a nuclear weapon against an enemy who doesn't possess such a weapon," said Musil. "This careless statement – combined with our growing bellicose rhetoric and treaty-bashing unilateralism – voids our ability to counsel our colleagues on averting war and other calamities."

Under-secretary Bolton claimed the long-standing agreement to avoid using nuclear weapons reflected "an unrealistic view of the international situation." However, PSR believes that the agreement makes the world a safer place by ensuring that international pacts like the Non-Proliferation Treaty are honoured and enforced. The alternative – a lawless world with a few dozen nuclear states with no qualms about using these weapons indiscriminately – would be a dangerous place.