In the eve of Labour Party conferbrought the message to the streets of London that the occupation of Iraq must end now. Blair and Bush can no longer hide the real reasons for the war. Hans Blix, the former UN Chief weapons inspector, has stated that he now believes Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were destroyed after the 1991 Gulf war. Leaks from the occupation forces' Iraq Survey Group report also indicate that they have no such weapons.
Now the US-backed administration has effectively put the country up for sale in a privatisation windfall. Foreign firms will be allowed to wholly own Iraqi companies, except those in the oil, gas and mineral industries, repatriate all the profits and have no obligation to use local products or employ local people. American legal firms are drafting the new laws for Iraq.
So the justification for war - what was said to be an immediate threat from Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) was just a cover for grabbing Iraq's resources and realigning the world behind the USA's economic and social priorities. Even New Labour former Environment Minister Michael Meacher has stated "This war on ••• American and British forces are now being drawn ever deeper into a quagmire reminiscent of Vietnam over 30 years ago. terrorism is bogus.... The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination".
American and British forces are now being drawn ever deeper into a quagmire reminiscent of Vietnam over 30 years ago. Deaths of occupying troops and local civilians are mounting, and open hostility to the occupation is rising day by day.
The war did not end on May I as announced by George Bush. The military strategy of a "light" war carried out rapidly with few troops is in tatters, and the vision of an "American 2Ist century" is in deep trouble.
The war has radiacross the world against US imperialism on a scale not seen for a generation. Simultaneous demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in cities across the world have seriously circumscribed imperialism's room for manoeuvre.
France and Germany refused to back a US intervention without UN approval, and now the USA is going back to the UN to get help to shoulder the escalating financial and political cost of the occupation. Emboldened by this opposition, developing •• countries refused the World Trade Organisation deal being pushed by the USA and the EU to open up their markets even more.
In Iraq, chaos and resistance has demolished Blair and Bush's expectations that the Iraqis would wholeheartedly welcome their troops. Attacks against US troops are seen by Iraqis as legitimate actions against the occupation forces, despite the claims that they are carried out by Baathists and foreign terrorso
The political cost of the war is expressed
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