Where Do We Go From Here?

Those who were united a year ago in opposition to the war on Iraq find themselves divided on where we should go from here. Some suggest that despite our opposition to the launching of the war, today we need to support the occupation. Others urge us to support the resistance. In the questions and answers below I will try to address the concerns coming from both directions.

 

 

Even if the United States shouldn't have invaded Iraq, now that they're there don't you think the troops need to stay to prevent harm to the Iraqi population?

 

There are three reasons one can't expect the United States to protect Iraqis.

 

First, the historical record of the United States in Iraq has made it the leading killer of innocent Iraqis: its backing for Saddam Hussein during his most ruthless actions, its denial of support to the 1991 anti-Saddam uprisings, its more than ten years of murderous sanctions, it use of weapons like cluster bombs and depleted uranium that have been condemned by human rights organizations.

 

Second, it is precisely the U.S. determination to control Iraq -- militarily, economically, and politically -- that incites many Iraqis to resort to an armed response, creating the very conditions that put large numbers of Iraqi civilians at risk. What sort of credibility can the United States have as a protector of the Iraqi people when, at the very same time that it proclaims its concern for Iraqis, it is presiding over the corporate looting of Iraq. How can the country that is building long-term military bases in Iraq for the indefinite future be taken seriously as a disinterested defender of Iraqi interests? And, of course, the Bush administration's increasing endorsement of Israeli terror makes U.S. troops a provocation wherever they are in the Arab world.)  

 

Third, during the occupation U.S. armed forces have shown themselves to be the main danger to Iraqi civilians. U.S. troops slaughtered hundreds in Fallujah, a majority of whom, according to hospital officials, were women and children.{1} U.S. forces have been firing at ambulances,{2} and blocked access to hospitals.{3} Needless to say, Cobra helicopters are not the weapon of choice for protecting civilians. Even Washington's closest allies acknowledge the horror of the U.S. approach: as a British officer in Iraq commented:

 

"My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are."{4}

 

 

Would you support the U.S. occupation if the military stopped its current brutal treatment of Iraqis?

 

There is no evidence to suggest that, even without the current brutality, the U.S. government has the interests of the Iraqi people in mind. We need to keep in mind that we're not talking about some abstract U.S. government -- some superpower that has all the capabilities of the United States, but none of the imperial policies. We're talking about the actual U.S. government, one with a certain history and certain dynamics.

 

In an otherwise compelling critique of the Iraq war as an instance of "humanitarian intervention," Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth writes that the "dirty hands" and hypocrisy of the intervener are irrelevant considerations in judging whether a particular intervention is justified on humanitarian grounds.{5} Roth is certainly right that such considerations cannot be absolutely determinative, but to call them irrelevant ignores the fact that past behavior is often an excellent guide to future behavior. If the U.S. says it wants to intervene somewhere to help people achieve democracy and social justice, surely its record of promoting or opposing democracy and social justice in other places or at other times is a good indication of what we can expect. Some leftists supported the Iraq war on the grounds that it would be of humanitarian benefit to Iraqis -- but the U.S. government that they were expecting to carry out the war existed only in their imaginations. In the real world, the U.S. government has blocked democracy and social justice, and has in fact sacrificed untold numbers of foreign lives, whenever doing so could be expected to further the wealth and power of U.S. elites.

 

There is nothing in either the history or the dynamics of U.S. foreign policy that would have led us to expect humanitarian benefit from U.S. intervention in Iraq, and nothing that should lead us to expect future humanitarian benefit.

 

What would be the effect of U.S. withdrawal on the security of the Iraqi people?

 

The first and most obvious benefit would be that they would no longer be subjected to U.S. military violence. But they would face other difficulties.

 

When the United States defeated the Iraqi armed forces in April 2003, law and order broke down leading to widespread looting (that the U.S. chose not to prevent). In subsequent months there were reports of widespread rapes and abuse of women and girls.{6} This suggests that if U.S. troops withdrew, there would be serious security problems, even if there were no civil war. Of course, Iraqis are capable of providing their own security, but the institutions to allow them to do so in a non-partisan and professional manner do not yet exist. (The existing sectarian armed militias cannot be depended upon to disinterestedly protect the population.) In addition, although civil war is by no means inevitable, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. When the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, the "international community" provided no security (or other) assistance, and the result was years of horrendous civil war, the human costs of which were so severe that many Afghans welcomed the stability ultimately enforced by the Taliban. Accordingly, some sort of international security presence is needed in Iraq during the transition before elections and the training of Iraqi police.

 

 

Does this mean that you think we should be calling for increased UN involvement?

 

The UN is an extremely undependable organization. It has an undemocratic structure that gives disproportionate power to the five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Britain, France, China, and the Russian Federation). The United States, as the world's sole superpower, can often use its military and economic clout to get its way in the UN. But the U.S. could use its clout in the absence of the UN too, so in fact there will be occasional instances where -- when the permanent five are not in agreement -- that the UN will put up some small obstacle in the way of the United States. In the case of Haiti, where Paris's agenda has been as sordid as Washington's, the Security Council to its shame simply endorsed U.S.-French policy. But in the case of the Iraq war, despite the tremendous pressure exerted by the United States, the Security Council members held firm and refused to give Washington the rubber stamp it has so often received. To be sure, this didn't prevent the Bush administration from going to war, and a real UN would not just have refused to back the war but would have condemned the U.S.-UK aggression. But this doesn't mean that UN opposition was totally irrelevant. The lack of Security Council authorization discouraged many nations from participating in the U.S. occupation and it adds to the political difficulties that both Bush and Blair are facing.

 

The Bush administration now realizes that the situation in Iraq may become an electoral disaster. A year after the president declared "mission accomplished," U.S. soldiers are suffering their highest level of casualties, and Bush would like nothing more than to be able to continue the occupation under the guise of a UN operation, with other nations, not the U.S., suffering the casualties. Those of us who oppose the U.S. occupation ought to oppose it whether or not there is a UN fig leaf.

 

 

But you said we should be seeking an international security presence?

 

What is crucial is for us to look beneath the rhetoric and assess what is actually going on. A UN force and other UN assistance that was not controlled by Washington and London, that helped Iraqis during a transition period, would be welcome. On the other hand, a UN force that fronted for Washington and London, that essentially carried out the wishes of the Bush administration with just cosmetic changes, should be absolutely rejected.

 

At the moment, a UN mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, has proposed a way forward: Instead of using the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council as the basis for any transitional Iraqi authority, Brahimi has suggested instead that he appoint a caretaker government of technocrats to run things until elections are held. Desperate for some way out of the quagmire, Brahimi's plan (yet without details) has been endorsed by Bush and Blair (and given grudging support from Rumsfeld). While the U.S. no doubt still has its preferred lackeys on the IGC, it has become obvious even to the White House that these individuals are so without popular backing that to continue insisting on them will lead to disaster. (Survey data from Iraq are extremely dubious, but a recent poll asked which political figure do you "not trust at all." Pentagon favorite and IGC member Ahmed Chalabi led all contenders with 10.3%, compared to 3.1% for Saddam Hussein.{7})

 

It remains to be seen what the details of Brahimi's plan will be -- there are key Iraqis, including Shia leader Ali al-Sistani, to whom he's not yet spoken -- and it is unclear what sort of resolution the Security Council will be willing to approve. Moreover,

 

"...at this point, diplomats expect the resolution to be largely a formality. For it to pull in additional international help, the U.S. must make a serious effort to give the U.N. a clear and autonomous role, and to ensure that a multinational force is seen as a stabilizer, not an occupying presence.

 

"Gunter Pleuger, German ambassador to the U.N., said his country had no plans to increase its participation in Iraq soon, with or without a new resolution. Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali said many countries would wait to see how the transition fared before committing to help.

 

***

 

"Even a U.S. proposal aimed at attracting contributions of troops to protect U.N. aid workers is not gaining traction.

 

"'I don't think this is the time to get involved,' Pakistan's ambassador, Munir Akram, said of that proposal."{8}

 

So far, there are good reasons to be suspicious of Brahimi's plan: the U.S. urged the UN Secretary General to send Brahimi to Iraq{9} and Brahimi has been consulting with U.S. officials.{10} On the other hand, the UN secretariat reflects the views not just of Washington, but of other influential states (many of which opposed the war), and the UN has already paid a heavy price -- a bombing that killed 21 of its staff -- for too quickly following the U.S. into Baghdad. (Said Kofi Annan on April 14, "For the foreseeable future, insecurity is going to be a major constraint for us. So I cannot say I'm going to be sending in a large U.N. team."{11}) And Brahimi has publicly criticized the United States, saying of its attack on Fallujah:

 

"The collective punishments are not acceptable, cannot be acceptable, and to cordon off and besiege a city is not acceptable.... There is no military solution to the problems and ... the use of force, especially of excessive use of force, makes matters worse."{12}

 

So how can we assess any UN plan that finally emerges? We need to ask of any plan:

 

1.                  Are there to be some hundred thousand U.S. troops stationed in Iraq?

2.                  Will these troops be under the control of the White House?

3.                  Will the status of these troops be worked out with representatives of the Iraqi people or -- as is currently the case -- unilaterally by the United States, using the claim that Security Council resolutions authorize their presence?

4.                  Will Iraqi security forces remain under the control of a U.S. commander?

5.                  Will Order No. 39 issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority (which is to say, Washington) on Sept. 19, 2003 which permits 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses, other than the oil industry, and allows repatriation of profits, still be in force?{13}

6.                  Will Order No. 37 issued by the CPA on Sept. 19, 2003 which suspends income and property taxes for the year, and imposes a 15% flat tax on individuals and corporations from 2004 onward, still be in force?

7.                  Will the Saddam Hussein-era legislation prohibiting strikes by public employees which was continued under the CPA still be in force?

8.                  Will the operation of the port of Umm Qasr, which was privatized by U.S. officials and put in the hands of Stevedoring Services of America, a politically connected U.S. corporation, still be under SSA's control?

9.                  Will U.S. corporations, including Halliburton and Bechtel, still be in possession of the bulk of the reconstruction contracts in Iraq, to the exclusion of Iraqi companies and companies from nations which opposed the war?

10.              Will Order No. 30, issued by the CPA in Sept. 2003, which reduced the wage floor for Iraqi public employees from $60 a month to $40, and eliminated all previous house, food, family, risk and location subsidies, still be in force?

11.              Will the Iraqi economy, devastated by wars and sanctions, be at the mercy of U.S. reconstruction funds, authorized by Washington rather than by some sort of neutral international source?

 

If the answers to most of these questions -- but especially the first and the last -- are yes, then we can conclude that any UN role is just a façade for U.S. control. To the extent that the answers are no, U.S. domination will have been forestalled.

 

One can't tell at this point how the Brahimi plan will ultimately play out, but the position of U.S. officials is clear:

 

"...administration officials asserted that, even with the United Nations overseeing the selection of a caretaker government and then holding an election and helping the Iraqis write a constitution, American influence on the process would be considerable -- not least because the United States is to remain in charge of military and security matters, and will be the country's main source of economic aid."{14}

 

The administration's position seems to be endorsed by its mainstream critics. For example, the New York Times editorialized on April 17, 2004:

 

Even if everything goes as well as possible, and even if reluctant European nations agree to provide military aid, the situation in Iraq will remain perilous at best, and large numbers of American troops will be needed to keep the peace indefinitely. A new resolution will have to define the relationship between those forces and the interim body. Mr. Bush will not, and should not, surrender command, even if spelling that out further diminishes the symbolic sovereignty of the new government.{15}

 

And John Kerry has said that "the primary responsibility for security must remain with the U.S. military."{16} Kerry calls for giving political control of the transition to the UN, not the U.S., but he says he shares the same goal as Bush -- which either means he is whitewashing Bush or implicating himself:

 

"While we may have differed on how we went to war, Americans of all political persuasions are united in our determination to succeed. The extremists attacking our forces should know they will not succeed in dividing America, or in sapping American resolve, or in forcing the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops. Our country is committed to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society. No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission."

 

 

Is there any reason to think that Iraqis will be any more willing to accept a UN role?

 

Iraqis have even more reason than us to be skeptical of the UN, given the organization's awful policy of enforcing on Iraq economic sanctions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. But many Iraqis also know that the sanctions were primarily the work of the United States and Britain, and that the UN did behave admirably in rejecting the Washington-London demand for war.

 

Moreover, while Iraqis have good reasons to be dubious about the UN, they also have a greater need to find some sort of alterative to either U.S. occupation or chaos. Many prominent Iraqis have called for a UN presence, though they too are likely to be wary of the UN's serving simply as a cover for U.S. occupation.

 

The goal is to have Iraqis determine their own future and decide for themselves what role the UN (or anyone else) ought to play. The problem, of course, is that there is no unambiguous way to ascertain Iraqi views on this question unless there is an election first, but who is to supervise that election? At this point it seems plausible that some sort of international presence -- unbeholden to Washington or U.S. troops -- is the mechanism preferred by most Iraqis.{17}

 

 

How do you understand the supposed transfer of sovereignty that is scheduled to happen on June 30?

 

If Washington gets its way, the transfer will be essentially meaningless. It is standard imperial practice to try to rule indirectly: recognize the nominal independence of some territory and then through economic, political, and military means maintain control. "Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent," explained British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.

 

Reference sources list the date of Iraq's independence from Britain as 1932.{18} But Iraq was obligated by a 1930 treaty with Britain (signed before "independence") to give the British access to two military bases on Iraqi territory, to have its armed forces trained by the British, to consult with London on foreign policy, and to promise mutual aid in time of war.{19}

 

The same thing applies to Washington's planned June 30, 2004 transfer of sovereignty to Iraq. The U.S. has built 14 military bases in Iraq -- seven times as many as were maintained by imperial Britain. The U.S. plans to run the show from a 3,000-person super-embassy (the largest in the world). The newly-named U.S. ambassador is John Negroponte, the official who headed the U.S. effort at the UN to bully the organization into war with Iraq. "The reality is that most power will be transferred to the U.S. ambassador," in the words of former State Department official Henry J. Barkey.{20}

 

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has explained that "The [June 30] deadline applies to political governance of the country. It does not apply to the security responsibility," including U.S. control of the Iraqi military. "There is no plan to change the security situation on June 30."{21}

 

According to former top State Department official Edward Walker, "It's definitely not really a transfer of sovereignty when you don't control the security of your country and you don't really have an income." In actuality, he said, "Iraqis will control only such functions as agriculture after the transfer."{22} Walker, however, may overstate the Iraqi role. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported,

 

L. Paul Bremer recently announced, with much fanfare, that several ministries -- Health, Education and Public Works -- have entered the "final stages" of sovereignty. Yet he recently appointed a small army of bureaucrats, from deputy ministers to inspectors general, with multiyear terms.{23}

 

Given that U.S. policy in Iraq is so heinous, should progressives adopt the slogan "support the Iraqi resistance"?

 

In general, one can oppose U.S. imperialism without having to endorse those who imperialism attacks. We all should have opposed the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, but without endorsing Noriega. Likewise, we should have opposed the NATO war on Kosovo without endorsing Milosevic and the invasion of Iraq without endorsing Saddam Hussein. This may not simplify the world into the two categories of good guys and bad guys, but the world is not so simple.

 

To "support" someone has many different meanings. Sometimes it means that you will do everything within your power to see that they prevail, including taking up arms on their behalf. Some did this on behalf of the Spanish republic in the 1930s. Is this what those who urge us to "support the Iraqi resistance" are calling for? At the other extreme, you might "support" individuals in the exercise of a single right while in every other respect considering them odious. For example, consistent opponents of the death penalty "supported" Ted Bundy -- the serial rape-murderer -- in his quest to avoid execution. So to ask "do you support the Iraqi resistance?" is a rather imprecise question, not lending itself to an easy answer.

 

The particular question is especially vague because the phrase "Iraqi resistance" doesn't identify a well-defined organization, whose positions and record one can readily assess. There are many components of the armed resistance and their number has surely grown. But who knows what the relation is between them, or the strength or program of each. If one declares one's support for the Iraqi resistance, which of these groups is one endorsing? All of them? Some of them? Which ones?

 

And which actions or programs of the resistance is one endorsing when one says one supports the Iraqi resistance? There have been bombings at UN headquarters, at mosques, at crowds of pilgrims. Were these actions of the resistance? Is one endorsing these? What about hostage taking of civilian aid workers? Significant components of the Iraqi resistance -- though from a distance we have no way of knowing for sure the relative strength or importance of these -- favor the establishment of a theocratic state, with severe restrictions on civil liberties and women's rights. Do we endorse this? Some might want to restore the Ba'ath to power. Do we endorse this goal?

 

James Petras writes, in calling for Western intellectuals to endorse the Iraqi armed resistance, that

 

"To refuse to take sides is tantamount to complicity, intellectual complacency is a luxury for intellectuals in the empire which doesn't exist in Iraq. Over 1000 Iraqi intellectuals and professors have been murdered during the occupation."{24}

 

These murders surely call for condemnation, but it is not at all clear who is responsible. Press reports suggest that the killers are as likely to be from anti-U.S. as pro-U.S. forces.{25}

 

One might reply that how Iraqis choose to organize their future is something for Iraqis to decide, not Americans, and this is certainly true. Calling for the U.S. out of Iraq achieves precisely that aim, of allowing Iraqis to decide their own future. Saying we support particular Iraqis, on the other hand, involves us picking sides.

 

One might also ask whether those who call for supporting the Iraqi resistance include in their support those who urge various forms of non-military struggle? While it seems clear that most Iraqis want the U.S. out, the attitude toward armed struggle is much more divided. Some oppose it. Does "support the Iraqi resistance" mean we are telling Iraqis that the correct course is armed struggle rather than some other approach? Should we be telling Iraqis this?

 

 

But don't Iraqis, like all people under occupation, have the right to resist that occupation by any means necessary?

 

People have the right of armed resistance to oppression. This does not mean, however, that we can never criticize any tactics that are employed in the pursuit of that struggle. Basic morality and international law specify that not all means are permissible even in pursuit of a just cause. That's why many who did not oppose World War II on principle still condemned the U.S. obliteration of Hiroshima. It's why we condemn Hitler's atrocities -- not just because they were part of an unjust cause, but because, even if his cause were just, genocide is morally unacceptable.

 

Malcolm X popularized the phrase "by any means necessary," arguing against exclusive reliance on nonviolence, and many have picked up the term because it sounds radical and uncompromising. But Malcolm didn't intend by his phrase to suggest that there were to be no moral constraints on the tactics used: "I have never advocated," he declared, "our people going out and initiating any acts of aggression against whites indiscriminately."

 

Notice what follows if one takes the phrase "by any means necessary" to be a literal statement of morality. Osama bin Laden, as he said many times, wanted to end the occupation of Saudi Arabia by U.S. troops. The means he chose to resist that occupation was to kill 3,000 civilians in New York. Do we therefore support him and his actions? We can oppose the U.S. troop presence in the Middle East (and U.S. foreign policy more generally) without supporting al Qaeda.

 

I don't mean to equate al Qaeda and the Iraqi resistance. Both favor some things I favor (al Qaeda called for -- among other things -- an end to the murderous U.S.-UK sanctions on Iraq, and an end to the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians; the Iraqi resistance wants the U.S. out of Iraq), but while I know something of al Qaeda's program -- an incredibly repressive religious fundamentalism -- the program of the Iraqi resistance is much more amorphous and undefined, certainly to me. To the extent that elements of the resistance favor decent values (beyond the expulsion of the U.S.), we should agree with them; to the extent they favor dictatorship or intolerant fundamentalism, we should oppose them. But, in any event, we should still call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

 

 

Are you saying that we should only support those with whom we totally agree?

 

No. We obviously need to take account of people's circumstances and possibilities. Where a popular resistance movement advances the cause of justice and freedom and where that movement itself has the potential to develop in positive directions, we ought to support them. Aiding the cause alone is not sufficient: the Kaiser's Germany fatally wounded Tsarist Russia; militarist Japan destroyed European colonial rule in Asia. Reactionary or totalitarian movements (whether secular or religious) may aid the cause by defeating some of our enemies, but we cannot and should not support them. On the other hand, worker uprisings, grassroots movements, and popular forces that are basically democratic have the potential to go beyond whatever their current limitations may be and thus deserve our support.

 

In the case of Iraq, the role of undemocratic and reactionary forces seems to be too substantial a part of the armed resistance for us to support them. But our refraining from supporting them doesn't mean that we support the U.S. occupation instead. Again, we don't have to choose sides in that way. We don't want U.S. control of Iraq. We want the Iraqi people to control their own destiny; we want Iraqi self-determination and democracy. We know that the United States government has no interest in these goals and therefore we oppose the U.S. war and occupation.

 

We can express solidarity with the Iraqi people (as with oppressed people everywhere), but "supporting the Iraqi resistance" does more than express solidarity with the Iraqi people. It says the insurgents' agenda is ours -- but we don't know that it is, and it's likely that our agendas diverge substantially. It says their way of dealing with the occupation is the way we endorse, and hence that the ways chosen by what is still a majority of the Iraqi people are not endorsed by us.

 

Consider a few groupings in Iraq that do not consider themselves part of the resistance. The Worker-communist Party of Iraq, whose slogan is "No to America, No to Political Islam," calls for "Withdrawal of the U.S. and its allied troops as the major source of insecurity" and urges that "A provisional government in cooperation with multinational forces, excluding America and its war allies, should provide security and order in the country."{26} The Union of Unemployed Iraqis sees "two poles of terrorism in Iraq; the U.S. and their allies from one side, and the terrorists in the armed militias, well known for their enmity to Iraqi people’s interests, from the other."{27} It's hard to get a lot of information on such organizations from outside Iraq, but there's no reason for us to be politically aligning ourselves with the armed resistance.

 

Our job is to oppose U.S. imperialism and do what we can to get the U.S. troops out of Iraq.

 

Notes

(Please be aware -- some urls are broken by line endings...you will have to recombine them into a single expression to use them -- this is an anomaly of our database display software, sorry...)

 

1. http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/
news_syndication/article_040414fallujah.shtml.

 

2. Dahr Jamail, http://blog.newstandardnews.net/
iraqdispatches/archives/000206.html#more.

 

3. Rahul Mahajan, http://www.empirenotes.org/.

 

4. Sean Rayment, "British commanders condemn U.S. military tactics," British Telegraph, April 12, 2004.

 

5. Ken Roth, War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention," Jan. 2004,
http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm#_Toc58744952.

 

6. Human Rights Watch, Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and abduction of Women and girls in Baghdad, July 2003, http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703/.

 

7. Oxford Research International Ltd., National Survey of Iraq, February 2004,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/
bsp/hi/pdfs/15_03_04_iraqsurvey.pdf.

 

8. Maggie Farley and Sonni Efron, "U.N. Envoy May Provide the Key to a Transfer of Power in Iraq," Los Angeles Times (LAT), April 14, 2004, p. A7.

 

9. Douglas Jehl and Warren Hoge, "U.S. Relies on U.N. to Solve Problems of Power Transfer," New York Times (NYT), April 10, 2004, p. A6.

 

10. Steven R. Weisman and David E. Sanger, "U.S. Open To Plan That Supplants Council In Iraq," NYT, April 16, 2004, p. A1.

 

11. Colum Lynch and Robin Wright, " U.N. Envoy To Outline New Plan For Iraq," Washington Post (WP), April 14, 2004, p. A18.

 

12. Alissa J. Rubin, "U.N. Envoy Sees Hope Amid Trouble for Iraq," LAT, April 15, 2004, p. A1.

 

13. Source for list items #s 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10: David Bacon, "Occupation and Human Rights: Whose Human Rights is the Occupation Defending," ZNet, April 17, 2004, http://www.zmag.org/content/
showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5349.

 

14. Weisman and Sanger, NYT, April 16, 2004.

 

15. "At Last, a Good Development," NYT, April 17, 2004, p. A14.

 

16. John F. Kerry, "A Strategy for Iraq," WP, April 13, 2004, p. A19.

 

17. See Milan Rai, Iraq Opinions," ZNet, March 24, 2004, http://www.zmag.org/content/
showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5200; and Bob Wing's formulation, distributed by United for Peace and Justice:

 

... once the U.S. agrees to leave, if important sectors of Iraqis request it, international bodies like the U.N. and/or the Arab League should help the Iraqis set up mechanisms through which the Iraqi people themselves choose their leaders and control their own country.

 

("Why We Must Bring the Troops Home Now," War Times, http://www.unitedforpeace.org
/downloads/Bring%20the%20Troops
%20Home%202.pdf.)

 

18. E.g., U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), World Factbook, 2000, Washington, DC: 2000 (http://www.odci.gov/cia/
publications/factbook/index.html).

 

19. See Henry A. Foster, The Making of Modern Iraq, New York: Russell & Russell, 1935 (reissue 1972).

 

20. Paul Richter and Sonni Efron, "U.S. Firm on Iraq Handoff," LAT, April 7, 2004, p. A1.

 

21. Matthew B. Stannard, "June 30 pledge carries weight as a symbol; Iraqis expect transfer of power -- but no one knows what's next," San Francisco Chronicle, April 11, 2004, p. A22.

22. Timothy M. Phelps, "Sovereign in Iraq, with a catch," Newsday, 4/10/04, p. 3.

 

23. Stannard, "June 30 pledge carries weight as a symbol," San Francisco Chronicle, April 11, 2004, p. A22.

 

24. James Petras, "Third World resistance and western intellectual solidarity," April 7, 2004, http://www.rebelion.org/petras
/english/040411petraseng.htm.

 

25. "Professors have been at risk from the various sides battling for power in Hussein's wake." "Iraq's insurgents -- largely Sunni Muslims and Hussein loyalists -- are among the suspects in Mayah's slaying. The Sunnis feel threatened by the majority Shiites' call for direct elections." (Nicholas Riccardi, "Another Voice of Academia Is Silenced in Iraq," LAT, Jan. 21, 2004, p. A5.) See also Jeffrey Gettleman, "Assassinations Tear Into Iraq's Educated Class," NYT, Feb. 7, 2004, p. A1; Patrick Cockburn, "Iraqis Are Learning The Deadly Cost Of Working For The U.S.," Independent (London), Feb. 5, 2004, p. 14.

 

26. http://www.workersliberty.org/
modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=
article&sid=2039&mode=thread&order=0.

 

27. http://www.uuiraq.org/english/46.htm.