Dr. Eric Herring is
Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Bristol. http://www.ericherring.com/
Eric Herring
‘Why the Iraqis are
fighting so hard’
Bristol Evening Post
2 April 2002
If this is a war to liberate Iraq, why are the Iraqis fighting so hard?
Fear. Saddam almost certainly has execution squads roaming the front lines, shooting
anyone who is not fighting enthusiastically enough. And those who have committed crimes
for Saddam will be terrified of their fate if his regime falls.
Propaganda. The Iraqi state constantly bombards its citizens with lurid exaggerations of
the crimes and dark motives of its enemies, the rightness of the Iraqi state’s cause
and the greatness of Saddam.
Nationalism. In 1991 the Iraqis who rose up to get rid of Saddam wanted outside help, not
an outside takeover. This time, many see it as an invasion of national territory and would
fight anyone, on the basis of the old slogan ‘My country, right or wrong’.
Religion. Last week, the Grand Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani, the most senior of Iraq’s
Shi’ite religious leaders, did not call for the Shi’ites (who make up 65% of
Iraq’s population) to rise up against Saddam’s secular Sunni minority
dictatorship, as many US and British officials hoped. Instead, he called on ‘Muslims
all over the world’ to help Iraq fight ‘against infidel followers who have
invaded our homeland’.
Military professionalism. Iraqi soldiers, like British and American ones, are trained to
believe that their job is to serve as the instrument of their political masters. Soldiers
are also trained in small unit loyalty – one of the main reasons soldiers fight is
their unwillingness to let their mates down.
Economic sanctions. These have been in place since August 1990, and kept there mainly by
the United States and Britain. The UN calculated that 500,000 Iraqi children under five
years of age died between 1991 and 1998 alone above the anticipated rate. Not all the
deaths were caused by the sanctions alone: the Iraqi elite, like any elite, has looked
after itself first. But ordinary Iraqis know that before 1990 that, if they were not seen
by Saddam as political threats, they were well fed and had free health care and education.
Memories of British imperialism. Last century, Britain created Iraq and exploited it
violently and ruthlessly all the while declaring it to be ‘liberated’.
Expectations of US imperialism. Many Iraqis believe that the United States is coming to
take control of their oil.
Which is the most important factor is hard to say. We only know for sure that the mix of
these factors will vary from person to person.
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Eric Herring
‘Thatcher – Saddam’s
"Chemical Ally"’
Bristol Evening Post
1 April 2003
Does Iraq have biological or chemical weapons, will it use them, and with what effects?
Iraqi chemical and biological protection suits, gas masks and nerve gas antidotes have
been found. British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon called this "categorical proof"
that Iraq has chemical weapons. It is not quite so simple. US and British forces have this
gear too (indeed, the United States and Britain also have chemical and biological
weapons). The equipment may also have been kept to protect against attack by Iran, which
used chemical weapons in the 1980s against Iraq. The United States has a few days ago
authorised the use of ‘non-lethal’ gasses in Iraq with the aim of avoiding the
civilian casualties that result from conventional weapons. In practice, non-lethal gasses
can accidentally kill, as happened with hundreds of Russian civilians taken hostage by
Chechen rebels recently. The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention bans the use of these agents
in warfare. At the end of the period when Iraq was being disarmed by the UN, some of
Iraq's chemical and biological weapons had not been accounted for. These are very old and
are likely to have deteriorated into useless goo. Still, perhaps some have survived and
perhaps Iraq has secretly produced more. Many sites suspected by the US and British of
chemical or biological weapons manufacture have been captured but nothing has been found
so far. The media are rightly demonising General Ali Hassan al-Majid as "Chemical
Ali" for his role in carrying out gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds in 1988. There has
been no demonising of the Thatcher government which was Majid's "Chemical Ally".
The British government knowingly helped Iraq, with taxpayers' subsidy, to build up
facilities it expected would be used to produce chemical weapons. When Majid gassed the
Kurds the Government was extremely reluctant to condemn the attacks. Although there are
fears of another chemical weapon attack on the Kurds, they have not been supplied with
protective clothing, gas masks, antidotes and decontamination units. If Iraq does use
chemical or biological weapons, how many casualties can they inflict? Fortunately, it is
difficult to kill large numbers of people with these weapons. This is because you have to
spread them over a wide area which requires you to use either spraying planes or many
hundreds of artillery shells. Missiles aren't much use as they contaminate only a small
area. So, Iraq almost certainly is incapable of inflicting "mass destruction"
with these weapons.
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Eric Herring
‘How the UN’s Humanitarian
Programme in Iraq has Guaranteed a Humanitarian Catastrophe’
Under consideration by The Guardian for possible publication
Submitted 31 March 2003
The UN is currently trying to find ways to restart its Oil For Food (OFF) humanitarian
programme in Iraq which has been suspended since the beginning of the war. Reports of the
scale of the OFF programme in comparison to the tiny amount of aid which arrived a few
days ago in the Iraqi port Umm Qasr in the British ship the Sir Galahad are accurate but
fail to appreciate the true nature of the UN’s OFF programme.
The two main things to understand about it are that it has involved puny amounts of money
in comparison to the needs of Iraqis, and that it has served to legimitise the sanctions
which have killed vast numbers of Iraqis and blighted the lives of millions more. In this
sense, the humanitarian programme has been a humanitarian disaster for ordinary Iraqis.
Facing waves of public and elite condemnation of the sanctions over the years, the US and
Britain have slowly made concessions and have been very active in shaping those
concessions, with the aim of ensuring that the essence of the sanctions remained the same.
Economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. After Iraq was
forced out in 1991 in a US-led war, the sanctions remained in place, officially to get
Iraq to give up its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes, although this
agenda was muddied by statements from US officials that the sanctions would stay as long
as Saddam Hussein was in power.
Although the sanctions rules always allowed Iraq to import food and medicine, Iraq was not
allowed to export anything to enable it to earn the money to pay for these things. As a
result many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died, with sanctions reinforcing the
effects of the extensive destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure by bombing in 1991.
Only internal mobilisation of resources, rationing and oil smuggling prevented a much
worse catastrophe. The US and British governments often point out that Saddam Hussein has
prioritised the survival and privilege of himself and his supporting elite. This populist
point is true, but it is true also in Britain and the United States, where poverty, bad
housing, malnutrition and early death through ill health do not prevent the skewing of
society’s resources and rules towards the already privileged.
In 1996 the UN and Iraq agreed the Oil for Food programme through which Iraq has been
allowed to export oil and the UN has controlled the funds to allow Iraq to import
humanitarian goods. In the north of Iraq, the UN ran the programme itself. In the centre
and south the Iraqi government ran it, with hundreds of UN monitors (who stayed on after
UN weapons inspectors left in December 1998) checking that the goods were being used for
their agreed purpose. The Iraqi government was never allowed to touch the money and there
were no confirmed significant diversion of OFF goods.
Some 25 per cent of the OFF money has been set aside to pay compensation to people and
companies for money lost due to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Iraq has already paid out $17
billion to the UN Compensation Fund, and is due to pay out at least $27 billion more for a
total of $44 billion, with some claims still being processed.
Since 1996, $26 billion worth of OFF goods has arrived in Iraq. This sounds like a lot but
is only $1,181 for each of the 22 million people in Iraq. Per person per day this is 54
cents over the last six years – about 36 pence. Almost none of this is cash for
people to spend as they wish. Nor is it investment in the Iraqi economy to give people
jobs and restore some kind of necessary normality – it is imported foreign goods. Nor
is it goods to individuals within a normally functioning economy. The US-led bombing of
Iraq wreaked what the UN called ‘near-apocalyptic’ destruction on Iraq’s
infrastructure. The 36 pence worth of goods has to cover everything - food, health, spare
parts, electricity, water, sanitation, agriculture, education, communications, transport
and housing. The dominant sector has been food about 15 pence per day, with most of the
other sectors, including health, at less than three pence per day. To put it another way,
this is not three pence per day which can be saved up to buy medicine in case of illness:
it is three pence per day as a contribution to the daily running of the entire health
infrastructure. One sector, education, has virtually disappeared into oblivion at less
than one pence per person per day.
Even if goods arrived, their value was often undermined by non-approval (nearly always by
the United States and otherwise by Britain) at the UN of complementary items. Or the
problem was delays sometimes lasting over a year in getting US or British approval at the
UN. Or companies supplied goods which turned out not to work. The US and British
governments explained non-approvals and delays in approval mainly in terms of preventing
Iraq from exploiting OFF to sneak in items which may be used for weapons. However, this
ignores the fact that UN observers on the ground could check, and as recently as February
2001 the US specifically listed window frames, paint and light switches among things it
was opposed to approving automatically.
The ‘smart’ sanctions adopted by the UN in May 2002 helped speed up the rate of
approval of contracts. However, it did not address the fact pointed out by the UN that the
OFF programme was ‘increasingly facing a financial crisis’ due to falling Iraqi
oil income. As of March 2003, there was no money to pay for 2,632 approved contracts worth
some $5.1 billion. Even more importantly, if ‘smart’ sanctions are meant to be
ones which minimize the human cost of such a policy, then the new system was certainly not
‘smart’ because it did not address the basic reason for the continuing suffering
in Iraq. According to Tun Myat, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, ‘The markets are
quite full of things, the problem is whether or not there are people who have the
purchasing power to buy them. Until such time as people can reasonably afford to buy and
live naturally everything else you will see will only be superficial.’ Ordinary
Iraqis need proper wages rather than handouts, the economy needs international investment
and the sanctions have prevented both. The new system was smart only in taking the
political heat off the human cost of the sanctions.
In an authoritative assessment, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calculated that
500,000 Iraqi children under five years of age died between 1991 and 1998 alone above the
anticipated rate. (Tony Blair has in the last few days started to use a figure of
400,000). UNICEF did not attribute all of those deaths to the sanctions. Indeed, the Iraqi
government frequently took actions, such as suspending oil exports for political reasons,
which were costly for the OFF programme. But the UN rightly pointed out that even perfect
Iraqi cooperation with the programme would have not changed the basic picture. OFF was
meant to be temporary, was never meant to meet all the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi
population, and was never able to meet those needs. The UN’s assessment of January
1999 – that ‘the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one
in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn cannot be
achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts’ – was still true when the
current war was launched.
US and British opposition to anything which might allow the Iraqi economy to revive has
been strong over the years, even though that broken economy is at the heart of Iraq’s
humanitarian crisis. The initial offers to Iraq in 1991 to allow oil sales for
humanitarian goods amounted to a share which they refused to even specify of a one-off sum
of a measly $1.6 billion. The initial OFF annual oil export ceiling – of which only
two-thirds, later raised slightly, was to be spent on humanitarian goods - in 1996 was $4
billion, raised to $10.5 billion in 1997. Only at the end of 1999 did the US and British
governments finally agree at the UN to abandon the oil export ceiling, but they continued
to obstruct the export to Iraq of vital spare parts for the oil industry.
The US and British official position that ‘There is no evidence that sanctions are
hurting the Iraqi people’ (as Brian Wilson said in February 2001 during his stint at
the Foreign Office) was demonstrably false. The UN’s humanitarian programme had only
scratched the surface of Iraq’s sanctions-induced humanitarian crisis and was in dire
financial straits. Its primary function then was the propaganda one of keeping the
sanctions in place. Its primary function now is the propaganda one of putting a
humanitarian gloss on the current war.
We hear many times from Bush and Blair that Iraq's oil wealth will be used for the benefit
of the Iraqi people after this war. But we already know that to a great extent this will
not be true. Part of the deal for getting the OFF programme was that Iraq had to agree to
pay compensation for the losses incurred by individuals and companies for Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The UN Compensation Commission has awarded $44 billion of
compensation ($17 billion of it has already been paid, money which could have been spent
to save ordinary Iraqis). On top of this, Iraq already has a debt of about $130 billion,
increasing by compound interest every year, which it will be expected to start paying as
soon as the sanctions are lifted. So much of Iraq's oil money is already spoken for. US
plans to channel reconstruction funds to US corporations and to privatise Iraq’s
services and industries (including oil) for US profit belie the claim of liberation.
Saddam threw away huge numbers of lraqi lives in invading both Iran and Kuwait, and a
horrible fate befell anyone he suspected of actual or potential political opposition.
Iraqis also know that, before the sanctions and bombing in 1991, the Iraqi people were
mostly well fed with over 3,000 calories per day, adult literacy was around 95 per cent,
92 per cent had safe water and 93 per cent had free access to modern health facilities.
The current talk of reviving the UN’s humanitarian programme ignores both the total
inadequacy of that programme and the enormous shadow of debt and compensation that will go
on oppressing the Iraqi people long after the death of Saddam Hussein. Bush and Blair say
they are at war to liberate the people of Iraq, but this must mean more than getting rid
of Saddam Hussein – it must mean liberating them from Saddam's debts and retaining
the right to have universal free education and health care and to have state ownership of
their industries and resources. The ones who should pay Iraq’s debt are the
governments, banks and companies who backed Saddam.
Under Margaret Thatcher, the British government agreed in 1985 to underwrite the building
in Iraq of chemical plants by British company UHDE which the government thought would be
used to make chemical weapons. This was at a time when Iraq was gassing Iraqi troops, and
Iraq went on it 1985 to gas Kurds at Halabja. When Iraq refused to pay UHDE, the British
government paid UHDE £330,000 in compensation. So you, the British taxpayer, have paid
for Iraqis to be gassed. It gets worse. The British government intends to make a
post-Saddam Iraq pay his debts. So, having deprived Iraqis of many of the basic
necessities of a functioning society for nearly thirteen years, the ‘liberators’
of Iraq are demanding that Iraqis pay for the privilege of being gassed.
It is obvious that, unless US and British policy is challenged, Iraq will be just another
poor third world country after this war with most of the wealth from its resources being
channelled away from the people of its country. Iraqis will have swapped Saddam the
oppressor for Bush and Blair the exploiters.
Dr. Eric Herring is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of
Bristol. This research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and University of Bristol.
http://www.ericherring.com/
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Eric Herring
‘Getting fooled by propaganda
– a step by step guide’
29 March 2003
Bristol Evening Post
Do you think, with wall to wall coverage on the news, that you are getting the truth about
the war? Think that you won’t be fooled? Think again. I will show step by step how
you how reporters and readers can be conned by war propaganda.
Step one: US or British officials make a speculative claim. Although propaganda sometimes
involves outright lies, usually it involves making a claim that is said only
‘might’ be true. US soldiers captured a camouflaged site in southern Iraq. US
officials and the Jerusalem Post reporter who operates within that unit speculated that it
could be a chemical weapons site. Last Monday, the Western international, national and
local news media were full of reports that a suspected Iraqi chemical weapons factory had
been discovered by U.S. troops in southern Iraq. Journalists followed standard
journalistic rules by stating repeatedly that it was merely suspected, and so their
coverage could be defended as factually accurate.
Step two: when the speculation turns out to be false, US officials say virtually nothing
about it and instead speculate about something else – such as the possibility that
the explosions in two Iraqi markets which killed by civilians might have been caused
deliberately by the Iraqi government rather than accidentally by a US or British bomb. The
media say virtually nothing about how the chemical weapons claim was false. Instead, they
move on to reporting the new speculation instead. All the pressure on reporters is to
follow the breaking ‘news’ in case, for a change, the ‘news’ is true.
Meanwhile, the public are left with the impression that chemical weapons were actually
found. I have read many statements by members of the public in the last five days in which
they have said that their support for the war was reinforced by the ‘discovery’
at the beginning of the week of Iraqi chemical weapons.
Step three: when experts point out that the speculation was false, US and British
officials, and the news media say ‘What are you complaining about? We only said it
was suspected, and you are getting a chance to say that’. But one rebuttal in a sea
of falsehoods ensures that the falsehoods live on in readers’ minds.
Reporters and readers, do you feel used? Propaganda insults you because it treats you like
someone who does not deserve the truth. Propaganda is anti-democratic because it
undermines your ability to control your government.
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Eric Herring
'Liberate Iraq From Saddam's Debts'
Written 28 March 2003
Western Daily Press
Since the beginning of the war a week ago the UN has had to suspend its
distribution of food and health supplies and suspend its work in every
sector of the economy in Iraq, from water sanitation to housing. The
need for the UN's humanitarian programme arose out of the sanctions
that the UN imposed on Iraq when it invaded Kuwait in 1990. After Iraq
was forced out in 1991 in a US led war, the sanctions remained in place
to try to get Iraq to give up its nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons programmes. Officially Iraq was always allowed to import food
and medicine but the sanctions meant that Iraq was exporting nothing to
allow it to earn the money to pay for these things. As a result many
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died. In 1996 the UN and Iraq
agreed the Oil for Food programme. Iraq has been allowed to export oil
and the UN has controlled the funds to allow Iraq to import
humanitarian goods. In the north of Iraq, the UN has run the programme
itself. In the centre and south the Iraqi government has run it, with
UN monitors checking that the goods are being used for their proper
purpose. Some 25 per cent of the money has been set aside to pay
compensation to people and companies for money lost due to Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait. Since 1996, $25 billion worth of humanitarian goods
have arrived in Iraq. This sounds like a lot but is only a little over
$1,000 for each of the 22 million people in Iraq. Per person per day
this is 62 cents - about 40 pence! This is not even in cash given to
people to buy things in a normally functioning economy. That 40 pence
has to pay for everything - food, health, spare parts, electricity,
water, sanitation, agriculture, education, communications, transport
and housing. This amount is only a drop in the ocean, especially when
you bear in mind that the economic infrastructure was almost totally
destroyed by US-led bombing in 1991. The UN's own assessments are that
this programme cannot meet the humanitarian needs in Iraq and that only
the lifting of the sanctions and a revival of the economy will prevent
many more Iraqi's from dying. Iraqis have been kept alive during the 12
years of the sanctions mainly by Iraqi government rations from Iraq's
own agriculture and with goods bought with smuggled oil. The UN's
humanitarian programme has saved some Iraqi lives, but much more
importantly it has legitimise the sanctions which are the main factor
in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under five between 1991 and 1998
alone - a figure arrived at by a proper scientific study by the UN
Children's Fund. Saddam Hussein's cooperation with the humanitarian
programme has been inadequate, but even perfect cooperation with it
would not have changed the fact that it is fundamentally inadequate. We
hear many times from Bush and Blair that Iraq's oil wealth will be used
for the benefit of the Iraqi people. But we already know that to a
greater extent this will not be true. Iraq already has a debt of about
$130 billion, increasing by compound interest every year. Much of
Iraq's oil money will go to pay that. On top of that, the UN
Compensation Commission has awarded $44 billion of compensation against
Iraq for invading Kuwait ($17 billion of it has already been paid).
This adds up to $7,136 of debt per person. The current talk of reviving
the humanitarian programme ignores the enormous shadow of debt and
compensation that will go on oppressing Iraqis people, long after the
death of Saddam Hussein. Putting the oil money in a UN trust fund does
not answer the question of who will end up getting that money. Bush and
Blair are not saying that they won't make ordinary Iraqis pay the debts
run up by Saddam Hussein. Bush and Blair say we are at war to liberate
the people of Iraq, but this must mean more than getting rid of Saddam
Hussein - it must mean liberating them from Saddam's debts. The ones
who should pay are the governments, banks and companies who backed
Saddam. It is obvious that, unless, there is a change of policy, Iraq
will be just another poor third world country after this war with most
of the wealth from its resources being channelled away from the people
of its country. Meanwhile, there is a desperate need to restore food
distribution and re-establish access to clean water disrupted by this
war of 'liberation'. Unless this is done very soon, Iraqi civilians
will start dying in their tens of thousands within weeks. It is
unbelievable that Bush and Blair started this war and just hoped there
would be an instant Iraqi military collapse. What a gamble. Where is
the plan B if Iraq fights on? Bush and Blair have no answer.
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Eric Herring
'A Manifesto For the Liberation of
Iraq'
Bristol Evening Post
28 March 2003
We are told that this is a war to liberate the people of Iraq - that is
why so many people support it. People who think the war is illegal and
immoral still hope that the people of Iraq will be freed. What is not
being spelt out is exactly what liberating the people of Iraq involves.
Bush and Blair must be held to account for every element of it. It is
their war, but as taxpayers you are paying for it. Your soldiers and
increasing numbers of Iraqis are being killed, injured and traumatised
for it. What is needed is a manifesto for the liberation of the Iraqi
people. In this column over the next few days, I will outline what I
think should be in it. First, liberation for Iraq means liberation from
Saddam's debt. We are told continually and correctly that Saddam has
abused and oppressed his people for decades. It offends basic moral
principles that Iraqis who have suffered under Saddam are also being
made to foot the bill for their suffering. That adds massive insult to
terrible injury. So Iraq's debt - over $130 billion - must be paid by
those who sucked up to Saddam, meaning many governments, banks and
companies from all over the world, including western ones. If the US
and Britain can find $70 billion at the drop of a hat for a war they
can find twice as much to liberate Iraq from Saddam's debt. Bush and
Blair say over and over again that Iraq's oil will be used for the
benefit of the Iraqi people. But it will not be if it is handed over to
other people to pay for Saddam's debt. Second, liberation for Iraq
means liberation from the compensation that Iraq is being required to
pay for Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Ordinary Iraqis had no
control over his decision, but it is they who have already paid $18
billion and still have to pay $18 billion more. In addition, the United
Nations is considering further claims totalling $217 billion. Again, if
Bush and Blair can find the money for war they can find it for this. If
they are not serious about this, they are not serious about liberating
the Iraqi people. Instead, the oppressor Saddam will have been replaced
by the exploiters Bush and Blair.
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Eric Herring
'US Illegally Demands Iraqi Frozen
Funds'
27 March 2003
Bristol Evening Post
Tony Blair is in Washington today to plea for a role for the United
Nations after the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Here is why he will fail.
The Bush administration is the most unilateral American government we
have ever seen. In other words, it is determined to decide everything
for itself - working with the United Nations only has any value in
giving the US political legitimacy. We can see this now in how the
Americans are approaching Iraqi government money which is frozen in
banks around the world because of UN sanctions. All of this money,
which runs into billions of dollars, is fully and legally under control
of the UN. The Bush administration is going around the world demanding
that banks hand over the money to the US to spend as it sees fit. This
is entirely illegal - this money is controlled by the UN, but the
Americans simply do not care. The US government says that this money is
to be spent for the benefit of the Iraqi people. However, it is
becoming clear what the Americans mean when they say for the benefit of
the Iraqi people. It means giving the money to US corporations to set
up shop in Iraq. The Americans have already developed a plan in which
US companies will take over Iraq's hospitals and its education
services. The UN is protesting against this and the British Government
has so far refused to hand over money to the US. Clare Short stayed in
the Cabinet arguing that she could ensure that she was the best person
to make sure that the reconstruction of Iraq would be fair. However,
last weekend she returned from Washington having completely failed to
persuade the US government of anything. There is no reason to believe
that the Americans have changed their minds or will have their minds
changed by Tony Blair today. The key fact of this entire war is that
the Iraqis would welcome liberation from the rule of Saddam Hussein,
but - and it is a very big but, they would absolutely and violently
oppose being run as an American/British colony. Imagine the violence of
Northern Ireland multiplied 100 times over.
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Eric Herring
'UK Taxpayers Pay for Iraqi WMD'
26 March 2003
Bristol Evening Post
According to the British Government those of us not in favour of the
war are morally inadequate because we are not backing the liberation of
the Iraqi people. How soon we forget. Just two weeks ago the British
Government was saying, to quote Jack Straw: "I don't regard Saddam
Hussein staying place as optimal but it is not part of this resolution
to change the regime". In other words, this was to be a war to disarm
Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The British and Americans claimed
to have secret information that proved Iraq had a revived nuclear
weapon programme and vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons.
Already, we are being prepared for the possibility, indeed likelihood,
that no serious capability of any of this kind will be found. Tony
Blair yesterday said: "British security services have tried to search
out weapon dumps of the IRA for 30 years not with a great deal of
success." It is worth recalling that a key element of the British
Government's "proof" turns out to be stolen from an American student's
essay passed off as British Government intelligence. This student essay
is still on the Downing Street website. Another key document which
supposedly shows Iraq importing uranium from Africa has been declared
fake by the United Nations weapons inspectors. One more piece of the
picture which is being ignored is the role of previous British
governments in contributing to Iraq's weapons programmes. Under
Margaret Thatcher, Britain backed the building of chemical plants which
they expected would be used to make chemical weapons. This was at a
time when Iraq was gassing Iranian forces. Soon after the Iraqis went
on to gas the Kurds. This deal was meant to help Britain's trade.
Ironically, the Iraqis refused to pay the company involved and the
British taxpayer paid that company £330,000 in compensation. It follows
that you, the British taxpayer, has paid Saddam Hussein to gas people.
So, we ought not to forget what this war is meant to be about - and we
shall see if claims of Iraqi weapons programmes are actually justified.
Of course, the liberation of the Iraqi people from the rule of Saddam
Hussein is something we would all welcome, but we should not lose sight
of the fact that this was meant to be a war to protect us from the
threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
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Eric Herring
'The Nightmare Scenario for the US and
Britain'
25 March 2003
Bristol Evening Post
THE last time American forces fought the Iraqis in 1991 the war on the
ground was over in three days. We are only five days into this war but
there appears to be no prospect of it being over soon. Five days is
certainly an extremely short period of time for a war, but it is still
very different from last time. Why are matters different now? Twelve
years ago, the Americans preceded the ground war with a month of air
bombardment - this time there has been none of that. The coalition
forces have half the number of troops that were committed to the Gulf
War in 1991. The first Gulf War was marked by combat in open desert,
which made it much easier to target Iraqi forces. Today, the coalition
forces face combat in towns and cities. Most importantly, in 1991, the
objective was simply to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait - this time the
aim is to capture all of Iraq. Why did the United States launch the war
in this way? It appears that they hoped for a quick Iraqi military coup
to get rid of Saddam Hussein followed by surrender. They also hoped
that they might kill Saddam Hussein in a missile attack. The question
then is, where is the war going to go from here? There are three
possible outcomes - two of which are nightmare scenarios for the US and
British. The one they hope for is that there will be a sudden Iraqi
coup or mass surrender. The second possibility is that they will end up
laying siege to Baghdad, a city of five million people, and Basra, a
city of nearly two million people. Water and electricity supplies will
not survive and civilians will start dying in their thousands. This is
what happened last time. Already in Basra, lack of water has put most
of that city's population at extreme risk. The third possibility is
street fighting to take these cities at enormous cost to both sides.
They would have to fight not only the regular Iraqi army but also the
elite of the Iraqi military - Saddam's Republican Guard and Special
Republican Guard - which in 1991 quickly withdrew from Kuwait. The most
feared outcome for the US and British governments from the second and
third scenarios is that they would have to negotiate with Saddam
Hussein.
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Eric Herring
'Why Turkey has invaded northern Iraq'
Bristol Evening Post
24 March 2003
Around 1,000 Turkish troops have invaded northern Iraq, and more could
follow. Why has Turkey done this? The basic answer is that it is
determined to undermine the autonomy which the Iraqi Kurds have
developed - not a fully independent state, just some control of their
domestic affairs. Turkey does not want this to become a model for its
own Kurdish minority, which it has repressed. The US State Department's
Human Rights Report for Turkey details murder, disappearances and
'widespread' torture of Kurds by the Turkish state in 'a climate of
impunity'; the denial of 'basic political, cultural and linguistic
rights' of Kurds; the depopulation of 3,000 to 4,000 villages; and the
forcible displacement of 800,000 people. Since the Gulf war in 1991,
northern Iraq has formally been under the control of the United Nations
and the Kurdish minority there have gradually started to run some of
their own affairs. A United Nations 'safe haven' was set up in
northern Iraq not just to protect Kurds from Iraqi forces but also to
prevent Iraqi Kurds from entering Turkey. Although it is called a
'safe haven', the Kurds there have never been safe from Turkey. For
example. Turkey invaded northern Iraq with 20,000 troops in 1992,
35,000 troops in 1995, 50,000 troops in 1997 and 10,000 troops in 2000,
sometimes staying for months. The United States and Britain
unilaterally declared northern Iraq a 'no fly zone' for Iraq aircraft,
but did nothing about attacks by Turkish aircraft. Instead of objecting
to Turkey's actions in the past, the United States and Britain armed
Turkey heavily and kept quiet so that they could use air bases in
Turkey to bomb Iraq most weeks ever since 1991. This bombing never
received the approval of the United Nations. Since the start of the US
invasion of Iraq, Turkey and the United States have been split. Turkey
did not allow the United States to attack Iraq from Turkish soil, while
the United States has opposed Turkey's sending of troops in northern
Iraq. The Kurds have had a tragic history, betrayed and attacked by all
sides. They were even bombed by Britain in the 1920s when Britain
controlled Iraq. The fragile progress made by them since 1991 is now in
jeopardy. I hope that, after this war is over, their rights will cease
to be trampled - in Turkey as well as Iraq.
-------
Eric Herring
'The Point of Protests Now That War Has
Begun'
Bristol Evening Post
22 March 2003
Now that the war has started what is the point of anti-war protests?
Protests can still do a number of things. They can shape the conduct of
war, in particular the Government will be reluctant to allow bombing of
electrical supplies which are vital for water and sanitation. If these
services are lost many civilians will die. Protests can also shape what
happens after a war. They can ensure the ordinary Iraqis are not
forgotten. They can help ensure that American multi-national
corporations do not buy up all a country's assets. They can also shape
future wars and make them harder to start. In the Korean War millions
of civilians were killed directly through bombing. In Vietnam civilians
were killed as part of bombing for possible military gain. Now bombing
civilians directly has become politically unacceptable. What about
objecting to demonstrations? Why block streets? Why not just
demonstrate without causing disruption to others? The principle here is
that citizens feel that the normal democratic processes have failed,
and that they have a right to draw attention to this by non-violent
disruption of the normal workings of society. In a democracy the state
is meant to serve the people. There are considerable majorities in the
opinion polls against war without explicit UN backing. MPs voted in
majority for this war but they were not given a free vote even though
this is a moral issue. They were bullied, threatened, and in the end
just ordered to vote for the war.
-------
Eric Herring
'A Closer Look at the Project for the
New American Century'
Bristol Evening Post
21 March 2003
The big question in many minds is what is this war about? Is it about
freedom for Iraqi people, oil, terrorism or weapons of mass
destruction? We must look at what has been said by the people in charge
of the war - namely those at the top of the US government. They make it
clear that all of these things are priorities only to the extent that
they are relevant to The argument for going to war was made at least
two years ago, by an organisation called the Project for the New
American Century, set up in 1997, with the goal of promoting US global
leadership and pre-eminence. Members of this group included the current
US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, US vice-president Dick Cheney and
many other leading figures in the Bush administration. In a report
published in September 2000 - shortly before President Bush came to
power they made it clear that the idea of an Iraqi threat would be a
useful propaganda tool. The group said: "The United States has for
decades sought to play a more prominent role in Gulf regional
security." "While the unresolved with conflict Iraq provides immediate
justification, the need for a substantial America force presence in the
Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." United
Nations weapons inspections had completely eliminated Iraq's nuclear
weapon programme and most of its other banned programmes, and were
making further progress recently. A peaceful outcome would not have
served the group's purposes which is why they cut them short with this
war. The issue for the US is not access to oil. What are the Iraqis
going to do with their oil if not sell it? Are they going to drink it?
The real issue for the Americans is control. They want to ensure that
they can control the price of oil and who sells it to them. They
realised that it would be hard to convince the US public and the world
that US domination would be a good idea: 'the process of
transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be
a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new
Pearl Harbor'. With the 9/11 attacks in 2001, they got their Pearl
Harbour, and now Bush follows this group's policies. Iraq is not the
last of Bush's wars - global 'pre-eminence' requires many more.
-------
Eric Herring
'The Purpose of the War'
Bristol Evening Post
20 March 2003
If we are going to go to war with Iraq we have to be clear about what going to be achieved
by it. First of all, getting rid of Saddam Hussein has to be a good thing. He has wasted
so many of his people' lives in war and done terrible things to those who opposed him.
Secondly, the Iraqi population could end up with another dictatorship - but just one that
is more pro-western. Thirdly, the US and British governments say that Iraq's oil wealth
will be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people, but I am sceptical. Iraq used to have
one of the most advanced welfare systems in the Middle East, offering free education and
health care. Saddam's idea was that the way for Iraq to become powerful was to have an
educated, healthy and prosperous people. This welfare system was destroyed by the United
Nations economic sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 (sanctions which are
still in place today) and the US-led war in 1991 to drive it out of Kuwait.
Iraq is now the most indebted country in the world - it owes $130 billion. The United
Nations is requiring Iraq to pay $36 billion in compensation for its invasion of Kuwait
(it has paid $18 billion so far). Iraq may be required to foot the bill for this war as
well, so there will not be much money left for ordinary, poverty-stricken Iraqis, who may
find they will have to fund their own private education and healthcare: these are likely
to be privatised under US control. In addition, this conflict is may speed up the secret
development of weapons of mass destruction by those who see them as the only way to deter
a US attack. This is already happening in Iran and North Korea. Equally, it is hard to see
how war with Iraq will reduce the threat of terrorism - Iraq has not been a big sponsor of
international terrorism. And we will have to face the fact that many Muslims will see this
war as an attack on Islam and drive many towards supporting the cause of Islamic
extremists in the future. So, even if the military campaign goes well, the world may still
be a worse place at the end of it.
At this stage attacks are targeting the Iraqi leadership: communication facilities,
military command and of course possible places where Saddam Hussein might be.
Air strikes will also be attempting to knock out the defences for Iraqi troops to prevent
their movements over ground and encourage surrender. These tactics will prepare the way
for action by American and British ground forces. They are going to be carried out on a
much larger scale than during the last Gulf War. The objective in 1991 was to remove Iraqi
forces from Kuwait. Now the aim is "softening up" the whole of Iraq for invasion
and occupation. This will have serious consequences for the Iraqi people. The targeting of
electricity supplies in 1991 was very damaging - it meant an instant end to proper water
and sanitation, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths that year from water
borne diseases. There are 23 million people who were utterly dependent on the United
Nations and Iraq for food handouts. 1,500,000 children are at immediate risk of
starvation. Unless the war is over quickly, the bombs dropping on the Iraq now will kill
many more people later - in a country desperately short of vital resources.
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