Iraq Follow

BUSH AND Blair are desperately seeking new ways to justify their slaughter in Iraq. They have now resorted to claiming they want to bomb Iraq into freedom and democracy.

WHAT IS going on at BBC headquarters, Bush House? Two World Service journalists were sacked last week. Adli Hawwari is a Palestinian. Abdul-Hadi Jiad is an Iraqi.

"WE ARE an anti-war and a pro-war party. We are opposed, under any circumstances, to the unleashing of mass murder on the innocent civilians of Iraq. But we are also committed to a war - a war on poverty and inequality." In his keynote speech Tommy Sheridan summed up the two key issues that dominated the Scottish Socialist Party's (SSP) annual conference held in Glasgow last weekend.

Nadje al-Ali is a member of Act Together: Women against Sanctions and War on Iraq.

THE PRO-WAR lobby claims that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and must be disarmed by military force. We do not know what weapons Iraq really has. The United Nations weapons inspectors have so far found nothing.

WITH THE majority of the world's population opposing war, Tony Blair now says that people don't understand the "moral case" for attacking Iraq. It is another lie born of desperation. Blair said of last Saturday's anti-war demonstration, "If there are one million, this is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he Saddam started."

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURES will not stop this war. That much is clear from the way Tony Blair has arrogantly dismissed the enormous groundswell of feeling against attacking Iraq. It's a characteristic of the undemocratic system we have that governments can implement unpopular policies while keeping most MPs firmly under control, whatever their private misgivings.

ONE OF the sickest and most dishonest arguments of supporters of Bush's war is that it is about liberating the people of Iraq, especially oppressed groups like the Shi'a Muslims and the Kurds. Commentators say that the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, which has been free of Iraqi government control since 1991, shows the kind of democracy and human rights the US will bring to Iraq.

THE UNITED Nations (UN) Security Council was due to meet on Friday to hear the latest report from the weapons inspectors. War would be wrong whether or not George Bush and Tony Blair get support for military action from the UN. No veneer of diplomatic cover can justify the murder of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children.

TONY BLAIR wants to force the victims of war on Iraq back into the path of bombs and bullets. He announced last week that he wanted to halve the number of refugees coming to Britain by September. Iraqis are the single largest group of refugees who come to Britain.

WHY DO George Bush and Tony Blair want to attack Iraq? Colin Powell gave the official answer to the United Nations last week - Saddam Hussein either has, or plans to develop, weapons of mass destruction. Few really believe this, although Tony Blair certainly says he does. A couple of weeks ago he also suggested taking on North Korea once Saddam Hussein had been "dealt with"!

"IN THE hours immediately following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld asked for plans to be drawn up for an American assault on Iraq. The following day, in a cabinet meeting at the White House, Rumsfeld again insisted that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism".