Iraq Follow

"THIS WHOLE affair has nothing to do with a threat from Iraq - there isn't one. It has nothing to do with the war against terrorism or with morality. Saddam Hussein is obviously an evil man, but when we were selling arms to him to keep the Iranians in check he was the same evil man he is today. In the same way he served Western interests then, he is now the distraction for the sleight of hand to protect the West's supply of oil. Under the cover of the war on terrorism, the war to secure oil supplies could be waged." That was the case argued by Mo Mowlam last week. Mowlam was for four years a New Labour cabinet minister - and the most popular one. Her attack on Bush and Blair's war pl

Rifts in the Bush camp... Splits in the cabinet... Rows between Europe's leaders... 71 percent oppose a US attack

THE GOVERNMENT is pushing for a minute's silence to mark the anniversary of the 11 September attacks next Wednesday. People will want to mark the pain and anguish of a day which saw almost 3,000 people killed in New York. But Tony Blair has his own agenda. He wants to exploit the anniversary to boost support for Bush's plans to launch war on Iraq.

WHAT A difference a year makes. In the aftermath of 11 September last year, the world's ruling classes rallied in solidarity with the United States. "We are all Americans," declared the Parisian daily Le Monde. Contrast the situation today. As the leading figures in George W Bush's administration prepare to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein, they find themselves largely isolated internationally.

SOME 150 people from across the area around Halifax turned out to a public meeting of Calderdale Against the War on Wednesday of last week. They heard Alice Mahon MP, John Rees of the Stop the War Coalition, and local Labour councillor Mohammed Najib declare their opposition to war on Iraq and their support for Palestine.

NEW LABOUR, the Tories and the US government are all trying to blame Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, for famine in southern Africa. They use the same language of "regime change" that we hear used about Iraq. On Wednesday of last week George W Bush's top adviser on African affairs said that the US wants Mugabe out, and that he had "stolen an election". This is breathtaking hypocrisy from the people who are in the White House because they stole the Florida election for Bush.

THE UNITED States has accelerated its military build-up in the Gulf. According to the New York Times the US Pentagon has hired ten cargo ships to transport helicopters, armoured vehicles and other weapons in preparation for an attack on Iraq.

How Britain created Iraq Britain set up Iraq in 1922. The area had been three separate provinces-Basra, Baghdad and Mosul-which were part of the Ottoman Empire run from Turkey. Britain's rulers wanted the territory after oil reserves were discovered there in the late 19th century. The Anglo-Persian oil company had drilling rights across 500,000 square miles in the region.

SOME PEOPLE who are horrified by the prospect of an attack on Iraq are looking to the United Nations (UN) to stop the slaughter. So one of several parliamentary motions critical of British foreign policy says military action against Iraq "can only be morally justified if it carries a new and specific mandate from the United National Security Council".

GEORGE BUSH and Tony Blair are more isolated than ever over war on Iraq. But the madman in the White House is determined to press ahead, and a Downing Street spokesman insists the prime minister is "not going wobbly". The scale of opposition to the war shows the potential to make Blair more than wobble.

OPPOSITION TO a US attack on Iraq is mounting daily. Some commentators suggest Bush and his chief cheerleader, Tony Blair, can brush it aside. It would be foolish to underestimate either the arrogance of the warmongers in the White House or their determination to devastate the people of Iraq.

WHY IS George Bush so hell bent on a war on Iraq? The US devastated Iraq in a war 11 years ago. US-backed economic sanctions have already killed 500,000 Iraqi children, according to Unicef. A US war on Iraq risks destabilising the Middle East and sparking wider wars. It looks mad, but behind Bush's crazy logic stands his desire to have a war to assert US dominance around the globe.