United States President George Bush is preparing for a new war on Iraq. Pentagon papers leaked on July 4 reveal plans for an assault on Iraq involving 250,000 US troops. The US government and its imperialist allies, such as the UK government of Tony Blair, are using the excuse that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein is threatening the world with “weapons of mass destruction”. 

However, UN weapons inspectors and the CIA have failed to find any evidence of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq (who spent seven years in Iraq in the 1990s hunting down the weapons program) has declared that “there is no justification for war based on the facts that had been presented by both the United States and Great Britain.” According to Ritter, the UN has already demolished 90% of Iraq’s stockpile.

The Bush administration has launched a major propaganda offensive against the regime of Saddam Hussein. They have ‘discovered’ human rights atrocities committed by the regime. George Bush wants us to believe that he will be ‘liberating’ the Iraqi people by attacking Iraq and getting rid of Saddam Hussein. 

But this is sheer hypocrisy. Saddam Hussein was one of US imperialism’s closest allies in the Middle East in the 1980s. It was under the instigation of the US that the Iraqi regime launched a horrendous war against the people of Iran, who had overthrown the brutal US backed dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. The regime of Saddam Hussein was funded and given massive military aid by the US in a grim war that lasted eight years and killed over one million people. 

The ‘reasons’ given by the US and its imperialist allies for attacking Iraq are based on lies. 

The real reason for the war is to strengthen imperialism’s control and domination over the region. Iraq, along with Iran and Saudi Arabia, is situated on the Persian Gulf, the control of which is strategic to imperialism’s domination over the oil rich resources of the Middle East. Iraq and Iran are governments that the US does not control. Hence they have been targeted as part of the US “axis of evil” in its phony “war against terrorism”. The real aim of the war against Iraq and the “war against terrorism” is to defend the interests of imperialist corporations and imperialist nations. 

Politically the US government wants to set a further precedent: to intervene with the use of troops whenever and wherever its national interests are threatened, especially against the peoples and governments of the Third World. It intends to send a clear message and win acceptance for the position that the sovereignty of Third World nations no longer matter. That it will and must be violated (as a matter of course) in order to defend imperialist “national interests”. 

The Iraqi people have the right to defend their national sovereignty against imperialist intervention of any form, including the right to reject the admission of UN weapons inspectors -- a demand being made by the imperialist powers. 

Opposition to the war against Iraq does not mean support for the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. By opposing the war we stand as one with the people of Iraq. It’s up to the Iraqi people to decide the course of their liberation. We will consistently support and campaign for their sovereign right to do so. 

The US aims to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime and replace it with another dictatorship: one that will serve the interests of the US and further enslave the Iraqi people. 

The Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) regime is bending over backwards to show its support for the US offensive by offering Philippine airspace for the US war machine (even without it being requested by the US). After exposing its craven pro-US stance, now the regime is attempting to give itself some cover by stating that it will support the war only if sanctioned by the UN.