End Aggression against Iraq!

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End Aggression against Iraq!

Advocacy Journalism at its Worst

Escalation of British and US Air Raids on Iraq

Iraqi Opposition Coalition Rejects Foreign Interference

Iraq Criticises UNESCO over World Heritage List

The Anglo-American hostile stand towards Iraq, the Anglo-US imperialist continued bombing of the country, and the US administration's aggressive machinations for a "regime change" in Iraq, backed up by the British government, remain one of the most gross examples of how the "war against terrorism" is against the interests of humanity.

The picture is one of Anglo-US imperialism using pretexts to force into submission what it terms a "pariah" state or to utilise state terrorism to overturn the government of a sovereign country. At the same time, the monopoly media churn out disinformation designed to back up the imperialist crimes and create public opinion for armed intervention.

The facts about the effect of sanctions against and bombing of Iraq speak for themselves. The death rate of children under five directly attributable to the sanctions is more than 4,000 a month, according to UNICEF figures. Untreated water is lethal and no drugs are available on a consistent basis. Britain and the US are bombing Iraq almost every day. It is a deliberate policy which has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. The US and Britain have manipulated the UN Security Council to ensure that sanctions are not removed, but "smart sanctions", which have the deceptive character of aiding humanitarian provisions, are kept in place. In addition, Iraq is denied equipment and expertise to clean up its battlefields contaminated with depleted uranium from the time of the Gulf War. Despite the fact that Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical threat is now zero, the US continues to demand that weapons inspectors be allowed to return to Iraq, as a pretext for armed intervention. At the same time, George W Bush has propounded his doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, also emphasising that absolute proof of a terrorist attack is not needed before such aggression takes place.

A little more than ten years ago, Iraq was one of the most developed countries in the Middle East with exceptional levels of education and health. Now these levels are among the worst in the world. Its infant mortality has gone from one of the lowest in the world to the highest.

This scenario is happening as NATO expands eastwards, as US troops are concentrated in the Persian Gulf, as the US and Britain are consolidating their foothold in central Asia, and as the strategic and profit-driven imperatives of the "New World Order" shape Anglo-US aggression and interference.

The British government has no mandate for this hostile stand towards Iraq. The working class and people cannot accept the agenda of the Blair government regarding Iraq or the wider strategy into which these crimes against humanity fit. These crimes must be ended, together with the imperialist global strategy that gives rise to them. This is the stand that the working class and people must take to the crimes which are being committed in their name.

Hands Off Iraq!

In an article in The Guardian, Mark Seddon wrote of a BBC report on Iraq. The BBC film, the editor of Tribune said, instead of being a fair report from Iraq was instead a shameful attack. It was "advocacy journalism" at its worst.

"Advocacy journalism", writes Mark Seddon, is the phrase used by US rightwing polemicist David Brock to describe the tactics he employed to pursue the Clintons throughout the '90s. Mark Seddon's article says that objectivity matters more in the broadcast media; the public expect it especially in the BBC. But, he goes on, that objectivity was sadly lacking in the BBC Correspondent's film Iraq – Mother of all Ironies, which was broadcast on June 23. It would matter less that such a partial programme had been made had there not been similar and serious complaints aimed at another two recent reports from Correspondent, the article says.

Mark Seddon continues: "The complaints of lack of objectivity that have been levelled by commentators and some viewers have greater weight when it is remembered that less and less space is devoted to serious foreign reporting at a time when domestic policy is hugely influenced by what goes on beyond our borders. The programme examined the effects of alleged Iraqi sanctions on Kurdistan. It highlighted the appalling suffering of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein during the 1980s, but failed to make use of facts and footage from Baghdad which might have shown that ordinary Iraqis continue to suffer and die in their thousands less as a result of embargoed medicines, but because of a collapsed sanitation system."

The programme's central claim was that the Iraqi authorities, through the United Nations health programme, refuse to allow cancer-treating drugs into Kurdistan. But, says Mark Seddon, the shortages in the north are mirrored in the south – in cities such as Basra – which remain under Baghdad's aegis and are affected by sanctions. Little attempt was made to hook up with UNICEF and those other international bodies responsible for administering the funds from the United Nations' "oil for food programme", and "advocacy journalism" found its target in the shape of Labour MP and anti-sanctions campaigner George Galloway.

At no time did the reporter, John Sweeney, allow him to directly answer the charges flung towards him, Mark Seddon points out. The Mother of all Ironies was that Galloway has facilitated entry into Iraq for numerous BBC reporters – as he did on this occasion for Correspondent. He has since issued a formal complaint to BBC director-general Greg Dyke, claiming that footage of him was gathered under false pretence.

Mark Seddon writes: "I declare an interest. I was the 'Baghdad producer' for the Correspondent programme. I had no idea of Sweeney and Galloway's long antipathy, nor even that Sweeney was reporting for Correspondent from Kurdistan. I was promised that the 'editorial line would be agreed between producers and reporters'. It was not. And the end result, I believe – in common with many others who have since written and emailed the programme – was an authored, polemicised report that was a classic case of 'advocacy journalism'. An important opportunity afforded by rare access to Iraq and Kurdistan to report objectively on the effects of economic sanctions was, I believe, lost."

The article concludes: "There is a strong case for authored reports – and for a campaigning journalism that is capable of reaching a different conclusion if the facts suggest it. Sadly, without the budgets and enough trained staff needed to produce them, many current affairs programmes are falling wide of the mark."

On July 1, Iraq accused the United States and Britain of escalating their air raids on the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, calling the attacks a clear expression of continuous state terrorism.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said that during a one-month period from May 17 to June 16, US and British warplanes planes flew a total of 992 combat sorties and launched six attacks on sites in Iraq's northern and southern no-fly zones. These raids, Sabri said, killed two Iraqi civilians and wounded well over 27 others.

The two no-fly zones, south of the 32nd parallel and north of the 36th parallel, enforced since the end of the 1991 Gulf war, have no international legitimacy and are not recognised by Iraq.

Naji Sabri said that Iraq holds the US and Britain fully responsible for the air raids and vowed that Iraq would practise its legitimate right to self-defence. The Foreign Minister said that the US-led air campaign raises serious questions over the credibility of the UN and the Security Council and their ability to consistently implement the provisions of the UN Charter without double standards. He urged Kofi Annan to demand an immediate halt to the US-led air campaign.

The Iraqi complaint came two days ahead of the third round of Iraq-UN talks to start in Austria on Thursday, which will cover Iraqi concerns regarding implementation of Security Council resolutions on Iraq, as well as the return of UN inspectors to the country and the return of the Kuwaiti national archives.

The London-based newspaper Al-Hayat has reported that the "Coalition of Iraqi National Forces-Britain" issued a statement on June 26 at the conclusion of its meetings in London. The statement includes the reasons for establishing the coalition and its goals, as well as the "National Action Charter".

The Charter includes the principles which were agreed upon, including those of maintaining the sovereignty and unity of Iraq, rejecting foreign interference, working to lift the economic blockade and abolish international sanctions, asserting the Iraqi people's responsibility for determining the form of the future political system, finding a just and peaceful solution to the problem of ethnic groups in Iraq and guaranteeing their legitimate rights, and ensuring that Iraq will play a positive role in the domestic and international spheres.

The Islamic Da'wah Party and the Iraqi Islamic Forces Union also have told Al-Hayat that they reject any dialogue or co-ordination between Washington and the Iraqi opposition. The two Iraqi opposition parties called for changing the regime in Baghdad through the opposition's own forces.

Abu-Bilal al-Adib, member of the Da'wah Party's Political Bureau, said: "There is no benefit to be derived from negotiations with the United States or co-ordination with it about the way to remove the Iraqi regime and the type of anticipated alternative. The reason is that the United States is pressing ahead with its plans and does not care about the opposition's view. It believes that this is its right and not the right of its capable allies, to say nothing of the Iraqi opposition. It also has its own view about the alternative it wants for a post-Saddam Iraq, which is blockaded by Security Council resolutions and overburdened by sanctions because of the aggressions and crimes that Saddam's despotic government committed against Kuwait."

Al-Adib added: "The US administration is drawing up a new map for the entire region to secure its own interests and those of its principle ally, Israel. Therefore, if the opposition enters into any form of dialogue with it at present, it must accept Washington's visions and conditions, especially since it dominates the world today as the sole power and is threatening our Islamic world."

The Da'wah Party official went on to say: "The United States wants to strike the present regime in Iraq to get rid of the destructive weapons it is stockpiling and therefore prevent them from falling into the hands of Muslim rebels who might use them in a possible battle against Israel. Washington does not care about saving the Iraqi people and rescuing them from the catastrophe that has beset them for more than a decade, because it was the main contributor to it." He added: "The ongoing negotiations between the United States and some Iraqi opposition groups do not reflect a consensus within the Iraqi opposition. These groups believe in the importance and need to co-ordinate with the United States so as to take their place in the anticipated political alternative after the present regime's removal."

For his part, Abu-Haydar al-Asadi, member of the Iraqi Islamic Forces Union's provisional leadership, has rejected any dialogue with the United States. In a statement he made to Al-Hayat, he said: "Washington's main aim from this dialogue is to harm the credibility of the Iraqi Islamic opposition, exclude it from the masses, and isolate it at the Arab and Islamic levels."

He added: "The Iraqi people do not trust the United States, especially as it abandoned them in the 1991 uprising and supported the Iraqi regime. It also played a major role in inciting the Baghdad regime to initiate the first and second Gulf wars." Al-Asadi stressed his organisation's rejection of the anticipated US military campaign against Iraq and said: "This will lead to the occupation of Iraq and make it dependent for many years on the United States, which has double standards as evidenced by its blatant support for the Zionist terrorism in the land of Palestine."

An editorial on the Iraqi newspaper Al-Thawrah website in Arabic on June 30 accused the United States of spreading rumours of Iraqi links with Al-Qa'idah to justify its "aggressive threats". The writer said that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction and claimed it would be easier for Al-Qa'idah to obtain radioactive material in the United States. He said US claims regarding links between Iraq and Al-Qa'idah were also "absurd" for political and moral reasons.

The editorial concluded by saying that the US administration makes false claims and, despicably and demagogically, circulates them, building its aggressive policy on such claims. The UN Secretariat, the UN Security Council and all countries of the world that cherish freedom, justice and peace must therefore strongly reject this rash US logic and condemn the US administration for its flagrant departure from international law, values and yardsticks.

Iraq has charged that "political reasons" were behind UNESCO's failure to add five archaeological sites in the country to its World Heritage List, an Iraqi weekly reported July 1.

"UNESCO's refusal to include five Iraqi archaeological sites in its World Heritage List was due to political reasons," said an official from the department of archaeology and heritage, cited by Nabdh Al-Shabab.

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee last Thursday added nine new sites to the World Heritage List and extended two sites already on the list.

Iraq contains more than 10,000 archaeological sites, many in the northern region of Kurdistan, most of which have not yet been uncovered, according to official statistics.

Another official from the department of archaeology and heritage was quoted as saying the department had recently discovered two temples, one Babylonian and the other Sumerian.