Target Iraq

Since the end of the so-called Cold War we are living in a period characterized by the former North American President George Bush as the New World Order. What are some of the most important elements of this "New World Order"?

First element: the big western powers – concretely speaking of Europe under German leadership, the United States of America and Japan have lost their to some extent unifying enemy, the Soviet Union and the former socialist camp in Eastern Europe. This historical factor is one of the key reasons for the growing competition among and increasing conflicts between the big western powers. The leading U.S. banker and former adviser to various North American Presidents Jeffrey E. Garden has therefore described the current geo-political situation after the end of the so-called "Cold War" as a "Cold Peace" meaning – according to him – that the East-'West conflict has bee replaced by a confrontation between three competing cultural, economic and political economic blocs.

Second element: within this scenario the United States of America is striving for an unchallenged world leadership. In a broad policy statement the U.S. Defense Department asserted already in 1992 that the U.S. political and military mission in post-"Cold War" era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia, the territory of former Soviet Union or elsewhere. This classified document made the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can perpetuated by all political, economic and military means to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging North American primacy.

To perpetuate this role, United States must – according to this document – "sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our (meaning the U.S. – MO) leadership seeking to overturn the established political and economic order".

Third element: all this results in a massive reorganization of the big western powers' military and intelligence structures on a "Cold War" level and the strategic strengthening of the military-industrial complexes of these nations. Instead of a much-propagated so-called "peace dividend" after the end of the "Cold War" NATO is going to be expanded towards Eastern Europe, not only the United States but also other big western powers are militarily intervening under the disguise of so-called "humanitarian missions" or 'UN operations" in all parts of the world. All big western nations are striving for a role as a global military, economic and political player serving only their own strategic interests, especially at the costs of the peoples and nations of the so-called Third World, trying to dictate their models of development, conflict solutions an political-economic structures them. All this includes the fact that the big western powers and Russia are, according to all serious statistics, the top weapon producers and exporters. The bulk of those weapons end up in the so-called Third World, heating up region and local conflicts.

Fourth element: the growing competition among the big western powers includes a sharp competition for political and military influence and dominance, for national resources and markets in the so-called Third World. All of the big western nations are therefore trying to build up their proxies in nations or regions of the so-called Third World. Most of these proxies are armed to the teeth by their backers and any conflict – local or regional – can therefore easily escalate into a war. Most of the present local and regional wars are either from the beginning effectively proxy war's or they end up as proxy wars in the course of their development. The epidemic spread of local and regional wars can only be understood, if the neo-colonial attempt by the big western powers to rewrite the global map of political and military influence, the exploitation of markets and national resources is seriously taken into consideration.

Because of the fact that during the second Gulf War against Iraq certain blueprints and strategies of and for the so-called "New World Order" dominated by the U.S.A. – from organized disinformation and provocations that were preparing the armed aggression to the war itself – were tested and set in motion, it is of crucial importance to examine this war and its background more in detail, especially also in light of the on-going U.S. campaign against Iraq that includes CIA-attempts to overthrow the government in Baghdad as well as organized disinformation campaigns about alleged but never substantially proved Iraqi biological and chemical warfare capacities. This disinformation campaign is aimed at isolating Baghdad as a precondition to continue the economic embargo against the Iraqi people. And the ultimate goal of this economic warfare is to topple the Iraqi government replacing it by a pro-American puppet.

The second Gulf War, which threatened to push the entire region and even the entire world into the abyss, in fact began even before the first shot was fired: only four (!) days after the end of the Iraq/Iran War in August 1988. Militarily, Iran did not succeed in its effort to bring the "Islamic Revolution" to Baghdad but after the war ended Iraq was economically devastated.

One day after the truce between Iraq and Iran began, neighbouring Kuwait began to exceed the over-production quotas set by OPEC and in particular to drastically increase its production in the Rumeila oil-field, to which the Iraqis had laid claim. The consequences of this action were obvious. The already problematic over-production of oil was further increased, and oil prices went down sharply. Saddam Hussein was bound to regard this as a Kuwaiti provocation, since Iraq's oil income sank by 7 billion U.S. dollars annually – a sum exactly equal to the annual rise in debt services. This laid the foundation of the escalation that finally ended in "Operation Desert Storm".

Washington has – apart from geo-strategic interests – clear economic interests in the region surrounding the Persian/Arabian Gulf. And these interests can be summed up in a single word: oil. U.S. oil reserves amount to 25.9 billion barrels. Kuwait alone has reserves in excess of 94.5 billion barrels, Iraq more than 100 billion barrels, and Saudi Arabia more than 225 billion barrels. Whereas the production of a barrel of relatively high-quality oil costs 57 cents in the Arab countries, U.S. oil companies must pay 3 dollars per barrel for American oil of comparable quality.

As early as 30 October 1990 – i.e. before the Gulf War broke out – "Confidential Reports", a well-informed and CIA-influenced background information service for decision-makers in business and politics, summarized the situation as follows: "(...) the continuation of the Iraqi threat (would) provide the justification for a long-term USA military presence in the area (...). We remind our readers of what we wrote on 4 September: 'The stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia means the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish of the USA. A continuation of this situation has great advantages for the USA: Saudi Arabia is practically reduced to the status of a U.S. satellite; it is willing to deliver as much oil as Washington wants; OPEC's blackmailing capability is reduced; the wealthy Saudi rulers cannot help remaining under the Dollars influence and helping to finance American deficits."

As Iraq's economic problems deepened during 1989 on account of the continuing over-production of oil by the Gulf states, Americans and Kuwaitis met to discuss the fine details of their joint strategy against Iraq. In November 1989, the Director of the Kuwaiti secret service met with CIA chief Webster to discuss the situation. A dossier of the Kuwaiti secret service provides information about the results of this talk: ^"We (the Kuwaiti secret service – Ed.) agreed with the American side that it is important to exploit the worsening economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on the government of that country to re-draw our shared border. The CIA outlined for us its ideas on appropriate means of exerting pressure. Extensive cooperation between us should start as soon as possible, on the condition that such activities are coordinated at a high level."¹

Almost simultaneously, an international media campaign began which disclosed more and more details about Iraqi arms deals with Western companies. The sources of the information which served as the basis of the articles and film features turned out in most cases to be Zionist Israeli (MOSSAD) or U.S. secret-service (CIA) circles. The purpose of this media campaign was to isolate Iraq internationally and to lay the political groundwork for economic sanctions. The escalation approached its first high point when Saddam Hussein openly admitted (in a speech on 2 April 1990) that his country possessed chemical weapons and was capable of using these in case of an Israeli attack, thus posing a direct threat to Israel.

This admission confirmed the suspicions that had been raised by previous press statements. A relatively autonomous military-industrial complex had been built up in Iraq; moreover, Baghdad had succeeded in breaking Israel's "nuclear-chemical hegemony" in the Middle East. Iraq had become a strong regional power, and thus the balance of power that Washington had been trying to create and influence in its own interest in this region, with the help of a massively armed Israel and conservative Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, seemed to have slipped out of control. U.S. dominance was being threatened.

During this phase of the scenario, if not earlier, the strategists in Washington were deliberately pursuing a double strategy which aimed at further intensifying the confrontation between Iraq and Kuwait. Every observer who thinks logically must come to the conclusion that even at a very early stage of the crisis, Washington had not only accepted the fact that war could possibly break out as a result of these developments, but had even deliberately included this possibility in its calculations.

The feudal lords of Kuwait received repeated messages to the effect that the USA was standing behind them. Both sides even considered the possibility of stationing U.S. Marines in Kuwait. Meanwhile, the Iraqis were assured of an improvement in their relations with the United States – despite the media flurry over Iraqi weapons purchased from the West. The U.S. Government deliberately gave the Iraqis the impression that Washington wanted to stay out of the escalating confrontation between Kuwait and Iraq. Washington continued to consistently pursue its double strategy. As late as two days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, on 31 July 1990, U.S. strategists released the semi-official statement that the U.S. would not intervene militarily under any circumstances, no matter how the Gulf conflict escalated in the future.

This double strategy escalated the confrontation between Iraq and Kuwait into a war. Saddam

Hussein's tanks rolled into neighbouring Kuwait on 2 August in the certainty that the United States would react, but would under no circumstances intervene militarily. Kuwait, for its part, literally refused until the very last second to make any political and economic compromise with Baghdad on the issues in dispute. In taking this tough position it counted on the promised U.S. support and on the strategy it had developed together with the U.S. to put economic pressure on the Iraqi government and possibly even topple it subsequently.

Let us begin with the conclusion that the USA wanted this war. The Gulf War that began in January 1991 and its causes became a model for the Pentagon's plans for the 'Nineties. In their "description of the enemy" in previous military conflicts in the so-called Third World, U.S. strategists had assumed military operations against guerrillas or relatively lightly armed forces (as in Panama). This type of military conflict, called "low-intensity conflict" (LIC) by the specialists, is "limited" to the level of so-called control of rebellions (Philippines) arming and organizing contra troops (Nicaragua, Angola), and the limited use of U.S. military personnel (Grenada, Panama). But the new model, tested in the Gulf War, involves heavy battles against well-armed regional powers (in this case Iraq). In order to distinguish this type of war from so-called "high-intensity conflicts" (HIC) – i.e. a world war, formerly meaning war against the Warsaw Treaty countries, today meaning war against Russia – as well as LICs, Pentagon strategists have invented the technical term "mid-intensity conflict" (MIC).

The role these MICs will play in the USA's future military planning was formulated by a high-level group of experts called together already in May 1990 by the "Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)", which has close connections with the U.S. secret service community. This group concluded that: "In future conventional conflicts, the enemy will probably be just as well armed as the U.S. armed forces. (...) In many countries, the United States would be opposing large and well trained armed forces having highly developed weapons systems in considerable numbers. These could include combat tanks and armored personnel carriers, heavy and mobile artillery, Soviet combat planes, integrated air defense systems, submarines, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, modern ground-to-air missiles, and even chemical and tactical nuclear weapons."²

One of the consequences of this type of planning is obvious. In spite of the disintegration of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, the military potential of the United States will remain at the Cold War level. The so-called "peace dividend" has already been quietly shelved. However, in order for the USA to be able to wage MICs effectively it will have to station large and/or specially armed or trained military contingents in various regions of the globe. To this end, U.S. Secretary of Defense Cheney already pleaded in March 1990 for a "solid U.S. military presence in the Gulf area".

Since the Seventies, regional powers have arisen in various regions of the so-called Third World which fulfill three criteria:

* each has reserves of raw materials and/or a level of industrial production that permit the build-up of a military-industrial complex and cooperation with other countries in the region and/or the so-called Third World.

This category of state includes: Iraq, India, Brazil or South Africa and, potentially, in the near future some countries in Asia. China might even develop into an even more serious challenge for U.S. hegemony due to its military and economic strength as well as to its official socialist orientation. This position allows China to potentially enter the "elite club" of the superpowers.

The situation will become critical for strategic North American planning if the ruling elites of these countries – whatever their political orientation may be – try to withdraw, for whatever reasons, from the U.S. sphere of influence or pursue policies contrary to U.S. interests. All of these criteria applied to Iraq before the Gulf War, for example.

This is just one tragedy due to U.S. imperialist aggression in Afghanistan. This awaits the people of Iraq or any other country that President Bush deems "Terrorist States"!

U.S.-President Bush (Senior) broached this problem as early as May 1989 in one of his first major addresses on the topic of "national security": "The right way to deal with a changing Soviet Union is a challenge of the first order for us (..) But the challenges to our security policy that face us today do not come only from the East. The rise of regional powers is rapidly changing the strategic landscape!" And in February 1991, Secretary of Defense Cheney, who serves currently as Vice-President in the Bush Junior administration, approved a secret "Guideline Document" for the years 1992-1997 which "directs" the U.S. armed forces to give the "Soviet (now Russian – Ed.) threat" a much smaller weight than the preparation for clashes with regional powers of the so-called Third World. Army Chief of Staff General Vuono put it even more precisely in an article: "The United States can not ignore the expanding military might of these countries, and the Army must maintain its potential to neutralize possible threats wherever they may arise. This could mean opposing a well-armed army in the Third World."

As a consequence the USA started already at the end of the eighties/beginning of the nineties to reorganize its military power towards the already-mentioned direction, the establishment of the so-called "New World Order", in which Washington aims to be the dominating superpower. In a broad policy statement the Defense Department asserted in 1992 that the U.S. political and military mission in the post-Cold War era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia, or the territory of the former Soviet Union.

A 46-page document that was at this time already circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon states that part of the U.S. mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role to pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."

This classified documents made the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behaviour and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nation from challenging U.S. primacy.

To perpetuate this role, the United States "must sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order," the document states.

With its focus on this concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest rejection to date of "collective internationalism," the strategy that emerged from World War II when the five victorious powers sought to form a United Nations that could mediate disputes and policy outbreaks of violence.

Although the document was internal to the Pentagon and was not provided to Congress, its policy statements were developed in conjunction with the "National Security Council" and in consultation with the President and his senior national security advisers.

Together with attachments on force levels required to ensure the predominant U.S. role, the policy draft was a detailed justification for the Bush administration's "base force" proposal to support a 1.6 million-man military within a period of five years until 1996/1997, at a cost of about 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars. And in principle this concept has been taken over and continued by the Clinton administration.

The continuation of this strategic goal explains the strong emphasis elsewhere in the document and in other Pentagon planning on using military force, if necessary, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in such countries as democratic Korea, Iraq, some of the former Soviet republics and Europe.

The document is conspicuously furthermore devoid of references to collective action through the United Nations, which provided the mandate for the allied assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait. It notes that coalitions "hold considerable promise for promoting collective action", as in the Gulf War, but that "we should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general agreements over the objectives to be accomplished." What is most important, it says, is "the sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S." and "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated" or in a crisis that demands quick response.

This document sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power – the USA – whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring political competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."

For the first time since the "Defense Planning Guidance" process was initiated to shape national security policy, the new draft states that the fragmentation of the former Soviet military establishment has eliminated the capacity for any successor power to wage a global conventional war. But the document qualifies its assessment, saying, "We do not dismiss the risks to stability in Europe from a nationalist backlash in Russia or effort to re-incorporate into Russia the newly independent republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and possibly others."

It says that though U.S. nuclear targeting plans have changed "to account for welcome developments in states of the former Soviet Union", U.S. strategic nuclear weapons will continue to target vital aspects of the former Soviet military establishment. The rationale for the continuation of this targeting policy is that the United States "must continue to hold at risk those assets and capabilities that current – and future – Russian leaders or other nuclear adversaries value most", because Russia will remain "the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States." Until the Russian nuclear arsenal has been rendered harmless – the document continues – "we continue to face the possibility of robust strategic nuclear forces in the hands of those who might revert to closed, authoritarian, and hostile regimes," the document says. It calls for the "early introduction" of a global anti-missile system.

As for Europe, the Pentagon paper asserts that "a substantial American presence in Europe and continued cohesion within the Western alliance remain vital." But to avoid a competitive relationship from developing, the draft says, "we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO."

The draft states that with the elimination of U.S. short-range nuclear weapons in Europe and similar weapons at sea, the United States should not contemplate any withdrawal of its nuclear-strike aircraft based in Europe and, in the event of a resurgent threat from Russia, "we should plan to defend against such a threat" further forward on the territories of Eastern Europe "should there be an alliance decision to do so."

This statement offers an explicit commitment to organize the former Warsaw Treaty nations against Russia. It suggests that the United States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf States. And to help stabilize the newly emerging capitalist economies and political developments in Eastern Europe, the draft calls on the European Community to offer memberships to East European countries as soon as possible.

In East Asia, the report says, the United States can scale down its forces but must maintain its "status as a military power of the first magnitude in the area. This will enable the United States to continue to contribute to regional security and stability by acting as a balancing force and prevent emergence of vacuum or a regional hegemony," the paper says. In addition, the draft warns that any precipitous withdrawal of U.S. military forces could provoke an unwanted response from Japan. "We must also remain sensitive to the potentially destabilizing effects that enhanced roles on the part of our allies, particularly Japan but also possibly Korea, might produce," it adds. In the event that peace negotiations between the two Koreas succeed, the draft recommends that the United States "should seek to maintain an alliance with a unified, democratic Korea." This effectively means to support the puppet regime in Seoul to its utmost to undermine democratic Korea and to organize a counterrevolutionary development in this country.

The U.S. strategists are following in principle today those geo-strategic, military and economic patterns they had developed – as I have just described – at the end of the Eighties/beginning of the Nineties. The Iraqi people were during the second Gulf War the victims of those strategies aimed at defending and consolidating U.S. hegemony over the whole globe and they are currently the victims of the ongoing U.S.-led destabilisation campaign – of which the criminal economic embargo is an integral part – against Iraq and its people. As already mentioned the ultimate goal of this ongoing campaign is the establishing of a pro-U.S. puppet regime in Baghdad which would be a corner stone for a complete Zionist/North American control over the Near and Middle East, the Arab people and its resources and wealth. This attempted control is furthermore directed against the Arab National and Resistance movement and the heroic uprising of the Palestinian people against Zionist occupation and oppression.

Please therefore allow me to highlight only some of the most important elements of the ongoing U.S.-led campaign of destabilisation against Iraq and its people since the official ending of the second Gulf War – apart from the criminal embargo:

1) Since the official ending of the second Gulf War against Iraq British and U.S. bombers are regularly bombing and attacking the country under the pretext of "defending" the illegally proclaimed "no-fly-zones". These unjustified acts of aggression are foremost causing civilian casualties;

2) Soon after the official ending of the second Gulf War against Iraq a U.S./United Nations imposed "United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM)" systematically inspected and destroyed Iraqi military capacities and was therefore objectively aimed at reducing Iraq's capacities to defend itself against foreign aggression. From the very beginning the Iraqi government had accused UNSCOM of being a cover for CIA-operations and an instrument for internationally launched campaigns of disinformation. These accusations have meanwhile been proved correct not only by the former UNSCOM chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter^;

3) In 1996 a comprehensive CIA plan to overthrow the Iraqi government failed and about 2.500 (!!) local CIA-agents had to be airlifted in a hurry out of the northern part of the country, Iraqi Kurdistan, to Europe and the United States;

4) In February 1998 U.S. Senator Arlen Specter introduced a Senate resolution that called for: a) the creation of a UN commission to establish an international record for criminalising Iraqi politicians, b) an international criminal tribunal for punishing Iraqi politicians according U.S. standards and c) a long-term plan for the overthrow of the Iraqi government. Meanwhile the campaign against Baghdad has become an official law in the United States and the budget for it has amounted to more than 100 million (!) US-dollars that do not cover the costs for the ongoing acts of military aggression;

5) The disinformation campaign against Iraq continues to be intensive and is masterminded by Washington, the CIA and Zionist Mossad. Recent attempts to link Iraq to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on the 11th of September 2001 and to the Anthrax scandal have already crashed and proved to be lies aimed at creating the pretext for a new full-scale attack against the Iraqi people.

The U.S. administration is currently planning a new full-scale military aggression against Baghdad. U.S. President George Bush (Jr.) has ordered the CIA and his senior military commanders to draw up detailed plans for a military aggression that could begin within months. According to well-informed sources, the planning is being undertaken under the auspices of the U.S. Central Command at McDiII air force base in Tampa, Florida, commanded by General Tommy Franks, who is leading the war of aggression against Afghanistan. Another key player is understood to be former CIA director James Woolsey.

1. Quoted from the influential German daily: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2 November 1990

2. The Center for Strategic and international Studies (CSIS), Conventional Combat Priorities: An Approach for the New Strategic Era,

Target Iraq:

More than 10 years of Western attempts to destabilize the country!