MIM Notes 226 January 15, 2001

Bush names cabinet; reinvigorates war against Iraq

Amerikan President-elect George W Bush began naming his cabinet in 
the last half of December, naming Gulf War War Criminal General 
Colin Powell as Secretary of State. The General pledged to promote 
"uniquely American internationalism" (read: blatant Amerikan 
imperialism) and in his first public appearance as nominee tried 
to pick a new fight with Iraq.(1) 

During the Gulf War, Amerikan forces killed 300,000 Iraqi 
soldiers, some by burying them alive, and many thousands of 
retreating Iraqi troops were murdered with fuel air explosives. 
Powell wants to blame Iraq for not allowing unlimited, never 
ending and unprecedented imperialist inspections of its scientific 
and military installations. Since then, a million Iraqis, half 
young children, have died of preventable causes (mostly 
malnutrition) as a result of economic sanctions led by the u.$.

Powell threatened the end of Hussein's government within "a few 
years' time" and vowed to strong-arm other imperialists (such as 
France and Russia) that have abandoned their support for the 
genocidal sanctions program. "We will work with our allies to re-
energize the sanctions regime," Powell said. "And I will make the 
case in every opportunity I get that we're not doing this to hurt 
the Iraqi people; we're doing this to protect the peoples of the 
region, the children of the region, who would be the targets of 
these weapons of mass destruction if we didn't contain them and 
get rid of them."(1)

These comment puts the Bush administration right in line with the 
Clinton administration, which was right in line with the Bush 
administration before that. 

MIM Notes readers should not think that had Al Gore won the 
election things would be substantially different. While Bush's 
father and Powell himself may have started the sanctions policy 
and the invasion of Iraq, one of the first acts of the Clinton-
Gore Administration was to bomb Iraq. Just prior to his own 
inauguration, Clinton linked his politics to Bush Sr.'s: "There is 
no difference between my policy and the policy of the present 
[Bush Sr.] administration."(2) 

On election day, Clinton spent the morning calling radio stations 
to urge listeners to vote for Vice President Gore. Perhaps by 
accident, he called WBAI in New York City, where Democracy Now! 
radio host Amy Goodman questioned him on several topics, including 
on U.$. foreign policy towards Iraq. It was good to see Clinton 
squirm. Still, he was able to come up with lies and distortions to 
her harder questions. For example, Clinton claimed that last year 
Iraq sold $19 billion in oil, more than before the Gulf War, so 
there should be no excuse for the poor health situation in Iraq 
other than the Hussein regime.

In reality, Iraq sold $11.4 billion, and contrary to Clinton's 
claim, the money is controlled not by Hussein but by the UN. 
Thirty percent of Iraqi oil revenues are reserved for reparations 
and UN overhead, and of the remainder its disbursement is 
controlled by the U.$.-led Security Council which rejects 
purchases of things like bandaids and infant formula as being of 
potential "military use." "Since 1997, although Iraq has sold over 
$37 billion of oil, only $9 billion of goods have actually arrived 
in Iraq! That is an average of less than $3 billion per year. 
Compare this to 1989, a year before sanctions were imposed, when 
in that one year Iraq imported $11.1 billion in civilian goods." 
Furthermore, funds are restricted to the purchase of imports and 
are not allowed to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure thereby ensuring 
permanent Iraqi poverty regardless of future oil for food 
sales.(3) 

The incoming Bush administration does have slight differences with 
the Clinton administration on Bosnia and Yugoslavia. Powell and 
Bush have hinted they want to pull out Amerikan troops and leave 
the occupation to their European allies. New National Security 
Advisor Condoleeza Rice said (much to the consternation of those 
European allies): "America's armed forces are not a global police 
force. They are not the world's 911."(4) But this is not totally 
new. The Clinton Administration waffled quite a bit about 
intervening in Bosnia. They couldn't decide if the chances of 
establishing U.$. (as opposed to other European) domination over 
the countries was worth the investment.(5) 

This has nothing to do with changing the fundamental nature of the 
Amerikan military. It's still the stick Amerika will use to 
enforce its rule, to protect its exploitation of the oppressed 
nations, to jockey for position with other imperialist countries. 
Bush wants to follow a more isolationist foreign policy; perhaps 
this is due to the Republican Party's closer ties to the Amerika-
first bourgeoisie. The Amerikan bourgeoisie is not homogeneous -- 
nor are international imperialist camps -- but a slight sway from 
one bourgeois clique to another does not mean that the imperialist 
system has fundamentally changed.

Amerika has a new warlord with slightly different rhetoric and 
slightly different strategic priorities. But for the Third World 
masses, this is no change at all. World War III -- the 
imperialists versus the Third World -- continues.



Notes:

1. The Boston Globe December 17, 2000, Pg. A1

2. See MIM Notes 73, February 1993. Clinton quote can also be 
found at USA Today, Jan 15 1993

3. Voices in the Wilderness, New Talking Points - November, 2000, 
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/TPNov2000.html 12/30/00

4. Fox Special Report with Brit Hume, 6pm ET, December 20, 2000, 
Transcript # 122001cb.254

5. See, for example, 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/kosovo/bosnia.txt or the MIM 
Notes Kosovo coverage at 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/kosovo/



For more MIM Notes coverage of the U.$. war against Iraq, see the 
MIM Notes Iraq archive at: 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/iraq/index.html