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Back to issue 28

International Socialist Review Issue 28, March–April 2003

The invasion of Iraq

by Anthony Arnove

AFTER TWELVE years of deadly siege warfare, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the United States is again poised to mount a major invasion of Iraq (which will probably be underway when this magazine appears). The Bush administration is hell-bent on war and has made it clear that it will invade Iraq, engineer a "regime change" and remain as a colonial occupying force, with or without the fig leaf of a second United Nations resolution. Moreover, "It is now apparent that the White House gave its initial approval for a war with Iraq some time ago," writes political scientist Michael Klare, "well before President Bush uttered his ‘axis of evil’ statement in February 2002."1

The value to U.S. imperialism of expanding its hegemony in a region that contains two-thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves is obvious. For American military planners, Iraq is merely the easiest target, and the most strategic. Control of Iraq is not an end in itself, but the starting point of a plan to redraw the map of the Middle East. "An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein–and the replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States," argues former Bush speechwriter David Frum, "would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe even the Romans."2 In the imperial strategy of the Bush administration, "the road to Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh and Jerusalem goes through Baghdad."3

As Klare, points out, "The removal of Saddam Hussein and his replacement by someone beholden to the United States is a key part of a broader United States strategy aimed at assuring permanent American global dominance."4

By early March, the U.S. had amassed a force that included 250,000 troops "deployed on land, sea and airfields within striking distance of Iraq."5 These forces are backed by 42,000 British and 2,000 Australian troops.6 The French, despite public criticism of Bush’s "rush to war," is busily retrofitting its munitions to be compatible with U.S. weapons, and have "conspicuously [sent]…an aircraft carrier on maneuvers just where it would be most useful in military action against Iraq."7

Other nations could soon deploy equipment that would be part of the invasion force, whether under the auspices of the United Nations or a so-called coalition of the willing ("coalition of the bribed and coerced" would be more fitting). The planned assault will have devastating consequences for the people of Iraq, who have suffered not only twelve years of sanctions, but the periodic bombardment of their country by British and American warplanes. Much of Iraq remains in shambles from the effects of the last Gulf War, and is therefore far more vulnerable to the consequences of the planned attack. As Anthony Shadid reported in the Boston Globe:

A U.S.-led attack on Iraq would probably devastate the country’s tattered and already overwhelmed infrastructure, shutting down power to hospitals and water treatment plants, cutting off drinking water almost immediately to millions of residents in Baghdad and possibly elsewhere and pouring raw sewage into the streets within hours, aid workers and specialists say.

Unlike the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq’s infrastructure was largely intact despite an eight-year war with Iran, the country’s water, sewage and electricity systems today are far more vulnerable, UN reports show.8

A report by Medact, a British-based organization of health professionals, estimates that 48,000 to 261,000 total deaths would result in the first three months of an attack on Iraq, barring the use of nuclear weaponry, which could produce a radically higher death toll.9

"It is not a war they are starting, it’s a slaughter," Vincent Hubin, director of Premiere Urgence, the largest foreign aid agency operating in Iraq, warned the Financial Times. "It will be a catastrophe."10

Iraqis are suffering merely in anticipation of war. In northern Iraq, which is relatively much better off than the south and center of the country,

[D]octors and patients are confronting shortages and difficult choices in a health care system they worry might soon collapse.

After years of struggle and sanctions, hospitals are short of equipment, drugs, training, staff and supplies. The possibility of war makes matters worse. If war comes, doctors say, this strained system…will be overwhelmed….

It is a triage in anticipation of a triage, driven by shortages taking almost every form: blood bags, catheters, X-ray film, sutures, antibiotics, anesthesia and reagent kits, which are used to determine blood types to ensure safe transfusions.…

"As a surgeon I cannot say this more clearly," said Dr. Giorgio Francia, a manager for Relief International, a Los Angeles-based health aid organization that is assessing the region’s medical needs. "If someone goes to a hospital, and he needs a transfusion and they do not have reagent, he will die. Period."11

A research team of 16 humanitarian experts–including Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, that visited Iraq in January 2003–found a similar pattern throughout the country. The team, organized by the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), found that:

• 92 percent of hospitals surveyed indicated they were lacking basic medical equipment;

• Intra-operative and post-operative surgical care is virtually unavailable;

• Basic laboratory tests are limited by a chronic lack of essential equipment and supplies;

• Damage to electrical and water systems will severely constrain medical services;

• Shortages of medications, including antibiotics, already undermine routine medical care; and

• Iraq’s medical system is poorly equipped to handle care of civilian casualties resulting from war.12

CESR also obtained three confidential UN planning documents that warn of a "humanitarian emergency of exceptional scale and magnitude." One of the released documents, the Integrated Humanitarian Contingency Plan for Iraq and Neighboring Countries, estimates that "30 percent of children under five would be at risk of death from malnutrition."13

UN humanitarian officials who met an international conference in Geneva for two days in February "warned of devastating humanitarian consequences of a war in Iraq." A report on the conference, buried in the "Briefly Noted" section of the New York Times, stated that the "United Nations has estimated that in the event of a war, around two million Iraqis would be forced to leave their homes, while anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million would flee the country altogether. Further, Iraq’s current level of food supplies are expected to last no more than six weeks from the start of a war, and drinking water supplies could be affected immediately."14

Twenty-nine countries and 21 aid groups attended the Geneva conference to discuss the impact of war on Iraq, but one country was notably absent: the United States, "which declined an invitation saying its relief planning has been under way for several months."15 Nothing could be further from the truth. While the U.S. government will once again put on a public relations show of offering "humanitarian aid" to people who it is bombing, as it so cynically did during its aerial assault of Afghanistan, the efforts of the U.S. military have been focused on a massive and brutal invasion of Iraq, despite the harm it will cause to millions of Iraqis. When the U.S. made a show of announcing its humanitarian plans for its "war of liberation," Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley boasted that the Bush administration was assembling a "60-person civilian disaster assistance response team, the largest in U.S. history."16 Sixty people for a country of 22 million people in which 60 percent of the population is totally dependent on rations for their subsistence and in which Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the current UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, warns that war "could spark a humanitarian crisis on a scale far worse than the famine in the Horn of Africa or the war in Afghanistan" in which "mass starvation could follow."17

"Shock and Awe"

While the scenario for the war could change, it will almost certainly begin with several days of overwhelming attacks from the air, using a strategy that war planners call "Shock and Awe." As the Sun Herald of Sydney reported,

The U.S. intends to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and psychologically" by raining down on its people as many as 800 cruise missiles in two days.

The Pentagon battle plan aims not only to crush Iraqi troops, but also to wipe out power and water supplies in the capital, Baghdad.

It is based on a strategy known as "Shock and Awe," conceived at the National Defense University in Washington, in which between 300 and 400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 Gulf War.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a Pentagon official told America’s CBS News after a briefing on the plan. "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before."18

The March 5 New York Times reported that the number of missiles that would be fired at Iraq in the first two days might be as high as 3,000.

Military analysts predict that "aircraft carriers are expected to play a larger role than in Operation Desert Storm." The U.S. Central Command, based in Qatar,

will rely on up to five carriers packed with aircraft to unleash munitions, while providing air cover for Army and Marine ground units, military officials said.

Operating from the Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf, and northern Arabian Sea, the floating air fields can "hit a lot more aimpoints in a 24-hour period" than the six aircraft carriers deployed during the first Gulf War, said a senior officer who asked not to be named.19

The aerial bombardment of Iraq is likely to be accompanied quickly, or even immediately, by the entrance of heavily armed U.S. troops, invading the country from three fronts: Kuwait, to the south; Jordan, to the west; and a combination of Turkish bases or an airlift from the north. At press time, plans for basing 62,000 troops in Turkey were set back when the Turkish parliament, angered by U.S. bullying and concerned about the massive opposition to war in Turkey, defeated a bill to authorize the U.S. war plan. But the Bush administration, in a show of immense imperial arrogance, is pressing for another vote, and the Turkish government already provides air bases to the U.S. military that would almost certainly be used in an attack.20

One key objective of U.S. troops on the ground has been spelled out clearly in U.S. war planning documents: the "quick takeover of the country’s oil fields."21 "It’s fair to say land component commanders have crafted strategies that would allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible," a senior U.S. Central Command official told the New York Daily News on condition of anonymity.22 The key fields U.S. troops will seek to seize are most likely Kirkuk and Mosul in the north and west, Qurna and Rumaila in the south.

While Turkey’s initial rejection of the U.S. troop basing arrangement has thrown the plans into question, the Bush administration has been in open conversation with the Turkish government about Turkish troops occupying the northern part of Iraq, where Ankara already has 1,200 soldiers operating. The United States have forged agreements with Turkey and Kurdish groups operating in northern Iraq to ensure that "both Turkish and Kurdish forces left the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk to the American forces. Those cities are the centers of oil production in the region, and Washington plans to grab the oil fields before either Iraq destroys them or the Kurds seize them."23

Despite their rhetoric about protecting Kurdish human rights, Turkey and the United States are both eager to prevent the Kurds from achieving self-determination in the aftermath of the war. "Turkey is going to position herself in that region in order to prevent any possible massacres, or the establishment of a new state," Abdullah Gul, the current prime minister of Turkey, told Turkish reporters.24 Meanwhile, U.S. officials have stressed repeatedly that they will "respect the territorial integrity of Iraq," a euphemism for maintaining a strong central government in Baghdad that will prevent Kurds from fighting for a homeland, which they have long been denied; preventing Shiites, the majority of the population, from taking control of the government, which would be a major threat to Saudi Arabia; and keeping the country from breaking into smaller parts that the United States might not be able to as easily control, thereby threatening its power over the flow of oil from the region.

Bush’s war plans for assaulting Iraq explicitly state that the U.S. seeks "to preserve Iraq as a unitary state, with its territorial integrity intact" and to "prevent unhelpful outside interference, military or non-military," which the Times of London rightly notes is meant as a "warning to neighboring countries, particularly Iran."25 The chance of a military conflict between the United States and such regional powers is hardly out of the question. Especially if the war does not go quickly, and the U.S. military finds itself unable to immediately repress unrest, U.S. soldiers might find themselves in a situation in which Shiite militias from Iran, a number of which are already operating in the country, and Turkish soldiers are firing on them, rather than serving under their command.

Weapons of mass destruction

The U.S. plans to use a whole range of weapons that will send a signal to Iraq’s neighbors, and beyond, of the preponderance of U.S. military might. The U.S. "invasion will be testing ground for the most sophisticated military equipment yet seen," the Financial Times reports.26 These weapons include:

Nuclear weapons. Iraq could well see the use of "strategic" nuclear weapons, including so-called mini-nukes or bunker busters. The U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, leaked in March 2002, states that "greater flexibility is needed with respect to nuclear force and planning than was the case during the Cold War…. Nuclear attack options that vary in scale, scope and purpose will complement other military capabilities."27 Leaked Pentagon documents also reveal plans to potentially use a new generation of "enhanced radiation weapons."28 The Blair government, the main ally in the U.S. war plan on Iraq, has also said it is willing to use nuclear weapons. Geoff Hoon, the British defense secretary, told members of parliament, "I am absolutely confident, in the right conditions, we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons."29

Depleted uranium munitions. Depleted uranium (DU) is used to create very dense armor-piercing munitions that can slice through tanks and other targets. More than one million DU rounds were used in the 1991 Gulf War.30 Despite the severe health problems experienced by Iraqis and Gulf War veterans exposed to depleted uranium weapons in 1991, including the high incidence of cancer in southern Iraq, U.S. and British officials have not ruled out their use again. In fact, "British forces being deployed to the Gulf are being equipped with…[a] weapon implicated in long-term civilian casualties–anti-tank shells with tips made from depleted uranium," the Guardian reported in February.31 British Defense Secretary Hoon said, "I would be extremely reluctant to say to members of Britain’s Armed Forces that there is a piece of equipment that allows them to do their job more effectively but they cannot use it because some concerns appear to exist about it."32

Electronic weapons. "Many of the star weapons from the Persian Gulf War of 1991 are back and deadlier than ever," according to the New York Times. "Yet according to military experts, the biggest technical revelation of another war in the region may not be improvements to old systems but rather a new category of firepower known as directed-energy weapons."33 The weapons, also known as high-power microwave (HPM) munitions, are allegedly intended to disable equipment, such as computers and military electronics, but they also "could destroy nearby heart pacemakers and other life-critical systems in hospitals or aboard aircraft," according to Time magazine. They generate "as much electrical power–two billion watts or more–as the Hoover Dam generates in 24 hours."34

Cluster bombs. In addition to traditional cluster bombs, a weapon that has a "unique civilian impact," in the words of military analyst William Arkin, the U.S. military may use a new model of "cluster bombs that scatter titanium rods on impact."35 Cluster bombs include as many as 200 small "bomblets" that routinely do not explode on impact, and remain to explode only when someone steps on them or a child picks one up.

Fuel-air explosives (FAEs). These weapons, which were also used in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, "release a cloud of highly volatile vapors and then detonate them, creating crushing air pressures typical of a small nuclear weapon," notes Richard Logan.36 The New York Times describes FAEs as part of a class of "powerful new earth-penetrating weapons" that were tested by the U.S. in Afghanistan, with horrific effect (and which it is now likely to use again in Iraq). "According to military documents," the Times reports, "the above-ground blasts produce up to twice the pressure of conventional high explosive charges and searing temperatures above 5,000 degrees–far hotter than the fires that toppled the World Trade Center towers."37

Daisy cutters. The BLU-82 is a 15,000-ton bomb that "can incinerate everything within six city blocks."38 The bomb was used "with devastating effect" in Afghanistan. "It contains a mixture of ammonium nitrate–six times the amount Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995–and aluminum," explains the Daily News.39

The U.S. invasion force will also rely on more traditional, yet still highly deadly weaponry: Abrams tanks, Apache helicopters, Cobra and Super Cobra helicopters, Strike Eagle fighter bombers, Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and various fighter jets, including F-16s and B2 bombers.

The risk of urban warfare is much greater in the war scenarios now being considered by the Pentagon. "The army is ready" to fight in Baghdad, a tightly packed city of five million people, says Thomas White, the army secretary. The Iraqi government, knowing that the U.S. military is entering the country seeking to assassinate top leaders and topple the government, will likely concentrate troops in urban areas. As Le Monde Diplomatique rightly points out, "it is in the regime’s interests to make street-by-street fighting the focal point of war."40 Such fighting is bound to claim numerous civilian lives, especially given U.S. fighting methods. "People familiar with U.S. military thinking on urban operations say the tactics and planning for warfare in cities have changed little since the 1968 battle of Hue, the largest single engagement in the Vietnam war and itself an operation that relied on tactics from Second World War-era urban conflicts."41

To avoid the charge that the United States is killing civilians, the Bush administration has already started to use the argument that every single death it causes will be the fault of Saddam Hussein. In a February press conference, Donald Rumsfeld, who in 1983 shook Saddam Hussein’s hand and paved the way to friendlier relations between Iraq and the United States, said, "He deliberately constructs mosques near military facilities, uses schools, hospitals, orphanages and cultural treasures to shield military forces, thereby exposing helpless men, women and children to danger. These are not tactics of war, they are crimes of war."42 Thus U.S. war crimes are set to be twisted into Iraqi war crimes.

Occupation

United States scenarios for toppling Saddam Hussein are remarkably rosy, suggesting that the war can be won in a matter of days, but military planners are beginning to acknowledge some of the complications that could prolong the war much longer than the Pentagon planners want. A senior Bush administration official told the New York Times that

a number of uncertainties remained even after months of internal studies, advance planning and the insertion of Central Intelligence Agency officers and Special Operations forces into some corners of Iraq.

"We still do not know how U.S. forces will be received," the senior official said. "Will it be cheers, jeers or shots? And the fact is, we won’t know until we get there."43

In particular, U.S. planners are worried about "a chaotic situation in which [Saddam] Hussein is gone but the United States is not in control."44 This fear reveals the key objective of the invasion: establishment of U.S. control, at any cost.

Despite its high-minded rhetoric about democracy, human rights and "de-Nazification" in Iraq, U.S. plans for the occupation of Iraq make it clear that elements of the old order of Iraq, including its governing Baathist Party and its military hierarchy, will be employed to control Iraq’s people and "maintain stability" in Iraq. "A large number of current officials would be retained" in a transitional or post-occupation government, according to the Washington Post.45 This has led even the pro-imperialists in the so-called Iraqi opposition, such as Kanan Makiya, to warn of "Baathism with an American face."46 Exile leaders like Makiya have no social base in Iraq and have been unable in the past decades to overcome their own petty power plays and competing interests to forge any meaningful strategy for becoming a new government. One faction even wants to restore the Hashemite monarchy to Iraq. Nonetheless, a number of these exiles are angling to curry the favor of the United States and hope to be parachuted into power in a postwar Iraq. But as George Packer notes, forces at the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, ironically considered the "moderate wing of the Bush foreign policy apparatus," seem to be carrying the argument of "removing Saddam [Hussein] but letting power stay with his ruling Baath Party, mainly minority Sunni Arabs…. Baath Party officials would be removed from the top levels of the bureaucracy, but those a notch down would be kept on to work with their American superiors."47

Although initial plans to have General Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command, run Iraq have been shifted in the face of international criticism–U.S. plans now claim an American "civilian" will run Iraq–Franks will remain in charge behind the scenes. As the Washington Post reported February 21,

The Bush administration plans to take complete, unilateral control of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, with an interim administration headed by a yet-to-be named American civilian who would direct the reconstruction of the country and the creation of a "representative" Iraqi government, according to a now-finalized blueprint described by U.S. officials and other sources.

Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command, is to maintain military control as long as U.S. troops are there. Once security was established and weapons of mass destruction were located and disabled, a U.S. administrator would run the civilian government….

The initial humanitarian effort…is to be directed by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner. But once he got to Baghdad, sources said, Garner would quickly be replaced as the supreme civil authority by an American "of stature," such as a former U.S. state governor or ambassador.48

United States officials say they may remain as an occupying government for "an indeterminate time," but have openly discussed timetables of as long as two to ten years.49

So much for democracy.

Control of oil

While Bush administration officials have had numerous internal disputes over how to run postwar Iraq, they all agree on the benefits of immediately tapping Iraq’s oil fields to pay for the occupation. The U.S. government sees several long-term advantages of taking control of Iraq’s vast oil reserves. In addition to diversifying the sources of oil available to the United States, a new Iraq under U.S. occupation or tutelage could be a strategic counterbalance to Saudi Arabia, which now dominates the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC). Some policy makers have raised the idea of Iraq pulling out of OPEC altogether, so it wouldn’t be bound by the limits that the cartel would place on its oil exports. The U.S. would also establish even greater military and economic predominance in the Middle East as a whole, with the possibility of new military bases in Iraq. This would give Washington much more leverage against military and economic competitors that import oil from the Middle East, particularly China, which needs to significantly increase its supply of energy in the coming years. Finally, Anglo-American oil companies would have the inside track on the vastly profitable agreements that would be signed to refurbish Iraq’s badly weakened (and potentially devastated) oil infrastructure and, even more importantly, to refine and export Iraqi oil in the future.

Washington hopes to convince other countries to pay the bill for cleaning up the mess the U.S. creates, as many countries did after the last Gulf War, though far fewer are likely to do so again, given the current levels of resentment at U.S. arrogance and its hostility to even the pretense of international agreements. According to the Washington Post, "The 1991 Gulf war cost $61 billion, but about $50 billion of that was picked up by U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Japan, which are unlikely to contribute this time around."50

Estimates of the cost of attacking Iraq range from tens to hundreds of billions, and even trillions, of dollars.51 That bill will be paid by workers in the United States, who will be asked to pay even more on military spending, while Bush grants more tax cuts to the rich and makes deeper cuts in spending on education, health care and other badly needed social programs.

The Bush administration might very well face a scenario of increasing economic problems at home, while being engaged in a conflict abroad with consequences that are far reaching and that it cannot control, much like during the Vietnam War. At that time, millions of people in the United States came to see that their government was, as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world," and realized the connections between a war abroad and a class war at home.52 With this war, we will have to make those same connections and urgently build as broad a movement as possible that can work to limit the damage done, as well as build to the point where we can prevent the ones to follow.

The Bush administration has made it clear that Iraq is only a beginning point for redrawing the map of the Middle East and intervening more aggressively elsewhere around the globe. U.S. troops are now engaged in Colombia, the Philippines, Georgia and remain in Afghanistan, a country that is in shambles and where fighting could easily break out on a much wider scale. It is no exaggeration to talk about the very real possibility of inter-imperialist war and the use of nuclear weapons in the near future. The horrors we have seen, and can expect in Iraq, will only be a prologue of wars to come unless we can build an anti-imperialist movement in the United States and internationally that insists on a new way of organizing society.


Anthony Arnove is the editor of Iraq Under Seige (South End Press), now in its second, updated edition.
1 Michael T. Klare, "For oil and empire? Rethinking war with Iraq," Current History 102/662, March 2003, p. 134. See also Klare, "U.N. charade: Timing of Iraq war in Bush’s hands from start," Pacific News Service, February 12, 2003.

2 Quoted in George Packer, "Dreaming of democracy," New York Times Magazine, March 2, 2003.

3 Ibid.

4 Klare, "For oil and empire?" See also Klare, "U.N. charade."

5 David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, "U.S. aides dismiss moves by Baghdad but feel pressure," New York Times, March 4, 2003; see also Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, "War plan for Iraq calls for big force and quick strikes," New York Times, November 10, 2002.

6 Frank Walker, "When it comes, the force will be breathtaking," Sun Herald (Sydney), February 16, 2003. Other reports indicate the U.S. plans to use 3,000 cruise missiles against Iraq in the first several days of the assault.

7 Richard Bernstein and Steven R. Weisman, "NATO settles rift over aid to Turks in case of a war," New York Times, February 17, 2003; Richard Bernstein, "Europe’s groundswell: Public opinion," New York Times, February 17, 2003.

8 Anthony Shadid, "War would crush Iraqi cities, analysts say," Boston Globe, October 20, 2002.

9 Medact, "Collateral Damage: The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq," November 2002. Available online at www.medact.org/tbx/docs/Medact%20Iraq%20report_final3.pdf.

10 Nicolas Pelham, "Iraq stocks up on blood and bullets," Financial Times, October 19, 2002.

11 C.J. Chivers, "A doctor’s dilemma hits Kurdish patients," New York Times, January 3, 2003.

12 Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Emergency Campaign on Iraq, "Report: Iraqi Health Care System Grossly Inadequate to Deal with Human Health Consequences of War," press release, Brooklyn, New York, January 30, 2003. Available online at www.cesr.org.

13 The confidential UN documents are available online at www.cesr.org.

14 Alison Langley, "Briefly noted: Readying relief for Iraqis," New York Times, February 17, 2003.

15 Ibid.

16 Steve Hadley, "The plan for a postwar Iraq," Washington Post, February 28, 2003.

17 Nicolas Pelham, "Desperate Iraqis face mass starvation, warns UN," Financial Times, February 28, 2003.

18 Andrew West, with press agency reports, "800 missiles to hit Iraq in first 48 hours," Sun Herald (Sydney), January 26, 2003.

19 Bryan Bender, "This time, U.S. readies a lightning strike in Gulf," Boston Globe, February 16, 2003.

20 Dexter Filkins, "Turkey will seek a second decision on G.I. presence," New York Times, March 3, 2003.

21 David E. Sanger and James Dao, "U.S. is completing plan to promote a democratic Iraq," New York Times, January 6, 2003.

22 Richard Sisk, "U.S. battle plan: Slip in and grab oil fields," Daily News, January 23, 2003.

23 Dexter Filkins and C.J. Chivers, "U.S. in talks on allowing Turkey to occupy a Kurdish area in Iraq," New York Times, February 7, 2003.

24 Ibid.

25 Tim Reid, "U.S. aims to seize Iraq and occupy it for 18 months," Times (London), January 7, 2003.

26 Peter Spiegel, "American forces prepare for the first digital war," Financial Times, January 24, 2003.

27 Michael R. Gordon, "Nuclear arms: For deterrence or fighting?" New York Times, March 11, 2002.

28 Julian Borger, "U.S. plan for new nuclear arsenal," The Guardian (London), February 19, 2003.

29 Richard Norton-Taylor, "The next generation: The new nukes," Guardian (London), August 6, 2002.

30 See Morley Safer, 60 Minutes, CBS News, December 26, 1999.

31 Richard Norton-Taylor, "Government refuses to rule out use of cluster bombs," Guardian (London), February 14, 2003.

32 Colin Brown, "Hoon undeterred by critics as he steps up war plans," Sunday Telegraph (London), January 19, 2003.

33 Seth Schiesel, "Taking aim at an enemy’s chips," New York Times, February 20, 2003.

34 Mark Thompson, "America’s ultra-secret weapon," Time, January 27, 2003.

35 William B. Arkin, WashingtonPost.com, February 26, 2001; Lynda Hurst, "U.S. plans swift, massive strike," Toronto Star, February 16, 2003.

36 Richard Logan, "Factually anti-American," Montreal Gazette, December 8, 2002.

37 Andrew C. Revkin, "U.S. making weapons to blast underground hide-outs," New York Times, December 3, 2001.

38 Mike Toner, "Warfare tests new technology," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 2, 2002.

39 Richard Whitby, "High-tech hardware in war on terror," Daily News (New York), September 8, 2002.

40 "What happens next in Baghdad?" Le Monde Diplomatique, U.S. on-line edition, trans. Luke Sandford (February 2003).

41 Stephen Fidler and Peter Spiegel, "The battle of Baghdad: Is the U.S. ready to wage war street by street?" Financial Times, November 22, 2002.

42 Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Defense Department Briefing, Federal News Service, February 19, 2003. For background on Rumsfeld’s ties to Hussein, see Eric Rouleau, "U.S.-Iraq weapons sales: The dossier," Le Monde diplomatique, U.S. on-line edition, trans. Linda Butler (February 2003).

43 David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, "War planners begin to speak of war’s risks," New York Times, February 18, 2003.

44 Ibid.

45 Karen DeYoung and Peter Slevin, "Full U.S. control planned for Iraq," Washington Post, February 21, 2003.

46 Quoted in George Packer, "Dreaming of democracy."

47 Ibid.

48 DeYoung and Slevin, "Full U.S. control planned for Iraq."

49 Ibid.; Jim Lobe, "Future of post-war Iraq divides Bush administration," Foreign Policy in Focus, February 18, 2003. Available online at www.fpif.org.

50 James Harding and Peter Spiegel, "Bush facing $90bn bill for costs of conflict," Financial Times, February 27, 2003.

51 See William D. Hartung, "The hidden costs of war," Fourth Freedom Forum, February 2003. See also Packer, "Dreaming of democracy."

52 Martin Luther King, Jr., "To Atone for Our Sins and Errors in Vietnam," in Manning Marable and Leith Mullings, eds., Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), p. 463.

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