[mobglob-discuss] Iraq

[Carl Stewart]

USA, Iraq and Kurdistan
The Western Media's Task is to Generate War Propaganda
1999 Interview with Koorosh Modaresi

Porsesh: Air strikes against Iraq are continuing with varied frequency. 
William Roe, the former USA ambassador in the Gulf has stated that the 
objective of these attacks is not the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's 
regime but to ensure the implementation of the UN resolution on the 
eradication of its weapons of mass destruction, which the Iraqi 
government has not complied with. In your view, what is the USA 
objective?

Koorosh Modaresi: The claim that these attacks are for an implementation 
of the UN resolution is false. This is merely war propaganda not 
political analysis. USA official analysts themselves speak of a lack of 
strategy and plan on Iraq. However, war journalism, led by the CNN, BBC 
and SKY, as a component of the military machinery of these countries, 
are portraying war propaganda as fact and serious analysis. If we want 
to see how this claim lacks credibility, we must take a step away from 
the propaganda machinery and pose deeper questions. One must ask how 
many other UN resolutions have been implemented via bombardment and even 
military threats. Can the Palestinians believe such assertions? Do they 
do the same to Israel for violating UN resolutions? Why is not China 
subject to such attacks for undermining the most basic rights? Why not 
subject Croatia and Slovenia for the ethnic 'cleansing' of nearly 700 
thousand Serbs, Germany for its practical and political support for this 
policy and the USA itself for bullying a huge section of humanity over 
the last fifty years, to such attacks? What is the reason for singling 
out Iraq? They say Iraq is despotic and has used weapons of mass 
destruction and that this is the moral basis for singling out Iraq and 
the reason for Western governments and its media's fury. This can only 
be taken as jest. All the world's dictators have gained power and 
remained in power with the support of these governments. This is a fact 
that they censor. The Iraqi Ba'ath regime is most definitely a despotic 
and criminal regime. However, the West's select countries like Saudi 
Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Indonesia and the 
majority of others supported by them, if not worse, are no better than 
Iraq. For many years, Western governments have brought these governments 
to power and been the supporters and architects of the majority of the 
world's despotic governments - Pinochet in Chile, the Shah in Iran, the 
counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua, hand- picked governments in 
Vietnam and all of Latin America, etc. As I've said, if these 
governments are not worse than Iraq, they were and are definitely not 
any better. Even the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot directly or indirectly 
received assistance from the USA and the West. On weapons of mass 
destruction, the issue is even more clear-cut. The USA is the only state 
to have used the most destructive weapon of mass destruction, i.e. the 
nuclear bomb, against the defenceless people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
Even now, the effects of the chemical and biological weapons used by the 
USA against the people of Vietnam are visible. They are also the ones 
who used depleted uranium in Iraq, which is daily causing the death of 
tens of adults and children. If the issue is the eradication of weapons 
of mass destruction, then surely these governments that maintain the 
most extensive stockpile of these chemical and atomic weapons and have 
used them a lot more than Iraq should become the subjects of such 
attacks. The West is currently using the most outrageous weapon of mass 
destruction against the people of Iraq. Economic sanctions, hunger, 
unemployment, lack of medicine and sanitation are the most dreadful 
weapons of mass destruction, which incidentally primarily victimise 
children and the elderly. If a conscientious court could be found in 
this world, it would have to prosecute the heads of Western governments 
and their lackey journalists for their part in the mass killings of the 
people of Iraq. If the justification for the use of weapons of mass 
destruction is correct, then the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must 
be bombarded for its policies of social cutbacks that have led to the 
physical and mental destruction and hunger of a large majority of the 
people of the world. An even greater reality is that right when the 
Iraqi government was using such weapons, it was in fact being supported 
by the West. I remember when we were in our bases in Iraq and were 
subject to that regime's chemical bombardments, this very media wouldn't 
broadcast direct and live reports we were giving them. They even 
censored their own journalists' reports from the field. Instead, we 
witnessed our bombardment by Iraqi forces using Austrian heavy guns, 
British communications systems and also relying on a communications 
exchange system with the USA.

Therefore, reference to the UN resolution and weapons of mass 
destruction lacks any analytical basis. Iraq was the West's darling 
until it hadn't attacked Kuwait. The stated position of Western 
governments and its media lacks any constancy and continuity. They 
themselves know this is not an analysis. It is itself part of the war 
that is taking place. It is war propaganda.

That their aim is not to overthrow Saddam Hussein is a joke and mustn't 
be taken seriously. They want to overthrow Saddam. They have planned for 
it, are spending funds on its opposition and have intervened on many 
occasions to do so. Remember that the last Iraqi incursion into Northern 
Iraqi Kurdistan with the help of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iraq 
(known as the Barazani group) was to wipe out the CIA units, which it 
did. Anyhow, in my view there is no doubt that the aim of the West is to 
overthrow Saddam and only this. Saddam but not the Ba'ath rule, Saddam 
but not an ethnic Arabic government. That is why they are trying to 
achieve this through the Ba'ath party and the Ba'ath army generals. The 
West, of course with the support of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, do not 
want, for example, a leftist and non-ethnic government to come to power. 
Any civilised government in the region will first come to heads with 
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. They want Saddam to go and the situation in the 
region and the country to remain the same. Consequently, he must go 
after a scenario that either bypasses the people or makes them into 
extras and brings them on to the scene for groups that can play such a 
role. Of course, the Iraqi army is the favourite candidate for this. 
This scenario however has turned out to be wrong. A Ba'ath government 
and army that see their demise in the downfall of Saddam will not agree 
to this. On the other hand, the Iraqi opposition supported by the West 
is more insignificant than to be able to do anything. The nationalist 
Kurdish opposition groups are fighting amongst themselves before having 
their quarrel with Saddam. Their character is a lot more limited, more 
ethnic and weak than to be able to challenge a government or stand up to 
it. They have always lived amongst the rifts between regional 
governments and this has become a part of their being and vision. They 
have turned this into an innate characteristic. The non-Kurd opposition 
supported by the West is also generally nothing. It is an empty drum, 
full of frauds who are more interested in lining their own pockets. The 
West and the USA knows this very well. This reality is the basis of the 
impasse in the USA strategy on the Iraq question. In any case, whatever 
this impasse may be about, the victims will be the innocent people of 
Iraq who will suffer because of this situation.

To be continued.

The above is a translation of an interview first published in Porsesh in 
Persian in summer 1999.
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