Baghdad, Autumn 2002: City of Doom
by Norman Solomon
Dissident Voice
September 20, 2002
BAGHDAD
-- When Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz described the box that
Washington has meticulously constructed for Iraq, he put it this way: “Doomed
if you do, doomed if you don’t.”
It
would be difficult to argue the point with Aziz, and I didn’t try. Instead,
during a Sept. 14 meeting here in Baghdad, I joined with others in a small
American delegation who argued that the ominous dynamics of recent weeks might
be reversible if -- as a first step -- Iraq agreed to allow unrestricted
inspections.
Despite
Iraq's breakthrough decision that came two days later to do just that, I'll be
leaving Baghdad tonight with a scarcely mitigated sense of gloom. While the
news from the Iraqi capital has been positive in recent days, the profuse signs
of renewed acquiescence to war among top Democrats on Capitol Hill are all the
more repulsive.
Boxed
in, the Iraqi government opted to accept arms inspectors as its least bad
choice. Gauging the odds of averting war, Iraq chose a long shot -- appreciably
better than no chance at all, but bringing its own risks. Several years ago,
Washington used UNSCOM inspectors for espionage totally unrelated to the U.N.
team’s authorized mission. This fall, new squads of inspectors poking around
the country could furnish valuable data to the United States, heightening the
effectiveness of a subsequent military attack.
Aziz, a
very analytical man, hardly seemed eager to grasp at weapons inspections as a
way to stave off attack. Instead, he told our delegation -- which included Rep.
Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and former Sen. James Abourezk - - that a comprehensive
“formula" would be needed for a long-term solution.
Presumably
the formula would include a U.S. pledge of non-aggression and a lifting of
sanctions. No such formula is in sight. Instead, the White House remains
determined to inflict a horrendous war. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party's
"leadership" in the Senate, pursuing some sort of craven political
calculus, is lining up to put vast quantities of blood on its hands.
I would
like to take Tom Daschle to visit a 7-year-old girl, suffering from leukemia,
who I saw in a Baghdad hospital a few days ago. He might spare a few senatorial
moments to look at the I.V. connected to her wrist, the uncontrolled bleeding
from her lips, the anguish in the dark eyes of her mother, seated on a bare
mattress. Years of sanctions, championed by moralizers in Washington, have left
Iraq without adequate chemotherapy drugs.
Now
we're hearing about a resolution that -- unless people across the United States
mobilize in opposition -- will sail through the House and Senate to authorize a
massive U.S. military attack on Iraq.
I can
hear the raspy and prophetic voice of Sen. Wayne Morse, who voted against the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, roaring 38 years ago: "I don't know why we
think, just because we're mighty, that we have the right to try to substitute
might for right."
After
leaving Tariq Aziz's office, our delegation met with Sa'doun Hammadi, speaker
of Iraq’s National Assembly. “We are now a country facing the threat of war,”
he said. “We have to prepare for that.”
Hammadi
is an elderly man. While he's now in frail physical health, his mind and
articulation remain acute. If the U.S. invaders come, Hammadi said, “the Iraqi
people will fight.” As those words settled in the air, the gaunt old man paused
and then added: “I will fight.” And for a moment I thought that I could see the
dimming of light in his eyes, like embers in a dying fire.
During
the current heavy dance of death, the U.S. government leads with every major
step. And the sky over Baghdad seems to foreshadow new horrors; unfathomable
and avoidable.
With an all-out war on Iraq shadowing the near horizon, what are Americans to do if they want to prevent such carnage from happening in their names with their tax dollars? For one thing, they -- we -- can speak up. Now. The fact that the odds are dire should spur us into creative action, not anesthetize us into further passivity. “And henceforth,” Albert Camus wrote, “the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.”
Norman
Solomon is executive director of the
Institute for Public
Accuracy, which sponsored the U.S.
delegation to Baghdad in mid-September. Email: mediabeat@igc.org