No war on Iraq!

Wednesday, August 7, 2002 - 10:00

US President George Bush is preparing for a new war on Iraq using the pretext
that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is threatening the world with �weapons
of mass destruction�.

Pentagon papers leaked on July 4 reveal plans for an assault on Iraq
involving 250,000 troops. US defence secretary Donald Rumsfield is seeking
new laws that will give the military a freer hand by reducing congressional
supervision of the Pentagon. Meanwhile deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz
has been in Ankara, pressuring Turkey to support a US invasion of Iraq.

Scott Ritter, a former senior United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq,
observes �there is no justification for war based upon the facts that had
been presented by both the United States and Great Britain�. Ritter points
out that the UN has already demolished 90% of Iraq's stockpile.

Despite the failure of the CIA to find any evidence of nuclear, biological
or chemical weapons, the United Nations Security Council has used this
assertion to justify a crippling economic blockade on the 22 million people
of Iraq (assisted by the Australian navy). A 1999 UNICEF report calculated
that more than half a million children had died as a direct result of sanctions
since 1990 (an average of 200 per day).

The world's greatest stockpile of �weapons of mass destruction� in fact
lies in the hands of the Pentagon, which has been allocated a budget of
US$396 billion for the 2003 financial year. Speaking at the West Point
military academy on June 1, Bush refused to rule out the possibility of
�first strike� nuclear attacks against Iraq and other �rogue states�. With
US congressional elections due in November, the propaganda machine is being
cranked up to win the support of American people for a new war.

To date only two other governments have pledged their support for a
US attack on Iraq: Britain and Australia.

We the undersigned demand:

No US attack on Iraq

Lift the sanctions on the Iraqi people

No Australian government support for a war on Iraq

Further, we pledge to build the largest possible peaceful protest rallies
in cities around Australia on November 3, on the eve of US congressional
elections.

Signed: Keysar Trad, Lebanese Muslim Association; Jamal Daoud, NSW Greens
spokesperson for immigration & refugees; Nick Everett, Network Opposing
War & Racism (Sydney); Pip Hinman, Action in Solidarity with Asia &
the Pacific; John Hallam, Sydney Friends of the Earth; Teri Calder, Greenpeace
Australia; Dick Nichols, national co-convenor, Socialist Alliance; Damien
Lawson, Western Suburbs Legal Service, Newport; Layla Mohammed, Worker
Communist Party of Iraq; Dr John Tomlinson, senior lecturer, QUT; Peter
McGregor, senior lecturer, School of Communications, University of Western
Sydney; John Nightingale, lecturer, School of Economics, University of
New England; Gary MacLennan, lecturer, QUT; John Tully, lecturer, Asian
and International Studies, Victoria University; Nell Graham, Environmental
Education Officer; Jill Hickson, producer, Actively Radical TV; Doreen
Borrow, Australian Peace Committee, South Coast branch; Marg Perrott, South
Coast May Day Committee president; Ken Stewart, Urban Guerillas; Chris
Cain, delegate, MUA; Daniel Jardine, vice-president, general staff, Macquarie
University branch, NTEU; Alana Kerr, central councillor, PSA; Melanie Sjoberg,
delegate, PSA; Noreen Navin, state councillor, NSWTF; Adam Leeman, delegate,
AMWU; Liam Mitchell, delegate, AMWU; Jenny Long, delegate, PSA; Lachlan
Malloch, delegate, PSA; Chris Pickering, delegate, PSA.