The bombardment of Baghdad by US and British warplanes on February 16 proves that "George W. Bush's administration is maintaining the US government's bloody policy against the Iraqi masses", a statement issued by the politburo of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq said. "[It is a policy] based on killing, starving and genocide [caused] by the sanctions that have been imposed on millions of Iraqis for the last 10 years."
The WCPI said that US has used a succession of excuses, such as the liberation of Kuwait and the removal of the dictatorial regime in Iraq, to justify its "anti-human" policy of bombing and starving the Iraqi people. Washington's true aim, said the WCPI, is to "assert its dominance in the world and to protect its interests in the region."
The so-called "no-fly zones", the WCPI stated, are used by the US to protect "different reactionary forces, including Islamic and nationalist forces. The masses suffer under the rule of these groups' militia". In the Kurdish north, pro-US "tribal gangs" and fundamentalist Islamic groups have launched "a genocide against women". Turkey and Iran, who back the rival pro-imperialist Kurdish factions, have placed the destiny of 5 million people in the hands of the tribal gangs. There are no civil rights under the US-imposed "safe haven".
According to the WCPI, "bombarding the Iraqi masses, which has resulted in Iraqi regime announcing a state of emergency, gives the Saddam Hussein regime another opportunity to impose more oppression and deprivation on the masses and to deny its obligations towards them. The liberation of the Iraqi masses from Hussein's regime, which has caused enormous tragedies and pain during last three decades, cannot be delivered from the wings of the US warplanes, or through the resolutions signed by the Iraqi bourgeois opposition with the murderers of the Iraqi masses."
The WCPI urged the Iraqi people to fight to overthrow the regime and at the same time fight against US imperialism's anti-Iraq policies. "The Worker Communist Party of Iraq will do all in its power to force the US to end its policies towards Iraq. At the same time, the WCPI is organising to liberate the Iraqi masses by overthrowing Hussein's regime and building a socialist republic."