THE US CANNOT EXTRICATE ITSELF FROM IRAQI QUAGMIRE BY SETTING UP THE PUPPET IRAQI INTERIM GOVERNMENT

Prof. Jose Ma. Sison
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Chief Political Consultant
June 29, 2004

The US cannot extricate itself from the Iraqi quagmire of its own making by setting up the puppet Iraqi interim government to replace the puppet Iraqi Governing Council. The much-hyped transfer of "sovereignty" from the US invaders and occupiers is a big hoax and cannot deceive anyone. The US should recall that it could never prettify its criminal role as an imperialist aggressor in Vietnam by using one type of puppet government after another. The US and its allies will not get out of Iraq through the establishment of the so-called interim government. They will get out only as a result of the victorious advance of the revolutionary armed resistance of the Iraqi people for national liberation and democracy.

The US is so flagrantly hell-bent on holding on to the fruits of its criminal war of aggression against the people of Iraq. It wants to control and own the oil resources of Iraq in order to tighten its grip on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It wants to keep 14 US military bases and more than 135,000 US troops in Iraq order to control the entire Middle East, allow Israel to slaughter the Palestinian people and humiliate all the Arab people. It is monopolizing all kinds of business privileges and contracts, especially reconstruction contracts and military sales, in order to appropriate the oil resources and income of Iraq.

The US embassy under the new American proconsul John Negroponte of Phoenix Plan notoriety will have more than 3000 personnel to oversee and direct all activities of the puppet government. The US is all chicanery as it pretends to get multilateral support for the puppet government even while tightening its control over it. It aims to privatize the profitable state assets of Iraq and push "economic reforms" to favor US monopoly firms. It plans to build a puppet army under tight US command and control. It will continue to carry out its horrific actions of destroying Iraqi lives and property on a massive scale under the pretext of anti-terrorism.

The broad masses of the Iraqi people and the broad united front of revolutionary forces, now waging a patriotic war of national liberation, know their targets and are hitting them hard in order to deprive their imperialist enemy of the fruits of their aggression. The principal targets are the following:

1. The military, police, security contractors, logistics personnel and related personnel of the US and other imperialist countries.
2. The pipelines and other vulnerable facilities of the oil industry.
3. The military, police and bureaucratic personnel of the puppet government.

The US war of aggression against Iraq and the Iraqi people is a wanton violation of the UN charter and is based on deliberate lies about having weapons of mass destruction and having ties with Al Qaeda. It is a far worse crime of terrorism than 9/11 in terms of the scale of destruction of Iraqi lives and property. The US aggressors mercilessly used hightech weapons of mass destruction in order to massacre the Iraqi people and destroy their social infrastructure. They have flagrantly violated the Geneva Conventions and its protocols by torturing and killing civilians and prisoners.

They have used funds from the oil income of Iraq as well as from US congressional appropriations to finance the invasion and occupation. They have not at all paid attention to the reconstruction of the Iraqi social infrastructure that they have destroyed. Instead they have used the so-called reconstruction funds to pay big US contractors and their subcontractors and give employment to foreigners rather than to the Iraqis.

Now, the Iraqi revolutionary forces have better chances than ever before of hitting the US aggressors with rifle fire, explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, mortars and the like, as the US aggressors establish their fixed positions (like bases, stations and offices) in the occupation of Iraq. They can force the US to a standoff or even defeat it. The US policy makers will begin to consider withdrawing from Iraq only after suffering a significant number of killed and wounded US casualties (now close to 1000 and 5000, respectively). The mass protest movement in the US and in the rest of the world is bound to become stronger as US casualties rise.

The logic of the Iraqi revolutionary forces is that they would rather repeatedly destroy the pipelines and other facilities of the oil industry than allow the imperialist occupiers to acquire ownership, draw superprofits and use the resources to subjugate the Iraqi people. As long as US control of Iraq remains profitable for the foreign oil monopoly firms, the US and its imperialist allies will never leave Iraq on their own volition.

The Iraqi revolutionary people are punishing traitors. Thus, they are attacking the military, police and other officials of the puppet government. They wish to deprive the imperialist aggressors of agents among the local population. They wish to compel the foreign aggressors to operate on the ground and become vulnerable to guerrilla warfare.

The broad united front of the Iraqi revolutionary forces include organizations belonging to the Arabic, Kurdish and other ethnic communities, to the Sunni, Shiite, Christian and other religious communities and to the Baathist, communist, nationalist, liberal dermocratic and other political persuasions. These revolutionary organizations are determined to fight for national liberation and democracy until the imperialist aggressors are completely out of Iraq. ###

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