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No Indo-Pak Troops For Iraq!

By Praful Bidwai

The News International
12 June, 2003

One does not have to be a crazed conspiracy theorist to note the link between the repeated bursting of doctored and hyped-up Anglo-American claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), on the one hand, and the mounting pressure from the United States on a number of countries to despatch troops to Iraq, on the other. It is no coincidence that India and Pakistan figure prominently among them.

The reason for American pressure is fairly straightforward. Three
weeks after the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1483-after 90 amendments and much haggling-the Pentagon has failed to get commitments for the tens of thousands of soldiers it wants deployed to "stabilise" Iraq. So far, they have only got promises of 13,000 troops from two dozen countries-to partially relieve the US's 150,000 soldiers and Britain's 15,000 troops present in Iraq. Most of America's strategic allies, which differed with it over the Iraq war, won't send troops, risk casualties and bestow legitimacy on the occupying powers.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi situation is turning messier by the day even as US-UK casualties mount to something like one soldier a day. The US and Britain now need to put other countries' troops in the firing line. Early this month they abandoned a plan to organise a national conference of Iraqis to select an interim government. Instead, they adopted a quick-fix formula that gives them a direct role in choosing "representative" Iraqis!

Even more important, the US is anxious to obfuscate and erase the circumstances in which the war on Iraq was waged-without a casus belli or rationale. There is no better way of obliterating the
grossly immoral, illegal character of the war than to emphasise
"stabilisation" and "reconstruction", including lucrative corporate
contracts at the expense of the Iraqi people.

The US has approached both Pakistan and India with "requests" for despatching division-size forces to Iraq. Since May, the discussion has been pursued both at the diplomatic and political levels. President Bush raised that issue in his brief meetings with Prime Minister Vajpayee in St Petersburg and Evian. It is now being negotiated with Deputy Prime Minister Advani during his current visit to the US and Britain.

Sending troops to Iraq was the dominant issue discussed between Advani and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld last Sunday. According to an informed report in "The Indian Express", Rumsfeld "listed three advantages" which could accrue to India. "One, India [would] become an active partner in the global war against terror and become the third important player in the exercise... Two, it would boost India's overall standing in the Gulf region. Three, India would be able to join the reconstruction programme, [with] economic gains."

Advani apparently made no formal commitment to Rumsfeld. But he told him India is not averse to the US proposal, but it has concerns about who would command its troops, and how long they would have to stay, etc. These must be addressed first. It was agreed that a team of senior Pentagon officials would visit India to discuss the nitty-gritty. Pakistan too is reportedly under pressure to commit troops to Iraq.

India and Pakistan would commit a blunder of historic proportions if they succumb to US pressure, however "sweetened" it might be by offers of a "close" or "exclusive" relationship, or "special"
treatment in reconstruction contracts and military sales. They would violate the overwhelming domestic sentiment against the war on and occupation of Iraq. They would be grievously wrong-morally and politically. Consider this:

* Iraq's invasion breached all criteria of "just wars", including
military necessity, proportionality in use of force, non-combatant
immunity, etc. It was irredeemably illegal.

* The Anglo-American coalition waged war in violation of the UN
Charter and without authorisation of the Security Council, which
alone can sanction use of armed force under Chapter VII-except in self-defence. Indeed, the US and UK acted against the explicit
intention of the Council, which was set to reject the so-called
"second" resolution tabled by the US and the UK.

* Even if Iraq had limited WMD stocks, they posed no credible threat to its neighbours, leave alone the US, in the absence of delivery vehicles. But no WMD have been found-fully two months after US troops took Baghdad.

* Anglo-American culpability in invading Iraq stands greatly
magnified because Washington and London deliberately "sexed up", distorted and greatly exaggerated intelligence reports on Iraq's WMD. This has embarrassed the Defence Intelligence Agency, the CIA and MI-6. Even Richard Butler, an unabashed supporter of the war, and former UN weapons inspector says: "Clearly, a decision had been taken to pump up the case against Iraq."

* Britain's "Sunday Herald" (June 8) reports that the Blair
government ran a covert "dirty tricks" operation "designed
specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war". Operation Rockingham was set up to "cherry-pick"
intelligence proving an "active Iraqi WMD programme" and to "ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down".

The Washington Post reports that Vice-President Dick Cheney and aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby paid multiple visits to CIA headquarters to influence and pressure analysts on Saddam Hussein's WMD and links with al-Qaeda.

* "The New York Times" Judith Miller too filed dubious stories on
Iraq's WMD capabilities. Her principal source was none other than the super-controversial Ahmed Chalabi. There has been a serious debate among NYT reporters on the ethics of such reports.

* Colin Powell was so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing in the dossiers supplied to him that he exclaimed: "I'm not reading this. This is bulls**t."

* Since then, Blair's office has admitted that a dossier it put out
on Iraq in February to justify an attack was flawed and did not meet the "required standards of accuracy".

It is totally unjustifiable to join military operations with
occupying powers which have used such nauseatingly unethical methods. India and Pakistan are not being asked to keep the peace, as the media claims. Their role is euphemistically called
"stabilisation"-involving heavy-handed policing and confrontation
with civilians.

The pertinent issue isn't whether the request for troops comes from the UN. Even if it did, it would still deserve to be rejected. If the war on Iraq was unjust and illegal, the military occupation it
produced is also illegitimate. Nobody should recognise or cooperate with the occupying powers or their puppets.

India and Pakistan must and can say no. The "incentives" they have been offered are calculated to yoke them to the US and function as mercenaries. Their conservative governments are predisposed to supporting the US. Both want to send troops as a means of building an "exclusive" or "special" relationship with Washington. In fact, they will intensify their own mutual rivalry by doing so.

Surely, South Asia deserves better-at least when a long-overdue thaw in their relations is on the horizon. The young peace movements in both India and Pakistan should campaign jointly against sending troops to Iraq.