Once the U.S. occupation of Iraq began over a year ago, Iraqi workers lost no time in reorganizing their country’s labor movement. Labor activity spread from Baghdad to the Kurdish north, with the center of the storm in the south, in the oil and electrical installations around Basra, and the port of Um Qasr.
More than a year and a half has passed since the U.S.-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq, and yet little progress has been seen in the daily lives of Iraqi people. Not only has reconstruction stalled, but human rights abuses by U.S. soldiers at the Abu-Ghraib prison and the crackdown on political opposition groups have undermined Washington’s efforts to emerge as a champion of democratic and human rights in Iraq.
Increasingly desperate to find a winning formula in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials are promoting Lebanon as a political model for Iraq. Agreed, the situation in Iraq is looking more and more like Lebanon–but not the “Lebanese model” Cheney talks about. The vice president appears to have in mind a pre-1967 Lebanon in which an elite of notables presided over a pluralistic republic, open to foreign capital, and free enterprise. Beirut in those days was known as the Paris of the Orient.
Editor’s note: This is a condensed version of a report prepared by the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) which can be found at http://www.epic-usa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=262.
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The Bush administration has begun to strike Fallujah with 10,000-15,000 U.S. soldiers, starting with gunships indiscriminately raking the city with cannon fire. By the end of the first day, warplanes had carried out some two dozen sorties against the city, and four 500-pound bombs were dropped over Fallujah.
As many members of Congress and President George W. Bush’s administration argue that it’s unacceptable to leave Iraq as a failed state, it becomes clearer every day that U.S. operations and policies are fueling violence and instability. It’s time for the government to directly confront the question of how to fulfill U.S. obligations under international law, restore basic security, and responsibly withdraw U.S. forces.