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Text for the presentation of John Catalinotto of the International Action Center to the second hearing of the tribunal on Iraq in Tokyo on March 14, 2004 |
First I would like to congratulate the organizers of the International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq and of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan for the tremendous contribution they have made to the worldwide struggle against war and occupation. They have especially contributed to the battle to maintain truth in the face of a powerful propaganda machine and an attempt to make Afghanistan a forgotten country. We also want to express our regret at being unable to attend the tribunal hearing in person in Tokyo. This is our loss as we value the experience not only in participating but in observing the well-organized hearings of the Japanese committee and learning from them for our own future work. As some of you know, a political crisis has prevented International Action Center co-director Sara Flounders from participating. Following the undemocratic coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti and yet another military occupation by U.S., French, Canadian and Chilean troops of that country, Ms. Flounders went with a delegation to the Central African Republic in an attempt to meet with President Aristide and hear his version of the events. At this point, I would like to make a presentation on the connections between the Bush administration and the military-industrial complex, especially the so-called oil lobby, and its impact on the aggression against Iraq. This connection can help establish a motive for the war crime of aggression. In the first volume of Capital, Karl Marx cites a British trade unionist, T.J. Dunning, on the greed of capitalists. It has been quoted many times since because it is so powerful and so true. "With adequate profit," Dunning said, "capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent certain will produce eagerness; 50 percent, positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample all human laws; 300 percent, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated." A lot has changed since Dunning said this. But not the attitude of the capitalists. This was apparent in the period leading up to the March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq. The Oil Lobby in the United States, the military contractors, the banks that finance them, all hoped to grow fabulously rich from the war. And these same businesses were closely connected with the "neo-conservative" ideologists in the Bush administration who also hoped to grow rich from the war. They believe that their friends and associates and they themselves have the right to grow rich as much as they believe in any more complicated ideology. Ideology and self-interest and class interest were intimately entwined and interrelated. The war served a small group of very rich and powerful owners of the corporations and banks that dominate the world. It served especially the energy, construction and military industries that stood to make enormous fortunes from the conquest of Iraq. It had the almost unanimous support of the U.S. ruling class. But the oil monopolies, the energy dealers, the construction companies and the military-industrial complex, became the strongest champions for war. Driven by both ideology and self-interest, the Bush administration convinced the bulk of U.S. capitalists that U.S. world domination, won and preserved using the overwhelming military superiority of the Pentagon, would guarantee that they continue to profit and expand even if their competitors suffered and collapsed from the economic crisis. TIES OF INDIVIDUAL GOVERNMENT MEMBERS TO THE MONOPOLIES Members of the Bush family have blatantly used their political offices--from father to sons--to increase their personal fortunes. They have also packed their administrations with other politicians whose positions and personal wealth are tied to energy and military industries. President George W. Bush himself is a Texas oilman. His company, Arbusto, merged with Spectrum 7 in 1984 as it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Spectrum was bought out by Harken Energy in 1986, giving Bush a seat on Harken's board, some stock options and a $120,000 consulting contract. Vice President Dick Cheney made millions of dollars, after leaving the first Bush administration, as CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. Halliburton is the world's largest oil field services company. Cheney continues to receive as much as $1 million a year in deferred compensation. National Security Council Director Condoleezza Rice was a member of the board of directors of Chevron Corporation. Chevron named a 130,000-ton oil tanker after Ms. Rice. She served as their expert on Kazakhstan. Chevron holds the largest of the oil concessions in Kazakhstan. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans spent 25 years at Tom Brown Inc., a Denver-based oil and gas company. He was chairman and CEO of the $1.2 billion company and also sat on the board of TMBR/Sharp Drilling, an oil and gas drilling operation. Secretary of Energy Stanley Abraham was also an executive at Tom Brown Corp. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among other things, was a director for Gulfstream Aerospace. His stock in the company reportedly was valued at $11 million when the company was acquired by defense contractor General Dynamics in 1999. Many of the other cabinet members had connections to pharmaceutical industries, military industries and banks. Like the usual U.S. government, the Bush administration represented the interests of the richest capitalists. Indeed, the Bush grouping was even more narrow than most, representing only a narrow stratum of the very rich, mainly energy and arms corporations. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was a chief executive at Alcoa, the largest aluminum manufacturer. O'Neill was a standing member of the National Security Council, a longtime friend of Vice President Dick Cheney and a protege of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the Ford administration. He met one-on-one with Bush weekly during his two years as secretary of the treasury before he was fired for objecting to Bush's tax cuts. PAUL O'NEILL'S REVELATIONS O'Neill recently gave interviews for a book by Ron Suskind about his experience in the administration, which he left in 2003. Especially important for this testimony is what O'Neill reports about how the Bush cabinet discussed war with Iraq. And when. In the book itself, Suskind recounts those early NSC meetings. On Jan. 30, 2001, at the first NSC meeting of the Bush administration, which lasted less than an hour, the first topic was about how the administration was going to side with Israel and openly let Ariel Sharon have full freedom to attack the Palestinians without any restraint from Washington. Then Bush turned to Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, and says, "So, Condi, what are we going to talk about today?" "How Iraq is destabilizing the region, Mr. President," she replied in what was described as a "scripted exchange." Then CIA head George Tenet pulled out his infamous photos of an alleged chemical weapons plant and they all huddled excitedly around the photos as though they had found the smoking gun. These were the same meaningless photos of a factory with unidentified trucks standing by that Colin Powell tried unsuccessfully to sell to the UN Security Council in the final stages of war preparation. Two days later, on Feb. 1, the second meeting took place. Secretary of State Colin Powell had been assigned the task of tightening up the sanctions regime at the first meeting. Says the book: "Powell began by discussing the new strategy for 'targeted sanctions.' But after a moment Rumsfeld interrupted. "'Sanctions are fine,' he said. 'But what we really want to think about is going after Saddam. "'Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with U.S. interests,' Rumsfeld said. 'It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about.'"(p.85) At another point in the book, Suskind recounts that "One document, headed 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts,' lists companies from 30 countries--including France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom--their specialties, and in some cases their particular areas of interest. An attached document maps Iraq with markings for 'supergiant oilfield,' 'other oilfield,' and 'earmarked for production sharing,' while demarking the largely undeveloped southwest of the country into nine 'blocks' to designate areas for future exploration." (p.96) Suskind recounts that at the start of 2001, "Actual plans, to O'Neill's astonishment, were already being discussed to take over Iraq and occupy it--complete with disposition of oil fields, peacekeeping forces, and war crimes tribunals--carrying forward an unspoken doctrine of preemptive war." (p. 129) Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld -- the same people whose personal interests merged with their ideology -- drove toward the war on Iraq long before September 11, 2001, and long before any proof of so-called weapons of mass destruction. SUMMER OF 2002 -- FULL-SPEED AHEAD FOR WAR After 9/11, the administration was able to mobilize the population for war. The assault on Afghanistan ended quickly and was apparently successful. Since then, Afghanistan has proven impossible to stabilize. But by the spring of 2002, the administration was already preparing the assault on Iraq. By fall, this campaign was in full gear. Meanwhile Exxon/Mobil Corp., Chevron/Texaco Corp., Conoco Philips, Halliburton and Bechtel lined up for the contracts to "reconstruct" Iraq. Executives from these companies met with the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney the prior October [2002] to discuss a future carve-up of oil territories in Iraq, according to the January 20,2003, Wall Street Journal. The war took place, with all its horrors for the Iraqi people. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Rice--believed they had a quick and easy victory over Iraq last May 1. They believed that military power was enough to turn Iraq back into a colony. They were arrogant enough to start looking for the next target in Bush's endless war--Syria,Iran, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Cuba was threatened with war-- Zimbabwe and Venezuela targeted for subversion. The financial rewards went in both directions. On October 31, 2003, the New York Times published an article stating that "executives, employees and political action committees of the 70 companies that received " adding up to $8 billion "for work in either Iraq or Afghanistan" contributed slightly more than $500,000 to President Bush's 2000 election campaign. The overwhelming majority of government contracts for billions of dollars of reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies run by executives who were heavy political contributors to both political parties. They gave about two-to-one to the Republicans, and more money to Bush than any other politician in the last 12 years. "Nine of the 10 biggest contractors -- the biggest of which were Bechtel Corporation and Halliburton, either employed former senior government officials or had close ties to government agencies and to Congress." When Congress passed the additional $87 billion bill funding the Iraq occupation, it approved an additional $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan this week. Much of it is going to these same companies. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT Many of the administration's friends are getting rich from this government money in Iraq, despite the failure of the U.S. to turn Iraq into a compliant colony. Much to the surprise of Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and company, the occupation of Iraq aroused a resistance that has continued to grow since May 1, 2003. The momentum of the campaign for "endless war" has been drastically slowed by the determined resistance of the Iraqi people to the brutal colonial occupation of their country. More and more U.S. soldiers are killed and wounded on a daily basis. Hatred for the occupiers spreads throughout the country. The attempt to set up a compliant yet stable Iraqi client regime has failed utterly. The Pentagon may have world's largest military machine -- larger than the rest of the world combined. But occupations can only succeed if they are unchallenged. The Israeli army is finding this out in Palestine. The Pentagon in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have not heard the end of the story in Haiti or in Yugoslavia, the four places in the past five years that the U.S. military has forcibly occupied. One thing a successful prosecution needs to show is the motive for the crime. I believe that my testimony today gives some insight to the motives of those making the decisions for the U.S. government in waging aggressive war against Iraq. The task of a people's tribunal, an unofficial tribunal like the one we are carrying on here, is to preserve the truth, to bring it out before the people. This is an important task. But the struggle of the Iraqi people to free their country from colonial occupation once again is what is making people listen, and what can bring them back out on the streets again on March 20, 2004, to say no to occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and all over. |