No To War On Iraq :: The Socialist 31 January 2003

THE BUSH administration has started the countdown to war - without a shred of evidence from the UN inspectors to prove Iraq possesses 'weapons of mass destruction'. US secretary of state Colin Powell, a supposed political 'dove', has told Iraq: "Time is running out".

Jane James

Powell told delegates at the World Economic Forum that the US 'will not shrink from going to war on its own' - never mind what the rest of the world has to say!

But the US government won't be entirely on its own. Bush's lap-dog, Tony Blair, told breakfast TV: "When America is taking on these tough and difficult questions, our job is to be there [with them]."

The consequence of a war will be thousands killed and injured along with absolute turmoil in the Middle East.

Yet the decision to go to war will ultimately be decided by a group of rich politicians and business magnates in the Bush administration whose real aims are to control oil and to dominate the Middle East and beyond.

But millions of people across the world are demanding their say. Opposition and anger has been shown in demonstrations and protests of hundreds of thousands across the world.

Now we will get our chance to show Blair that he does not speak for the vast majority of people in this country by ensuring that the national anti-war demonstration on 15 February is enormous.

Even the police have estimated numbers of 400,000 so it could be double this in size.

There will now be two marches in London, one assembling on the Embankment and one in Gower Street. Both will march to Hyde Park for a rally where large screens are planned to link up with some of the 33 other cities in the world where demonstrations will be taking place at the same time.

All those opposed to the war should be on this demonstration while making sure opposition is built consistently, including walkouts, protests, blockades and industrial action.

Opposition to the war needs to be built in every workplace, school, college, university and community.

The Socialist says

Build for the mass demonstration in London on 15 February as part of the international day of protest against war with Iraq.
Build anti-war groups in every school, college, university, workplace and community.
Develop sustained and organised mass civil disobedience - walkouts, protests, blockades and industrial action.
Campaign for an alternative to global conflict and war - for a socialist world!

National anti-war demonstration

called by Stop The War Coalition

Saturday 15 February,

Assemble: Embankment or Gower St, London (nb. Two assembly points) - 12 noon.

For more details phone Ken Smith, Socialist Party representative on the Stop The War Committee. Tel: 020 8988-8778

Preparing For War

"THE QUESTION isn't how much longer do you need for inspections to work. Inspections will not work."

These comments by US Secretary of State Colin Powell were uttered well before Hans Blix the UN chief weapons inspector delivered his report on Iraq to the UN Security Council on 27 January. And Powell is considered one of the least 'hawkish' members of the US administration.

The whole UN weapons inspection process is a facade to try and legitimise a war to bring about 'regime change' in Iraq and assert US economic, political and military hegemony in the Middle East and elsewhere.

It was only under pressure from public opinion that Bush went to the UN in the first place. But over the past few weeks the anti-war mood has intensified, including in the US itself.

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated on 18 January in the biggest protests since Vietnam. Only 26% of Americans back a U.S.-led war without 'allied support'.

And worryingly for Bush, opposition to war is coinciding with falling support for his handling of domestic issues; his personal approval rating has fallen to 59% - the same as it was before September 11 2001.

In Europe, anti-war feeling has pushed both the French and German governments to speak out against the US agenda for war.

However France, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, along with Russia and China, will come under huge US pressure to back the US if it decides to seek a second UN resolution before going to war.

Bush and Blair will use the weeks leading up to the next weapons' inspectors report on 14 February to escalate the propaganda for war, while at the same time stepping up the deployment of troops and military equipment in the Gulf.

The anti-war movement will be using those same weeks to build for a massive display of strength on the 15 February international day of protest, where millions are expected to demonstrate worldwide against war with Iraq.

There are limits to the might of US imperialism and its ability to dominate the globe. If the US keeps to its timetable and goes to war over the next few weeks, with or without UN backing, it will be taking an enormous risk.

Because of its overwhelming military supremacy it would win any war with Iraq, but at what cost in humanitarian terms, for the world economy and in instability and unrest worldwide?

Over the next few weeks we will be redoubling our efforts to build the anti-war movement into a powerful force in the workplaces, schools, colleges and communities.

At the same time we have the vital task of building a socialist alternative to capitalism and war.

Build solidarity action with the firefighters

Save The Fire Service

"WE HAVE to stick to our guns and stay firm, stay united and stick with the two 48-hour strikes that have been called." BILL HENDY, Avon Fire Brigades Union Secretary, spoke to MARK BAKER just before the current firefighters' strikes.

His words are even more relevant now that the government is taking the gloves off, as Prescott makes plans to take direct control of the fire service.

What began as a battle against low pay, to renegotiate an outdated pay formula, has turned into a fight for the fire service and for the FBU as a viable union.

The government's outrage that any group of workers could have the cheek to ask for a living wage of £30,000 has turned into a vicious battle to impose a low pay increase, cut jobs and fire services, undermine working conditions and weaken the union.

The FBU calculated that the proposed cuts in the Bain report will result in the loss of 4,500 jobs and the closure of 150 fire stations. These must be resisted by the whole trade union movement.

Firefighters have proved their determination to fight. Other workers have shown their support. Every picket line can give examples of the public support they've been getting. This must be organised to ensure that the firefighters are not starved back to work.

As John Baldwin, from Kingsland station, Hackney, London explained: "Forging links between the different unions is really important. We've had a lot of support here from other unions. But also, signing petitions, holding meetings in colleges, local communities etc all help. There will always be someone willing to come and speak, to forge links with local communities."

But solidarity action may also be necessary to defend the democratic right to strike and to stop the decimation of the fire service.

The FBU leadership must call on the TUC to organise such action in spite of the anti-union laws and be prepared to call a one-day general strike in defence of democratic trade union rights.

The firefighters can win, with the support and solidarity of the trade union movement and the working class as a whole.

Firefighters Can Win

THE 55,000 firefighters who have taken strike action, have not only widespread public support but also the industrial muscle to defeat the government and win their demand for a decent wage that reflects their responsibilities and skills.

According to The Guardian, Blair and his warmongering government have been forced to reduce the number of troops covering the dispute.

They are making troops work longer shifts to make up for the thousands of troops they are sending to the Gulf.

New Labour ministers were taken aback by the decision to go ahead with strike action on 28 and 29 January.

They confidently expected the union leadership to call them off, even though the government declared that their position had not changed a bit.

They were still insisting that even the 4% pay increase from last November, as part of a three year deal, was inextricably linked to the FBU accepting the thousands of job losses implicit in the Bain report.

Nick Raynsford, minister 'responsible' for the fire service, complained that the FBU was " no longer credible". John Prescott said that continuing the dispute would mean less money available to settle the dispute.

The local government employers voiced what is central to the bosses in this dispute, when they said that the union could not "have a veto on how a publicly funded and democratically accountable service can be managed" (Financial Times 28/01/03).

In other words, they want to end the level of workers' control that the firefighters have over the fire service.

The hypocrisy of these employers knows no bounds. They want to cut the number of firefighters and the number of fire stations and engines but condemn the FBU for striking at a time of "heightened public anxiety about threats to safety".

It is the employers that don't give a fig about safety as is demonstrated by the mad dash for privatisation of the London Underground and the rail system.

Firefighters have been coming off the picket lines to save lives but they get little appreciation for this.

As we went to press, Prescott announced in the Commons that he would reactivate the 1947 Fire Services Act, repealed in 1959, to take control of the fire service and impose a pay settlement on the firefighters.

Firefighters need to meet this challenge with increased determination. They have everything to win by continuing the struggle, especially when war seems imminent.

Many increasingly feel that an all-out strike would rapidly bring the government to its knees.

At the same time it would demonstrate to the whole trade union movement that the firefighters mean business and give confidence to workers to take solidarity action as the Tube workers did before Christmas.

Firefighters In Determined Mood

AS FIREFIGHTERS started their strike on 28 January, it was clear from reports to The Socialist that the mood on the picket lines was still determined.

Many firefighters are concluding that the threats to the fire service and to the Fire Brigades Union itself will have to be met with firm action, both from the FBU and the whole trade union movement.

Pickets from Whitechapel Red Watch in east London told us: "If these job losses go through, in five years time you'll have to wait 20 minutes for a fire engine.

"All the other services, where there has been privatisation, have got worse. My old man was ill and it took twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

"The FBU has got to disaffiliate from Labour. How can it not after what they've done? How can any firefighter vote Labour now? This was political from the start. But we need an alternative to vote for."

BILL HENDY, Avon Fire Brigades Union Secretary commented: "I think the issue critically is how much pressure we can put on central government and local employers to actually get back around the table and start to negotiate without preconditions.

"I don't think we're looking to call off the action but there is a hope and belief that there will be a negotiated settlement which will get us what we set out to achieve, without the pain of losing massive amounts of money by being out on strike.

"But I think most firefighters are realistic and recognise that in order to keep the pressure on the employers and the government we need to keep the strikes going."

After Victoria Climbie

What future for child protection?

TWO YEAR old Ainlee Walker died a most horrendous death with 64 injuries on her body. Her parents received long jail sentences for manslaughter and cruelty. The enquiry into Ainlee's death found that health visitors and social workers that were supposed to protect Ainlee, were terrified of her parents.

Jean Thorpe, Nottingham City Unison

Health visitors had stopped visiting the family after one of them had been seriously assaulted.

The police had visited the family on 32 occasions whilst Ainlee was alive, to investigate complaints of domestic abuse. The enquiry highlighted a huge lack of coordination between the police and other agencies.

Ainlee's death followed that of 8-year-old Victoria Climbie who had been tortured and starved by her carers. Both children had been known to social services.

Whilst in Victoria's case the social worker was scapegoated by both the media and her employer, the enquiry into Ainlee's death concluded that health and social work staff shouldn't be disciplined. The report stated, "Given the lack of effective ways of recruiting, training and supervising staff, it would not be fair to blame them... responsibility is a management issue" (quoted in The Guardian).

Lord Lamming's enquiry into Victoria Climbie's death, had promised that her death would mark a turning point in the care of vulnerable children. However according to the NSPCC, at least one child is killed by a parent or carer every week.

The government has been shocked by the publicity surrounding these enquiries and also a damning report into the various services that work with children at risk, which said that lack of financial resources, properly trained staff, and coordination between agencies, was undermining Britain's child protection services.

Support and protection

Far reaching reforms of child protection services are now being proposed. It has even been suggested that local authorities should be stripped of their responsibility for child protection, and that it should be given to a separate external agency, effectively privatising it. However, this has been met with considerable opposition, even from the government.

It has been pointed out by practitioners that the line between children in need of support and children needing protection is often blurred. The same children may at different times need both support and protection. It would be ludicrous and also confusing for parents, for different agencies to deal with these different aspects of services to vulnerable children.

The government's current proposal is to set up "children's trusts" to work with vulnerable children. These would be similar to care trusts that were set up last year to integrate health and social services for vulnerable adults.

One improvement would be that unlike care trusts which are led by the NHS, children's trusts would be based within local government and therefore would be accountable to local communities. However the government has also said that children's trusts could include the private sector.

Whatever restructuring of child protection services takes place, the central problems of lack of resources, a shortage of qualified social workers, and caseloads that are too high, will remain. The long list of tragic child deaths have all taken place in a context of underfunding, staff shortages and low morale. Across the public services, social services are given a low priority. There is a huge recruitment and retention problem particularly in London and other areas where housing costs are high. Many social work teams have more than 50% vacancy levels.

Despite the recent local government pay settlement social workers are still the lowest paid group when compared with nurses, teachers and police officers. Despite a chronic national shortage of social workers, the only government action has been an advertising campaign and a new bursary system for social work students.

The government's disgusting name, shame and blame culture has demoralised staff working in difficult circumstances. Their obsession with star ratings, league tables and performance targets does nothing to improve services.

Only a huge increase in resources going to social services alongside measures to improve the pay, conditions and training of staff, will attract and retain people in this difficult area of work where burnout rates are high.

Instead, cutbacks are constant. Family centres and other support services are being reduced. Thresholds for accessing services are constantly increased to try and reduce workloads. But all this leads to is vital preventative work not being done, and families plunging into crisis before they can get help, which may then be too late.

Frustration On The Frontline

SABRINA IS a social worker for children in the London Borough of Newham, the borough where Ainlee Walker was tragically killed. She spoke to The Socialist about her experiences.

Fight Back Against Fees

THE LONG-awaited government review of higher education, released this week, contained proposals to raise the top level of tuition fees from £1,100 to £3,000 a year.

Tom Baldwin, Socialist Students.

Free education campaigners were not surprised - in 1997 when fees were first introduced, we predicted that they would lead to higher and higher costs for students.

The review's recommendations should come into effect by 2006 and will make university a much more expensive process for students, many of whom are already saddled with crippling debts when they finish their course.

The review tried to soften the blow for students by reintroducing grants and scrapping up-front tuition fees in favour of a 'graduate tax' system where fees are effectively paid after a student graduates.

But the full grant of £1,000 will only be available to those with a family income under £10,000 per year with reducing amounts for those with a higher income.

While students welcome this concession, it still isn't a full living grant and it's not nearly enough to cover the huge debts a student incurs over a degree course.

Transferring payment of fees until after graduation means there is less of a barrier to poorer students going to university, but the prospect of student debt still puts potential students off applying.

It also makes it harder to fight against fees by mass non-payment as graduates are separated and cannot organise in the same way as students. Some students think these proposals will hit middle-class students hardest, as they will receive little or no grant. But in truth, increasing tuition fees will hit all but the richest students and will be especially hard on working-class students.

Having to do part-time work, dropping out due to finance and living in poor conditions all have detrimental effects on students' learning and are direct results of the funding system.

In Australia 90% of universities charging the top level of fees offer lower entry grades to students able to pay the full amount. If these proposals are implemented we will see richer students 'buying' good degrees while poorer students have to fight for limited numbers of scholarships.

Top-up fees will be a disaster for students and the education system in general. We campaign to keep education free for all.

We demand:

What the new proposals mean

Bigger debts

Fewer working-class students

Students to pay more tax than millionaires

Two-tier system

A US-led war against Iraq will have enormous, political, social and economic repercussions in the Middle East and throughout the world.

In the following articles ROGER SHRIVES examines how the war could serve the strategic oil interests of US imperialism, while MANNY THAIN and KARL DEBBAUT weigh up the stark fate such a war would have for ordinary Iraqis.

Iraq War: Blood For Oil

WHEN US Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked if the planned war with Iraq was all about oil, he denied it, claiming "the oil of Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people" and would not be exploited for America's own purposes. Few people believed him.

It's true that oil's not the only reason why President Bush wants to crush Saddam's Iraq. US imperialism needs to strengthen its prestige and increase its longer-term political interests worldwide. Bush's advisers hope that an invasion will make any other 'third world' leader contemplating opposition think again.

But Iraq has the world's second largest stocks of proven oil reserves. With full investment it could provide about a third of the US's huge oil demand (20 million barrels a day) within five years. Noticeably Colin Powell would not answer when reporters asked him if US companies would control Iraq oilfields if US forces ousted Saddam.

Many leading members of this US administration are or were directors of oil and other energy companies - the biggest corporate backers of Bush and Cheney's 2000 presidential election campaign. For them, the vital question is who controls - and profits from - strategic oil supplies.

As a former oilman and US-based businessman Fadel Gheit said: "Our way of life is dependent on 20 million barrels a day and half of it has to be imported." He called Bush's 'global fight against terrorism', mere camouflage to mask the real purpose.

US big business wants to control any oil concessions that would result from victory in the war and the end of Saddam's dictatorship.

Oil has been vital in the Middle East and the Gulf since extraction began in Iran in 1909. Defending oil supplies is probably the decisive consideration when imperialist powers consider military intervention in the region.

Much of the West's oil supplies come through the Gulf. An amazing 20% of all US military war spending ($237 billion last year but increasing in 2003) goes on defending oil installations.

In 1920, after putting down a Kurdish revolt, British imperialism created the state of Iraq with a puppet king to push Britain's political needs and give priority to British oil interests. Imperialist powers have tried to keep up this pattern of economic and political control ever since.

Former US ally

BUSH SAYS Saddam is a dictator. True - but the imperialist powers created both Saddam's dictatorship and his war machine, largely to defend their oil interests. In the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, which resulted in over one million casualties, the US and Britain armed him to fight Iran, then the US's main enemy.

In 1983 President Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld - now Bush's defence secretary but then a millionaire executive with a pharmaceutical company - to Saddam as a special envoy.

Rumsfeld knew Saddam was a thug with nuclear ambitions. But he told him that the US saw "any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West". The US backed Saddam's armies with military intelligence, economic aid and munitions.

The US hoped that Saddam's war would destroy the ayatollahs who were threatening to spread political Islam throughout the region. They feared that pro-imperialist regimes acting as armed guards for Western oil interests could topple.

But the US wanted a regional balance of power where no local state could dominate this oil-rich region. When the US's puppet Saddam started getting regional imperial aims, he bit through his strings and invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Now the US turned against him and in the 1991 Gulf War which followed, they killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians, essentially to defend US oil interests.

Even after that, the US government worried that if Saddam fell, chaos would follow, in Iraq and throughout the region, possibly igniting another Middle East war. And so George Bush senior having encouraged the Kurds and Shi'ites to rise up in revolt, abandoned them to Saddam's ruthless Republican Guards.

Fears of what might happen in such Islamic countries as Saudi Arabia and Egypt still haunt Bush's less dim colleagues. These fears even affected half-hearted US attempts to get rid of Saddam.

CIA officials in Washington "pulled the plug" on support for a Kurdish rebellion against Saddam in 1995 and the US concentrated on punitive sanctions - which trebled child mortality in Iraq through malnutrition. According to the United Nations, up to 500,000 Iraqi deaths are attributable to these sanctions.

Post-war carve-up

BUSH SENIOR gained the backing of most Middle Eastern states in 1991 by promising a "new world order", including a Middle East free of armaments, if Arab and Muslim people helped evict Saddam from Kuwait. Bush junior can only offer a new US-friendly regime in Baghdad.

Many Middle Eastern states are now wary of supporting US imperialism's venture. Bush still backs the Israeli state's oppression of the Palestinians, and other leaders fear the invasion of Iraq by friends of Israel could make people so angry that their own regimes could collapse.

Some US strategists now wonder whether even top oil producer, Saudi Arabia, is still the haven of stability that it has defended since 1945. The Saudi royals lead a feudal regime whose elite enrich themselves by controlling the world's oil supply as top provider.

But some Saudi nationals are prominent members of al-Qa'ida. Half of all Saudis are unemployed or under-employed and many want to replace the Saud family's reactionary theocratic regime by an even more 'fundamentalist' government.

US Republican senator Conrad Burns is one of many asking whether defending a regime which could soon be replaced by one hostile to US interests is worthwhile. He calls the Saudi regime a 'dictatorship' which "emanates fanaticism" and says it is leading an oil cartel.

Burns suggests looking for alternative sources of oil. He proposes Russia but at present only Iraq, with reserves of up to 200 billion barrels, could replace Saudi oil. The US ruling class see 'regime change' in Baghdad as ensuring unfettered exploitation of Iraq's oil reserves.

Consequences

THE IMPORTANCE of oil also brings problems. If the US wins, Bush and Co have offered greedy multinational oil companies the prospect of making huge profits from controlling a portion of Iraq's proven oil reserves - provided their governments back Bush's war.

US hawks say Bush should threaten his rivals that if they don't back him the US should make sure that the new Iraqi government does not co-operate with them.

That prospect angers US imperialism's rivals. Even if, with various degrees of willingness, they back Bush's invasion they may well see his plans as a Washington oil grab. Many oil concerns from outside the US have met Iraqi opposition leaders to argue that they should get a stake.

France, Russia, China, India, Italy, Vietnam, Algeria and a consortium of European oil companies have all at times signed agreements with Iraq at least in principle. How long will these powers keep co-operating with the USA?

Lord Browne, oil giant BP's chief executive, said last autumn: "If Iraq changes regime... there should be a level playing field for the selection of oil companies to go in there". His views may presage future arguments between oil bosses of different nations over the spoils of war.

Even more worrying from a Western viewpoint, military intervention could have serious political repercussions throughout the region, including in oil producing nations. Oil supplies are vital to the health of the world economy.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Middle East oil states reduced supplies to the capitalist world and oil prices quadrupled to $40 a barrel. The 1991 Gulf War caused large oil price rises which worsened the world economic situation.

This time, US-based strategic experts think oil prices could soar to $40 a barrel if the war took up to four months. The IMF estimates that a $5 a barrel rise in oil prices in a year knocks 0.25% off world gross domestic product. Bush thinks this 'disruption' would only be temporary but it would still be significant.

Under capitalism, the people of this oil-producing region have gained little from their countries' potential wealth but poverty, exploitation, vicious dictatorships and frequent wars. This new war would aim to rebuild Iraq even more in the image of imperialism and the oil magnates that Bush and Co. defend.

The Socialist Party opposes this threatened war for oil profits and fights for socialist policies that can offer an alternative to the nightmare that capitalism has brought for millions worldwide.

Collapsing into chaos - Afghanistan after the 'liberation'

AFGHANISTAN IS collapsing into chaos. Despite soothing words from Western politicians about progress towards peace and democracy and promised economic aid, the reality is grim.

A series of articles in the New York Times and Washington Post over the Christmas period revealed an Afghan's average income for 2002 of just $75; millions of people dependent on food aid; three to a bed in Kabul's children's hospital, where children die on the operating table when the electricity fails (a regular occurrence) as there is no back-up generator. Opium production is booming. All sadly predictable.

Yet some money has gone into this war-torn country. It's just that much of the $1.8 billion (less than half of what was pledged by donor countries) has been spent on new offices and air-conditioned jeeps for the 1,000-plus UN agencies and international aid groups.

They have made sure that they are set up comfortably, moving into the best residential areas - those vacated by the Taliban leaders.

It is, after all, a question of priorities. The Aschiana school, set up to educate street children, is likely to close. The landlord can make more money by renting it to aid organisations as a guest house.

Anarchy

WARLORDS CONTINUE to rule vast stretches of the countryside, including the borders. Ismail Khan controls the Western frontier and rakes in an estimated $1 million each day in customs duties/extortion.

Marshal Fahim, the 'defence minister', has told the warlords they have to give up their grip on power. Yet Fahim has maintained the forces loyal to him and his position places the bulk of Afghanistan's heavy weaponry and troops under his command!

The US has around 10,000 troops in Afghanistan and is still searching for al-Qa'ida supremo, Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Apparently, ambushes on Western forces are increasing.

There have been grenade attacks in Kabul, car bombings, the attempted assassination of president Hamid Karzai, the killing of a US soldier near the Pakistan border, and reports of former Taliban moving back to their villages, with rumours of guerrilla training camps re-opening.

The only place the US has secured is Kabul and even that is bristling with arms. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), set up by the Western powers, destroyed over 108,000 items of anti-tank and other heavy artillery in the last few months of 2002, all found in scattered Kabul arms caches.

Women still walk the streets in fear, subjected to abuse, including from the 'police', if they are not wearing a burqa. President Karzai is referred to disdainfully as the 'mayor of Kabul' outside the capital and only ventures out if surrounded by Western bodyguards armed to the teeth.

Turkey, which heads the ISAF, refused Karzai's request to deploy its troops throughout the country and fears an increase in terrorist attacks in the event of a war on Iraq. In February, the German and Dutch governments take over responsibility for ISAF, but they agreed to do so on the condition that the mission was limited to Kabul.

Western failure

THERE IS mounting anger at the way the US forces are pushing their weight around. The Washington Post reported on 11 January that Naeem Koochi, a leader of a million Pashtun people, was jumped by five armed men while on his way to a top level meeting in Kabul. He was bundled into an unmarked vehicle and taken to the US air base at Bagram, where he has been held ever since, with no contact with the outside world.

Koochi is typical of many of the tribal leaders. He was an Islamic guerrilla who fought against the Soviet army with US backing in the 1980s before becoming a Taliban governor of Bamian. His 'arrest' - or kidnapping - has provoked outrage among Pashtun people, with hundreds protesting against the US action. Human Rights Watch says that there are many such cases.

The US and other Western promised to rebuild this devastated country but have left it and the Afghani people to rot. However, it could still prove to be an awkward distraction for the US as it gears up for war against Saddam.

It's one thing to win a military victory, but quite another to secure stability. How easy will it be to occupy Iraq?

War: the human cost

A STUDENT group, Campaign against Sanctions on Iraq, recently made public a confidential UN "contingency planning report," revealing that as many as 500,000 people in Iraq could suffer injuries and require medical treatment if the US and its allies launch a war.

It paints a dire picture of Iraq after extensive bombing and ground fighting. It refutes the fairy-tale notion that 21st century wars are sophisticated high-tech operations designed to reduce civilian suffering to a minimum.

"Unlike... in 1991, a future confrontation is expected to develop beyond the... relatively short, aerial bombardment of infrastructure, towns, and cities into potentially a large scale and protracted ground offensive, supported by aerial and conventional bombardment. The resultant devastation would undoubtedly be great."

The report says that a US-led invasion would leave 5.4 million in need of humanitarian intervention. But even this huge figure only accounts for those in southern Iraq, "who would be accessible" by humanitarian organisations.

The main centre of fighting would be in central and northern Iraq. The UN expects a further two million "internally displaced persons" and refugees marching south as soon as conflict begins.

After the war, the absence of a functioning health care system would leave 5.2 million people in a particularly vulnerable situation in central and southern Iraq alone, including an expected 4.2 million under five year olds and one million pregnant and lactating women. It is estimated that 3 million people will require "therapeutic feeding".

The report expects a US-led attack to totally ruin all major infrastructure facilities, such as bridges, railroads, electricity supplies and provisions for clean drinkable water. Devastation of the electricity network means the sewerage system could be destroyed.

In Baghdad alone, 4 million people would be vulnerable to diseases such as cholera and dysentery, in "epidemic if not pandemic" proportions.

The UN's 'oil-for-food' programme and international sanctions against Iraq have gravely undermined the situation for the population and will lead to even greater casualties in the event of a war.

The document warns: "There is temptation in some quarters to equate the situation following any future military intervention in Iraq, with the population's ability to cope at the time of the 1991 conflict.

"Such comparisons are not valid, as the majority of the population... [in] 1991, were in full employment and had cash and material assets available to them to cope with the crisis. [Now] all except the most privileged have completely exhausted their cash assets and have also in most cases disposed of their material assets.

"Accordingly the bulk of the population is now totally dependent on the government of Iraq for a majority, if not all, of their basis needs and unlike in 1991, they have no way in coping if they cannot access them: the sanctions regime, if anything, has served to increase dependence on the government as almost the sole provider."

World Social Forum:

For A Socialist Alternative

AS REPRESENTATIVES of global capitalism assembled for their annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, last week an alternative 100,000-strong World Social Forum (WSF) gathered in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Although overshadodowed in the media this year by the impending US war on Iraq, the third WSF brought together, trade unionists, environmentalists, anti-capitalists of various political hues, worldwide. CWI members put forward a socialist alternative to capitalism.

Andre Ferrari, CWI, Brazil (Socialismo Revolucionario), and Marcus Kollbrunner Swedish CWI (Rattvisepartiet Socialisterna), sent an initial report from the WSF.

"THE WORLD situation makes the discussions in the Forum extremely interesting. Across the whole of Latin America there is political, social and economic ferment: Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela are just some of the most striking examples. The election victory of Gutierrez, a Left populist, in Bolivia, and not least, the victory of Lula of the PT (Workers' Party) in Brazil will pose new issues that will be reflected at the Forum. For the Left it is important to see that the struggle must continue after these elections.

The advantage with the WSF is that it gathers activists from around the world that are seeking an alternative. But the event also has some big limitations.

Several of the organisations involved in the running of the WSF have illusions that you can create a 'human' capitalism, free from 'neo-liberalism', through reforming the system. One of the tasks for the Left is to intervene in the discussions and show that the whole system must be abolished, not just the worst features.

There is a debate over Lula's participation in both the WSF and the World Economic Forum. Lula says he is going to "take the message from Porto Alegre to Davos". But we think that the task is not to convince the elite but to defeat it and bring it down. This entails the Left adopting an independent class position.

Another important task for socialists during the forthcoming WSF is to join in the discussions on the political situation and the way forward for the anti-capitalist movement.

Also, we have concrete proposals for the struggle. Together with MSE (Movement for those without Education, the International Socialist Resistance (ISR) section in Brazil), we want to discuss how to build the anti-war movement, using examples like the strikes in schools and universities that have been organised in a number of countries for 'Day X' (the first day of a war on Iraq)."

Lula's anti-poverty call misses the target

"OLE, OLE, ole, Lula... Lula..." chanted a vast crowd that engulfed the Sunset park in Porto Alegre Friday afternoon. Lula's speech was undoubtedly the most anticipated event in the World Social Forum this year.

The crowd was even bigger than the 140,000 that participated in the opening march of the WSF. There, opposition to the war in Iraq and Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and support for Venezuelan people against the right wing campaign to topple Hugo Chavez were big themes.

Lula had a very emotional speech, promising not "to fail" the poor but on the other hand trying to moderate the huge expectations that are there. He's not intending to break with capitalism and instead is trying to prepare the activists that he will not be able to deliver on all promises.

Nonetheless, his victory has created enormous expectations. Everywhere he goes he's met by huge crowds. The tremendous support for him is at the same time making him worried. He will have difficulties in explaining that big changes will not be possible. Most people here are socialists of different kinds. You can see it in all the red flags and in the positive response to our paper. Lula has a huge authority but he will not be able to hold back all the struggle in society.

"He's talking a lot of food for poor people and university for all, but you can't combine that with paying huge amounts of money for the state debt to the banks," says Celia R da Silva, a student from Bauru in Sao Paulo state.

No To War On Iraq

Demonstrate 15 February