Iraq

Build for 24 February protest

SINCE US president Bush announced that he will send 21,500 extra troops to Iraq, there have been more terrible bombings in Baghdad, killing hundreds more people.

Judy Beishon

Seventy people died in an attack on a Baghdad university and on 22 January 130 died, the worst single day so far this year, including 88 working-class Iraqis shopping in a second-hand goods market. US troops have also been killed; on 20 January, 27 died, the worst number in one day for two years.

The troop 'surge' has already begun, with the arrival of 3,200 extra US troops in Iraq, but as the socialist pointed out last week, onslaughts of this nature have been tried several times since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but completely failed to stem the escalating violence.

The extra troops cannot 'stabilise' Baghdad, a city of six million people. Rather they will only spur on the Shia and Sunni militias to continue resistance to the occupation and increase their strength.

It is urgent that the anti-war movement is stepped up in the US, Britain and worldwide, to demand the immediate withdrawal of the occupying troops from Iraq.

We need to build the turnout for the national demonstration in London on Saturday 24 February against the occupation of Iraq and the replacement of the ageing stock of British Trident nuclear missiles.