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United Nations gives in to occupation
of Iraq
Wave of guerrilla attacks claim US casualties
Compiled by Eamon Martin
May 28 (AGR)— On Sunday, May 25, the freshly installed,
head of the occupation authority in Iraq, Paul Bremer, granted an interview
aboard a C-130 transport plane flying over the country.
“Occupation is an ugly word, not one Americans feel comfortable
with, but it is a fact,” he said.
Just three days previously, the leading opponents of the war on Iraq
capitulated to raw American power on May 22 as the United Nations Security
Council voted overwhelmingly to give the United States and Great Britain
broad control of the country.
France, Germany and Russia, who tried unsuccessfully to thwart the US-led
invasion, all grudgingly voted in favor of a resolution that lifted
the 13-year-old trade embargo immediately without any certification
from UN inspectors that Iraq is weapons-free. Only Syria refused to
endorse the resolution.
Washington won adoption of its proposal with some cosmetic changes,
but with the underlying goal of the US and its allies intact: Washington
and London, as occupying powers, remain firmly in control of Iraq and
its oil wealth “until an internationally recognized, representative
government is established.”
The resolution spelling out the future of Iraq was adopted without the
presence of a single Iraqi in the Council chamber.
Nearly half the seven-page resolution deals with arrangements to phase
out the UN oil-for-food humanitarian program over the next six months.
The end of the ‘dance’
Many ordinary Iraqis reacted by saying the lifting of UN sanctions made
little difference in the absence of a homegrown government.
“We expected this to happen after the fall of Saddam Hussein,’’
said Hameed Hashim, a teacher, adding gloomily that the US-led occupation
meant “Iraq is now state number 51” of the United States.
Ali Saad, a taxi driver commented, “The UN decision did not surprise
me because America came to Iraq to control oil and this decision gives
it the right to administer oil revenues,’’ he said.
“The old regime plundered us, and now it looks as if there is someone
else coming to take our wealth,” said Shukur Mahmoud, the owner
of a shoe shop.
In Iraq, Paul Bremer has made clear that the US occupation authority
is for the moment the only government. His recent dissolution of the
Iraqi military and prohibition of senior Baath Party members from public
jobs had broad implications, potentially leaving as many as 30,000 party
members and 400,000 former soldiers without work. He has brought thousands
of new
troops to Baghdad and ordered Iraqis to give up heavy weapons.
“There have been concerns raised about our interests, so what
I have done has been intended to clarify what have been our interests
all along,” Bremer said.
The decrees were meant to end what one US official described as the
“dance” the United States has been doing to appease Iraqis
since the end of the war. Bremer and his advisers concluded after
weeks of little progress on establishing security or creating a new
political framework that Iraqis want the United States to exert a
heavier hand.
He said that Iraq was not ready for self-government and that he is
now focusing his attention on rejuvenating and overhauling the Iraqi
economy. His solution: privatization and “free trade”.
Bremer, who took over the administration of Iraq two weeks ago, said
the next day that occupation officials were talking with banks in
the United States, Britain and other countries to provide credit on
favorable terms to foreign companies that trade with Iraq.
“This will be a symbol that Iraq is open for business and an
incentive to those who want to export to Iraq,” he said.
“A free economy and a free people go hand in hand. History tells
us that broadly held resources protected by private property is the
best way to protect freedom.”
Bremer said the occupying powers “would like to see market prices...We
would like to see privatization of key elements” of the economy.
Bremer also announced that the Central Bank of Iraq and a group of
private banks would begin providing “substantial” trade
credits for exports to Iraq within weeks. Bremer said that the total
amount was still under discussion but that American and British companies
were expected to be among the first to benefit.
Contracts are pending to sell everything from oil field technology
to transportation services and telecommunications to the Iraqi ministries
under occupation.
Thamir Ghadhban, Iraq’s US-appointed oil minister announced on
May 24 that three oil production contracts signed by the previous
regime with Russian and Chinese companies would be either terminated
or frozen.
Bremer said media references to the decree dissolving the armed forces
saying that it “threw 400,000 people out of work” were “not
true.”
“That was done by something called the freedom of Iraq,”
he said.
Meanwhile, tensions between Iraqis and the country’s US administrators
came to the fore yet again this week during a protest by demobilized
Iraqi soldiers, who demanded an increase in severance pay.
“If our position is not settled, we threaten to take up arms,”
former colonel Ahmed Abdullah said.
The 100 or so demonstrators warned they would stage further protests,
form militias and possibly even carry out suicide bombings if their
situation was not reconciled.
‘It was supposed to be over’
“We’ve established control,” Bremer insisted in an
upbeat report delivered on a day when United States military forces
in Iraq suffered two ambush attacks. Two soldiers were killed and
five others were wounded in attacks on convoys on Monday, May 26.
The first occurred 110 miles northwest of Baghdad just after dawn
when a convoy was ambushed by gunmen who opened fire with rocket-propelled
grenades and machine guns.
Later that afternoon in Baghdad, four American soldiers were attacked
when an explosive device believed to be a land mine was hurled by
an unidentified assailant, destroying their Humvee. US Central Command
later issued a statement saying one soldier had died.
Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rutter of the 3rd Infantry Division sought
to play down the incidents, saying: “Order in Baghdad is present,”
and “I have seen it getting better and better every day. There
has been a drastic improvement in the last 30 days.”
The next day, two Iraqis stepped from their car and opened fire, killing
two Americans and wounding nine in a city whose people have made clear
that US troops are not welcome. The violence in Fallujah was the latest
in three deadly days for the US military in postwar Iraq — further
evidence the country remains a perilous place for its American occupiers.
By that morning, eight US soldiers had died in Iraq since Sunday —
in direct attacks, accidents and explosions. Nearly two dozen have
been injured. Hours after the attack in Fallujah, two American military
police officers were wounded in rocket-propelled grenade assaults
on a Baghdad police station.
In the public’s mind, the war may be over, but US troops continue
to fall in Iraq, sometimes at the rate of two a day. That is down
from an average of three a day between the start of the war on Mar.
19 and May 1, when a total of 139 American service members were killed.
In Baghdad, on Sunday alone, there were three ambushes against Americans,
all along a highway between the city center and the airport, said
Lt. Clint Mundinger, a US Army intelligence officer.
In one, an explosive was placed onto the highway in the path of a
Humvee carrying four US soldiers and detonated as the vehicle drove
past. All four soldiers were injured. One soldier died later on.
Hours later, someone dropped a grenade from an overpass apparently
trying to hit a moving Humvee.
“They deserved it and they deserve more. They are occupiers,
not liberators,” said Ali Abbas, a resident of the Amiriyah area
in western Baghdad.
The continuing casualties have had no discernible impact on the administration’s
willingness to keep US forces in Iraq. On the contrary, the number
of American GIs on the ground has risen by 18,000, to nearly 160,000,
since Bush declared victory on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Last Thursday Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee that US troops will remain in Iraq long
after Iraqis have taken over day-to-day operations of their country.
However, he refused to say how long and how many soldiers that would
involve.
Invoking the imagery of a civil war, Wolfowitz told Congress that
American forces in Iraq still face “several tens of thousands”
of fighters who are sufficiently armed and organized to be considered
“something close to light infantry.”
“It was supposed to be over. The president said it was through,”
said Beverly Payne of Clarkston, Wash., choking up as she spoke of
the death of her stepson, Master Sgt. William L. Payne, 46, in a May
16 explosion.
Army Pfc. Marlin T. Rockhold, 23, was shot in the head by a sniper
while directing traffic on a bridge in Baghdad on May 8. “I’m
doing just fine now that the war is over here in Iraq!” he had
written to his grandmother just three weeks previously.
People in Fallujah are openly angry.
“Every Iraqi is ready to sacrifice his life for resistance,”
said Safa al-Jubair, a 27-year-old street vendor in Fallujah. “We
are 26 million Iraqis and we are all resisting and, God willing, occupation
will end.”
Tensions in the town escalated in April after US soldiers killed 18
Iraqis and wounded at least 78 after firing on crowds protesting against
the army’s presence there.
Last Thursday, on May 22, gunmen fired anti-tank rockets at a US armored
vehicle in Falluja, which according to residents sent US troops into
a shooting spree that killed two Iraqis.
Residents said after the attack, Americans barged into their homes
searching while US tanks randomly fired toward the city center, killing
two passengers of a pickup truck traveling some 300 yards from the
scene.
“They went crazy, they fired everywhere,” Safi Jaber, a
witness, said.
Many shops were damaged by tank fire and an auto parts store was completely
destroyed.
Iyad Qubaisi, standing in front of his ruined car supply shop, said:
“Saddam never ruined our shops. Is this the liberation (President
Bush) talks about?”
Sources: Agence France-Presse, Associated
Press, Boston Globe, Daily Telegraph (UK), Financial Times (UK), Inter
Press Service, Knight Ridder, New York Times, Reuters, Sydney Morning
Herald, Times (UK), United Press International, Washington Post
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WNC Verizon workers strike over
benefit cuts, forced overtime
By Shane Perlowin
May 28 (AGR)— Verizon workers in western North Carolina,
members of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 3673, are
walking picket lines at Verizon locations in 11 counties in opposition
to the company’s push to eliminate their sick leave and emergency
family leave and its stringent requirements that workers put in excessive
amounts of forced overtime hours. The last time Local 3673 went on
strike was in 1974. The former GTE unit serves about a dozen small
towns scattered within a 100-mile radius of Ashville.
Picket sites include Weaverville, Marion, Sylva, Cherokee, Murphy,
Franklin, Burnsville, and Highlands, among other locations.
The strike began on May 19 when negotiations reached an impasse over
the company’s insistence on cutting sick leave and other benefits
that assist Verizon workers in balancing their work and family responsibilities.
If the company succeeds in cutting employees’ emergency family
leave, employees will not be able to take paid leave to attend to
family members who have become hospitalized or bedridden due to injury
or illness. The company is refusing to discuss the issue of forced
overtime with the workers. In addition, workers are calling on Verizon
to reverse its decision that closed a local office in Marion, NC,
limiting services for residents in McDowell County.
Presently, many employees are being forced to work for fifteen to
twenty consecutive days. CWA Local 3673 President Tommy Pool cited
a recent example where a member had voluntarily worked about two weeks
straight, but when he asked for Mother’s Day off, it was denied
and he was told, “Call your mother on the phone.”
Verizon’s current push to cut employee benefits is part of an
ongoing policy that has reduced the company’s workforce in the
region in recent years from nearly 500 employees to 150, even as the
company, thus the workload, has grown exponentially. Verizon earned
over $4 billion in profits last year alone. “They’re the
eighth biggest company in the world and they made the fifth biggest
profit… The company simply isn’t hiring enough people to
keep up with the workload” and so the overtime demands are excessive,
said Pool.
“Money isn’t the issue. These members are fighting to be
able to protect and spend time with their families,” said CWA
District 3 Vice President Jimmy Smith in a CWA press release. “These
mountain communities have strong family values,” he added, noting
that regular subcontractors in some cases have refused scab work.
When presented with the claim that the workers’ main concern
was to have more time to be with their families, company spokesperson
Paul Miller said, “That’s preposterous! They are willing
to accept a 12 percent pay increase, but not an 11.3 percent increase.
Pay is a factor.” He claimed that the benefits that Verizon provides
are among the best in Western North Carolina and, “It is a wonderful
place to work.”
Miller said, “We have brought in about 115 management personnel
from as far away as Florida. And they are in Western North Carolina
filling the void.”
Miller said that most customers will not be affected by the strike
because Verizon’s network is “largely automated.” However,
“There have been a number of incidents spread throughout Western
North Carolina of sabotage and vandalism, a lot of cut cables, cables
that have been shot at. It is causing management people to have to
go in and repair this. When we have incidents of sabotage and vandalism
it just multiplies the workload.”
Private security personnel are involved, in addition to the police,
in the search for saboteurs. Verizon is offering a $50,000 reward
for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever
is involved in the alleged incidents of vandalism that have occurred
at their facilities.
The Verizon workers are receiving warm support from their communities,
with local merchants, restaurants, and others offering supplies, shelter,
and solidarity, as well as putting up strike signs and displaying
union informational materials on their premises. In Madison county
most of the businesses have put up signs in their windows that read,
“We support the Verizon employees.”
“We want to reach a fair settlement with Verizon, one that lets
us continue to serve our customers and still meet our family responsibilities,”
Local 3673 President Tommy Pool said. “It’s up to the company
to do the right thing now.”
Contrarily, Verizon spokesperson Paul Miller said, “We disagree.
The ball is in their court. We have put forth a generous package and
we just want to talk.” According to Miller, there are ongoing
informal negotiations taking place.
Candice Johnson, spokesperson for CWA said, “You never know how
long something like this will last, but the workers want to get back
to work as soon as possible with a fair settlement; they want to solve
the issue around the cuts.”
Pool noted, “Usually, a big company like Verizon, even if they
were wanting to settle, might go for several weeks. They’ve probably
already spent more money on the strike than what they would have if
they’d have just settled the terms of the contract.”
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Bush tax cut continues class war on
poor
Cheney casts tie-breaking vote
Compiled by Shawn Gaynor
May 27(AGR)— Vice President Dick Cheney was called into
the US Senate last week to break a 50-50 tie vote on President Bush’s
tax cut plan. The plan was modified, after floor voting but before the
tie breaking Cheney vote, to include a reduction to, and temporary elimination
of capitol gains and stock dividends tax, in what is being characterized
as a 126 billion dollar give-away to the nation’s rich.
President Bush, in his standard double-speak praised the Senate “for
its bipartisan passage of a jobs and growth package that includes all
of the components of my original plan,” even though some of his
own party defected, leading to the tie vote in the Republican controlled
Senate. Of 49 Democrat Senators, only two Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson
of Nebraska and Zell Miller of Georgia supported the proposal.
The plan, which is referred to by the administration as an economic
and job stimulus package, has been carefully crafted to appear to benefit
the poor.
At a recent Bush press event to rally support for the tax plan, businessmen,
many of the CEO’s, standing behind the president were told to remove
their ties to help convince the nation that the plan will benefit poor
and middle class Americans.
“Jobs are on the line, and I look forward to working with the full
Congress to pass a robust economic growth plan,” Bush said in a
statement. “I call on Congress to resolve their differences quickly
so I can sign a bill that will help create jobs, boost take home pay,
and spur economic growth.”
Though many of his critics disagree, the president has vowed the legislation
will create a million new jobs in the US economy, but the $350 billion
cost of tax cut (that some say could grow to a cost of $800 billion)
shows that $350,000 dollars minimum will be given away for each job
created.
Untangling the math behind the new tax cut can be confusing. The administration,
and those who consistently echo them, repeatedly referred to the increase
in the per-child deduction as the centerpiece of the cut, and a great
boon for the nations poor. What they refuse to relay to the public is
that the increase in the child credit, which will benefit 26 million
families (rich and poor) has a total price tag of roughly 16.5 billion.
While this may sound like a large cut, it represents less then 5% of
the total tax cut package.
The similary featured “marriage penalty relief,” helps families
of all economic backgrounds, representing 6% of the plan.
A full third of Americans will see no cut in their taxes, while half
of America will receive a cut of under $100. In contrast, Knight-Ridder
news analysis by Mark Weisbrot shows the richest four-tenths of one
percent of taxpayers, who make more then a half a million dollars a
year, will receive 19-23% of the cut—over 70 billion dollars.
The legislation also featured other tax break for the wealthy. “Small”
enterprises will be able to immediately write off $100,000 in new equipment
purchases and all businesses will be able to expense half their investments
this year.
The plans biggest feature by far is suspending taxes on stock dividends,
which was added to the senate legislation after all of the senators
had voted. Though many media outlets have reported the reduction, almost
all fail to mention that the reduction of the dividends tax to 15% will
last only a year and will be followed by three years of the complete
elimination of the dividends tax.
Tax on dividends and capital gains had been taxed at the investors’
ordinary income rate, up to 38.6% for wealthy investors.
The Bush administration had harped on the fact that the dividend tax
was a redundant tax, since the same money has already gone though taxation
under taxes on corporate profits. And Congress responded to his call,
ready with the knife — the same Congress that refuses to eliminate
a far more common double tax: the income tax we pay on the portion of
our wages that goes to pay Social Security taxes.
“The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum.” So wrote the
normally staid Financial Times, traditionally the voice of conservative
British business opinion, when surveying last week’s tax bill.
Indeed, the legislation is absurd; the tax cut which carries an official
price tag of $320 billion is so large that the nation can’t possibly
afford it while keeping its other promises.
But then maybe that’s the point. The Financial Times suggests that
“more extreme Republicans” actually want a fiscal train wreck:
“Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs,
is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing
prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door.”
“Good for The Financial Times. It seems that stating the obvious
has now, finally, become respectable,” wrote Paul Krugman of the
New York Times.
“It’s no secret that right-wing ideologues want to abolish
programs Americans take for granted. But not long ago, to suggest that
the Bush administration’s policies might actually be driven by
those ideologues — that the administration was deliberately setting
the country up for a fiscal crisis in which popular social programs
could be sharply cut — was to be accused of spouting conspiracy
theories,” continued Krugman.
Here’s one way to look at the situation: Although you wouldn’t
know it from the rhetoric, federal taxes are already historically low
as a share of G.D.P. Once the new round of cuts takes effect, federal
taxes will be lower than their average during the Eisenhower administration.
How, then, can the government pay for Medicare and Medicaid — which
didn’t exist in the 1950’s — and Social Security, which
will become far more expensive as the population ages?
Balancing the books without tax increases will require deep cuts where
the money is: that is, in Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
The pain of these benefit cuts will fall on the middle class and the
poor, while the tax cuts overwhelmingly favor the rich. For example,
the tax cut passed last week will raise the after-tax income of most
people by less than 1 percent — not nearly enough to compensate
them for the loss of benefits. But people with incomes over $1 million
per year will, on average, see their after-tax income rise 4.4 percent.
“The people now running America aren’t conservatives: they’re
radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we
have,” concludes Krugman. “And the fiscal crisis they are
concocting may give them the excuse they need. Even though it fell short
of their hopes for abolition of the tax.”
Sources: Alameda Times-Star, Associated
Press, Common Dreams, Financial Times (UK), Knight-Ridder, New York
Times, Washington Dispatch
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