BY MEGAN ARNEY
The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution November 12 imposing a travel ban on some Iraqi officials until Baghdad reverses its decision to expel U.S. representatives from the UN arms inspection teams in Iraq. Washington engineered the resolution as part of its effort to lay the groundwork for a possible military assault on Iraq. The document warns of "further measures" if the Iraqi government does not comply, but does not include an explicit threat of military force.

The next day the Iraqi government announced it was moving ahead with the expulsion of the U.S. inspectors. Speaking at the White House, U.S. president William Clinton declared Baghdad's decision to be "clearly unacceptable and a challenge to the international community."

In the UN vote, the governments of France, China, Russia, and Egypt refused to go along with the military threat and Washington conceded a watered down resolution in order to get a unanimous vote.

"The message has been clear: Iraq must comply or face the consequences," stated William Richardson, U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, after the vote. "We are not precluding any option, including the military option."

Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, who was at the United Nations but was not allowed to present his government's case to the Security Council, said Baghdad would not back down and would not rescind its order to expel the U.S. inspectors. "Iraq will continue to present its just case and this resolution will not scare it," Aziz said in a statement issued in New York.

The same day, 4,000 Iraqis marched in Baghdad to protest Washington's war moves. The boisterous demonstration - the largest in a series of such actions - ended at the office of a UN Development Program. Protesters, who included youth carrying banners with anti-imperialist slogans, handed over a letter condemning UN resolutions against Iraq since 1990, when the first U.S.-organized sanctions were imposed. Hundreds of Iraqis joined crowds already camped on the grounds of the presidential palace in Baghdad to shield it from any possible U.S. attack.

Hundreds of people also protested Washington's moves in the Gaza Strip, Hebron, and the West Bank November 10. In Gaza Palestinians burned a U.S. flag outside UN offices.

In addition to demanding Baghdad's full cooperation with the UN inspection squad, the November 12 resolution suspends review of the seven-year-long economic embargo against Iraq.

Two days before the Security Council vote, Baghdad had asked the United Nations for a timetable for ending the inspections and lifting the embargo, stopping U.S.-piloted U- 2 spy flights, and reducing the number of U.S. inspectors on the UN teams in Iraq.

U.S. military buildup in Mideast
U.S. defense secretary William Cohen said November 11 that Washington had "inherent authorization" under previous UN resolutions for a military response, and warned that "not too much time should go by before this is resolved." General Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "We have adequate forces there now," referring to U.S. troops and weaponry in the region. "We will keep our range of options open."

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and 16 other U.S. Navy vessels are in the Persian Gulf as part of the 20,000- strong U.S. military force in the region. According to the Associated Press, U.S. military officials said that additional forces could be shifted in, including the USS George Washington with 75 warplanes that needs four days to get there from the Mediterranean Sea. U.S. forces include about 200 warplanes, six navy vessels capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, 2,100 combat-ready Marines on board the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, and nearly 2,000 GIs stationed in Kuwait with tanks, troop carriers, and missile systems.

The White House has strong bipartisan backing for a possible military assault. Senate majority leader Trent Lott, a Republican, said November 9 that if U.S. president William Clinton were to order a punitive strike, "I think the Congress would support him in a very bipartisan way."

Fissures in Gulf War `coalition'
Washington may be faced with the option of launching a military assault on its own, as the coalition it cobbled during the 1991 war has fractured. Last month, in a vote to tighten the embargo against Iraq, five members of the UN Security Council - France, Russia, China, Egypt, and Kenya - abstained, resulting in a milked-down resolution. It was the first time the permanent members of the Security Council had failed to agree on Iraq.

Soon after that, on October 29, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered U.S. inspectors expelled, a move Washington used as a pretext to create the current crisis.

On October 30 the UN Security Council called on Iraq to reverse its decision to ban U.S. members of the inspection team. This time the representatives of France and Russia, who have significant oil deals in the region, abstained.

Spokespeople for the U.S. rulers are increasingly pointing to this problem of theirs. "The most frightening thing about the latest flare-up over Iraq is not how Saddam Hussein is behaving," said Thomas Friedman, one of the most prominent columnists of the New York Times, in a November 10 article. "France, Russia and the U.N. - they are scary.

"What does it mean to be allies in a world where we can't even agree that Saddam is a menace? If we can't stand shoulder to shoulder against him, then against whom?"

Tensions are also building in the area. On November 10 Cairo announced it would join the governments of Saudi Arabia, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and Syria in boycotting the U.S.-backed economic conference scheduled for November 16 in Doha, Qatari. The Arab League voted earlier to express its "total rejection of any military action to be taken against Iraq."

A long record of U.S. aggression
Washington imposed economic sanctions on Iraq in August 1990, after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, as part of its effort to overthrow the Hussein regime, establish a U.S. protectorate there, and get more control of the country's oil resources. The embargo has been in place ever since. After the 1991 war, its lifting became conditional on certification by UN inspection teams that Baghdad no longer possesses weapons of "mass destruction." So the U.S. inspectors play a central role in justifying the maintenance of the sanctions, which have already cost the lives of half a million Iraqi children and have deprived the country from being able to import medicines, agricultural implements and seeds, and other necessities.

This is not the first time Washington has used the pretext of alleged noncompliance with UN resolutions to assault Iraq. During 1993 alone, Washington bombed Iraq more than 15 times. In January of that year, U.S. warships, with British, French, and U.S. planes, bombed Iraq for more than 10 days. In the summer of that year, the bombing continued, along with missile attacks after Baghdad restricted inspectors. In December of 1993, the Clinton Administration announced it would push to tighten the embargo against Iraq. Throughout the next two years, Washington not only again attempted to tighten the embargo, but stepped up its military maneuvers, sending tens of thousands of troops into the area on high alert. Since the end of the Gulf War, Washington has also patrolled a "no-fly" zone in both northern and southern Iraq. Recently, Clinton moved to extend those zones, and tighten the embargo. And in September of last year, Washington launched a military assault against the Iraqi people with three rounds of missile strikes in the southern part of the country.

A possible confrontation during the current crisis may arise over Washington's U-2 spy flights over Iraq, used to provide data to UN inspectors and conduct other snooping. The Iraqi government had threatened to shoot down the U-2's and demanded that the intelligence flights end. Washington backed off for a while but then resumed the flights November 10, escorted by a number of U.S. fighter jets. Baghdad did not launch its Soviet-made SA-2 missiles in that instance, as it had threatened it would do. But the Iraqi government maintains it may do so as the U.S. planes continue to violate Iraq's sovereignty and air space.  
 
 
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