BY NAOMI CRAINE
Washington's rationalizations for its cruise missile assault on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan and on several sites in southern Afghanistan are increasingly being exposed. The facts that have begun to come to light reveal that the bombings - carried out in the name of "fighting terrorism" - were calculated acts of imperial aggression.

At the same time, U.S. officials are gearing up for a show trial in New York of two men they have accused of involvement in the August 7 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya.

The Clinton administration is particularly on the defensive in trying to justify the destruction of the factory in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, which produced half of the country's medicine supplies. At least one worker was killed in the assault and 10 others seriously injured, according to Sudanese officials.

U.S. officials claimed they had proof that the plant was involved in the production of nerve gas and was somehow connected with Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian businessman who Clinton has recently begun calling the world's biggest terrorist. The only physical evidence they have cited - without allowing anyone else to examine it - is a soil sample allegedly taken several yards from the plant some months ago by a person hired by the CIA. Lab tests supposedly showed the sample contained a chemical known as Empta, which U.S. officials claim has no use except in producing nerve gas "by the Iraqi method."

Pretext for Sudan assault crumbles
But less than a week after the attack, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons told reporters that a search of scientific papers showed that the chemical could also be used in the production of fungicides, antimicrobial agents, and other commercial products. Other scientists noted that Empta is chemically similar to several pesticides and herbicides currently in use, and that it could also be the product of the breakdown of other chemicals.

The White House also feigned surprise that Al Shifa Pharmaceutical plant - which President William Clinton personally selected as a bombing target - actually produces pharmaceuticals. "We...have seen no products, commercial products that are sold out of this facility," a person the New York Times called a senior intelligence official said right after the attack. But the plant, which just opened two years ago, produced a wide range of human and veterinary medicines. It had even signed a contract to sell veterinary products to Baghdad under the draconian UN embargo against Iraq.

Even some British and German officials, whose governments backed the U.S. military action, questioned the Clinton administration's stated reasons for the bombing. Several German publications reported that Bonn's ambassador to Sudan sent a cable to his superiors reporting that the plant produced antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, and so on.

The Sudanese government asked the United Nations to send an investigative team to examine the remains of the factory for any sign of chemical weapons; U.S. and UN officials brushed off this request.

The connection to bin Laden appears similarly illusory. In the days leading up to the U.S. missile assaults on Afghanistan and Sudan, the big-business press declared that the previously unmentioned Saudi national had assets of some $300 million that was supposedly used to finance dozens of attacks on U.S. military and other targets. But an article in the August 28 Washington Post noted that U.S. officials "aren't even certain" whether bin Laden's fortune "amounts to the $300 million previously estimated or is closer to one-tenth that sum." And bin Laden has no direct ownership in the Al Shifa factory.

To try to get its propaganda campaign back on track, the White House organized a briefing for more than 25 senators September 2. After the meeting with CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary William Cohen, and Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, several legislators - Republican and Democratic - told the press they had been reassured.

"The attack was justified both at the plant and at the terrorist camp in Afghanistan," declared Republican Robert Smith.

"They made a compelling case," added Democrat Jack Reed.

Liberals back Afghanistan assault
Some liberal commentators have balked at the White House line on the bombing in Sudan, while wholeheartedly defending the supposed right of Washington to bomb "real" terrorists. A September 1 column by New York Times pundit Anthony Lewis was typical. "With its special power and responsibility in the world, the United States has to be free to act unilaterally in urgent circumstances," he began, citing the Reagan administration's bombing of Libya in 1986 and last month's missile assault on Afghanistan as examples of the "right" way to use U.S. military might. But since there are questions over the rationalizations for the assault on the medicine factory, "a proper inquiry would clear the air. And we should offer to pay compensation if we were wrong. That course would preserve the credibility that the United States must have."

Others have demanded greater use of U.S. force. Various bourgeois figures have called for lifting the supposed ban on political assassinations by U.S. spy agencies. The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece titled "The Etiquette of Killing bin Laden," by someone it described as "a former Middle Eastern- targets officer in the CIA's clandestine service."

Sen. Richard Lugar declared that since bin Laden wasn't killed in the bombing, "he ought to be pursued instantly and found and his influence should be terminated."

The Asian Wall Street Journal's editorial page editor, Nancy deWolf Smith, penned a column titled, "Afghanistan Needs U.S. Intervention." Referring to the civil war that Washington fostered for many years, she argued, "Almost every state player involved - particularly Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - has had an active interest in keeping Afghanistan's turmoil going. Unless the U.S. re-enters the scene to call the game off, by this time next year it may be too late. In a worst- case scenario, people like Mr. bin Laden could be within reach of Pakistan's nuclear weapons."

The other side of Washington's "antiterror" propaganda centers on the indictment of two men the U.S. government has accused of involvement in the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya. U.S. officials bragged that it was a victory of law enforcement to have suspects to try so quickly, and to be holding the trial in New York, not Nairobi.

Show trial is prepared in New York
Both Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali and Mohammed Saddiq Odeh were brought to the United States and are jailed in New York City. Al-'Owhali, who holds a Yemenese passport, was arrested by Kenyan officials two days after the August 7 bombing. He was reportedly interrogated twice by FBI agents, on August 12 and 20. The U.S. government claims that in the second interrogation al-'Owhali stated that he was a passenger in the truck that carried the bomb to the embassy.

Odeh, a Palestinian engineer, also supposedly confessed to helping plan the bombing, after being jailed in Pakistan for more than a week. At his August 28 arraignment, Odeh's lawyer said his client had acknowledged membership in an organization led by bin Laden, but did not confess to involvement in the bombing.

Both were arraigned on 12 counts of murder, as well as charges of conspiracy to commit murder, and the use of a weapon of mass destruction. They face up to life imprisonment or the death penalty.

This scenario, including the conspiracy charges aimed at linking bin Laden to the bombing, are reminiscent of the frame- up trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Raman and nine others in New York. They were convicted in early 1996 of conspiracy in an alleged bombing plot, after being branded in the media and in court as "Islamic fanatics."

New York officials have seized on the presence of al- 'Owhali and Odeh in the city as an opportunity to step up "security," including deploying more cops, erecting barricades on some downtown streets, and banning any gatherings on the City Hall steps.  
 
 
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