Iraqi puppets feel the noose tightening

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Locked-out Gate Gourmet workers at Heathrow yesterday insist that theTGWU should refuse to accept compulsory redundancies
Locked-out Gate Gourmet workers at Heathrow yesterday insist that theTGWU should refuse to accept compulsory redundancies

IN the last few days the Iraqi puppet National Assembly, whose authority does not run outside of the Green Zone US fortress in central Baghdad, has been caught out, trying to rig the outcome of the October 15th Referendum.

It was trying to establish conditions for making the rejection of its US dictated puppet ‘constitution’ much more difficult, if not impossible.

Its tactic was to re-write the ‘constitution’ so that the qualification for torpedoing it was changed from a majority of the voters voting it down in three provinces, to a majority of the registered electors voting it down.

There is now nine days to go to the referendum, and at least two major US-led offensives are taking place in Western Iraq, with ground and air attacks being made on a number of towns, causing heavy civilian casualties. At the same time, the insurgency is spreading into southern cities such as Basra.

The referendum is being held in the middle of an insurrection against bloodthirsty occupiers who are waging a war on the Iraqi people.

Under these conditions to get a majority of the registered electors, 51 per cent of them, to vote against the constitution in three provinces would be almost impossible.

Yesterday, the same National Assembly was forced by the uproar throughout Iraq at its squalid manoeuvring to do a second re-write of the ‘constitution’, restoring the original wording covering the majority needed in three provinces to veto the constitution.

It was agreed that a majority of voters meant a majority of those who had actually voted, and not those who had registered to vote.

The sight of the ‘national assembly’ having to do two somersaults in two days has in fact made it a laughing stock throughout the country. It is now despised by the majority of the Iraqi people.

However, it has now emerged that the United Nations, which is printing the ‘constitution’ and distributing it throughout Iraq has serious doubts over just what the US-dictated constitution has been constructed to achieve, and was keeping quiet about them.

While the puppet leaders are talking about ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’, Newsweek has reported in its latest issue, that a confidential UN report, dated September 15, warned that the new Iraqi constitution was a ‘model for the territorial division of the state.’

Asked about the report, UN chief Kofi Annan’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said it was an internal UN analysis which was leaked to Newsweek.

‘This was an internal document,’ he told reporters. ‘As far as the UN is concerned, the constitution itself will have to be judged by the Iraqis on October 15 during the referendum.’

The UN is not alone in this analysis.

A leading Brussels-based think-tank also warned last week that the rushed drafting of the constitution has deepened sectarian rifts and was likely to hasten the country’s violent break-up.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) said that Iraq ‘appears to be heading toward de facto partition and full-scale civil war’.

In fact partition and civil war is now the essence of the US strategy in Iraq, now that it has publicly recognised that it is unable to defeat the insurgency.

The future of Iraq and the Iraqi people depends on the insurgency and its ability to continue to strengthen itself to the point where it is able to force the withdrawal of all US and UK forces from Iraq.

Its strategic ally is the working class of the world, particularly the workers of the US and the UK where the Iraq war is enormously unpopular as are the Bush and Blair regimes.

The British trade unions must play their part in this struggle. The millions of trade union members must demand that the trade union leaders act to support the Iraqi people. This means bringing the Blair government down and going forward to a workers government, that will withdraw all troops from Iraq.