CCDS NATIONAL CONVENTION DEMANDS: "NO WAR ON IRAQ"

Statement from the National Convention The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism July 29, 2002

Today the Bush Administration is claiming the unilateral prerogative to make war on Iraq, using any land, sea, and air forces it deems necessary. The Administration even suggests it might use nuclear weapons against the Iraqi people. According to the president, there is nothing the Iraqis can do to forestall war, including their open invitation to the United States to send a team of inspectors to the country to investigate whether so- called "weapons of mass destruction" are being manufactured and stored.

The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) has long condemned United States foreign policy toward Iraq including the repeated bombings and the economic blockade that has led to more than 500,000 deaths of children under five years of age over the last decade. We are irrovocably opposed to the expansion of the war on Iraq.

Administration spokespersons claim without a shred of evidence that Iraq is building or has the potential to build so-called "weapons of mass destruction." Unfounded claims are also made that Iraq has given support to international terrorism. These transparent claims are used to justify a war that growing numbers of U.S. citizens oppose and virtually every country in the world condemns. The mobilizing war machine is a byproduct of the efforts of the "last remaining superpower" to establish its global military dominance, to consolidate its control of the production and circulation of vital oil resources, and to redirect the minds of its own people away from deepening economic recession and corporate corruption at home.

CCDS condemns this current drive by the United States to establish global military dominance. And, we are unalterably opposed to a new war on Iraq.

We call on all peace activists in CCDS and in movements everywhere to rise up angry and demand: "No War on Iraq."