April 16, 2003

SOME OF THE scenes of joy and celebration in Baghdad last week were clearly orchestrated: a Marine lieutenant just happened to have custody of an American flag that had flown over the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, and he just happened to be on the scene when a giant statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled, so the troops just happened to be able to put that symbol over the fallen dictator's face in time for the cameras to catch the action.

But there's little doubt that much of the cheering in Iraq was genuine. One of the worst, most brutal tyrants in the world had finally lost power, and the people who had lived under his bloody and iron-fisted rule were, not surprisingly, pleased. The U.S. peace movement cannot ignore that fact.

Obviously, since it's too late to simply complain about the U.S. invasion and presence in Iraq, peace activists need to move on to a new message, which must center around a multilateral humanitarian effort at rebuilding a devastated nation in a way that benefits the people who live there.

The immediate result of the "liberation" of Iraq has been obvious, unmitigated misery for most Iraqis. As Robert Fisk has reported in the Bay Guardian, major cities have been without fresh water or food for days, public services are nonexistent, hospitals are crammed with the dead and dying, and gangs of armed looters have not only trashed the remnants of Hussein's regime but have also moved on to attack private homes and terrorize the populace. All while U.S. forces were at first standing by and watching.

In a stunning example of Bush administration insensitivity, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested that the anarchy was inevitable and not a cause for U.S. concern: "Freedom's untidy," he said, "and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes."

No matter how successful the U.S. military forces were in removing Hussein from power, the U.S. role in Iraq completely lacks international legitimacy. Beyond the flag-raisings and made-for-TV moments, this military adventure set a terrible precedent: President George W. Bush ordered the unilateral, unprovoked, long-term invasion of another country to depose a leader he didn't like – on the basis of preemption and for reasons that can't be justified on the available evidence. (Number of weapons of mass destruction identified in Iraq so far: zero. Number of terrorists apprehended who had threatened the United States: zero. Demonstrated links to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: zero.) He ignored the will of the United Nations Security Council, defied the vast majority of U.S. allies, and sent a message that the world's lone superpower is accountable to nobody and will use its military power at will, without regard for international law.

That pattern continues as the administration seeks to hunt down and kill the former Iraqi leader and his sons without convening a U.N. war-crimes tribunal that could oversee – in public, and with the support and approval of much of the world – the trial and punishment of the heads of Hussein's regime.

Congress needs to demand that the Bush administration make immediate plans to turn over the authority for rebuilding Iraq's physical and political infrastructure to an international group, organized through the U.N., that can establish the trust of the Iraqi people and move as quickly as possible to give control of the country to an elected Iraqi government. Instead of spending more billions to fund occupying forces, Congress should be prepared to give that money to the massive multilateral relief effort so desperately needed in Iraq. Congress should also urge the return of the U.N. inspectors to search Iraq for the weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration used to justify war.