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SW Online's ongoing coverage and analysis
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq
SUBJECTS BELOW:
Nightmare in Iraq
Occupation, not liberation
Analysis of the war
Exposing their war lies
A decade of warfare
What they want from this war
The role of the United Nations
The history of Washington's wars
LATEST NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Another failure for the U.S. in Iraq
Iraqi security forces may have carried out summary executions, according to revelations that once again expose the scale of brutality in "liberated" Iraq.
The rise of Moktada al-Sadr
How did the Sadrist movement arise, and what are its conflict with other Shia forces? A book by Patrick Cockburn provides answers.
Fault lines in occupied Iraq
Journalist Patrick Cockburn explains the background to the eruption of renewed combat in Iraq and what it means for the future.
NIGHTMARE IN IRAQ
The uncounted dead of Iraq
A new report on Iraqi deaths in the New England Journal of Medicine doesn't begin to tell the whole story.
"Mission accomplished" again?
A new war lie--concocted by the White House, endorsed by Democrats, embraced by the media--has been deployed to justify continuing the occupation in Iraq.
Dahr Jamail's book Beyond the Green Zone:
Bearing witness to Iraq's catastrophe
SW prints excerpts from a new book by unembedded journalist Dahr Jamail, describing what he saw on his trips to Iraq to report on the reality of the U.S. occupation.
The forgotten refugees of the U.S. war on Iraq
The world's fastest growing refugee crisis is in Iraq, but it is denied by the U.S. government and routinely ignored in the mainstream media.
The real benchmarks in Iraq
Gen. David Petraeus says he believes the situation in U.S.-occupied Iraq is "improving." But the real benchmarks about Iraq that Congress ought to be examining tell a different story.
How the U.S. set Iraq on fire
Since the 2003 invasion, the U.S. has caused the death of at least 655,000 Iraqis--though that is only part of the death toll from two Gulf Wars, and the decade of sanctions between them.
A Socialist Worker guide to...
Bush's surge of death and destruction
SW examines the claims made by George Bush in his speech announcing an escalation in the Iraq war, along with the responses of leading Democrats.
"The fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in the world"
Iraq's refugee nightmare
The U.S. occupation of Iraq is generating one of the largest refugees crises in decades.
The civil war in Iraq:
Bitter fruit of occupation
Imperial powers have always turned to the "divide-and-conquer" strategy to maintain their rule over occupied populations. The U.S. has drawn on this vile tradition in Iraq.
Occupation turns Iraq into hell on earth
Is the U.S. headed for defeat in Iraq?
In a few short weeks, the Bush administration's strategy to "stay the course" in Iraq has been exposed--opening a floodgate of criticism from the political establishment.
655,000 Iraqis killed since the invasion
The horrific toll of the U.S. war
A study published by the British medical journal The Lancet makes a compelling case that the number of Iraqis killed since the U.S. invasion is far higher than anyone suspected.
The U.S. is the real source of terror in Iraq
"There are many more Hadithas"
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi satisfied the Bush administration's need for a bogeyman in Iraq. But if it weren't for the U.S. invasion in 2003, the world would never have known him.
U.S. pushes sectarian divide to weaken resistance
Will Iraq collapse into a civil war?
The bombing of the Shia Askariya Mosque in Samarra triggered a spate of sectarian violence that raised the question: Is civil war a real possibility or simply a media invention?
U.S. attack turns Falluja into...
Hell on earth
After days of relentless bombardment and house-to-house combat, Falluja looks like a hell on earth to ordinary Iraqis.
Iraq torture photos:
This is what occupation looks like
Turns out that "Saddam's torture chambers" at Abu Ghraib prison--which George Bush claims to have shut down with his invasion of Iraq--are still open for business. Only under new management.
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OCCUPATION, NOT LIBERATION
Blackwater's license to kill
Above the law--any law. That describes the status granted to the private security firm Blackwater USA when its mercenaries were hired to work for the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The new lie to justify endless war
Just as they lied to get support for the war in the first place, the leaders of the U.S. ruling establishment are claiming that Iraq will collapse into chaos if the U.S. withdraws.
Iraqi workers strike against U.S. oil grab
A strike by Iraqi oil workers ended after the government made concessions to workers--but not before it issued arrest warrants for union leaders and sent troops to threaten strikers.
Sinking deeper
The Bush administration has lurched from one disaster to another in the Middle East. But the more they struggle to get out of the quicksand, the deeper they sink.
Billions of dollars stolen or squandered
Washington's reconstruction rip-off in Iraq
Despite U.S. claims to be rebuilding Iraq, life for ordinary Iraqis remains one of deprivation--often because of waste, mismanagement and fraud.
Bush administration keeps eye on the prize of a new Iraqi oil law
Spilling more blood for oil
The U.S. is on the verge of achieving an important victory in Iraq--at least in the pursuit of one of its main goals when the U.S. went to war: liberating Iraq's oil.
The dictator the U.S. propped up and took down
Saddam Hussein was rushed to the gallows as 2006 ended--a former dictator put to death under instructions from his one-time supporters in the U.S. government.
A withdrawal based on lies?
Blaming the victims for Iraq's nightmare
Democrats and Republicans have joined together to take aim at the ungrateful Iraqi population for failing to appreciate U.S. efforts to impose "democracy" through occupation.
Bilked by U.S. contractors
The crooks who plundered Iraq
Millions of Iraqis still live without electricity and decent sanitation, while American businesses lap up lucrative "reconstruction" contracts.
Behind the IFTU controversy:
Does Iraq's main union support the U.S. occupation?
A tour of the U.S. by Iraqi labor leaders has highlighted a controversy about that country's best-known labor federation--the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.
The Iraqi Communist Party and the U.S. occupation
Confrontation or collaboration?
The U.S. government has been a notorious enemy of Communist Parties around the world. But the Iraqi Communist Party was part of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
Moving in for super-profits
The corporate invasion of Iraq
There's another invasion taking place in Iraq. But this time, it's not the U.S. military moving in--it's Corporate America.
Rise of Iraq's new labor movement
"The thing that was really heartening to me was that under the most difficult conditions you can imagine, workers were not waiting one minute before they started organizing themselves," reports labor journalist David Bacon.
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ANALYSIS OF THE WAR
Why did Saddam Hussein's regime collapse?
Why did the Iraqi state--after confounding predictions of a U.S. "cakewalk" in the first weeks of the war--collapse so quickly when U.S. troops got to Baghdad?
Unraveling the U.S. war lies
Every ruling class--including its bought-and-paid-for politicians and its media--is adept at turning the truth on its head, especially in times of war.
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EXPOSING THEIR WAR LIES
Against the war or for a new strategy?
Bush's disastrous stay-the-course policy is giving confidence to Democrats to push for a change of course for U.S. imperialism. But the question is: How much of a change?
A guide to the U.S. media's doublespeak
Anthony Arnove, editor of the book Iraq Under Siege, provides a guide for decoding the corporate media's doublespeak about the invasion of Falluja.
Bush...Cheney...Rumsfeld...Blair...Powell
Axis of liars
With this special pullout poster, Socialist Worker counters Bush's axis of liars with the truth about their dirty war on Iraq.
Bush's case for war exposed
George Bush's "airtight" case for war on Iraq has sprung a leak. Anthony Arnove, editor of the book Iraq Under Siege, unravels the lies the Bush gang told to sell their war.
A look at the twisted priorities of Washington's war machine
Guns vs. butter
"If you have to pay for guns," says House Speaker Dennis Hastert, "you can't pay for all the butter." SW pulls together the facts about spending on the U.S. military machine.
Media becomes a "branch of the war effort"
Pro-war propaganda machine
Anthony Arnove, editor of the book Iraq Under Siege, looks at the tide of pro-war propaganda flooding out of the corporate media--and explains why you'll see little dissent there from the war on Iraq.
Will a U.S. war free the Kurds?
We're regularly reminded that Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in the village of Halabja in 1988. But Washington and the West have a long record of betraying the Kurdish people.
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A DECADE OF WARFARE
The UN oil-for-food program in Iraq:
The real scandal
Republicans are charging financial mismanagement in the Iraq oil-for-food program administered by the UN before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. But that's not the real scandal.
When the U.S. government supported Saddam Hussein
The crimes of a U.S. ally
The Bush administration claims that it wants to see Saddam Hussein put on trial for his many crimes. But will the U.S. officials who helped Saddam rise to power and supported his dictatorial rule be punished?
The Gulf War of 1991
It was a one-sided slaughter
The 1991 Gulf War against Iraq wasn't really a war at all. It was a one-sided slaughter in a country that was no match for the massive armed might of the U.S. military and its many allies.
The war that never ended
The Gulf War left Iraq shattered. But that didn't stop the U.S. from maintaining a strict economic embargo that had been imposed by the UN following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
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WHAT THEY WANT FROM THIS WAR
The scramble for control of "black gold"
Oil and the empire
The U.S. government's thirst for oil isn't only about profits. In a world where the economic and military might of nations depends significantly on access to oil, it is also about power.
The U.S. and its allies have made the world more dangerous
Why the "war on terror" is a war of terror
In the name of the "war on terror," the U.S. and its allies have inflicted suffering across the Middle East and around the globe--and made the world a far more dangerous place.
U.S. maneuvers to maintain its grip on the Middle East
Washington's "democracy" double-talk
The Bush administration's grandiose claims that it was spreading "democracy" through the Middle East have melted away, revealing imperial politics as usual.
Behind bipartisan consensus
What the U.S. "war on terror" is really about
Invoking the "war on terror" hasn't made the occupation of Iraq more popular. Yet the White House has preserved a bipartisan consensus in favor of aggressive use of military force.
With the military stretched thin...
Are politicians planning to bring back the draft?
The floundering occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan may be giving a renewed sense of urgency to the White House's plans to reinstitute the draft.
Tied together by the U.S. drive to control the Middle East
Palestine and Iraq: The tale of two occupations
Toufic Haddad, the coeditor of the left-wing magazine Between the Lines, looks at what connects the occupations of Palestine and Iraq.
Washington hawks on the attack
The new U.S. war on Iraq began on March 20. But for a hard core of "hawks" in the Bush administration, the planning for it began years before.
The Bush Doctrine: What it means
The Bush administration has produced a National Security Strategy document that goes further than ever before in asserting U.S. military and economic power as the world's unchallenged super-cop.
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THE ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS
The humanitarian cover for the brutal embargo of Iraq
The real oil-for-food scandal
The real scandal never had anything to do with Kofi Annan or kickbacks in the UN humanitarian assistance program in Iraq during the 1990s.
Should we support a UN occupation?
Is George Bush doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? That's what some opponents of the war on Iraq believe now that Bush has "invited" the UN to play a role in the occupation.
The U.S. heads to war without United Nations support
Is the UN finished?
After months of attempting to bribe and bully the UN Security Council into passing a resolution authorizing war against Iraq, the Bush administration abandoned hope and launched a military attack.
How the U.S. flouts international law
On April 11, the United Nations hosted a ceremony commemorating the new International Criminal Court. The Bush administration, however, not only boycotted the ceremony, but withdrew its signature from ratification.
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THE HISTORY OF WASHINGTON'S WARS
Tet: The turning point in Vietnam
Forty years ago, a nationwide offensive by the fighters of the liberation struggle in Vietnam exposed the lie that the U.S. was winning the war.
How the Vietnam War was stopped
The American movement against the Vietnam War was one of the most successful in history, and played a major role in ending the war.
Bush's new defense secretary:
Veteran of U.S. war crimes past
Robert Gates got the kid gloves' treatment before the Senate, but no one should think this veteran liar and right-wing warrior has become a compassionate peacenik.
The American way of war crimes
The massacres of civilians in Iraq are part of a long and bloody record of U.S. war crimes.
John Negroponte: Washington's dirty warrior
The U.S. government's dirty war on Central America in the 1980s has become a model for the administration's policy in Iraq and the Middle East.
The truth about empire
A growing chorus of right-wing ideologues is encouraging Washington to take pride in being a world superpower. But this project depends on erasing the bloody history of imperial conquest.
The history of Washington's occupations
Under Uncle Sam's thumb
Socialist Worker looks at the occupations Washington has dressed up with rhetoric about "democracy"--from Latin America, to postwar Japan and Germany, to Iraq today.
Brendan Sexton III on what really happened in Somalia
What's wrong with Black Hawk Down
The Pentagon brass love Black Hawk Down, the movie about a U.S. mission gone wrong during the 1993 occupation of Somalia. But as actor Brendan Sexton III, who appeared in the movie, explains, the real story of the U.S. government's "humanitarian" mission is very different.
History of U.S. violence across the globe
Washington's war crimes
When George W. Bush announced that the U.S. bombing campaign against Afghanistan had begun, he declared, "We are a peaceful nation." Not exactly. Here is a partial time line of America's imperialist adventures.
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