US accelerates preparations for invasion of Iraq
By Patrick Martin
4 January 2003The military preparations are accompanied by increasingly bellicose statements from President Bush and other US government spokesmen. On January 3, Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that his “day of reckoning” was coming. The next day Bush made a heavily-publicized visit to Ft. Hood, Texas, where he addressed thousands of uniformed soldiers about the impending war.
The US Army also announced it would conduct a war game in Germany later this month that will bring together most of the field commanders likely to be responsible for leading a war with Iraq. The exercise, titled “Victory Scrimmage,” will be carried out at the US army training center at Graffenwohr. It will be led by Lieutenant General William Wallace, who would head the ground forces in an invasion of Iraq. The dress rehearsal, set to begin January 23, will bring together commanders of the German-based First Armored and First Infantry divisions and the US-based 101st Airborne and First Cavalry divisions.
The exercise is doubly provocative because it begins only four days before the January 27 deadline for Hans Blix, the head of the UN weapons inspections program, to file his first official report with the Security Council. Five weeks of inspections by more than 100 UN experts have failed to find a single substantial violation by Iraq of UN resolutions, or any evidence of weapons of mass destruction, confirming that the Bush administration’s focus on that issue is sheer pretext.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/iraq-j04.shtml
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