Press Release
Win Without War
1320 18th Street, NW, Fifth Floor
Washington, DC 20036
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, June 29, 2004
CONTACT: Jessica Smith or Trevor FitzGibbon, Fenton
Communications (202) 822-5200
Nation's Largest Antiwar Coalition Calls Iraqi Hand-Off
Another "Mission Accomplished"
Raising False Expectations will Fuel Insurgency
And International Terrorism, Making America Less Safe
Labels Latest White House Deception, “Campaign Season
Ploy”
Washington DC – Win Without War, the nation’s
largest antiwar coalition, called the Bush administration’s
so-called hand-over of sovereignty to Iraq a “deadly deception,”
the equivalent of the President’s historic “mission
accomplished” declaration on board the USS Lincoln on October
9, 2003.
The coalition ran a full-page ad in the New York Times today outlining
how the fundamentals of the US military occupation in Iraq have
not changed and why the highly touted “handover” will
make matters worse by raising false expectations that will lead
to insurgency – fueling disappointment, resentment and anger.
Former Congressman Tom Andrews, National Director of Win Without
War said, “yesterday was not a 'day of great hope' for Iraq,
as President Bush claimed, it was a day of great hype designed for
the presidential election season.”
“The only true power in Iraq is the 138,000 American soldiers,
commanded by US officers. These troops will be able to go where
they want and do what they want whenever they want, whether the
'sovereign' Iraqi authorities like it or not,” said Andrews.
The coalition asserted that yesterday’s handover and the
false expectations it could generate will make America less safe
by:
- Fueling the insurgency in Iraq and terrorism world-wide;
- Weakening America by diminishing our credibility even further
while continuing to isolate us from our allies.
“The price of this government-by-hype will be the bitterness
Iraqis and Americans will feel when their inflated expectations
once again crash on the rocks of Iraq reality . . . this is what
terrorists thrive on and why America continues to lose credibility
with the rest of the world,” said Andrews.
Some of the reality being hidden by the hype includes:
- Every US soldier, Coalition employee and private contractor
will be immune from Iraqi law – Halliburton and its employees
will remain above Iraqi law;
- Iraqis will continue to live under US edicts – covering
everything from tax law to crime to foreign policy – designed
to perpetuate US power for years to come;
- The US will continue to control the Republican Palace –
Iraq’s White House – despite the demand of Iraq’s
new “sovereign” president for the Americans to hand
it over;
- US taxpayers will continue to pay more than all of the coalition
nations combined for Iraqi security and reconstruction by a margin
of 120 to 1;
- The majority of Iraqis want US troops to leave Iraq, believing
that the troops are an obstacle to security, not a source of it.
A year and a half ago the coalition cautioned that a pre-emptive
war in Iraq would make America less safe while costing the taxpayers
billions. To date, 857 American soldiers have been killed and the
taxpayers have spent over $150 billion.
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