"As an example of the work of the Resistance we might mention that the
total losses of the occupation for the year 2003 since the declaration
of the end of military operations on 1 May is 3,245 killed; 3,434
wounded; 1,011 vehicles destroyed; 55 railroad cars; 55 helicopters; 4
transport planes; 3 F-16 airplanes; 5 military boats; 83 blasted oil
pipelines; 98 attacks on military camps. The enemy has kept silent
about these losses. They are the targets of the Resistance, and
attacking them is its mode of operation. Let this serve as a warning
to the companies that intend to work in Iraq under American tutelage.
It is a warning also to those countries that intend to send their
soldiers to Iraq. The Iraqi Resistance has issued a warning on this
matter, so its conscience is now clear as regards any further
consequences. Hereafter, whoever desires to die in defense of the
Halliburton Corporation or Bush or Rumsfeld, let him come forward!"


Complete Declaration:

Who is the Iraqi resistance?

Iraqi Communist Party (cadre) contribution to the Iraqi resistance
demo in Vienna, Jan 17, 2004


The Situation in Iraq

Comrades! Friends!

When Baghdad fell, we wept with grieving hearts. We Iraqis are always
grieving; we have grieved since remote antiquity. But our grief is the
grief of lions. And the lion does not change its nature, whatever
injury and affliction he has suffered. Perhaps it is for this reason
that God has chosen to test us with the enormity of the Anglo-Zionist
occupation of Baghdad. Baghdad was occupide and we wept. We shed
tears. But our grief has come to an end or has been set aside as the
lions of Shan`ar are springing to attack in an offensive that will be
remembered for generations. This attack will one day allow the world
to breathe a sigh of relief, when the enemy has been defeated, and the
small will lead the great in exclaiming, Lord, how beautiful the world
has become!

As you know the Iraqi regime was allied with America in the period of
the 1970s and 1980s. The US therefore supported it with all sorts of
products of its armaments industry including chemical weapons. The
link between the Iraqi President and US presidents Carter, Reagan, and
Bush before the 30-nation aggression against Iraq in 1990 was Rumsfeld
and Dick Cheney. Cheney's companies supplied Iraq with poison gas
technology. In view of this fact, the current American Administration
decided to edit the statements of Saddam Hussein before presenting
them to any court, if, in fact, they ever do take him to any court.

In 1990 the American Administration decided that Saddam Hussein had
rebelled against them and used Iraq's attempt to regain Kuwait as an
excuse. It mobilized the armies of thirty states, most of them
mercenaries looking for crumbs from the American table, and struck
Iraq. The US thereby declared the
beginning of a new age in international relations: an age
characterized by the following:

1. The supremacy of the logic of power over the logic of dialogue, or
as the Americans call it "trouble shooting" in their international
relations. The role of the United Nations was canceled any time it got
out of American control. America became like a spoiled child who must
be given whatever he wants even if it's your own head, and you have no
right to call him to account or judge him, particularly since he will
take it upon himself to tell you "sorry."

2. Reckless defense of one state – "Israel" – against all peoples.

3. Spreading silly claims such as that of "anti-semitism",
"terrorism", "fundamentalism", "clash of cultures", and so forth.

4. That is to say, in sum, the US returned the world to the primitive
law of the jungle, negating, thereby, the laws and norms and all that
humanity had acquired over the course of its civilized career.

Based on the logic of force and threat against the countries that
disobeyed America, the US imposed an embargo on Iraq for 13 years, and
two million children and elderly persons died as a result. Cases of
cancer and deformity still appear by the dozen and will continue to
appear so long as the depleted uranium remains in Iraq's soil. Let
everyone be assured that the embargo was imposed on Iraq not because it
possessed weapons of mass destruction but because it destroyed them
and refrained from using them despite what America says. This is the
truth which the world will soon discover simply by trying Saddam
openly in The Hague and not in Guantanamo!

During the embargo the militariat of America and of its little lap dog
Britain prepared to invade Iraq. Despite what the weapons inspectors
of the United Nations said about Iraq having no weapons of mass
destruction, despite what Iraq said, the most ferocious and
anti-people capitalist and the sincere student of the secret world
government, Richard Butler, was the most rabid advocate of killing the
children of Iraq, the most lying in his claims about weapons. He was,
in any case, a servant at the beck and call of his master and
functioned in the framework of the preparations for the invasion.
Ignoring what the peoples of the world declared in their many-million
demonstrations in nearly every country on
the globe, and oblivious to the resolution of the United Nations
rejecting war, the Americans invaded Iraq. They imagined, as a group
of traitor stooges had told them, that the Iraqis would greet them
with flowers and incense.

In the first days of the invasion the aggressors encountered the
fierce resistance of the Iraqis in defense of their homeland, whether
in the south of the country or on the outskirts of Baghdad where at
the Battle of the Airport 900 invaders died in a matter of a few
hours, most of them beaten to death. As a result, the American
aggressors resorted to the use of poisoned gas, killing some Iraqi
soldiers as others
withdrew to act on the final plan which was to engage in guerrilla
warfare. In this way the invaders entered Baghdad.

What is the situation now, after the occupation and since Bush
announced the end of military operations in Iraq? Today unemployment
is rampant. Poverty now afflicts not less than 70 percent of the
population. Inflation is rampant. There are shortages of basic goods,
up to the shortage of oil in Iraq, the land of oil. Chaos has slit the
tendons of the society and thieves, pimps, and white slavers are
running wild, to the extent that there are fixed prices for virgins and
non-virgins as determined by the market law of supply and demand. In
the past, in the days of Saddam "the dictator" whom the Americans came
to "free the Iraqi people" of, only persons involved in politics had
reason to be afraid. But today, after our so-called "liberation" (!!!)
not only politicians, but everyone alive, in particular the women, are
afraid. Women do not dare to go out into the streets for fear of being
kidnapped and sold on the white slave market. For your information,
the price of a virgin is $400; the price of a non-virgin is $200, or
so, depending on how old she is!!

So it is. And as we know, security is the responsibility of the
occupier, according to international convention. But the occupier,
after the Iraqi army was disbanded, has been incapable even of
protecting itself. Meanwhile a handful of no-account opportunists who
go by the name of the so-called "Governing Council" sit under the
occupier's butt and sing his praises, even as they torture and rob at
will, take bribes, sell favors, and trade in appointments for
patronage. In the last five months of the career of the so-called
"Governing Council" the amount of bribes changing hands has exceeded
$4 billion.

The Americans came in violation of international law, in violation of
the will of the Iraqi people. The came as invaders. They occupied our
country. The destroyed our scientific and educational institutions,
our infrastructure, and all that we built throughout the history of
the modern Iraqi state. They ruined all the gains that our people have
achieved in social
and cultural advance. Today they have pushed us back centuries, and
they will continue to push us even further back in order to control
us. They came and occupied our country and now they demand that we pay
the bill for this occupation which brought us a corrupt Council,
afflictions, and suffering. So far, Iraq is indebted to the United
States for $180 billion
– the direct cost of the war. In addition to that they have assessed
against us, from now until whenever God frees us from this, a charge
of $10 billion per month. To both of these figures must be added the
interest which they do not omit to charge, and in addition to all that
they are charging Iraq $100
billion as "reparations" to go to Iran for the costs of the First Gulf
War. On top of this, the Halliburton Company paid one night's
commission of $25 million to Condaleezza Rice, just in order to secure
her help in getting the contract for rebuilding the port of Umm Qasr
and the Diyala Bridge. The best example of the behavior of Halliburton
– in which company Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have large shares – is
perhaps the story of how Halliburton opened bidding for the rebuilding
of the Diyala Bridge. A group of Iraqi companies came forward offering
to rebuild the bridge for $300,000. But Halliburton gave the contract
to an American company at a cost of $53 million!!

Then there is the example of the Iraqi institutions that have no
relation to warfare or weapons, such as, for example the civil
registry bureaus, the real estate offices, land registry institutions,
tax bureaus, offices of pious endowments (awqaf), educational
departments. No one knows why these were destroyed or burned down. It
is as if this were some vengeance being exacted for the Babylonian
invasion that the Americans want to settle scores for.

After all this, we, you, and the entire world know that the Americans
came to invade Iraq, to control the region's resources, and thereby to
control the world and subjugate all the world's people. In other
words, the Americans want to shed our Iraqi blood in order to rule the
world, to conquer it and to conquer us together.

No one can see so much as a glimmer of light in this, neither today
nor a century from now. According to this plan, people in Iraq are
supposed to butcher one another for the sake of a crust of bread. In
light of this prospect, there is no hope for the Iraqi people except
by resorting to armed struggle. This is to say nothing about the fact
that we are dealing here with the occupation of something great and
sacred, that is: the homeland. This is to say nothing of the fact that
we are dealing here with a violation of our basic dignity and honor.

The Resistance, therefore, has begun.

What is the Iraqi Resistance and what does it want?

What does the Resistance want? To put it simply, it wants to expel the
occupiers. To kick the occupier out of Iraq one way or another – in a
coffin or carrying one. To go out carrying a coffin is what the
American troops themselves prefer, as do their mothers, wives,
children, the American and British people and all people of the earth.
This is easy to accomplish and the sooner the better, simply because
nobody wants any soldier to be killed for the sake of Bush or Rumsfeld
or the Halliburton Corporation.

The task of the Resistance and its legitimate goals are:

1. To prevent the enemy occupier from exploiting any of Iraq's wealth,
in particular, its oil. There must be no export, no utilization. What
the Resistance is hitting are the oil pipelines to the outside world,
not the internal pipelines. The gasoline and fuel crisis in general is
something generated by the occupation, for they steal the oil and ship
it to the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border or the Iraqi-Saudi border and then come
back and sell it as if it were fuel imported from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.

2. Preventing the occupation from deriving benefit from any work
contracts that it has signed with Halliburton or other companies. All
the contractors and all the specialists who work for these companies
are legitimate targets for the Resistance.

3. Every Iraqi who cooperates with the occupation or whose work will
benefit the occupation is a legitimate target of the Resistance. We
mean by that the Governing Council, its ministers, and even the Iraqi
translators who accompany the occupation forces.

4. The occupation army, its supplies, and anything or anyone that
could serve it, such as technical specialists, or civilian workers or
non-civilian workers. They too are direct targets of the Resistance.

5. The military arena for the Iraqi Resistance is the state of Iraq
within its known borders. Therefore, Iraqi stooges and collaborators
with the occupation are a permanent target of the Resistance. The
occupation troops and their military and civilian interests are
targets only within Iraqi borders. Every soldier or dependent on the
occupation who leaves Iraq, just one meter from the Iraqi borders is
no longer a military target. The struggle against him will be a part
of the general struggle against colonialism and imperialism. It is a
struggle such as that being waged today in Europe, a peaceful,
struggle of ideas and institutions only.

As an example of the work of the Resistance we might mention that the
total losses of the occupation for the year 2003 since the declaration
of the end of military operations on 1 May is 3,245 killed; 3,434
wounded; 1,011 vehicles destroyed; 55 railroad cars; 55 helicopters; 4
transport planes; 3 F-16 airplanes; 5 military boats; 83 blasted oil
pipelines; 98 attacks on military camps. The enemy has kept silent
about these losses. They are the targets of the Resistance, and
attacking them is its mode of operation. Let this serve as a warning
to the companies that intend to work in Iraq under American tutelage.
It is a warning also to those countries that intend to send their
soldiers to Iraq. The Iraqi Resistance has issued a warning on this
matter, so its conscience is now clear as regards any further
consequences. Hereafter, whoever desires to die in defense of the
Halliburton Corporation or Bush or Rumsfeld, let him come forward!

Who is the Iraqi Resistance?

It is the entire people of Iraq.

There is also the noteworthy presence of the Baath Party, of Salafi
Islamists, in addition to the left, independents, and others.

The Baath.
The Baath today accounts for about 30 percent of the body of the
Resistance. It was under the direct command of Saddam Hussein. There
is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a harsh dictator who repressed his
opposition without mercy. During his rule individuals rose up who were
unworthy and unskilled. These are things that cannot be excused or
ignored regardless of what happens. But on the other hand, since the
1990s Saddam Hussein has been true in his stance against America. He
led battles in defense of Iraq during the
invasion and led many of the battles after the occupation, the last
being the battle that lasted 30 hours and in which 260 enemy of
various ranks were killed and dozens of their vehicles destroyed. The
enemy was unable to get to him until they used narcotic gasses, and it
was only then that they were
able to take him alive. In order to humiliate, frustrate, and reduce
the morale of the Resistance they presented him in the manner that the
world witnessed. In fact, there is no connection between him and the
"nest" about which they spoke nor the date palm whose fruit ripens in
July. After he came back to his senses, as the no-account Bremer and
as Myers said "he is threatening and not cooperative with the
investigation."

Saddam Hussein's firm and true stances, although they do not wipe out
his mistakes before the war, devolve to his credit now.

Saddam was, until his capture, an important part of the liberation
equation. He is Iraqi and Iraq, the first country on earth to devise
laws and legislation, is the one entitled to make an accounting of him
for his past deeds. Saddam and the issues of his rule and the regime
are purely internal Iraqi issues. In no way do they call for the
occupation of Iraq. In other words, Iraq is not only Saddam Hussein,
and the alternative to the toppling of Saddam Hussein is not the
occupation of Iraq.

The presence of the Baath with the Resistance does not and will not
mean the return of the Baath to power. In general, the liberation will
not lead to the return of one party, for there is no wisdom in this,
nor is it justified nor is there anyone calling for this. The matter
of the Baath returning to power is
basically absolutely not on the minds of the fighters or the patriotic
political figures. The basic task is liberation.

There are members of the Baath today who lead an important part of the
Resistance, but this is not for the sake of returning to power but to
expel the occupation. This is the truth. And the martyrdom fighters
are the proof! What does the martyrdom fighter seek? Does he seek a
return to power too? Is that "return to power" supposed to be in this
world or
in the hereafter?

The Islamists.
In this connection we, the Iraqi Communist Party (Cadre) have already
declared our renunciation of atheism, and our recognition of the
existence of the Creator. This has no relation to the Qur'an, or the
New Testament, or the Torah. This is our conviction which we have
reached, and is derived entirely from the laws of Marxism.

In the Iraqi national Resistance, Islam plays an important, and
perhaps the greatest role. There are Shiites and Sunnis and there are
also the Salafis. The Salafis in the common understanding of that term
are the most vehement fundamentalists in terms of the implementation
of the teachings of religion and in taking that which the Salaf (the
first generation of the Muslims) thought and did as the criterion for
practice and the source for teaching, regardless of the distance in
time that separates us from the era of that early generation.

But this conception of the Salafis is not, as we have come to
understand, exactly correct. It would be somewhat justified if we were
speaking about the situation during the last decades of the 20th
century, when religious concerns were limited to (or when some people
wanted to limit them to) how to grow your beard, how to wrap your
turban, how to make your ablutions and what are the things that
require ablution, etc. But these are the practices of the period of
the Cold War when the Islamic religion was given one role and one role
only, namely to be the ally of world imperialism. Its job was to wage
the most violent struggle possible against Communism and the national
liberation struggles, so that after they were defeated it could
retreat to the mosques and forever stay out of politics.

The experience of Usamah bin Ladin, and the activity that we see today
on the part of those who clearly call themselves Salafi, and whom we
also call Salafi, totally contradicts that common concept of what the
Salafis are like. Instead there is a brilliant new conception of the
term Salafi emerging today which will have the greatest role to play
in coming decades. The new conception has washed away the nonsense
that accumulated in our thinking about the Salafis.

Today we see that the Salafi movements are the pioneers in the
struggle against imperialism. They have the best understanding of its
essence. They have the best organization and are the most intense
enemies of imperialism and are also its most dangerous adversary among
all the movements in the world. They are the most inspired by the
Jihadi struggle and spirit of self sacrifice in that cause. They
inspire the most precise battlefield planning to the extent that they
have frustrated all imperialism's schemes and tricks as they fight the
foe. What a clear, bright jihadi face these Salafis have! And it is
the Americans who have stirred up the Salafis in the world, and Shaykh
Usamah bin Ladin is their witness to this.

The Americans said about Shaykh Usamah that he is a hero and militant
struggler for freedom. But that was only when he fought the Soviet
Union. Now when he demands the rights of his homeland and people, he
has become a "terrorist." For everyone's information, the 11 September
attack in America cannot be legally regarded as terrorism because
America and al-Qa`idah had already declared war on each other and
neither the United Nations nor anyone else objected. Striking at
interior lines in a horrific way that does not spare civilians or the
infrastructure is something that the Americans do, as evidenced by the
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and as evidenced by all the
strikes launched against the poor Afghan people, eliciting as a
response nothing but the word "sorry." We could also review what
happened in Italy and elsewhere. The point is that striking against
internal lines and targeting cities is an American practice. If Usamah
bin Ladin responded to that, then it was only by way of giving
tit-for-tat, nothing more.

From another point of view, we Communists are naturally disposed,
inclined, and ranged against imperialism. We have an unwavering
hostility to it. We are locked in a life-and-death struggle against
it. This is based on a simple argument, namely that we represent the
oppressed on the earth, that we speak on their behalf, and on behalf
of all the people and peoples who love freedom and peace. We are
opposed and we fight also against all forms of exploitation and
slavery. There is no avoiding the fact that our basic enemy is whoever
exploits and enslaves the people, who occupies their land, and lives
like a clot in their blood. The one who exploits the people, who
occupies their land and sucks their blood is imperialism – America and
"Israel" – and those who stand behind or with them. That is to say,
our only, primary, and basic enemy is imperialism and Zionism, and we
are their gravediggers. They fight us, and we fight them. There can be
no relaxation, or laxity, or coexistence with them, if we are truthful
when we say that we represent the people and the oppressed.

Aside from this, America itself has presented us with a choice: either
itself or the peoples. America does not hesitate to say that Iraq is
their battlefield in the struggle against terrorism. It does not
hesitate to consider anyone who resists them, who does not conform to
their position, a terrorist who must be uprooted. Since they know full
well how well organized are the Salafis, and how intense their Jihadi
ethic is, and how serious their battlefield plans are, the
imperialists direct all their energies at fighting them, in particular
their propaganda and psychological energies, and their abilities in
the realm of the information revolution. We must beware of this, in
particular after the way America singled out the renegades from
Communist principles, those who did not understand anything about
Communism other than to stamp their approval on whatever Moscow – the
giver of blessings – decreed. Today those renegades defend Washington
with the same fulsomeness and intense love that they used to defend
Moscow. If anyone wants to check this he can pick up some of the
traitorous, Abu Righal literature of the renegade Hamid Majid and
substitute the word Moscow for Washington and he will see whether he
can notice any difference.

In sum, we, Salafis and secularists are allies bound by a holy
alliance in the cause of the liberation of Iraq. That on which we
agree brings us together. That over which we differ cannot divide us.
That over which we differ is just one thing, and that is that both of
us have our own vision of what is to come after we attain the current
goal, which is now the liberation of Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan.
The vision of one of us is not the opposite of the vision that the
other has. For the truth is like the Kaabah, it can be approached from
numerous directions. In accordance with the Salafi staying "my opinion
is correct but might contain error, and the opinion of my opponent is
an error that might contain truth."

To be more precise and clear we might say "we religious people, the
Salafis and the non-Salafis, the Baathis, the Arab Nationalists, the
Communists, and all secular patriots, regardless of ethnicity or
confession, the Iraqis among us and the non-Iraqis are one. We are
bound by one sacred alliance. Our enemy is one, and that is
imperialism and its offspring, Zionism. Our current aim is the
liberation of Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan."

On this basis the Iraqi national Resistance is not scared by and no
one must be scared by the calling of names such as "terrorist", or
"anti-semitic" or such like nonsense. If Anglo-zionist imperialism
left the world alone to live as it wanted and to determine for itself
its own relations, terrorism would never have arisen nor would anyone
have had need for it. In that case the peoples would definitely have
determined their interrelations with one another on one basis,namely
coexistence, love, and peace. Civilized, secular, democratic Europe
which you know, this Europe will be called by the Americans what they
call Usamah bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein – "terrorist" and a "spoiler
of civilization" if the European peoples should come to notice the
large number of American bases on European soil and demand that they
leave or be reduced in number.

Finally, on the soil of Iraq the destiny of the world, or at least of
the Third World, is now being decided. If the Iraqi Resistance wins,
American tyranny will be brought to an end for ever. But if the
Americans win, the world has no hope for freedom or peace, and the
peoples of the Third World will have no hope for liberation. In that
case, oppression, injustice, and permanent slavery will be inscribed
upon the land by a handful of capitalist bloodsuckers. This definitely
is the prospect that must compel you, noble citizens,to take a stand
with the people of Iraq in their time of trial and struggle with the
invaders!

Long live liberated Iraq!
Death to the invaders!
Long live Europe without American bases, and without American tutelage
over its peoples and policies!
Long live the peoples!
Long live world peace!