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Reasons Why We Are Still Marching - A Message from the Stop the War Coalition.

1. The country has been invaded in a war of conquest not liberation. Iraq is to be occupied by the US military, headed up by Jay Garner, a pro Israeli retired general who is unelected and unaccountable to any of the Iraqi people. The main Iraqi figurehead proposed by the Americans is the convicted fraudster Ahmed Chalabi, a banker who has not lived in Iraq for 45 years, whose close links with the CIA make him their ideal candidate. The country will be run as a colony of the west.
   
   
2. The war is by no means over. There is still fighting in many parts of the country, the Kurds have entered Kirkuk in the north, there is massive instability. Bombing of Tikrit is still going on. Reports of celebrations are both exaggerated and premature. The situation for most Iraqis is one of misery as they face shortages of water and food, hospitals overflowing, and still a massive danger of death and injury from fighting.
   
   
3. This was wrong before it started and it remains wrong. It is illegal,immoral and unnecessary. The reasons for the war were given as the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Not a single WMD has been found, even though many of the sites which were identified as containing them have been visited. Even if any are found to exist in the future, the conduct of the war makes it clear that the Iraqi regime did not, as claimed, intend to use them.
   
   
4. The Americans and British showed their war aims by early on taking over the 600 oil wells. The reconstruction of Iraq will be carried out mainly by US companies. There is much talk of the oil becoming the property of the Iraqi people but all the signs are that revenues from the oil will be used to feed the profits of the construction companies.
   
   
5. The Stop the War Coalition was formed to fight against the 'war on terrorism' launched by George Bush after 11 September 2001. We have seen successive wars in Afghanistan and now in Iraq. Already Donald Rumsfeld is talking about future attacks on Syria and Iran. George Bush's axis of evil speech over a year ago also targeted North Korea as a possible future victim.
   
   
6. The anti war movement remains the biggest movement this country has seen for generations. Anti war opinion is still very substantial. Meetings against the war in recent days have attracted record audiences, with 1000 people in Liverpool, over 300 in Cardiff and 200 in Croydon. The sentiment in these meetings is very strongly anti war and very sceptical about the motives of the British and American governments. The demonstration on Saturday 12 April will be a very large protest against the slaughter and against the occupation of Iraq. It is also an international day of action against war, with demonstrations in 38 countries.