Sammi Alaá, representative of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance, addressing the Rome demo of March 20, 2004

Today it is exactly one year that Anglo-American imperialism attacked Iraq in open violation of international law. They tried to justify their war claiming that Iraq would possess arms of mass destruction, would have links to Al-Qaida and would not co-operate with the United Nations.

Today we can state that nothing, absolutely nothing of what Bush and Blair said was true. They dropped more than 20.000 precision bombs, 240.000 cluster bombs, 10.000 conventional missiles and more than 800 cruise missiles Tomahawk on the innocent Iraqi people – a people exhausted by more than twelve years sanctions imposed by the UN which cost the lives of some two million Iraqis. Nobody knows the exact figures of that cynical massacre. As the American general Franks put it: "We do not count the dead." But there are people who count them like Noam Chomsky. He said that the policy of the US government have been costing the lives of some 30 million people since the end of World War II.

When the war lies of the aggressors were unveiled, they started to make up stories about the reconstruction and the liberation of Iraq. But how one can speak of liberation and democracy while more than 200.000 occupation troops are in Iraq? The only liberation one can speak of in Iraq is that the imperialists liberated themselves from any juridical and moral obstacle.

What is the reality in Iraq?

The occupation force has dismantled the Iraqi state and its institutions with brutal consequences: 80% of the Iraqis are without employment and the public sector including education, health care and welfare does not exist any more. The only thing left operative is the petrol industry which is supplying high quantities of oil. The revenue are directly transferred to the so-called Iraqi Development Fond controlled by the occupation force. The "reconstruction" is nothing else than a giant imperialist pillage in the form of privatization of the entirety of the Iraqi state. And that is exactly what this war was all about.

On this base it is not hard to understand that the Iraqi people resist the occupation.

The Iraqi resistance is a natural and legitimate reaction against occupation. It is exclusively directed against the occupation force, its institutions and its collaborators. Among this stratum of collaborators there is first of all to be named the parties forming the Governing Council including the Iraqi Communist Party. Their main task is to justify the war of aggression led by the Americans as well as the occupation of Iraq and to pacify the resistance of the Iraqi people against occupation.

There is no nation in the world who accepts occupation. There is resistance in Iraq, in Palestine and in Afghanistan. As long as occupation will continue, so will resistance. No occupation power quit voluntarily the territory occupied by them. This is a fact of history ranging from Europe in the 40s, passing by Algeria of the early 60s to Lebanon in the 80s.

The Iraqi resistance is wide-spread, popular and growing. Its forces do not stem from nothing. The historic and cultural heritage of Iraq has played an important role. The occupants behave as if the county did not give birth to two civilizations. The Iraqi people has decided to chase away the occupations forces led by the Americans as they did with their British predecessors in 1920 and 1958 who also stole the Iraqi petrol.

In order to justify their armed aggression on Iraq the imperialist mass media did not only cynically demonize the regime of Saddam Hussein but the entire Baathist experience, the Pan-arabist aspirations and with them the honor of the Iraqi people.

After the tragic events of March 11 in Madrid, the mass media leads a campaign of satanisation of any resistance against imperialism including the Iraqi one. But the Spanish people did not believe the lies of the Aznar government. They were vigilant and transformed the parliamentary elections into a referendum on the war and on the occupation directed by Aznar.

When the rulers and their media accuse the Arab resistance or ETA, the left must analyze the situation and ask who is interested in killing innocent people. These attacks were no matter of fight against imperialism and they do not serve a progressive cause. They do only serve those conducting the "war on terror", that is the most reactionary forces of the world.

The American war on terror does not hesitate to apply all means necessary to obtain its aim: to strengthen and enlarge the economic, political and cultural dominance of American imperialism in the world.

One year ago we have been struggling against the war. Today we fight its prolongation, the occupation. Therefore the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance supports the just resistance of our people against occupation – a resistance which encourages all the people of the world struggling to liberate themselves from imperialist oppression, first of all the people of the Middle East threatened by Zionism.

Noam Chomsky said: "Imperialism can bring humanity to the tomb. Its up to the people to avoid this to arrive."

Occupation will be put to the dustbin by the people of the world and only resistance will last in the memory of the people!