We also know that complete withdrawal is not a victory; especially not for the Iraqi people who have experienced merciless terror since the first surge of US troops arrived there in March 2003, marking the beginning of an illegal war and occupation that has killed over 1,000,000 Iraqi men, women and children and has also displaced millions.

In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the world that the reasons for the war was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's alleged support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." – President George W. Bush’s Radio Address on March 22, 2003.

The world now knows that there were absolutely no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq and that this illegal war is being waged for the purpose of robbing, at gun point, the Iraqi people of their oil.

And it was the arrogant assumption by the imperialist that they should determine what weapons a non-European state can acquire in its defense against the reinstatement of Euro-American colonial domination.

This is the basis of US and western imperialism’s antagonisms and hostile actions toward the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Iraqi-Kuwaiti region is home to some of the world’s largest oil fields.

One oil field in particular that lies at the base of this war is the Rumaila oil field; a giant oil field located in southern Iraq, approximately 20 miles from the Kuwaiti border.

In April of last year, the field was subcontracted to British Petroleum (BP) and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).

Within the next six years, BP and CNPC intend to raise the oil production at Rumaila to make it the second largest oil field in the world.

The violence that the US has unleashed in Iraq is part of a US foreign policy stance toward Iraq that has been in existence since the 1990 Gulf War; a war that had much to do with who controlled the Rumaila oil field.

The US offensive in Iraq was also meant to establish american hegemony throughout the Middle East and in Central Asia. That would have totally encircled Russia.

It would have given the United States control of oil and gas of the former Soviet Asian Republics.

And it would have blocked China from access to the world's biggest sources of energy; thereby allowing the US to reassert itself as the dominant world power.

Innocent men, women and children have died for nothing more than money and power; for the strengthening and continuance of US imperialism.

There is, and never was, a threat to world peace; at least not on the part of the Iraqi people.

The US and Britain fabricated a sense of danger and foreboding doom to ensure that they maintained their control over the majority of the world’s people.

And this is why Obama won’t send ALL of the US troops home, NOW!

According to media reports, the US forces remaining in Iraq will “train, equip, and advise the Iraqi security forces, to protect US civilian personnel in Iraq, and to conduct targeted counter-terrorism operations on its own and in conjunction with the Iraqi forces.”

Although the people resisting the U.S. occupation and neocolonial government are being painted as terrorists, the fact is they are Iraqi patriots who are resisting the terror or foreign domination.

What is true, though, is that US forces will remain in Iraq to protect US and imperialist centers.

About 2,400 civilian U.S. employees will work out of the new american embassy in Baghdad - the largest embassy in the world - and four other so-called diplomatic sites.

The “non-combat” troops that have remained will be allowed to use their weapons in “self-defense” or at the “request” of the Iraqi government.

The US will also rely on about 7,000 security contractors who will guard U.S. diplomatic facilities and protect U.S. personnel, as well as carry out tasks currently done by the military.

And by December 31, 2011 - the stated goal of drawing down US forces in Iraq to zero - Obama will come up with more reasons for the sustained US presence there.

Even now, part of the US government’s continued presence in Iraq is being rationalized as a response to the “power vacuum” following Iraq’s March 7 parliamentary elections.

Iraqis don’t need the US’s help to “stabilize” their own country. They never did.

What the Iraqi people need is an end to US aggression, imperialist intervention and occupation, NOW!

Join with the Black is Back Coalition, for Social Justice, Peace, and Reparations in a national March and Demonstration against the Obama wars, scheduled for November 13, 2010 in Washington, D.C. For more information go to blackfood.org/store/2010/08/23/black-is-back-demonstration-november-23rd/