Teachers and the war

Many Americans would be surprised to learn that among the most important constituencies backing the Bush administration’s disastrous agenda in the Middle East and promoting anti-Arab policies has been the one million-strong American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The AFT leadership has gone so far as to make a series of public statements and push through resolutions with demonstrably inaccurate assertions in its defense of administration policy. A key constituent union of the AFL-CIO, the AFT – which also represents a significant number of health care and other public service workers – gives over $5 million in contributions to congressional candidates each election cycle.

In January 2003, as anti-war activists were scrambling to prevent a U.S. invasion of Iraq war by challenging the Bush administration’s claims about Iraq having reconstituted its chemical and biological weapons capability, offensive delivery system, and nuclear weapons program, the AFT’s executive council decided to weigh in on the debate.

The AFT executive council issued a public statement claiming that Iraq at that time posed “a unique threat to the peace and stability of the Middle East” and “to the national security interests of the United States.” This decision to parrot the Bush administration’s rhetoric regarding Iraq’s alleged military capabilities flew in the face of substantial evidence gathered from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN Special Commission on Iraq, and the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission. In addition, testimony by former UN arms inspectors, articles in scholarly journals by arms control experts, reports by investigative journalists, and analyses by independent research institutes available at that time cast serious doubts on such allegations.

The vote for this resolution was not unanimous. A number of members of the executive council – such as Barbara Bowen, president of AFT’s large local at City University of New York (CUNY) – raised concerns over the credibility of the claims made by war supporters in the administration and on Capitol Hill regarding the alleged Iraqi threat. These dissenters were overwhelmed, however, by those on the council who fell in line with the Bush administration. Instead, the majority of the AFT executive council relied exclusively on the opinions of current and former government officials.

At the subsequent biannual convention in 2004, members passed a resolution strongly condemning the Bush administration for misleading the American public on Iraq. However, AFT officials have quietly acknowledged that it was actually the testimony of Senator Hillary Clinton before a meeting of labor leaders in 2002 that played a major role in convincing them that there was still an ongoing Iraqi threat. Her misleading claims notwithstanding, however, the AFT has gone on to actively support her presidential campaign.

Despite admitting they were wrong about Iraq’s supposed military threat, the AFT leadership has refused to apologize for making such false and reckless statements and, despite demands from the rank-and-file, have refused to make public any change of procedure so to minimize the risk of issuing such false statements on important national security issues in the future. Indeed, the union leadership’s eagerness to back the Bush administration’s phony claims of an “Iraqi threat” was only the beginning of its support for the Bush Middle East agenda.

Continued Support for the War

Once U.S. forces invaded and occupied Iraq and the Bush administration admitted that Iraq had not failed to disarm, it became apparent that the AFT leadership’s expressed concern about Iraqi WMDs was not the only motivation for supporting a U.S. conquest and occupation of that