A Decade of Terrorism Against Iraqi Civilians

1) Sanctions may have produced temporary hardship for the Iraqi people, but aren’t they an effective, nonviolent method of containing Iraq?

Sanctions target the weakest and most vulnerable members of the Iraqi society-the poor, elderly, newborn, sick, and young. Many equate sanctions with violence. The sanctions, coupled with pain inflicted by US and UK military attacks, have reduced Iraq’s infrastructure to virtual rubble. Oxygen factories, water sanitation plants, and hospitals remain in dilapidated states. Surveys by the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the World Health Organization (WHO) note a marked decline in health and nutrition throughout Iraq. (1)

While estimates vary, many independent authorities assert that at least 500,000 Iraqi children under five have died since 1990, in part as a result of the sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War. An August 1999 Unicef report found that the under-five mortality rate in Iraq has more than doubled since the imposition of sanctions. (2) Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Denis Halliday has remarked that the death toll is "probably closer now to 600,000 and that’s over the period of 1990-1998. If you include adults, it’s well over 1 million Iraqi people." (3)

The United Nations recently observed:

In addition to the scarcity of resources, malnutrition problems also seem to stem from the massive deterioration in basic infrastructure, in particular in the water-supply and waste disposal systems. The most vulnerable groups have been the hardest hit, especially children under five years of age who are being exposed to unhygienic conditions, particularly in urban centers. The [World Food Program] estimates that access to potable water is currently 50 percent of the 1990 level in urban areas and only 33 percent in rural areas. (4)

The UN sanctions committee, based in New York, continues to deny Iraq, medical equipment, computer equipment, spare parts, and air-conditioned trucks, all necessary elements to sustaining human life and society. (5) Agricultural and environmental studies show great devastation, in many cases indicating permanent and irreversible damage. (6)

Others have argued that, from a North American perspective, sanctions are more economically sustainable than military attacks, since sanctions cost the United States less. In fact, hundreds of millions of US tax dollars are spent each year to sustain economic sanctions. Expenses include monitoring Iraqi import-export practices, patrolling the "no-fly" zones, and maintaining an active military presence in the Gulf region. (7) Sanctions are an insidious form of warfare, and have claimed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

2) Iraq possesses, and seeks to build, weapons of mass destruction. If unchecked, and without economic sanctions, isn’t it true that Iraq could, and certainly would, threaten its neighbors?

According to former United Nations Special Commission (Unscom) chief inspector Scott Ritter, "[F]rom a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has been disarmed. Iraq today possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction." While it is certainly possible that Iraq has the seed stock to rebuild its purported arsenal, Ritter has said that Iraq does not currently possess the capability to produce or deploy chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. (8)

The United States only became concerned with Iraq’s military potential in 1990, after the invasion of Kuwait. The US supplied Iraq with most of its weapons. Just one day before Iraq invaded Kuwait, then-President George Bush approved and signed a shipment of advanced data transmission equipment to Iraq. The United States and Britain were the major suppliers of chemical and biological weapons to Iraq in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, in which the United States supported both sides with weapons sales. (9)

Finally, the United States possesses, and keeps on alert, more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined. Many Iraqis and much of the international community feel that it is disingenuous of the United States-sitting atop the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, refusing to comply with international treaties or allow its weapons programs to be inspected by international experts, and being the only nation in the world ever to drop an atomic bomb-to tell Iraq what it can and cannot produce. In 1998 and 1999, the United States bombed four countries-Serbia, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan-all in violation of international law.

3) But hasn’t Iraq acted in violation of UN resolutions? The United States certainly has not.

UN Resolution 687, paragraph 14, calls for regional disarmament as the basis for reducing Iraq’s arsenal. By arming Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East, the US is contravening the same UN resolution with which it maintains arguments for sustaining the sanctions. Israel possesses more than 200 thermonuclear weapons and has violated scores of UN mandates, yet the US remains silent on the UN floor with regard to this violation of international law. (10)

While the United States claims to be encouraging peace in the Middle East by destroying Iraq’s arsenal, it continues to arm Iraq’s neighbors. The list of consumers of American military technology-in the Middle East and elsewhere-reads like a "who’s who" of international terrorists, human rights violators, and dictators. The US supplies Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran with weapons and technology. All are Iraq’s neighbors and could potentially threaten its borders. US contractors also supplied most of the weapons used by the Indonesian military in its invasion and occupation of East Timor. (11)

4) Isn’t US intervention through patrol of the no-fly zones essential to protect Kurdish people in the north and Shi’ite people in the south?

In fact, Iraqis living under the no-fly zones are anything but protected. Civilians are frequently injured, killed, or rendered homeless by weekly and sometimes daily US-UK bombings.

Acknowledging numerous civilian casualties, the US and British forces in 1999 switched to bombs carrying concrete, instead of explosives for use near populated areas in the North. (12) In the South, bombs continue to carry explosives.

Hans von Sponeck, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq from 1998-2000, conducted an independent investigation of civilian damage from several US-British no-fly zone airstrikes in the north and south in 1999, finding 144 people killed and 446 injured that year. (13)

The bombing also complicates the humanitarian efforts of the United Nations. Aid workers have been forced to cancel trips into Kurdish and Shiite regions, and many civilians have been accidentally wounded, further burdening hospitals that are struggling to cope with daunting incidences of illness and preventable disease.

What’s more, the Kurds in northern Iraq have been subjected to occasional invasions by the Turkish army and air force, as a part of their campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Last year, American and British pilots began to express frustration over the double standard:

[O]n more than one occasion [American and British pilots have] received a radio message that "there was a TSM inbound"--that is, a "Turkish Special Mission" heading into Iraq. Following standard orders, the Americans turned their planes around and flew back to Turkey.

"You'd see Turkish F-14s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with munitions," [American pilot Mike Horn] said. "Then they'd come out half an hour later with their munitions expended."

When the Americans flew back into Iraqi airspace, he recalled, they would see "burning villages, lots of smoke and fire." (14)

5) Doesn’t Iraq hoard goods that come into the country? And doesn’t the regime prevent humanitarian goods from reaching their designated recipients, diverting them instead into the black market?

We often hear reports that Iraq is stockpiling desperately needed medicines and other humanitarian goods. Hans von Sponeck is very clear on this issue, "It is not—I repeat, is not, and you can check with my colleagues—a premeditated act of withholding medicines from those who should have it." (15)

The problems Iraq faces in distributing medicines, as von Sponeck has laid out, are as follows:

1. There are many steps involved in procurement, causing delays and sometimes over-ordering of the same goods;
2. There’s not enough transportation;
3. The warehouses in the provinces are in bad shape;
4. The Security Council does not allow cash from the oil revenues of the program into the hands of the Iraqi authorities, so there are no funds to pay for distribution infrastructure; and
5. The pay for medical warehouse workers is insufficient, forcing them to look elsewhere to try to cover the needs of their household. (16)

There have been reports of UN approved medicines turning up in Jordan and the Kurdish region of Iran. However, it is not reasonable to judge the priorities of the Iraqi government on the actions of a few enterprising people who choose to profit at the expense of the poor and suffering Iraqi civilians. The vast majority of the humanitarian goods let into the country are not diverted to the black market.

6) Isn’t it true that Saddam Hussein’s regime fills its coffers with revenue from smuggling and then refuses to spend the money on their own people?

Intelligence sources estimate that Saddam Hussein illegally earns between
$500 million and $800 million per year selling oil on the black market (17) Even if that money was being devoted solely to constructive measures, it would not even begin to meet Iraq’s needs. Reconstructing essential infrastructure will cost $50 to $100bn, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, discussing the matter last year. (18)

Moreover, based on what we know about spending in pre-sanctions Iraq, if given complete control of their oil and other revenue, Iraq would again invest large amounts in the education and health of the majority of its people. Of course, Iraq’s pre-sanctions record of upholding essential economic and social rights of its people should be considered alongside, not in place of, its extreme violation of the civil and political rights of minority groups and dissidents and its military priorities. But it should simultaneously be recognized that the sanctions make the United Nations and its member states a party to the repression of the Iraqi people.

7) How do you explain Iraq’s recent slow pace in ordering supplies for health, education, water, sanitation, and oil equipment through the Oil for Food program?

The Oil for Food program runs in six-month phases. Gross revenues from oil sales for Phase VIII (June 9 – December 5, 2000) ran to 9.564 billion. After deductions for war reparations and UN expenses 6.4 billion was left for the purchase of humanitarian supplies.

By the January 15^th, 2001 the Program had received only $4.265 billion worth of contracts for humanitarian supplies for Phase VIII and Oil for Food's Executive Director, Benon Sevan, noted that 'the total value of contracts received under the health sector was only $83 million, against the $624 million allocated for that sector under Phase VIII.

He was, he said, "gravely concerned with regard to the unacceptably slow rate of submission of applications" in other sectors. (19)

A Voices in the Wilderness UK delegation raised this issue with Mr. Tun Myat, the current United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, in mid-January 2001, who suggested that:

Part of the problem lay with inadequate stock control systems in Iraq (needing new computers blocked by the Sanctions Committee) and with over-ambitious plans for Samarra Drug Industries, Iraq's domestic pharmaceutical production facility.

Confident in their ability to produce drugs domestically, officials had under-ordered medicines. (20)

Mayat explained this phenomenon further in a recent interview with Reuters:

"The real reason is nothing sinister," he said. It all boils down to a new Iraqi law from last October [2000], which eliminates the role of middlemen in supplying contracts to those sectors. "Many ministries here took time to readjust their purchasing procedures, sources of supplies and identification of suppliers," Myat said. "And this is probably the main reason why some of the ministries have fallen very badly behind." (21)

8) Shouldn’t all of that excess oil revenue be used by the Iraqi government to improve the humanitarian situation in the country?

Mainstream press seldom reports that Iraq’s oil revenue is placed in an escrow account controlled by the UN Security Council and that some of the surplus funds in this account are the result of logjams created by Security Council refusal to approve certain contracts.

The volume of blocked items reached $3bn in February 2000 (22)--the highest ever. UN documents from February, 2000 state that The UN Security Council's 661 Sanctions Committee recently placed 32 new contracts valued at $107.8 million on hold, water treatment and electro-mechanical equipment, pipes, valves, a television transmitter, and medical machines. (23)

While the value of holds is greatly exceeded by the value of approved contracts, it is important to note that in many cases, when Iraq must purchase goods from foreign suppliers, items come in pieces. So it is possible (and common) that an item worth $2m could be put on hold, preventing essential infrastructure repairs worth billions.

What’s more, Iraq has no control over the quality of the goods that do make it into the country under the Oil for Food agreement, since the goods are paid for in advance of shipment. It is not uncommon for suppliers to take advantage of Iraq’s peculiar situation and send poor quality food and other goods.

9) How can we expect to make any meaningful change in Iraq policy if Iraq rejects out of hand whatever alternatives come to the table?

The US government characterizes Iraq’s rejection of new proposals as evidence of the Government of Iraq’s refusal to cooperate with measures intended to help their own people. Recent proposals, including the incremental easing of sanctions conditional on Iraq’s compliance with disarmament guidelines, and the more recent "smart sanctions," do not address the most urgent needs of the Iraqi people who have endured massive suffering for more than ten years.

Moreover, none of the recent proposals allow Iraq to control it’s own money. Instead, all profits from oil sales would continue to go directly into an escrow account, controlled by the UN Sanctions Committee, based in New York. This arrangement has only compounded the already monumental difficulties Iraq faces in repairing and maintaining critical infrastructure, such as the much degraded agricultural, electrical, and oil sectors.

10) Would putting an end to all limits on non-military goods coming into Iraq put an end to hardship for Iraqi?

If ordinary Iraqi people don’t acquire greatly increased purchasing power, greater availability of supplies and commodities won’t necessarily help them meet their needs. Presently, Iraqi people who are employed are paid low wages in a greatly devalued currency. To provide ordinary families with purchasing power will require refloating the Iraqi economy to generate employment* and to restore the value of the Iraqi Dinar. This requires repair of Iraq’s badly deteriorated infrastructure, especially the oil sector. We’re told repeatedly that such undertakings demand massive investments of public and private monies. It’s hard to imagine that the government of Iraq could manage such investments and repairs if it does not have control over its own oil revenues.

* An estimate given by von Sponeck in 2000 suggested an unemployment rate topping 60%. It is difficult, however, to gage accurately as an increasing number of ordinary Iraqi’s are employed through the black market.

11) What is a realistic alternative to the current policy?

The alternative to economic sanctions is termination. Termination combined with capital investment to enable the Iraqi Government to rebuild the country's capacity for electric power that is essential for the potable water, sanitation and health care, required (as in any modern urbanized country) to keep children and adults alive and well. Likewise capital is needed for all the other sectors of the economy from transportation through agriculture, industry through education and technology. (24)

Any alternative policy would have to take into account the welfare of ordinary Iraqi people, who have suffered dramatically under more than ten years of a failed policy of depravation and violence, and not just the political interests of the United States and its allies.

Only with a refloating of the economy, can the well being of the people and children improve, apart from those families and individuals irreparable damaged. Irreparably damaged by the loss of a child, chronic malnutrition and consequent retardation, leukemia or some other terrible cancer caused by USA/UK use of Depleted Uranium/plutonium in the Gulf War. The end of social chaos, disruption of Islamic family values and positive change in governance to a more democratic system, may take longer in that the negative impact of the Economic embargo is simply not fully understood in the UN and the USA/UK. The so-called humanitarian programme - Oil for Food - could begin to provide the complex wherewithal to take Iraq out of the infrastructural ruin caused by American bombing. Only restoration of the Iraqi economy can end the death and destruction of Iraqi society, and its people.

The isolation and alienation of Iraq, its people and its economy must be ended to restore this international partner, sadly once so cozy to the USA and others when the tragic war against Iran was applauded and actively supported in the "West". Now Iraq must be allowed and facilitated to play a positive part in international affairs. Domestically, Iraq must improve its human rights record and end violations, and institute arrangements for the Kurds to be an integrated and prosperous part of the country's economy. Iraq must rebuild its relationship with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and others in the Region. The Government of Iraq has work to do. It must allow the people of Iraq to make their own choices and in due course, and with restoration of middle class and those with professional capacities we may see political change. (25)

A first step towards such a policy would be the beginning of a "confidence-building process, initially at a low level and behind closed doors, with all protagonists at the table." (26)

An alternative policy should also be concerned not only that Iraq’s acquiring weapons of mass destruction, but with those countries and corporations who seek to arm Iraq for profit.

The United States and other members of the Security Council must also take partial responsibility for the arming of Iraq in the decades leading up to the Gulf War as well as the enormous suffering of the Iraqi people since the Gulf War in the name of Iraq’s disarmament.

Notes

1. See Unicef and Government of Iraq Ministry of Health, Child and Maternal Mortality Survey 1999: Preliminary Report (Baghdad: Unicef, 1999). Available online at http://www.unicef.org. See also WHO Resource Center, Health Conditions of the Population in Iraq Since the Gulf Crisis (Geneva: WHO, 1996). Available online at http://www.who.int.

2. See Unicef press release, "Iraq Survey Shows ‘Humanitarian Emergency,’" August 12, 1999 (Cf/doc/pr/1999/29).

3. Matthew Rothschild, interview with Denis Halliday, The Progressive 63: 2 (February 1999): 26.

4. United Nations, "Report of the Second Panel Pursuant to the Note by the President of the Security Council of 30 January 1999 (S/1999/100), Concerning the Current Humanitarian Situation in Iraq," Annex II, S/1999/356, March 30, 1999, p. 6, article 20.

5. For a list of the holds, See UN Office of the Iraq Program wesbite, http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/.

6. See Dr. Peter L. Pellett, "Sanctions, Food, Nutrition, and Health in Iraq" (pp. 151-68) and Dr. Huda S. Ammash, "Toxic Pollution, the Gulf War, and Sanctions" (pp. 169-178), in Anthony Arnove ed., Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, (Cambridge: South End Press, 2000) for references to several of these studies.

7. The US spent more than $1 billion just to operate its bombing campaign against Iraq in 1999. See Steven Lee Myers, "In Intense But Little-Noticed Fight, Allies Have Bombed Iraq All Year," New York Times, August 13, 1999.

8. Fellowship of Reconciliation, interview with Scott Ritter, Fellowship 65: 9-10 (September- October 1999): 13.

9. See Noam Chomsky, "‘What We Say Goes’: The Middle East in the New World Order," in Collateral Damage: The ‘New World Order’ at Home and Abroad, ed. Cynthia Peters (Boston: South End Press, 1992), pp. 61-64 and references; Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: Harper- Collins, 1999); Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, updated ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), p. 152; Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Conflict (New York: Routledge, 1991); and Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine (Boston: Northeastern UP, 1996).

10. UN Security Council Resolution 687, paragraph 14. All UN resolutions cited are available online at http://www.un.org. See Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel, America, and the Bomb (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 198-99, and Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia UP, 1998).

11. See Noam Chomsky, East Timor and the Western Democracies (Nottingham: Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 1979), p. 2, and Matthew Jardine and Constâncio Pinto, East Timor’s Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance (Boston: South End Press, 1996).

12. Steven Lee Meyers, "Defter Weapon Against Iraqis: Concrete Bomb," New York Times, October 7, 1999, p. A1.

13. FAIR Action Alert, "New York Times on Iraq Airstrikes: Zero Dissent Allowed," February 23, 2001

14. Thomas E. Ricks, "Containing Iraq: A Forgotten War; As U.S. Tactics Are Softened, Questions About Mission Arise," The Washington Post, October 25, 2000.

15. Hans Von Sponeck, "Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility Delegation Report," April 5, 1999

16. Ibid

17. Pamela Hess, "Iraq smuggling oil into Turkey," UPI, February 18, 2000

18. The Economist Intelligence Unit, "Iraq Country Outlook," Country View, July 13, 2000 (http://www.eiu.com/latest/376171.asp).

19. "UN worried by Iraq's failure to spend oil income," Agence France Presse, January

18, 2001

20. See VitW UK’s website

21. "Iraqi oil-for-food no substitute for sanctions end," Reuters, January 30, 2001.

22. Anne Penketh , "Easing of Iraqi Sanctions Will Make Little Difference, Says UN," The Independent, February 21, 2001

23. "Weekly Update 28 April - 4 May, 2001," United Nations Office of the Iraq Programme Website (http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/wu08May01.html).

24. Dennis Halliday, "Iraq Policy – Alternatives to Sanctions and Bombing," Red Pepper, February 2001.

25. Ibid

26. H.C. von Sponeck, "Iraq: International Sanctions and What Next?," Middle East Policy Journal, October 4, 2000.

Older Versions of "Myths and Realities"
1. Sanctions

2. Myths and Realities II

3. Myths and Realities from Iraq Under Siege

[Voices in the Wilderness]