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Posted: October 30, 2001

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Bleeding The Gulf
The United Nations Sanctions on Iraq

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
 
    II.I Genocide through Economic Warfare
    II.II Oil for Food or Oil for Blood?
    II.III The Objective of the Sanctions: Paying the Price
    II.IV. An Illegal Policy
    III.I Weapons of Mass Destruction: Permissible for Our Clients
    III.II Weapons of Mass Destruction: Reserving the Right
    III.III The United Nations Weapons Inspections
    III.IV Inspections or Intelligence Gathering?
    III.V The Ongoing War
    III.VI U.S. Objectives
 

“[A] war of collective punishment, a war of mass destruction directed at the civilian population of Iraq. The UN, at the insistence of the U.S., and contrary to international conventions and treaties, has created, in Iraq, a zone of misery and death - with no end in sight... The toll of these sanctions on an entire generation of Iraqi children is incalculable. What are the implications of Iraqi children growing up traumatised by hunger and disease, if they survive at all? How can the deeds of one leader or even an entire government be used to justify this unprecedented, internationally sanctioned violation of human rights?... The devastating effects continue to harm the environment, agricultural production and health of the Iraqi people significantly.”

(Catholic Worker Magazine, January/February 1998)

 
Introduction

This paper is a detailed assessment of the sanctions on Iraq, their history, their effects, and the objectives behind them. The paper systematically examines and refutes the official justifications for the sanctions policy and reveals its devastating impact on the lives of the Iraqi people. Using official reports, it documents the escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq under the UN sanctions regime, and exposes the international community’s unconscionable complicity in an ongoing tide of genocide, undertaken falsely in the name of humanitarianism. It also analyses the variety of myths employed to veil the reality of the crisis in Iraq - and Western responsibility for it - from the public. The paper finally assesses the sanctions regime in context with an ongoing Western military strategy against Iraq, thus clarifying the political, economic and strategic objectives of policy. In this manner, the theory that Western policy towards Iraq has any genuinely humanitarian basis to it is fundamentally contested, and the challenge these facts hold for the idea of the general benevolence of world order under U.S./Western hegemony is fundamentally challenged. It is hoped that this paper clarifies the utter failure of the contemporary world order to genuinely implement ethical values, to protect human rights, to foster self-determination, to create a just and peaceful world community. Given the atrocious scale of the Western-imposed humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, and the variety of successfully propagated Orwellian myths created to veil this catastrophe from the general public, the relevance of the concept of a global “civil society” for understanding the actual structure of world order is extremely questionable. We are living today in a world based fundamentally on the twin prongs of power and greed, vices that have come to penetrate almost all aspects of policy. Unless this obvious fact is recognised by the academic community, that community will totally fail to understand reality beyond the construction of endless theories that have little relevance in capturing the patterns of historical and current affairs which can be empirically discerned. The facts details here have immense implications in this respect that must be taken into account if we are to genuinely understand international relations, and thus forge a peaceful and just world.

I. The U.S.-UN Sanctions on Iraq

On 2 August 1990, the United Nations Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq in response to its invasion of Kuwait. The sanctions prohibited all imports into Iraq and all exports from Iraq, unless the Security Council permitted exceptions. A Select Committee of the UK House of Commons described the sanctions regime as  “unprecedented in terms of longevity and its comprehensive nature”.[1] A spokesman from the U.S. State Department similarly described these sanctions as “the toughest, most comprehensive sanctions in history”. Since 1990, as a consequence of the Allied bombing campaign combined with the UN sanctions, the vast majority of the inhabitants of Iraq have suffered from a severe and prolonged deterioration in their standards of living.

In violation of international law, the United States - which is primarily responsible for the international community’s policies towards Iraq - was fully aware of the devastating effect of both the bombing campaign against Iraqi civilian infrastructure and the sanctions regime. Recently released internal U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents reveal that the United States anticipated the dire civilian health consequences of destroying Iraq’s drinking water and sanitation systems in the Gulf War. The documents also illustrate U.S. awareness that sanctions would prevent the Iraqi government from repairing the degraded facilities, and lead to the inevitable destruction of the Iraqi water system, resulting in a devastating humanitarian crisis for the Iraqi people.

The primary document on the subject, dated January 1991, outlines explicitly how sanctions will block Iraq’s citizens from access to clean water leading to dire health consequences:

“Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals to purify its water supply, most of which is heavily mineralized and frequently brackish to saline. With no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease.”

The document goes on to note that the quality of untreated water in Iraq “generally is poor”, and that the consumption of such water “could result in diarrhea.” Iraq’s rivers “contain biological materials, pollutants, and are laden with bacteria. Unless the water is purified with chlorine, epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid could occur.” Yet as the document points out, under the UN sanctions regime the importation of chlorine “has been embargoed... Recent reports indicate the chlorine supply is critically low.” Not only water, but food and medicine will inevitably be affected: “Food processing, electronic, and, particularly, pharmaceutical plants require extremely pure water that is free from biological contaminants.”

Addressing potential countermeasures to obtain drinkable water that could be adopted by the Iraqi government during the sanctions regime, the document finds that they cannot be effective:

“Iraq conceivably could truck water from the mountain reservoirs to urban areas. But the capability to gain significant quantities is extremely limited. The amount of pipe on hand and the lack of pumping stations would limit laying pipelines to these reservoirs. Moreover, without chlorine purification, the water still would contain biological pollutants. Some affluent Iraqis could obtain their own minimally adequate supply of good quality water from Northern Iraqi sources. If boiled, the water could be safely consumed. Poorer Iraqis and industries requiring large quantities of pure water would not be able to meet their needs.”

The use of rainwater is also out of the question:

“Precipitation occurs in Iraq during the winter and spring, but it falls primarily in the northern mountains, it says. Sporadic rains, sometimes heavy, fall over the lower plains. But Iraq could not rely on rain to provide adequate pure water. Iraq could try convincing the United Nations or individual countries to exempt water treatment supplies from sanctions for humanitarian reasons. It probably also is attempting to purchase supplies by using some sympathetic countries as fronts. If such attempts fail, Iraqi alternatives are not adequate for their national requirements.”

The ultimate effect of the UN sanctions regime therefore constitutes a humanitarian disaster. The U.S. document admits that the lack of clean water will lead to dangerous health problems, including potential epidemics, until the entire water system will be effectively destroyed under the internationall U.Sposed sanctions regime:

“Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water… Iraq’s overall water treatment capability will suffer a slow decline, rather than a precipitous halt. Although Iraq is already experiencing a loss of water treatment capability, it probably will take at least six months (to June 1991) before the system is fully degraded.”[2]

This and other DIA documents highlighting the impact of the sanctions have been discussed at length by Professor Thomas J. Nagy, of the School of Business and Public Management at George Washington University. Another January 1991 document, for instance, dealing with “Effects of Bombing on Disease Occurrence in Baghdad” admits that: “Increased incidence of diseases will be attributable to degradation of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/ distribution, electricity, and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks. Any urban area in Iraq that has received infrastructure damage will have similar problems.” The probable outbreaks include typhoid, cholera, and “acute diarrhea” due to bacteria such as E. Coli, shigella, and salmonella, or by protozoa such as giardia, or by rotavirus, all of which will affect “particularly children”.[3]

A February 1991 DIA document elaborates that under the sanctions regime:

Conditions are favorable for communicable disease outbreaks, particularly in major urban areas affected by coalition bombing… Infectious disease prevalence in major Iraqi urban areas targeted by coalition bombing (Baghdad, Basrah) undoubtedly has increased since the beginning of Desert Storm… Current public health problems are attributable to the reduction of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification and distribution, electricity, and the decreased ability to control disease outbreaks.”

The most likely diseases during “the next sixty-nine days (descending order” are “diarrheal diseases (particularly children); acute respiratory illnesses (colds and influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly children); measles, diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children); meningitis, including meningococcal (particularly children); cholera (possible, but less likely).”[4]

A March 1991 document similarly finds that:

“Communicable diseases in Baghdad are more widespread than usually observed during this time of the year and are linked to the poor sanitary conditions (contaminated water supplies and improper sewage disposal) resulting from the war. According to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)/World Health Organization report, the quantity of potable water is less than 5 percent of the original supply, there are no operational water and sewage treatment plants, and the reported incidence of diarrhea is four times above normal levels. Additionally, respiratory infections are on the rise. Children particularly have been affected by these diseases… Conditions in Baghdad remain favorable for communicable disease outbreaks.”[5]

A March document describes the impact of the sanctions regime on Iraqi refugee camps:

“Cholera and measles have emerged at refugee camps. Further infectious diseases will spread due to inadequate water treatment and poor sanitation… The main causes of infectious diseases, particularly diarrhea, dysentery, and upper respiratory problems, are poor sanitation and unclean water. These diseases primarily afflict the old and young children.”[6]

A heavily censored June document reveals that a DIA official was sent “to assess health conditions and determine the most critical medical needs of Iraq. Source observed that Iraqi medical system was in considerable disarray, medical facilities had been extensively looted, and almost all medicines were in critically short supply.” In one refugee camp named Cukurca, the source found that “at least 80 percent of the population” has diarrhea, and that “cholera, hepatitis type B, and measles have broken out.” The document further observes that the protein deficiency disease kwashiorkor was found to be active in Iraq “for the first time… Gastroenteritis was killing children… In the south, 80 percent of the deaths were children (with the exception of Al Amarah, where 60 percent of deaths were children).”[7]

The United States, in other words, was clearly aware that sanctions would devastate the water treatment system of Iraq, resulting in increased outbreaks of disease and high rates of child mortality. According to the 1979 protocol, Article 54 of the Geneva Convention:

“It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.”

Yet this is exactly what the United Nations has done and continues to do under U.S. leadership, through an illegal sanctions regime that deprives the Iraqi people of the basic necessities for survival. This has been admitted even by members of the U.S. Congress. For example, referring to one of the declassified DIA documents cited above, U.S. Representative Cyntha McKinney, Democrat of Georgia, addressed a 7 June 2001 House hearing as follows: “Attacking the Iraqi public drinking water supply flagrantly targets civilians and is a violation of the Geneva Convention and of the fundamental laws of civilized nations.”[8] As Professor Thomas Nagy thus notes:

The sanctions, imposed for a decade largely at the insistence of the United States, constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention. They amount to a systematic effort to, in the DIA’s own words, ‘fully degrade’ Iraq’s water sources… For more than ten years the United States has deliberately pursued a policy of destroying the water treatment system of Iraq, knowing full well the cost in Iraqi lives.” [9]

Of course the role of the Iraqi government in exacerbating the devastating impact of sanctions cannot be denied. As the London-based Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) reports:

“[The government’s] problems were greatly exacerbated by imposition of economic sanctions in 1990, but the Iraqi government has continued to manage - or mismanage-economic and fiscal policy, deploying increasingly scarce resources to its own advantage and that of favoured groups. The government took some steps to provide a safety net in the form of basic rations, often meagre and of low protein content, but nonetheless preventing mass starvation. It has evidently used this system politically as a means to increase the dependence of the population and as a form of control.”[10]

Yet this in no way absolves the Western powers under U.S. leadership of their principal responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe currently racking Iraq under the UN sanctions regime. Even without the Iraqi government’s mismanagement and corruption, sanctions would continue to contribute to the devastation of civilian life in Iraq. But even disregarding this fact, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime would compromise the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people to maintain its own survival. Indeed, Western understanding of this elementary fact only illustrates that the international community expected UN sanctions, combined with internal corruption, to devastate Iraq, yet went ahead with them regardless. As a British House of Commons International Development Select Committee points out:

“The reasons sanctions were imposed in the first place were precisely the untrustworthiness of Saddam Hussein, his well documented willingness to oppress his own people and neighbours, his contempt for humanitarian law. The international community cannot condemn Saddam Hussein for such behaviour and then complain that he is not allowing humanitarian exemptions to relieve suffering. What else could be expected? A sanctions regime which relies on the good will of Saddam Hussein is fundamentally flawed.”[11]

There can be no surprise then that the United Nations attributes the suffering in Iraq not principally to the Iraqi government, but to the sanctions regime. In 1997, the UN Human Rights Committee found that: “[T]he effect of sanctions and blockades has been to cause suffering and death in Iraq, especially to children.”[12] In 1998, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reported that: “[T]he embargo imposed by the Security Council has adversely affected the economy and many aspects of daily life, thereby impeding the full enjoyment by the States party’s population, particularly children,of their rights to survival, health and education.”[13] The Humanitarian Panel of the Security Council similarly confirmed in 1999 that: “Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of the war.”[14] Towards the end of 2000, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that it “believes that the current sanctions regime is having a disproportionately negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights by the Iraqi population. OHCHR considers that the time has come for the extent and nature of the sanctions regime on Iraq to be reexamined.”[15] The United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights further issued a Resolution in August 2000 outlining the direct link between sanctions and the Iraqi civilian population’s suffering, and affirmed that it was “considering any embargo that condemned an innocent people to hunger, disease, ignorance and even death to be a flagrant violation of the economic, social and cultural rights and the right to life of the people concerned and of international law.” The UN human rights body further referred to the 1949 Geneva Conventions which “prohibit the starving of civilian populations and the destruction of what is indispensable to their survival”, and accordingly “decided, without a vote, to appeal again to the international community, and to the Security Council in particular, for the embargo provisions affecting the humanitarian situation of the population of Iraq to be lifted.”[16]

II. The Impact of the Sanctions

II.I Genocide through Economic Warfare

Rick McDowell of the Chicago-based organisation Voices in the Wilderness (VW), visited Iraq in late May 1997, as part of a delegation in support of a campaign to end the U.S.-supported UN economic sanctions against Iraq. For the sixth time since January 1991 the delegation had travelled to Iraq, this time nearly six months after the UN ‘Oil for Food’ Resolution 986. The delegation visited hospitals in Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra. Members met with UN and relief officials, doctors, government workers, religious leaders, and Iraqis from all walks of life. Instead of improvements in the availability of food and medicine the delegation “found, instead, a deterioration of all conditions necessary for the sustenance of life. Travelling to Iraq for the third time in nine months, I encountered a resigned hopelessness amongst the people, a population historically known for its resilience.” A decade of “the most comprehensive sanctions in modern history have reduced Iraq and its people to utter destitution”, observed McDowell. “The United Nations Security Council’s economic sanctions, invoked only ten times since the inception of the United Nations, and applied eight times since the end of the Cold War, constitute an extension of the devastating Allied bombing campaign of 1991.”[17]

UN figures show that more than 1.7 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the sanctions. British and American government officials publicly deny that sanctions have contributed to the suffering in Iraq. Yet as time has passed, the state of Iraq has steadily degraded, as documented in successive UN reports. In 1995 UNICEF reported:

“Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq... What has become increasingly clear is that no significant movement towards food security can be achieved so long as the embargo remains in place. All vital contributors to food availability - agricultural production, importation of foodstuffs, economic stability and income generation, are dependent on Iraq’s ability to purchase and import those items vital to the survival of the civilian population.”[18]

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported in September 1995 that:

“Famine threatens four million people in sanctions-hit Iraq - one fifth of the population - following a poor grain harvest... The human situation is deteriorating. Living conditions are precarious and are at pre-famine level for at least four million people... The deterioration in nutritional status of children is reflected in the significant increase of child mortality, which has risen nearly fivefold since 1990.”[19]

The World Health Organization (WHO) observed in March 1996 that: “Since the onset of sanctions, there has been a six-fold increase in the mortality rate for children under five and the majority of the country’s population has been on a semi-starvation diet.”[20] The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported in the same year that: “4,500 children under the age of 5 are dying each month from hunger and disease... The situation is disastrous for children. Many are living on the margin of survival.”[21] A year later in April 1997, UNICEF in association with the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), reported that: “One out of every 4 Iraqi infants is malnourished... Chronic malnutrition among children under five has reached 27.5 per cent. After a child reaches two or three years of age, chronic malnutrition is difficult to reverse and damage on the child’s development is likely to be permanent.”[22] Six months on, UNICEF noted that: “32 percent of children under five, some 960,000 children are chronically malnourished - a rise of 72 per cent since 1991. Almost one quarter... are underweight - twice as high as the levels found in neighbouring Jordan and Turkey.”[23] By April 1998 the situation had deteriorated further:

“The increase in mortality reported in public hospitals for children under five years of age (an excess of some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is mainly due to diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. In those over five years of age, the increase (an excess of some 50,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney diseases.”

Approximately 250 people die every day in Iraq due to the effect of the sanctions, the UNICEF report added.[24]

The UN’s Department of Humanitarian Affairs reports that Iraq’s public health services are nearing a total breakdown from a lack of basic medicines, lifesaving drugs and essential medical supplies. The lack of clean water (50 per cent of all rural people have no access to potable water) and a collapse of water treatment facilities in most urban areas are contributing to the rapidly deteriorating state of public health. The prohibition of critical items under the sanctions has meant that Iraq lacks the spare parts and minerals essential to the task of repairing and maintaining its water and sewage treatment facilities. Because of this, the condition of many Iraqis is barely improved at all, even by the food they receive. The untreated water is contributing immensely to disease and death.

“Since 1991, hospitals and health centers have remained without repair and maintenance. The functional capacity of the health care system has degraded further by shortages of water and power supply, lack of transportation and the collapse of the telecommunications system. Communicable diseases, such as water borne diseases and malaria, which had been under control, came back as an epidemic in 1993 and have now become part of the endemic pattern of the precarious health situation, according to WHO.”[25]

As airborne and waterborne diseases are on the rise, deaths related to diarrhoea diseases have tripled in an increasingly unhealthy environment. There has also been a dramatic increase in childhood cancers, including leukaemia, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, congenital diseases and deformities in foetuses, along with limb reductional abnormalities and increases in genetic abnormalities throughout Iraq, which may also be linked to the use of depleted uranium during the Persian Gulf War by the Western allies. The children born since the Gulf War suffer in silence, often without access to painkillers, drugs, antibiotics or hope. Some childhood cancers realised an 80 per cent cure rate prior to sanctions. Following the imposition of sanctions, without cancer-fighting drugs, the survival rate for children with these same cancers is 0 per cent.[26] All this related to the comprehensive collapse of Iraq’s infrastructure:

“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 WFP estimates that access to potable water is currently 50% of the 1990 level in urban areas and only 33% in rural areas.”[27]

Due to the absence of hard currency the economy of Iraq, estimated to have the second largest oil reserves in the world, has collapsed. Average public sector wages for the few in employment have fallen to less than $5 per month, while hyper inflation has resulted in astronomical rises in the price of goods. Prior to sanctions, the Iraqi dinar was worth $3. By May 1997 this was reduced to $.000625. While skilled workers, including doctors and engineers, have deserted their jobs to become taxi drivers or cigarette salesmen, Iraqi professionals are also leaving the country in increasing numbers. With an estimated 80 per cent of Iraqis affected by sanctions, families have been forced to take recourse to selling household and personal possessions just to buy food and medicine. This has been accompanied by the disintegration of the social fabric, as evidenced by the widespread rise in begging, street children, crime and prostitution. The UN’s Humanitarian Panel reported to the Security Council in 1999:

“… the cumulative effects of sustained deprivation on the psycho-social cohesion of the Iraqi population… the following aspects were frequently mentioned: increase in juvenile delinquency, begging and prostitution, anxiety about the future and lack of motivation, a rising sense of isolation bred by absence of contact with the outside world, the development of a parallel economy replete with profiteering and criminality, cultural and scientific impoverishment, disruption of family life... UNICEF spoke of a whole generation of Iraqis who are growing up disconnected from the rest of the world.”[28]

Rick McDowell cites several examples of the dire situation faced by Iraqi civilians. One young doctor at a Baghdad hospital summed up Iraqi feelings in a sentence: “Our life is over.” Another doctor asked the delegation, “What does your country gain from our suffering?” He makes 3,000 dinar a month - equivalent to $2 - although he has practised for eight years. Yet, a single bottle of milk for his children costs 3,500 dinars. An Iraqi reporter is quoted as despairingly stating, “the world is upside down, nothing makes sense anymore, it’s all gone mad.” McDowell refers to “the pain in the eyes of the mothers who wait in hospitals, with their children - for far too many mothers it is a death watch.”[29]

As a consequence, Iraq “has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty” according the United Nations. “The data provided to the panel point to a continuing degradation of the Iraqi economy with an acute deterioration in the living conditions of the Iraqi population and severe strains on its social fabric…

“… In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23% of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under five years of age, only 41% of the population have regular access to clean water, 83% of all schools need substantial repairs. The ICRC states that the Iraqi health-care system is today in a decrepit state. UNDP calculates that it would take 7 billion U.S. dollars to rehabilitate the power sector country-wide to its 1990 capacity.”[30]

The UN Humanitarian Panel further notes that the alleviation of these conditions can only be achieved by a complete revival of the Iraqi economy, which entails the removal of the sanctions regime: “The humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn cannot be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts.”[31] Indeed, the UN admits that it is principally because of the sanctions that the Iraqi people are suffering: “[T]he Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the security council and the effects of the war.”[32]

In terms of providing an objective assessment of the sanctions regime in Iraq, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the policy has resulted in genocide. As Sean Gondalves reports: “Denis Halliday, former U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, and his successor Hans von Sponeck both resigned in protest of the sanctions, calling them genocidal. Add to that list Scott Ritter, chief UNSCOM inspector in Iraq, the pope and 53 U.S. Catholic bishops.”[33] Head of the Middle East programme at the New York-based Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Abdullah Mutawi, elaborates that:

“Genocide has been unambiguously defined in international law as one of a number of acts, including killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm with intent to destroy -in whole or in part - a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. It is no longer too controversial to suggest that the sanctions policy against Iraq has targeted a ‘national group’ which has lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths -not to mention the countless number who have suffered serious bodily and/or mental harm. All humanitarian agencies, UNICEF included, now freely admit to this. This leaves us with intent .It is inconceivable that the effects of combining a large scale military devastation of civil infrastructure with a sanctions policy unprecedented in its comprehensiveness, could not have been foreseen. Even if it can be argued that there was no intent at the outset, once the manifestations became obvious, intent can be said to have formed… The Harvard Study Team and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights demonstrated in 1991 and 1996,respectively, the connection between malnutrition, the loss of civil infrastructure (most notably water and sanitation facilities) and excess child deaths. Given all this information, how can it be said that there was no intent?”[34]

II.II Oil for Food or Oil for Blood?

UN Security Council Resolution 986, issued on 14 April 1995, called on the international community to implement an ‘Oil for Food’ programme in Iraq. The exact nature of the programme was established in an agreement between the UN Secretariat and the Iraqi government from May 1996. The programme, which came into effect in December 1996, allows Iraq to export oil and use a portion of the money raised to purchase basic goods from other countries. However, the ‘Oil for Food’ programme was never meant to be an adequate substitute for the independent functioning of the Iraqi economy. Security Council Resolution 986 refers to the programme as a “temporary measure”. As noted in the March 1999 report of the UN Humanitarian Panel to the Security Council, “in order for Iraq to aspire to social and economic indicators comparable to the ones reached at the beginning of the decade humanitarian efforts of the kind envisaged under the ‘oil for food’ system alone would not suffice and massive investment would be required in a number of key sectors, including oil, energy, agriculture and sanitation”. Indeed, ‘Oil for Food’:

“… can admittedly only meet but a small fraction of the priority needs of the Iraqi people… [T]he magnitude of the humanitarian needs is such that they cannot be met within the context of the parameters set forth in resolution 986 (1995) and succeeding resolutions, in particular resolution 1153 (1998). Nor was the programme intended to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people… [The sanctions regime] does not contribute to stimulate the economy and has an indirect negative impact on agriculture, while increasing State control over a population whose private initiative is already under severe constraints of an internal and external nature.”[35]

As a consequence, ‘Oil for Food’ has not prevented the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. The 1999 report of the UN Humanitarian Panel to the Security Council observes that:

“The gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated. Irrespective of alleged attempts by the Iraqi authorities to exaggerate the significance of certain facts for political propaganda purposes, the data from different sources as well as qualitative assessments of bona fide observers and sheer common sense analysis of economic variables converge and corroborate this evaluation.”

The report finds that even if ‘Oil for Food’ works perfectly, “the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn cannot be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts.”[36]

By the end of May 1997, Iraq had exported 120 million barrels of oil but had received only 692,000 metric tons of food - 29 per cent of what had been expected under the deal according to the WFP. Of the 574 contracts submitted to the Sanctions Committee for exports of humanitarian supplies to Iraq, 311 were approved, 191 placed on hold, 14 blocked, and 38 were awaiting clarification. Of the $2 billion in Iraqi oil revenue authorised for a six-month period, 30 per cent is designated for war reparations, 5 to 10 per cent for UN operations, 5 to 10 per cent covers maintenance and repair of the oil pipeline, and 15 per cent is earmarked for humanitarian supplies for the Kurdish population in northern Iraq. Only the minimal amount of $800,000 is available for Central Southern Iraq, which is equivalent to approximately 25 cents per person per day for food and medicine.[37]

Since all 15 members of the sanctions committee must approve contract applications made by the Iraqi government, the arbitrary obstruction of entirely legitimate contracts has become a routine aspect of ‘Oil for Food’. The UN Secretary-General's report of 29 November 2000 warns that such holds are:

“… certainly one of the major factors that are impeding programme delivery in the centre and south. Current holds on such sectors as electricity, water and sanitation and agriculture impact adversely on the poor state of nutrition in Iraq. Similarly, holds on trucks badly needed for transportation of food supplies may soon affect distribution of food rations, which is also compounded by collapsing telecommunications facilities.”[38]

It is noteworthy that such obstructions from the international community have continued to increase in number, and in proportion to the total value of contracts. Indeed, 20 per cent of holds by value were established entirely without any reason given by the holding missions.

In light of these horrifying facts, the ‘Oil for Food’ resolution that is so often cited by Western governments as the sign of their commitment to the Iraqi people, and the international instrument through which the needs of Iraqis could be adequately met, is completely insufficient. Even assuming that food distribution is adequate, the devastation of the Iraqi economy means that the population continues to starve. When Tun Myat, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, returned to New York last October after spending six months in Iraq, he noted that escalating poverty nullifies the ongoing distribution of food:

“The food distribution system... now ensures that under the new Distribution Plan over 2,470 kcal of energy of food is being made available to every man, woman and child in the country... but the fact is, of course, people have become so poor, in some cases, that they can’t even afford to eat the food that they’ve been given free because for many of them, the food ration represents the major part of their income... they have to sell it in order to buy clothes and shoes or hats or whatever other things that they would require. So the sort of upturn in nutrition that we would all want to be seeing is not happening.”[39]

In his June 2000 report, the UN Secretary-General noted that “clean water and reliable electrical supply are of paramount importance to the welfare of Iraqi people”.[40] Such basic needs cannot be provided through the imports allowed to Iraq under ‘Oil for Food’. The programme does not provide for critically needed parts to repair Iraqi water sanitation and medical infrastructure, both of which were devastated during the Gulf War. Indeed, the importation of such basic items as chlorine, fertilisers and pencils is prohibited.

Thus, at the beginning of 1997, the World Health Organization reported on the escalation of the humanitarian crisis despite ‘Oil for Food’:

“Iraq’s health system is close to collapse because medicines and other life-saving supplies scheduled for importation under the ‘oil-for-food’ deal have not arrived... Government drug warehouses and pharmacies have few stocks of medicines and medical supplies. The consequences of this situation are causing a near-breakdown of the health care system, which is reeling under the pressure of being deprived of medicine, other basic supplies and spare parts.”[41]

By November of the same year, ‘Oil for Food’ only remained farcically ineffective in terms of addressing the fundamental humanitarian crisis. UNICEF observed that: “There is no sign of any improvement since Security Council Resolution 986/1111 [‘Oil for Food’] came into force.”[42] By April 1998, UNICEF noted the sheer impotence of the ‘Oil for Food’ programme: “The Oil-for-Food plan has not yet resulted in adequate protection of Iraq’s children from malnutrition and disease. Those children spared from death continue to remain deprived of essential rights addressed in the Convention of Rights of the Child.”[43] By March 1999, a UN report concluded that Iraq had fallen into a state of “massive poverty” due to the sanctions, and that the country should be allowed to receive foreign investments in oil and other exports. Moreover, the report declared that ‘Oil for Food’ had failed to meet the needs of the Iraqi people.[44]

The United States and United Kingdom have actively continued to espouse the myth that the ‘Oil for Food’ programme provides adequately for the needs of the Iraqi people. The blame for ongoing mass starvation, disease and so on, is laid squarely on Iraqi corruption in the distribution of goods. The disparity in development between the north and southern/central Iraq is one of the factors that the U.S. has claimed proves its case. Data indicates that Iraqis inhabiting the northern region that is autonomous from Saddam’s regime, are better off than those elsewhere in the country who are subject to the regime’s rationing system. Among the conclusions of an August 1999 UNICEF report on this matter were that in the autonomous northern region, under-5 mortality rose from 80 deaths per 1000 live births in the period 1984-1989, to 90 deaths per 1000 live births during the years 1989-1994, but then fell to 72 deaths per 1000 live births between 1994 and 1999. Infant mortality rates followed a similar pattern. This discrepancy between child mortality in the north, where the UN controls distribution under the ‘Oil for Food’ programme, and in the rest of the country where the Iraqi government controls distribution, has been highlighted by the Western powers to conclude that the humanitarian crisis is wholly a result of Saddam Hussein’s corrupt distribution policies and wilful starvation of the Iraqi people.

This conclusion, however, flies in the face of rather stark realities. The March 1999 report of the UN Security Council’s Humanitarian Panel highlighted the lack of evidence against Iraq in relation to the government’s alleged lack of cooperation with the ‘Oil for Food’ programme:

“While there is agreement that the Government could do more to make the ‘oil for food’ programme work in a better and more timely fashion, it was not clear to what extent the problems encountered could be attributed to deliberate action or inaction on the part of the Iraqi Government. It is generally recognized that certain sectors such as electricity work smoothly while drug supplies suffer from delays in distribution. But mismanagement, funding shortages (absence of the so called ‘cash component’) and a general lack of motivation might also explain such delays. While food and medicine had been explicitly exempted by Security Council resolution 661, controls imposed by resolution 986 had, at times, created obstacles to their timely supply.”

This UN report clearly illustrates that whether there is any deliberate obstruction or otherwise by the Iraqi government is at the very least unclear. It further clarifies a number of other factors inhibiting the potential benefits of ‘Oil for Food’, particularly funding shortages and arbitrary holds by members of the Security Council. Furthermore, with respect to funding shortages, absence of the ‘cash component’ under the ‘Oil for Food’ deal is particularly critical. In government-controlled areas of Iraq, the government is not given cash in return for oil sales under the ‘Oil for Food’ programme, but only receives delivery of goods. The consequence of this is that the government is extremely inhibited in its ability to provide for the needs of the Iraqi people - for example, to hire a lorry to make a delivery if it does not have one available at the time.

An authoritative FAO study points out that:

“The government of Iraq introduced a public food rationing system with effect from within a month of the imposition of the embargo. It provides basic foods at 1990 prices, which means they are now virtually free. This has a life-saving nutritional benefit... and has prevented catastrophe for the Iraqi people.”[45]

Former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Dennis Halliday, head of the UN’s ‘Oil for Food’ programme until his resignation in September 1998, further reported that 5-6,000 Iraqi civilians are dying every month under the sanctions regime, irrespective of ‘Oil for Food’, and despite an “efficient” and “equitable” Iraqi rationing system.[46] Refuting statements by British Foreign Office minister Peter Hain to the effect that ‘Oil for Food’ could have worked if not for Saddam’s obstruction, Halliday countered that:

“There’s no basis for that [kind of] assertion at all. The Secretary-General [Kofi Annan] has reported repeatedly that there is no evidence that food is being diverted by the government in Baghdad. We have 150 observers on the ground in Iraq. Say the wheat ship comes in from god knows where, in Basra, they follow the grain to some of the mills, they follow the flour to the 49,000 agents that the Iraqi government employs for this programme, then they follow the flour to the recipients and even interview some of the recipients - there is no evidence of diversion of foodstuffs whatever ever in the last two years.”[47]

UN official Michael Stone similarly observed that:

“Ministers and senior members of the Opposition frequently state that the Iraqi leadership have diverted supplies under this programme. This is a serious error. Some 150 international observers, travelling throughout Iraq, reported to the United Nations Multidisciplinary Observer Unit, of which I was the head. At no time was any diversion recorded. I made this clear in our reports to the UN Secretary General, and he reported in writing to the Security Council accordingly. In the case of private donations outside the Oil for Food programme, those which arrived by air were observed by us, and no diversion was recorded. Humanitarian supplies arriving by road were not within our remit, although my contact with the Iraq Red Crescent, which has a co-ordination role, would suggest no diversion. With regard to private medical donations, again nothing directly to do with the Oil for Food programme, there has sometimes been confusion. All supplies, in accordance with international practice, should have been vetted before distribution by the testing authority, Kimadia. (Some suppliers, in ignorance, tried to avoid this). I know of more than one occasion when outdated medicines arrived, and Kimadia was naturally reluctant for them to be distributed.”[48]

By February 2000, the most senior UN aid official in Iraq, German diplomat Hans von Sponeck - who has served in the UN for 36 years - resigned his post after 17 months in opposition to the effects of the sanctions on the civilian population. Like Stone and Halliday he “also rejected American allegations that the Iraqi regime was hindering the distribution of supplies.” Ironically, Von Sponeck’s resignation followed the actions of his Irish predecessor who had similarly quit in opposition to the sanctions.[49] Notably, two days after Von Sponeck’s resignation, head of the World Food Programme in Iraq Jutta Burghadt also resigned, admitting that the situation imposed on Iraq by the sanctions regime was intolerable and unjustified.[50]

The real reasons for the discrepancy between northern and southern Iraq thus has nothing to do with the Iraqi regime. On the contrary, it has everything to do with the protocols of the UN sanctions regime. The north receives 22 per cent more per capita from the ‘Oil for Food’ programme than does the center/south; the autonomous north receives a cash component for distribution of goods, while the center/south receives only goods; there are 34 Non-Governmental Organizations working in the north, while there are only 11 in the rest of the country; there was a massive influx of aid to the north immediately after the Gulf War, whereas the rest of the country did not receive any aid during that time; goods have been approved by the UN for distribution in the north far faster than in the center/south; the north enjoys porous borders with Turkey, Syria, and Iran, so more goods are able to penetrate through to the north by smuggling than in the rest of the country; finally, 85 per cent of the Iraqi population live in southern/central Iraq.[51]

The real cause of the devastation of Iraq thus lies in the nature of the sanctions regime. For instance, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s criticised the U.S. government for “using its muscle to put indefinite ‘holds’ on more than $500 million in humanitarian goods that Iraq would like to buy.”[52] The British Government implements similar policies by, for instance, preventing the shipment of vaccines to Iraq for children in 1999, which was justified on the pretext that Saddam may use them to create weapons of mass destruction. Former UN Assistant Secretary-General Dennis Halliday has harshly criticized such policies, noting that they are meant to deliberately sabotage the possibility of ‘Oil for Food’ helping the Iraqi people:

“[T]he Sanctions Committee weighed in and they would look at a package of contracts, maybe ten items, and they would deliberately approve nine but block the tenth, knowing full well that without the tenth item the other nine were of no use. Those nine then go ahead - they’re ordered, they arrive - and are stored in warehouses; so naturally the warehouses have stores that cannot in fact be used because they’re waiting for other components that are blocked by the sanctions committee... Washington, and to a lesser extent London, have deliberately played games through the Sanctions Committee with this programme for years - it’s a deliberate ploy. For the British Government to say that the quantities involved for vaccinating kids are going to produce weapons of mass destruction, this is just nonsense. That’s why I’ve been using the word ‘genocide’, because this is a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq. I’m afraid I have no other view at this late stage.”[53]

Another example is the claim by British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain that “about $16bn of humanitarian relief was available to the Iraqi people last year”. Citing official UN documents, Hans Von Sponeck refuted Hain’s statement, pointing out that the figure was for four years, and further noting that the vast proportion of the “relief” is spent on reparations to Kuwait and oil companies, leaving Iraq with a paltry $100 a year to keep a single person alive.[54]

As noted by the Washington DC-based antiwar group founded by former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark - the International Action Center (IAC) – ‘Oil for Food’ is designed less to help the people of Iraq than to lend the sanctions regime a humanitarian gloss for public relations purposes:

“The oil-for-food deal cannot solve the health problems in Iraq and it’s not meant to. The oil-for-food deal is and always will be used by the U.S. to divert attention from the genocidal effects of the sanctions. It is only a complete lifting of the sanctions and a withdrawal of the U.S. from the region that can end the crisis in Iraq.”[55]

II.III The Objective of the Sanctions: Paying the Price

In May 1996 U.S. Ambassador to the UN – later Secretary of State - Madeleine Albright, appeared on the America TV show, 60 Minutes. Host Lesley Stahl asked: “We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?” Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it.”[56] The question we are led to ask in light of this horrifying declaration is: what price?

Rather than damaging Saddam Hussein, the sanctions have in fact had the entirely opposite effect. According to a House Select Committee report on sanctions to the British Parliament in 2000:

“Those who should be targeted, the political leaders and elites who have flouted international law, continue to enrich themselves. Much discussion has taken place of targeted sanctions, in particular financial sanctions, as a ‘smarter’ and more just approach. We conclude, however, that neither the United Kingdom nor the international community have made real efforts to introduce such sanctions. There has been much talk but little action. There is a clear consensus that the humanitarian and developmental situation in Iraq has deteriorated seriously since the imposition of comprehensive economic sanctions whilst, at the same time, sanctions have clearly failed to hurt those responsible for past violations of international law as Saddam Hussein and his ruling elite continue to enjoy a privileged existence... However carefully exemptions are planned, the fact is that comprehensive economic sanctions only further concentrate power in the hands of the ruling elite. The UN will lose credibility if it advocates the rights of the poor whilst at the same time causing, if only indirectly, their further impoverishment.”[57]

The fundamental basis of legitimacy for the sanctions regime is, at least officially, the objective of blocking Saddam Hussein’s access to materials that could be used in programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction. Yet an examination of some of the materials that are banned from reaching Iraq under the sanctions discloses that many of them are irrelevant to this objective. Indeed, a vast number of materials and technologies banned under the sanctions have absolutely no connection with any possibility of being used in Saddam’s weapons programmes. The materials banned under the sanctions are supposed to be ‘dual-use’ technologies, i.e. they have both civilian and military applications. Yet many of the goods banned by the sanctions regime appear to be, in fact, only single use items with solely civilian applications. Voices in the Wilderness has compiled a partial list of some of these items that only by a convoluted twist of the imagination could be used to contribute to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons development programmes:

“Accumulators; Adhesive paper; Aluminium foil; AM-FM receivers; Ambulances; Amplifiers; Answering machines; Armored cable; Ashtrays; Auto polish; Axes; Bags; Baking soda; Balls (for children, for sport); Baskets; Bath brushes; Batteries; Battery chargers; Beads; Bearings; Bed lamps; Belts; Benches; Bicycles; Books (all categories included); Bottles; Bowls; Boxes; Broil Busses; Calculators; Cameras; Candles; Candlesticks; Canvas; Carpets; Cars; Carts; Carving knives; Cellophane; Chalk; Chess boards; Chiffon; Children’s wear; Chisels; Clocks; Clutches; Coats; Coaxial cable; Cogs; Coils; Colors for painting; Combs; Compressors (for cooling); Computers and computer supplies; Copper; Cupboards; Cups; Desks; Desk lamps; Detergents; Dictaphones; Dish ware; Dishwashers; Dolls; Doorknobs; Doormats; Drawing knives; Dresses; Drills; Dryers; Dust cloths; Dyes; Dynamos; Easels; Electric cookers; Electric cords; Envelopes; Eyeglasses; Fabrics; Fans; Fax machines; Fibers; Files; Filing cabinets; Filing cards; Films; Filters; Flashlights; Flowerpots; Forks; Fountain pens; Furniture polish; Fuses; Gas burners; Gauges; Generators; Girdles; Glass; Glue; Gowns; Grills; Grindstone; Hairpins; Hammers; Handkerchiefs; Hats; Headlights; Headphones; Hearing aids; Hedge-trimmers; Helmets; Hoes; Hooks; Hookup wires; Hoses; Hydraulic jacks; Ink (the prohibition on writing); Ink cartridges; Insulator strips; Interrupters; Jackets; Jacks; Joints; Jacks; Jumpers; Kettles; Knives; Lamp shades; Lathes; Lawn Mowers; Leather; Levers; Light bulbs; Light meters; Lime; Magazines (including journals); Magnesium; Magnets; Masonite; Mastic; Matches; Measuring equipment; Mica; Microfiche; Microphones; Microscopes; Mirrors; Mops; Motorbikes; Motors; Mufflers; Mugs; Music cassettes; Music CDs; Musical instruments; Nail brushes; Nailfiles; Napkins; Notebooks; Oil cans; Oil gauges; Oil lamps; Oscillators; Packaging materials; Pails; Painters brushes; Paints; Pans; Paperclips; Paper for printing; Paper for wrapping; Paper for writing; Pens; Percolators; Pesticides; Photocopiers; Photometers; Pincers; Pincettes; Pins; Plastics; Plates; Plexiglas; Pliers; Plugs; Plywood; Porcelain; Pots; Potties; Press drills; Pressure cookers; Printing equipment; Pulleys; Putty; Radiators for cars; Razor blades; Razors; Reels; Relays; Riveters; Roasters; Rubber; Rugs; Rulers; Sandals; Sandpaper; Saucers; Saws; Scales; Scoreboards; Screws; Seals; Seats; Shampoo; Sheers; Shelves; Shirts; Shock absorbers; Shoe polish; Shoes; Shopping carts; Shovels; Silicon; Silver polish; Skirts; Soap; Soap pads; Sockets; Socks; Solder; Soldering irons; Spark plugs; Spatulas; Sponges; Spoons; Stamps; Staplers; Starters; Stoves; Straps; Suits; Sun hats; Swimming suits; Switches; Tables; Tacks; Tags; Telephone cables; Telephones; Tents; Thermometers; Threads; Timber; Timers; Tin; Tire pumps; Tissue paper; Toasters; Toilet paper; Tongs; Toothbrushes; Toothpicks; Towels; Toys; Tractors; Transformers; Trash cans; Tripods; Troughs; Typewriters; Vacuum cleaners; Valves; Vans; Vaseline; Vases; Venetian blinds; Ventilators; Videotapes; Voltage regulators; Waffle irons; Wagons; Wallets; Wallpapers; Washing machines; Wastepaper baskets; Watches; Water pumps; Wax; Welders; Wheelbarrows; Window shades; Wood; Wool; Wrenches; Zoom lenses.”[58]

Given that the nature of the many items banned under the sanctions regime clearly have a primarily civilian application with only a negligible/arbitrary military use (e.g. the banning of pencils because their graphite can theoretically be used in the process of creating nuclear weapons), the idea that the sole objectives of the sanctions is the obstruction of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes is disingenuous. For if that were the case, then there would be no need to ban items with a fundamentally civilian use. The specifically civilian application of such a vast number of items banned by the sanctions, illustrates that the aim of the sanctions regime is far broader and designed deliberately to target the civilian population. Former UN Assistant Secretary General and Chief UN Relief Coordinator for Iraq, Dennis Halliday, who resigned his post in protest against the sanctions regime, stated in November 1998 that:

“[S]anctions continue to kill children and sustain high levels of malnutrition. Sanctions are undermining cultural and educational recovery. Sanctions will not change governance to democracy. Sanctions encourage isolation, alienation, and possibly fanaticism. Sanctions may create a danger to peace in the region and in the world. Sanctions destroy Islamic and Iraqi family values. Sanctions have undermined the advancement of women and have encouraged a massive brain drain. Sanctions destroy the lives of children, their expectations and those of young adults. Sanctions breach the Charter of the United Nations, the Conventions of Human Rights, and the Rights of the Child. Sanctions are counterproductive, and have no positive impact on the leadership, and sanctions lead to unacceptable human suffering, often the young and the innocent.... I can find no legitimate justification for sustaining economic sanctions under these circumstances.”[59]

Halliday asserted that he resigned his post “because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that...

“Five thousand children are dying every month... I don’t want to administer a programme that results in figures like these... I had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. We all know that the regime, Saddam Hussein, is not paying the price for economic sanctions; on the contrary, he has been strengthened by them. It is the little people who are losing their children or their parents for lack of untreated water. What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention.”[60]

His disgust is mirrored even by those who formerly appeared to be supporters of U.S. policy. Scott Ritter, an ex-U.S. Marine and former head of the United Nations Weapons Inspection Team in Iraq, certainly does not agree that the sanctions in their current form are justified: “We’re killing 5,000 kids under the age of five every month. Now people say Saddam’s killing them, but ultimately, sanctions are killing them, and we shouldn’t be supportive of something that causes innocent people to suffer to such a degree.”[61]

The anti-humanitarian cynicism that lies behind the sanctions policy was illustrated when U.S. President Bill Clinton attempted to justify the policy when he argued that: “without the sanctions”, there would be “less food for [Iraq’s] people… so long as Iraq remains out of compliance [with UN inspections], we will work with the international community to maintain and enforce the economic sanctions.”[62] Clinton’s audacious claim that the sanctions mean more food for the Iraqi people directly contradicts successive U.S. and UN reports, which consistently prove that the sanctions are the principal cause of starvation, disease and death in Iraq. His willingness to attempt to deceive the public so flagrantly indicates the rather deceptive nature of the entire sanctions policy. Indeed, U.S. officials have repeatedly indicated that the sanctions are being imposed independently of the UN weapons inspection process, and have in fact been instituted for other political and strategic reasons. The real objectives of the sanctions were admitted by U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Robert M. Gates in May 1991:

“Saddam is discredited and cannot be redeemed. His leadership will never be accepted by the world community. Therefore, Iraqis will pay the price while he remains in power. All possible sanctions will be maintained until he is gone... Any easing of sanctions will be considered only when there is a new government.”[63]

In other words, sanctions are to continue irrespective of Iraqi compliance with the requirements of UN weapons inspections. This reveals that the elimination of weapons of mass destruction is not the reason for the sanctions. On the contrary, the sanctions are designed to punish the Iraqi people until a new pro-Western government is installed. They aim to prostrate the entire country, smash it until it surrenders to Western demands. In Gates’ words, “Iraqis will pay the price.” The real U.S. position was articulated again in March 1997 by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted.”[64] The cavalier U.S. approach is further confirmed by the observation of an anonymous U.S. official “with responsibility for Iraq”: “We bought seven years and that’s not bad… The longer we can fool around in the council and keep things static the better.”[65] It is noteworthy that the U.S. policy is a clear violation of international law, standing in contravention of UN Resolution 687 which asserts that “sanctions shall have no further force or effect” when Iraq complies with inspections. U.S. policy stipulates that sanctions are to remain in effect as long as Saddam Hussein remains in power. It is no surprise considering the nature of this policy that the Iraqi regime no longer sees any point in attempting to comply with any sort of UN weapons inspection process, since the U.S. intends to impose sanctions indefinitely regardless of such compliance. The U.S. concern is therefore not related to the removal of Saddam’s alleged weapons. Accusations of Iraqi weapons programmes instead play the propagandist role of providing a justification for an illegal, anti-humanitarian sanctions policy, and are thus issued solely for the purpose of public relations. As French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine observed: “[The] United States is insensitive to the human catastrophe under way in Iraq... Iraq is not just made up of Saddam Hussein himself... There are men, women, and children, a whole society which is being destroyed.”[66]

II.IV. An Illegal Policy

According to an authoritative report on Iraq prepared for the UN Secretary-General by Professor of International Law, Marc Bossuyt - a reknowned authority in his field - the “sanctions regime against Iraq is unequivocally illegal under existing human rights law” and “could raise questions under the Genocide Convention.” Professor Bossuyt is not alone in his conclusions. Specialist in International Politics at the University of Bristol, Dr. Eric Herring - formerly Visiting Scholar at George Washington University (Washington DC) and Social Science Research Council MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Columbia University (New York) – observes that an expanding body of authoritative legal opinion agrees that the proposed International Criminal Court has a responsibility to investigate “the UN bombing and sanctions which have violated the human rights of Iraqi civilians on a vast scale by denying them many of the means necessary for survival. It should also investigate those who assisted [Saddam Hussein’s] programmes of now prohibited weapons, including western governments and companies.”[67]

To comprehend the entirely illegal nature of the UN sanctions regime imposed under U.S. pressure, it suffices to review several related stipulations of international law. The World Declaration on Nutrition states that: “We recognize that access to nutritionally adequate and safe food is a right of each individual. We affirm...that food must not be used as a tool for political pressure.”[68] This statement is rooted in the basic principles of international law. The Constitution of the United Nations World Health Organization affirms that: “The enjoyment of the highest standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic, or social condition.”[69] Indeed, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) stipulates that:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

As such, any action pursued to jeopardise the rights enshrined as above is prohibited under international law. According to the Geneval Conventions:

“1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.

 

“2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indespensable to the agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.”[70]

A United Nations Resolution issued on December 1989 elaborates as follows

“Economic measures as a means of political and economic coercion against developing countries: Calls upon the developed countries to refrain from exercising political coercion through the application of economic instruments with the purpose of inducing changes in the economic or social systems, as well as in the domestic or foreign policies, of other countries; Reaffirms that developed countries should refrain from threatening or applying trade and financial restrictions, blockades, embargoes, and other economic sanctions, incompatible with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and in violation of undertakings contracted multilaterally and bilaterally, against developing countries as a form of political and economic coercion that affects their political, economic, and social development.”[71]

As Abdullah Muttawi, head of the Middle East Programme at the New York-based Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), thus points out: “[T]he sanctions policy against Iraq has proven to be the single largest violation of the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights, a violation committed by the Security Council itself… Collective punishment is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.”[72]

The sanctions policy – and those bodies and governments that support and promote the policy – are therefore doing so illegally. There is no legitimacy at all to the sanctions regime. This fact is perhaps best articulated in the charge sheet against the Western powers drawn up by the president of the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions, international law expert Ramsey Clark - former U.S. Attorney General under the Kennedy and Johson administrations. The charges were issued at the International Court On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the UN Security Council on Iraq, held in Madrid in November 1996. Clark charges American, British and UN officials with “causing the deaths of more than 1,500,000 people including 750,000 children under five, and injury to the entire population of Iraq by genocidal sanctions…

“The criminal acts charged include the deliberate and intentional imposition, maintenance and enforcement of an economic blockade and sanctions against the people of Iraq from August 6, 1990 to this date with full knowledge constantly communicated that the blockade and sanctions were depriving the people of Iraq of essentials to support and protect human life. These essentials include medicines and medical supplies, safe drinking water, adequate food, insecticides, fertilisers, equipment and parts required for agriculture, food processing, storage and distribution, hospital and medical clinic procedures; a multitude of common items such as light bulbs and fluorescent tubes; equipment and parts for the generation and distribution of electricity, telephone and other communications, public transportation and other essential human services. Also denied the people of Iraq is knowledge of the existence of, and procedures and equipment to provide protection from, depleted uranium and dangerous chemical pollution released in the environment of Iraq by defendants. The United States has further subjected Iraq to random missile assaults which have killed civilians.”

The formal criminal charges are extremely significant, since they have been issued not merely by a renowned U.S. legal expert, but by one who was formerly an official legal expert for the U.S. government under the Presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson. Furthermore, the panel of judges of the International War Crimes Tribunal presided over by Ramsey Clark - which ruled U.S., British and UN officials to be guilty of these charges among many others in relation to the Gulf War - consisted of many legal and human rights experts from around the world, including the leading British QC and member of the House of Lords, Lord Tony Gifford; U.S. Attorney, former President of the National Lawyers Guild and director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner; U.S. lawyer and first Vice-President of the American Association of Jurists, Deborah Jackson; Organising Secretary for the American Association of Jurists in Canada, John Philpot; former Japanese Judge and Attorney, Susumu Ozaki; former member of the German Bundestag and Lieutenant Colonel in the German Bundeswher, Dr. Alfred Mechtersheimer; Resident Magistrate of the High Court in Arusha, Tanzania, Aisha Nyerere; member of Tunisian Bar Association and former President of Association of Young Lawyers, Abderrazak Kilani; former Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court and elected President of the All-India Lawyers Union (1989) P. S. Pot; among others. The charges have been reproduced below in their entirety:

1. The United States and its officials aided and abetted by others engaged in a continuing pattern of conduct from August 6, 1990 until this date to impose, maintain and enforce extreme economic sanctions and a strict military blockade on the people of Iraq for the purpose of injuring the entire population, killing its weakest members, infants, children, the elderly and the chronically ill, by depriving them of medicines, drinking water, food, and other essentials in order to maintain a large US military presence in the region, and dominion and control over its people and resources including oil.

 

2. The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the United Kingdom and its [former] Prime Minister John Major and other officials have committed a crime against humanity as defined in the Nuremberg Charter against the population of Iraq and engaged in a continuing and massive attack on the entire civilian population in violation of Articles 48, 51, 52, 54 and 55 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention 1977.

 

3. The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials have committed genocide as defined in the Convention against Genocide against the population of Iraq including genocide by starvation and sickness through use of sanctions as a weapon of mass destruction and violation of Article 54, Protection of Objects Indispensable to the Civilian Population, of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention 1977.

 

4. The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials have committed and engaged in a continuing course of conduct to prevent any interference with the long term criminal imposition of sanctions against the people of Iraq in order to support continuing US presence and domination of the region.

 

5. The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials with US Ambassador Madeleine Albright as a principal agent have obstructed justice and corrupted United Nations functions, most prominently the Security Council, by political, economic and other coercions using systematic threats, manipulations and misinformation to silence protest and prevent votes or other acts to end sanctions against Iraq despite reports over a period of five years by every major UN agency concerned including UNICEF, UN World Food Program, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which describe the deaths, injuries and suffering directly caused by the sanctions.

 

6. The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials have engaged in a continuing concealment and cover-up of the criminal assaults during January through March 1991 on nuclear reactors, chemical, fertiliser, insecticide plants, oil refineries, oil storage tanks, ammunition depots and bunkers in violation of humanitarian law including Article 56, Protecting Works and Installations Containing Dangerous Forces, exposing the civilian population of Iraq, and military personnel of Iraq, the United States and other countries to radiation and dangerous chemical pollution which continues for the population of Iraq causing deaths, sickness and permanent injuries including chemical and radiation poisoning, cancer, leukaemia, tumours and diseased body organs.

 

7. The United States and its officers have concealed and failed to help protect the population of Iraq from the cover-up of the use by US forces of illegal weapons of a wide variety including rockets and missiles containing depleted uranium which have saturated soil, ground water and other elements in Iraq and are a constant presence affecting large areas still undefined with deadly radiation causing death, illness and injury which will continue to harm the population with unforeseeable effects for thousands of years.