Salt of the Earth: U.S./U.N. between Iraq and a hard place

Social justice news
January 2000

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U.N./U.S. between Iraq and a hard place
Nine years after the beginning of the Gulf War, US policy toward Iraq shows little indication of changing. A State Department official told Salt of the Earth that, despite recent modifications in the "Oil for Food" program to allow larger sales of oil, the U.N.-imposed sanctions against Iraq would continue "as long as [they need] to."

For more information: AFSC's Campaign of Conscience

Fellowship of Reconciliation

"Life and Death in Iraq": a special report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Military Action Network: Iraq Crisis

Mother Jones: "Smart bombs or rocks for brains?"

Out There explores Iraq

Pacifica Radio Iraq links

UN Office of Iraq Program

US State Department: "Saddam Hussein's Iraq"

US DOS: Crisis with Iraq

Vatican comments on sanctions in general

and Pope John Paul II on Iraq sanction

Church leaders across the country and the globe, including Pope John Paul II, have called for the end of U.N. sanctions against Iraq, arguing that the effort has not dislodged the Hussein regime but has profoundly diminished living conditions for the most vulnerable in Iraq. Critics of the Oil for Food program say U.S. bilateral and U.N. sanctions since the end of the Gulf War have created a humanitarian disaster in Iraq. They charge at least 1 million Iraqis have died because of the malnutrition and the scarcity of basic medical supplies that have resulted because of the trade embargo against Iraq. Iraqi officials claim the figure is closer to 1.4 million.

Perhaps hardest hit have been Iraqi children. After steady progress in reducing childhood mortality through the 1970s and 1980s, Iraq has seen its mortality rate for children under 5 more than double since the sanctions were imposed—from 50 per 1,000 in 1990 to 125 per 1,000 in 1998. As many as 6,000 children are dying each month as a direct result of the sanctions, according to John Dear, S.J., the director of the Fellowship for Reconciliation (FOR) in Nyack, New York.

But a State Department spokesperson argued that the blame for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Iraq resides squarely on Saddam Hussein's shoulders. The spokesperson pointed out that in those northern areas of Iraq outside Hussein's control, childhood and infant morality has declined 20 percent and that if the revenue generated by the Oil for Food program had been properly disbursed, the Iraqi people would not be suffering. A State Department report, "Saddam Hussein's Iraq," indicates that Iraq is exporting food and baby milk at a time it claims its population is starving.

"[Hussein has] built 70 palaces since the program began," the spokesperson said. "Tell me what that's about. . . . The money that the Iraqi government gets is not being used for the benefit of Iraq's people."

But the FOR's Dear remained skeptical that the economic and social harm being done by the sanctions to the Iraqi people could be mitigated simply by more rational investments of the Oil for Food program's revenues on the part of the Hussein administration. The devastation of the Iraqi economy "is bigger than that and is due primarily to the sanctions. Iraqi children never suffered this much before the sanctions." Critics of the sanctions also charge that Iraq has not been able to generate enough revenue to repair the massive infrastructural damage inflicted during the Gulf War, contributing to its inability to address its humanitarian meltdown.

The State Department maintains that the Oil for Food program must be continued and sanctions maintained to prevent Iraq from using oil revenue to rebuild its military and advanced weapons programs.

Noting that military arms merchants in the U.S. have made a killing selling hardware to Iraqi's neighbors, Dear charged that the Iraqi military threat is exaggerated. But the who or the why of the continuing crisis in Iraq is not Dear's primary concern. He argued that whoever is to blame for the continuing deaths from malnutrition and easily treatable medical conditions, the sanctions should be lifted and the U.S. should end its de facto collaboration in this humanitarian disaster.

"Obviously nobody supports Saddam Hussein," said Dear. "[But] the children of Iraq are not our enemies and should not be suffering because of our policies."

A December 17 U.N. resolution calls for a new arms monitoring program in Iraq and lifts the cap on Iraqi oil sales. Iraq officials have so far rejected the new plan. U.S. and British air patrols continue over southern and northern Iraq and have frequently bombed Iraqi targets over the past year after being tracked by Iraqi radar or fired upon by Iraqi antiaircraft batteries.

" . . . an entire people is the victim of a constraint which puts it in hazardous conditions of survival. I refer to our brothers and sisters in Iraq, living under a pitiless embargo. In response to the appeals for help which unceasingly come to the Holy See, I must call upon the consciences of those who, in Iraq and elsewhere, put political, economic or strategic considerations before the fundamental good of the people, and I ask them to show compassion. The weak and the innocent cannot pay for mistakes for which they are not responsible. I therefore pray that this country will be able to regain its dignity, experience normal development, and thus be in a position to re-establish fruitful relations with other peoples, within the framework of international law and world solidarity."—Pope John Paul II

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