It's Time to End the Embargo on Iraq
by Anthony Arnove
Editor's Note: This very interesting article was initially published as a "guest column" in the May 10, 2000 issue of The Herald Times (Bloomington, Indiana).
This March I traveled to Iraq in violation of U.S. law and the United Nations embargo imposed on the country in August 1990. I went to Iraq to witness first-hand the impact of the embargo and of ongoing bombing raids carried out by British and American planes enforcing "no-fly" zones in the north and south of the country.
Much has been written about Iraq during the past nine and a half years, but most of it has focused on one man: President Saddam Hussein, the former ally of the U.S. during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and now one of the world's most demonized leaders.
Little is reported about the 22 million other people who live under the embargo, which keeps out essential items and material Iraq badly needs. Iraq's educational, medical, electrical, and water infrastructure are all in shambles.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that the mortality rate for children under 5 has doubled in central and southern Iraq since the beginning of sanctions. That translate into an excess 500,000 deaths of under-5's, UNICEF notes, largely attributable to deprivations caused by the embargo.
To enter Iraq, you must fly to Amman, Jordan, and then drive 10 hours through the desert to Baghdad, just one indication of the isolation of a country that was once closely integrated with the West. My delegation was organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, one of the nation's oldest and most-respected interfaith peace groups, and Voices in the Wilderness, the four-year old Chicago-based solidarity organization that has done more than any other group in the United States to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Traveling with me were Douglas Krantz of Armonk, N.Y., the first American rabbi to visit Iraq under sanctions; Rev. Jim Lawson, a veteran civil rights leader and close colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Kathy Kelly, the co-founder of Voices; and eight others.
During our nine days in Iraq, we visited schools, hospitals, churches, homes, marketplaces, water-treatment facilities, and an internally displaced persons camp. From Baghdad, we drove to Basra, and also visited Nasiriya, Ur, and the point where the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers meet at the Shatt al-Arab. Everywhere we saw evidence of widespread suffering caused by the embargo. Among the greatest causes of death in Iraq today is diarrhea, a condition that had been all but eliminated by 1990. Malnutrition, including severe stunting and marasmus, is now common. I visited a water-treatment facility in Basra, where the chief engineer explained how he is unable to repair the two broken pumps because of restrictions on what parts can be imported imposed by the U.N.'s sanctions committee in New York. That leaves only one jerry-rigged pump barely working.
Of the $8.2 billion allocated under the oil-for-food program in the last three phases, items worth $1.78 billion have been placed on hold by the U.N. sanctions committee. Items that have been kept out of Iraq because they have a potential military "dual use" include ambulances, chlorinators, pesticides, and water pumps. Hans von Sponeck, who resigned effective March 31 as the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, explained that the impact of such holds is magnified far beyond the value of the holds themselves. "You can have $200,000 worth of items on hold that prevents maybe $200 million worth of equipment from becoming useful. We have many examples of that," he told us during an interview at his offices in the U.N. compound in Baghdad. Von Sponeck is now the second person to resign as U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. Like his predecessor, Denis J. Halliday, he has called for an end to the sanctions after seeing their impact first hand.
In effect, the people of Iraq are being held responsible for a government over which they exercise no control. In fact, the sanctions have strengthened the Baathist regime in many ways, by making the population more dependent on the government and weakening institutions that could sustain or nurture a democratic opposition. Unemployment in Iraq is estimated to me more than 60 percent. Illiteracy and child labor, including prostitution, are soaring, while the government and a small elite of smugglers and business people remain completely protected from the impact of the sanctions. But the sick, the young, the elderly, and the poor can't afford generators to run during the daily power outages that affect the country; they can't afford to buy food to supplement the meager food ration supplied under the oil-for-food program administered by the U.N.; and they can't buy the medicines they need and which the hospitals desperately lack.
The oil-for-food program administered by the U.N. has delivered only 55 cents per person per day during the past three years. And U.N. officials, who oversee every step of the process of purchasing and allocating goods under the program, deny the State Department claim that the Iraqi government is hoarding goods to increase suffering.
Everyone we met in Iraq asked us one simple question: "When will the sanctions end?" Despite the fact that we were Americans, they welcomed us warmly and shared even the most traumatic personal stories of their lives. If more Americans were aware of actual conditions in Iraq, Iraqis we spoke to believed, they would want to end this his cruel instrument of foreign policy.
They're right.
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