Talking Points on Iraq & Afghanistan

Iraq

• Over 300 civilians have been killed by "routine" U.S. bombings over the last two years. The UN does not recognize the "no-fly-zones", which are enforced by the U.S. and UK and cover 65% of Iraq's territory. Under international law, these self-declared zones are illegal.
  
  
• Over 500,000 children have died in Iraq as a result of over ten years of crippling UN sanctions. Under-five child mortality in Iraq from 1984-1989 was 56 per 1000; from 1994-1999 it was 131 per 1000 - a 160% increase. No disease on earth has had as devastating an effect on children in as short a time as sanctions. [UNICEF, 2001]
  
  
• An August 1999 UNICEF nutritional survey showed that 21 percent of Iraqi children under five years of age were malnourished - a level on par with the neediest countries in the world.
  
  
• In 2000, there were more than 127,700 refugees and about 700,000 internally displaced persons in Iraq. [U.S. Committee for Refugees] Iraq has also seen mass emigration. Since 1990, over 20% of the population (4-5 million people) have left the country. This includes many professionals, from doctors to professors, who are essential of Iraqi civil society.
  
  
• Similar to the U.S. food air drops in Afghanistan, the Bush administration's "smart sanctions" proposal is widely viewed as being more symbolic than doing any good. And according to former UN Humanitarian Coordinator to Iraq Denis Halliday, it may even do harm. According to him, Iraq's fundamental problem is a lack of access to its own oil revenues. "Smart" sanctions are designed to further diminish what little revenue Iraq receives through trade outside of the UN Oil-for-Food program. (Note: Iraq does not receive any money from the Oil-for-Food program. Instead, the UN decides which commodities the funds can purchase and sends them to Iraq.)
  
  
• "Smart" sanctions make no provision for paying the salaries of civil servants in Iraq. Therefore regardless of how much medicine, chalk and chlorine arrive in Iraq, doctors, nurses, teachers, and water and sanitation engineers will remain underpaid and desperate to find the income to support their families.

Afghanistan

• Although the humanitarian 'food drops' might play favorably at home, they are mostly symbolic and are a disaster for humanitarian workers in the region who are at risk if they are not seen to be impartial. On Monday (USA Today, 10/08/01), Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Nobel Prize winning relief group, condemned the food drop on Monday as "military propaganda" designed to justify the air strikes. According to Dr. Jean-Herve Bradol of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), airdrops of food and medical aid are of 'little real value to the Afghan people', are 'potentially dangerous', and will likely 'cause real problems for truly independent non-governmental aid organizations who are less likely to be perceived as impartial actors in the future.'
  
  
• Before the air strikes, UN agencies and independent relief organizations were still able to get some food convoys into Afghanistan. Now, all convoys have stopped, and the delivery of aid has become nearly impossible.
  
  
• Although it has gone largely unreported, Afghanistan is in the grip of a three-year drought-the worst in decades-affecting over 50% of the population. Even before the war, much of Afghanistan was on the verge of starvation. The displacement of people increases this risk.
  
  
• United Nations humanitarian aid agencies predict as many as 1.5 million Afghans will seek refuge in Pakistan and other neighboring countries, but many are more likely to move within the country's borders (USA Today, 10/10/01).
  
  
• By the end of the year, up to 7.5 million Afghan civilians will be entirely dependent on food aid to survive the winter. By impeding the deliver}1 and distribution of aid, the U.S. war may cause massive civilian casualties. As Dominic Nutt, emergency officer for Christian Aid, plainly stated: "It's as if a mass grave has been dug behind millions of people. We can drag them back from it or push them in. We could be looking at millions of deaths".
  
  
• Although U.S. Defense officials have said the mission only targets military assets, civilians are being killed. Monday night in Kabul, a U.S. guided missile destroyed the office of the Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC), the oldest and largest anti-mine organization funded by the UN in Afghanistan. Four UN mine disposal workers were killed. Following the attack, the UN Coordinator for Afghanistan, Mike Sackett, appealed to the international community to meet its obligation to protect innocent civilians while military strikes were going on.
  
  
• What happened on September 11th was a crime against humanity, and when there is a crime, those who are responsible must be held accountable and brought to justice, but without harming great numbers of innocent people.