Tuesday, November 17, 1998, Ontario, Canada.
I had the rare opportunity to visit Iraq in March of this year. Our delegation of threeflew into Amman Jordan, then drove overland to Baghdad.
The purpose of our trip was to assess children’s health, to deliver a largeshipment of donated medicines, and to reach out in friendship to a people squeezed betweendictatorship from within and sanctions and the threat of bombing from without.
As our caravan of three vehicles sped across the desert at 170 kph, in the dead ofnight, I suddenly saw our lead vehicle stopped ahead of us on the shoulder. As we drewcloser I could see the outline of the driver, out on the pavement, on all fours. Havingbeen warned of banditry on the open highway, I was thinking the worst. As we came to astop behind them, I noticed the driver getting back on his feet. "Are youalright?", I asked with great concern. "Of course", he smiled. A devoutMuslim, he had done the first of his five daily prayers.
I realize in retrospect that this first experience inside Iraq’s borders was forme the most important lesson of the entire trip: namely, that things are not always asthey appear. My fear of what I would encounter in Iraq, fueled by a lifetime ofstereotypes about Arabs and Muslims, melted as I met more and more Iraqi people. Iencountered there not a rigid, fanatical, world-threatening people, but rather a reserved,proud, hospitable nation of laughing children, loving parents, and often deeply religiousindividuals.
Iraq is not Saddam Hussein. Iraq is a nation of people who, prior to 1991,had built asystem of universal health and education that had virtually wiped out illiteracy and thirdworld disease. Iraq was the envy of the entire region. Iraq is now a ravaged nation wherechildren with cancer moan in hospital corridors without something as simple as an aspirinto help ease their death. Iraq’s doctors, many trained in Britain and the US in the1980s, now learn from 15 year old dog-eared books because the UN security council refuseseven medical texts entry into Iraq. The information, we were told, might be used tomanufacture biological weapons. Iraq’s mothers watch helplessly as 150 children perday die of malnutrition and preventable or treatable disease. Iraq’s children’shospitals now have entire units for severely malnourished children, so weakened that theyoften succomb to simple viral infections. Iraq, like its children, is a skeleton of whatit used to be.
But let us not lose sight of the hard political realities. Iraq’s president is adictator who became a powerful force in the 1980’s as the US and other countriesshored up his regime militarily in an effort to contain Iran. Hussein’s worst crime,the gassing of five thousand Kurds in the spring of 1988, inspired barely a whisper ofprotest in Washington. "He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of abitch", mused one senior member of the US military at the time.
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, killing several thousand people, in 1990. This wasreckless, murderous, and wrong, even though Iraq had legitimate and longstanding borderdisputes with Kuwait. But the invasion per se was not Hussein’s crime in US eyes -they often turn a blind eye to this sort of thing - his crime was that of defying UShegemony in the region. Iraq’s people, over 1.5 million according to UN estimates,have paid with their lives for this, the unforgiveable sin of late 20th centuryinternational affairs.
The case of Iraq epitomizes the lawlessness which currently plagues the internationalarena. People like Hussein, Pinochet, and Suharto are armed,supported, in some casesinstalled by the US. Their criminal activities are downplayed and democracy in theirnations undermined, so long as US interests are served. The UN, originally conceived as aworld body mandated to vouchsafe international peace and security, has appropriately ruledagainst many of these dictators. But when UN resolutions violate US interests (or those ofUS friends), the American response is to ignore them (Israel, East Timor, to name a few),and often to militarily strengthen the offending nation. When UN resolutions can becoopted in favour of US interests, they are brutally enforced. In the case of Iraq, theUN, through withholding food and medicines, has killed between 5-10% of its population.This is a much greater crime, with several hundred times the number of deaths, than theoriginal crime which inspired the punishment.
The sanctions policy violates countless international laws and agreements. A UN whichpunishes crimes by committing them undermines itself. In the international arena, the ruleof force, not law, governs. All the while, the US, often openly contemptuous of the UN,refuses to pay its UN dues.
The UN has carried out thousands of weapons inspections which have destroyed 80-90% ofIraq’s weapons, according to UNSCOM. The US has consistently refused even a partiallifting of sanctions despite Iraq’s compliance with the majority of UN objectives.The UN Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday, recently resigned, unable to reconcilethe UN charter nor his own conscience with what the UN is actually doing in Iraq.
Our delegation has spoken widely to groups in Canada and the US about what we saw inIraq. People wonder how this could possibly be happening. The conclusion is always that itis happening because most people do not know it is happening. Almost all who scratch belowthe surface of what we read and hear in the news about Iraq become increasingly shocked atthe magnitude of the tragedy unfolding among these bright-eyed, innocent children,Iraq’s very future.
The middle east is a maze of complexities but for principled people, which includes themajority of ordinary Canadians, certain things are simple. Military sanctions against Iraqshould continue, but we must immediately stop starving Iraq’s children. 43 Members ofthe US congress sent a letter to President Clintin this fall urging him to do just that.Killing children violates the UN charter and erodes UN credibility. Disarmament of othernations in the region should also be vigorously pursued, in accordance with UN resolution687, which calls for regional disarmament. An even-handed camapaign to gain compliancewith other UN resolutions relevant to the region (ie those against Israel) should bepursued, keeping in mind that innocent civilians should not be made to suffer.
As we drove with a truckload of medicines to a children’s hospital in downtownBaghdad, another driver, in Arabic, asked where I was from. With the language barrier, ittook a full five minutes to realize what he was asking. "Canada", I finallyresponded. "Oh Canada, Good Canada!" he exclaimed enthusiastically, using allthe English words he knew. Not one of the hundreds of people we met, many of whom knew wewere Canadians and Americans, was hostile or accusatory with us. Strangely, they thoughtwe were good.
Thousands of children in Iraq have lived and died a hell of starvation and disease in aconflict they have nothing to do with. From their hospital beds, those that could smiledplayfully at me. Their eyes tugged at my heart the way my daughter’s eyes do when sheis sick. From these children, and from their parents and our drivers, I learned in Iraqsomething of what it means to be good. Their memory haunts me and inspires a simplemessage which I believe more and more good people are beginning to hear: Things are notalways as they appear. Iraq is not Saddam Hussein. Let Iraq Live.