Nine years after the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the defeat of
              Iraqi forces a low intensity war is still being waged against Iraq and its people.
              Unprecedented sanctions imposed before and after the end of the coalition
              war in 1991 continue to wreak havoc on Iraq’s civilian population. The
              ongoing feud between Baghdad and Washington appears to be a ready made
              drama for the posturing politicians and their cheerleading handmaidens in the
              media and in some of the think tanks. The confrontation appears to have many
              of the same characteristics of a morality play between good and evil.

              In Baghdad, Iraqi leaders exude defiance and declare that they have fulfilled
              their part of the deal that inspectors could not return unless sanctions are lifted.
              They also point that UNSCOM’s inspectors violated their mission by spying
              on Iraqi military and security facilities. They further charge that the US and
              British flights over Iraq violate Iraqi airspace and would be shot down.

              In Washington, Saddam Hussein is portrayed as the arch villain. The man
              everyone loves to hate. Politicians, so-called experts and media pundits whip
              up popular emotions warn that Iraq may be rebuilding its arsenal of chemical
              and biological weapons and is becoming a threat to world peace and regional
              stability. Almost weekly attacks are carried out against Iraqi targets in the no
              fly zones and threats of serious consequences to Baghdad have become
              routine. Since the end of operation Desert Fox in 1998, the US and Britain
              have flown about 19000 missions over Iraq resulting in the death of over 160
              people.

              Demonizing symbols and slogans represents everything we fear or despise and
              have become easy substitutes for reasonable discourse and rational foreign
              policy debate. Saddam Hussein has become such a symbol. He is widely
              viewed as a harsh and brutal ruler who invaded a neighbor, suppressed his
              domestic opponents and challenged US interests. But many leaders with
              similar checkered careers were and continue to be given the red carpet
              treatment in Washington. Furthermore, demonizing Saddam Hussein has also
              meant demonizing the Iraqi people. Many in the media appear to have
              abandoned their traditional watchdog role for a cheerleading one. They are
              joined by some Middle East and Iraq experts whose objectivity and
              knowledge of Iraq and the region are scanty. With Saddam Hussein the
              impulse appears to be to do whatever it takes to punish him. Yet, it seems that
              whether he is bombed into submission, submits peacefully or continues to defy
              the US he wins as long as he remains in power.

              It is indeed difficult to understand how a small Third World country which
              emerged exhausted from its eight years war with Iran and from its unmatched
              43-day war with the largest military coalition in the history and which is living
              under the harshest and most unprecedented sanctions regime, could be seen
              as posing a threat to world peace and stability. Iraq today is a defeated nation,
              its sovereignty is diminished and its civil society is on the brink of collapse. In
              any kind of military confrontation the outcome is not in doubt and the
              long-suffering Iraqi people are the ones to pay the heaviest price. Scott Ritter,
              the hard-line former UNSCOM inspector, has said that Iraq, since 1997, has
              been "qualitatively disarmed", and "On any meaningful benchmark — in terms
              of defining Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities in terms of
              assessing whether or not Iraq posed a threat, not only to its immediate
              neighbors and the world as a whole — Iraq had been eliminated as such a
              threat."

              The situation today is however quite different from 1990. A number of
              important things have changed in Iraq and in the region. Whatever one may
              think of President Bush’s decision to go to war and whether war was
              inevitable and the best way to resolve the crisis, he was a master at
              orchestrating the campaign. He used all available superpower means to
              mobilize international support or to neutralize potential opponents of his policy.
              He muzzled and manipulated the media and launched a successful public
              relations campaign that helped to mobilize public, and to certain extent,
              international support.

              It is now becoming obvious however; that the coalition built by President Bush
              is no longer what it used to be. The international opposition to the use of force
              is indicative of this fact. Press reports from the Middle East, the Third World
              and even Europe indicate that there is scant support for the use of force and
              for the ongoing sanctions.

              In 1990 Iraq had violated international law and the UN charter by resorting to
              the use of force to settle its dispute with Kuwait. Kuwait was widely seen as a
              victim of Iraqi aggression by many in and out to the region and some Arab
              governments viewed Iraq as a threat to themselves and to the region. Today
              most of them view Iraq as a country on its knees and as victim of a "vindictive"
              and "trigger happy" Washington which has one set of standards for a weak
              and defenseless Iraq and another for friendly or powerful countries which
              violate international law, and commit infractions similar to Iraq’s. More
              importantly, Iraq is no longer perceived by many of the members of the
              1990-91 coalition as a serious threat.

              Another important fact affecting international attitudes towards Iraq is the
              growing awareness about the devastating impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi
              people and society. On February 1, 2000, the International Committee of the
              Red Cross issued a report stating that after nine years of sanctions, "The
              situation of the civilian population is increasingly desperate . . . deteriorating
              living conditions, inflation, and low salaries makes the average person’s
              everyday lives a continuing struggle, while food shortages and lack of clean
              drinking water threatens their very survival." Infant mortality has tripled since
              1990 and the death rate among children under five is at least six times higher.
              The Oil for Food Program, which permits Iraq to sell $5.26 billion worth of oil
              every six months, is designed to be limited. It treats Iraq as a huge refugee
              camp to be given emergency aid. But what the Iraqis need is to be able to
              rebuild their economy and restart their development and reconstruction. The
              main beneficiaries of the program are not the helpless people of Iraq but
              western powers where billions of dollars of the program’s money is held in
              Escrow in Western banks because of the delays and the politicization of the
              issue by the Clinton and Blair governments. The Iraqi Commerce Minister has
              recently charged that despite Iraqi exports estimated at $22 billion since the
              start of the Oil for Food Program in 1996, Iraq has only received goods
              worth $6 billion. The UN has taken $7.8 billion for its operations and for
              compensations while the rest of the money sits in foreign banks and have not
              been made available to Iraq.

              The Inter-Church Coalition has said that the suffering and the death caused by
              the sanction are of the scale that place Iraq in a category "with the gravest
              humanitarian disaster of the 20th Century." Meanwhile, more voices in the US
              appear to be waking up to the fact that Iraq and its people are facing what
              Hans Von Sponeck, UN humanitarian aid coordinator describes as "a true
              human tragedy". Sponeck, along with Jutta Burghardt, the UN World Food
              Program’s representative resigned in protest over the un-workability of the Oil
              for Food Program and of UN Resolution of 1284. Seventy members of the
              Congress have recently added their voices to the peace and human rights
              activists and others who have been pointing out the dangerous situation in
              Iraq. In a letter to president Clinton, they urged lifting the sanctions on
              non-military goods and cited a direct relationship between the embargo and
              the death of over one million Iraqis most of whom most are children.
              Politicians, as far apart as Pat Buchanan, David Bonier, John Kazakh, Jack
              Kemp and many others have called for dramatic changes in the policy toward
              Iraq.

              The facts are reported by credible American and international relief and
              human rights organizations as well as by specialized UN bodies. Life
              expectancy in Iraq fell from 66 years in 1993 to 58 years old in 1997. Infant
              mortality rose from 37 per thousand live births in 1989 to 97 per thousand live
              births in 1997. Average per capita income fell from $335 in 1988 to $24 in
              1999. Literacy rates dropped from 89% in 1985 to 58% today. In 1990, Iraq
              was number 55 out of 130 countries on the Human Development Index, now
              it is number 125. Two years ago, UNICEF reported that about "4500
              children, under five, are dying each month from hunger and (preventable)
              diseases". WHO has reported that this is "a six-fold increase in the mortality
              rate since the onset of the sanctions and that half of the population have been
              on a semi-starvation diet"? FAO has reported "more than one million Iraqis
              have died, 567,000 of them children, as a direct consequence of the economic
              sanctions. As many as 12% of the children surveyed in Baghdad are wasted,
              28% stunted and 29% under weight". And while UNCR 986 or the "food for
              oil" resolution allows the sale of $2 billion of oil, only 40 percent of that gets to
              the population of central and southern Iraq - the area under the government’s
              control. This accounts for less than 25 cents a day per person and provides
              less than a quarter of the minimum calorie intake. Care has stated that
              "children, mothers, the sick and the aged which were well cared for before
              1990 are now dying while the outside world mistakenly believes that the deal
              has solved Iraq’s problems".

              Denis Halliday the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq resigned in protest over
              the policy last year. His successor, Hans Sponeck, despite sharp criticism
              from Washington and London, called the sanctions on Iraq "a true human
              tragedy" and urged their end. He said that he could no longer remain silent
              "over that which we see here ourselves." Sponeck rejected the Clinton
              Administration’s arguments that the Oil for Food Programme meets the basic
              needs of average Iraqis. "The program has certainly done some good" for the
              average Iraqi according to Sponeck but "did not guarantee the minimum that a
              human being requires which is clearly defined in the universal declaration of
              human rights. The sanctions continue to prohibit the importation of agricultural
              pesticides for crops and chlorine to purify polluted water, which has been a
              major cause of death and disease. Furthermore the Sanctions Committee has
              put more than 33 items on the ‘red list’ using criteria whose logic is not always
              apparent. These bans have had drastic consequences. The interdictions
              include such items as lead pencils and pencil sharpeners, chlorine, sewing
              machines agricultural pesticides, children’s clothes and a whole range of
              medical material. This is both inexplicable and inexcusable. The people of Iraq
              are bearing the brunt of the sanctions.

              And while food and most medicines are not banned, Iraqis are unable to
              export and Iraqi money is frozen overseas. Licenses to import have often been
              delayed or not approved. Consequently, a country which, before the war, had
              a thriving middle class and one of the most advanced medical and educational
              systems in the Middle East, is falling apart. The struggle for survival has
              become the sole driving force in society and people are in no position to
              challenge the regime even if they wished to do so. Crime is skyrocketing and
              the whole fabric of civil society is collapsing. It is disingenuous to say that
              Saddam can change this if he wants. But since the sanctions do not affect him
              directly there is no reason for him to do so. If the purpose behind the
              sanctions is to drive the people to oust Saddam Hussein, it has clearly failed.
              Indeed the sanctions made a struggling population more dependent on the
              government for meager assistance.

              The confrontations over UNSCOM and UNMOVIC help the Iraqi
              government’s argument that it is defending Iraqi sovereignty and is pressuring
              the UN to show a light at the end of the tunnel for lifting the sanctions.
              Furthermore, many in the region and in the world have come to accept Iraq’s
              charges that UNSCOM, which was created in 1991 during the immediate
              aftermath of the war to destroy Iraq mass destruction weapons, violated its
              mandate and became a pawn of the US and British policies and was used for
              spying on the regime and its leaders. UNSCOM’s behavior and its efforts
              undermined not only the credibility of UNSCOM, but also that of the Security
              Council and of the Clinton Administration.

              While there have been some levels of non-compliance by Iraq, the regime,
              according to the Sanctions Committee, reports that it has conformed with
              most of the requirements to dismantle its unconventional weapons arsenal.
              According to Scott Ritter, "Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stock has
              been, by and large, accounted for — removed, destroyed or rendered
              harmless. Means of production have been eliminated". Consequently, the
              regional perception is that the inspection process was being needlessly
              prolonged and politicized. The US has also ignored the preamble of the
              resolution that calls for the creation of a weapons of mass destruction free
              zone in the Middle East. The unequal emphasis placed on UN resolutions
              concerning Iraq compared to those concerning Lebanon, Cyprus and the
              Palestinians are often cited as signs of western hypocrisy and double
              standards.

              Regional concern is also growing about Iraq’s territorial integrity and unity.
              The emasculation of Iraq is raising fears about the involvement in Iraqi affairs
              by several of its neighbors particularly in the Allied-controlled zone in the
              North. The Turks have sent tanks and thousands of troops, used napalm on
              Kurdish targets and talked about establishing a security zone in northern Iraq.
              Their behavior has elicited no condemnation or action from the Administration
              which has lead to increased fears in the Arab world about Iraq’s future. It is
              widely feared that a collapse in Iraq will make what we saw in the former
              Yugoslavia look like a picnic and will invite all of Iraq’s neighbors into the
              fray. Such a consequence does not bode well for the long sought regional
              stability that the Clinton Administration says it is seeking.

              Recently, Peter Krogh, a seasoned foreign policy analyst, a distinguished
              academic and a former dean of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign
              Service, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that American foreign policy is in
              shambles and has been reduced to a "scold and bomb" policy. He surveyed
              US relations with Russia and China focused on what he describes as "the two
              most critical crises in which we stand in center stage" and these are in Iraq and
              Serbia. He charged that current US policy only served to bring about "a
              humanitarian disaster" and to entrench Iraqi and Yugoslav leaders. "In both
              cases the result is the same- a dictator’s defiance, the alienation of our allies
              … and the erosion of our prestige and credibility…" Today, the US wants
              regime change in Iran, China, Iraq, Serbia and Cuba to name just few. We
              may wish to start closer to home; perhaps our leaders will stop
              hyperventilating about the imperfections of others and attend to their
              diplomatic knitting. But if they do not do that soon we should assemble a new
              foreign policy team that embraces the view of America’s role in the world as
              an integrator not an instructor."

              Internationally, France, Russia, China, the Vatican as well as Egypt have
              favored taking steps to provide incentives to Iraq to continue to cooperate
              with the UN and its agencies under Article 22 of Resolution 660. The US has
              balked at this interpretation and at loosening the sanctions until Iraq complies
              with all UN resolutions. Recently China, France and Russia abstained from
              voting on Resolution 1248. While economic interests in Iraq and the sanctions
              may be factors in their attitudes there is nevertheless a bridled sense of unease
              over unilateralist US policies among these countries over what they perceive
              as high-handed and overbearing Washington policies on Iraq and other issues.

              An examination of the Dual Containment policy and the sanctions regime is
              long overdue. Food and medicine should not be used as weapons. These have
              not been used as weapons even in the darkest moments of the Cold War. An
              immediate lifting of the embargo on food and medicine as well as on goods
              and equipment necessary for the rebuilding of the country’s infrastructure and
              for repairing its sewage and water pollution plants would be an important first
              step. An international effort similar to the Marshall Plan which helped to
              re-build Germany after WW2 would go a long way towards ending the
              humanitarian disaster and rebuilding Iraq. It is also time to re-examine the
              policy towards Iraq and the region to avoid the framework for bitter instability
              the present policy is building in the Middle East of the immediate future. Dual
              containment has clearly failed in the case of Iran and has become a unilateral
              containment of Iraq, further undermining the regional balance. Aside from the
              moral price we pay there is political shortsightedness. Iraq is a strategic
              country and its collapse will open a Pandora’s box of regional disasters and
              instability with grave consequences for its people and for all the peoples of the
              region. It is time to find a political and peaceful solution for the ongoing
              confrontation.

              Edmund Ghareeb is the co-author of the recently published War in the
              Gulf, 1990-91, Oxford University Press.