U.N. Sanctions Against Iraq: Saving The World From An Iraqi Stockpile
of Spatulas, Doorknobs, Napkins, and Lipstick
  2000 Bob Harris
 http://www.bobharris.com
 mailto:underpaid@bobharris.com

 * * = italics

According to United Nations figures, more than a million Iraqis have died
 as a direct result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War.  Other
 estimates place the death toll at 1.5 million or more.

 Most of the casualties are children, many of whom were not even born when
 the Gulf War took place.

 The Sanctions Committee does not issue a comprehensive list of contraband
 items; applications for exporting anything into Iraq are considered in
 closed session and only approved if nothing on the list can imaginably
 have military applications.

 Unfortunately, few things on Earth can meet these standards.

As a consequence, the thousands of items routinely declared off-limits
 include:

 Air conditioning
 Aluminum foil
 Ambulances
 Amplifiers
 Answering machines
 Ashtrays
 Baby food
 Badminton rackets
 Bags
 Baking soda
 Bandages
 Baskets
 Bath brushes
 Batteries
 Belts
 Benches
 Bicycles
 Blankets
 Boots
 Bottles
 Bowls
 Boxes
Broilers
 Calculators
 Cameras
 Candles
 Candlesticks
 Canvas
 Carpets
 Cars
 Carts
 Catheters
 Cellophane
 Chairs
 Chalk
 Chess boards
 Chiffon
 Children's clothes
 Clock radios
 Clocks
 Cloth
 Coats
 Combs
 Cotton swabs
 Cupboards
 Cups
 Desk lamps
 Deodorants
 Desks
 Detergents
 Dialysis equipment
 Dishes
 Dishwashers
 Dolls
 Doorknobs
 Doormats
 Dresses
 Easels
 Envelopes
 Erasers
 Eyeglasses
 Fans
 Filing cabinets
 Filing cards
 Film
 Filters
 Flashlights
 Flowerpots
 Forks
 Fountain pens
 Gauze
 Generators
 Girdles
 Glass
 Glue
 Gowns
 Grills
 Hairpins
 Hammers
 Handkerchiefs
 Hats
 Headlights
 Headphones
 Hearing aids
 Helmets
 Hoes
 Hooks
 Hoses
 Incubators
 Ink
 Insulation
Intravenous fluid bags
 Kettles
 Lamps
 Lamp shades
 Lawn mowers
 Leather
 Light bulbs
Lipstick
 Magnets
 Matches
 Medical journals
 Microphones
Microscopes
 Mirrors
 Mops
 Motors
 Mufflers
 Musical instruments
Nail brushes
 Nail files
 Nail polish
 Napkins
 Notebooks
 Oxygen tents
Pails
 Paint
 Paintbrushes
 Pans
 Paper
 Paper clips
 Pencil sharpeners
 Pencils
 Pens
 Photocopiers
 Ping-pong balls
 Pins
 Plates
 Pliers
 Plywood
 Porcelain
 Pots
 Pressure cookers
 Pulleys
 Putty
 Razor blades
 Recorded music
 Roasters
 Rubber
 Rugs
 Rulers
 Sandals
 Sandpaper
 Saucers
 Saws
 Scales
 School textbooks
 Seats
Shampoo
 Shirts
 Shoelaces
 Shoe leather
 Shoe polish
 Shoes
 Shopping carts
 Shovels
 Soap
 Soccer balls
 Socks
 Spatulas
 Sponges
 Spoons
 Stamps
 Staplers
 Stethoscopes
 Stoves
 Surgical gloves
 Surgical instruments
 Swimsuits
 Syringes
 Tables
Tacks
 Telephones
 Tents
 Thermometers
 Threads
 Tire pumps
 Tissue paper
 Toasters
Toilet paper
 Toilets
 Tongs
 Toothbrushes
 Toothpaste
 Toothpicks
 Towels
 Toys
 Tractors
 Trash cans
 TV sets
 Typewriters
 Vacuum cleaners
 Vaseline
 Vases
 Venetian blinds
 Waffle irons
 Wagons
 Wallets
 Wallpaper
 Washing machines
Watches
 Water purification chemicals
 Wheelbarrows
 Wheels
 Window shades
 Wood
 Wool
 Wrenches

 Entire broad categories of stuff which are commonly forbidden:

 Agricultural equipment
 Automobile, truck, tractor, or motorcycle parts and equipment
 Books and magazines (including medical journals)
 Building materials
 Clothing
Computers and all peripherals
 Electrical equipment
 Manufacturing equipment
 Medical supplies (from ECG and X-ray machines down to latex gloves and
 syringes)
 Medicine
 (The above is in no way a complete list of the tens of thousands of items
 kept out of Iraq; it is merely a summary compiled from news reports and
 lists kept by several groups keeping track of the ever-growing insanity of
 the sanctions.  For more information, see below.)

 One is immediately impressed by the UN's faith in the MacGyver-like
 ability of starving Iraqis to improvise Pentagon-threatening weapons out
 of hearing aids, candlesticks, and baby food.

 Evidently, Saddam Hussein is so evil that even men's hats and ping-pong
 balls must be kept from his sinister grip.  Perhaps NATO fears the
 development of a Hat Gap.
 Just as credibly, we are to believe that allowing Iraqi children -- who
 have, incidentally, no influence whatsoever on Saddam Hussein, his
 government, or a war that occurred before they were even born -- access to
basic medicine, nutrition, and sanitation would apparently endanger the
 world as we know it.

 Denis Halliday, a 30-year veteran of the United Nations, once coordinated
the U.N.'s "Oil For Food" program in Iraq.  He also resigned in protest in
 1998, calling the sanctions "totally bankrupt."  In just over a year
 overseeing the program, Halliday learned first-hand "it doesn't impact on
 governance effectively and instead it damages the innocent people of the
 country... it probably strengthens the leadership."

 Halliday's successor was Hans von Sponeck, a 36-year U.N. official from
 Germany.  Von Sponeck, too, expressed increasing disgust over the
 sanctions, ultimately resigning last March 31st, accusing the U.S. and
 Great Britain of delaying contracts for humanitarian supplies.  Jutta
 Burqhardt, head of the U.N. food program in Iraq, resigned at the same
 time, for the same reasons.

 Even if Iraq is still a military threat, it is clear that the sanctions
 are only strengthing Saddam Hussein's control, and should therefore be
 stopped.  But the credibility of the threat Iraq currently imposes is
 profoundly questionable.  Scott Ritter, a high-ranking U.N. weapons
 inspector who resigned in 1998, insists that Iraq does not possess
 credible weapons of mass destruction, nor does it present a credible
 military threat to its neighbors, and that sanctions are causing the
unnecessary deaths of over a thousand children each week.

 Almost ten years ago, we were told scary stories about invading hordes
 ripping babies from incubators, received credulously at first because
Saddam's armies had indeed committed great crimes against innocent people.
 The incubator tale, however, turned out to be an invention of the Kuwaiti
 royal family and their American PR firm.

 Ironically, it is the U.N. which now keeps incubators away from premature
 Arab children.

 Of those who survive, most grow up with little exposure to people, ideas,
 or technology from outside their local area.  Extremism and anti-Western
 sentiment is rapidly growing.

 If Saddam is ever to be deposed, and anything resembling democracy is ever
 to develop in Iraq -- a circumstance even less likely now than when the
 sanctions and consequent deaths from malnutrition and preventable disease
began -- these children must one day grow up to be the nation's leaders.

 No one can deny the crimes and terror imposed by Saddam Hussein and his
 Iraqi regime.  But the current U.N. policy makes no one safer and does
nothing to alleviate anyone's suffering.

 Instead, every nine minutes -- roughly the time it probably took you to
 read this article -- another Iraqi dies as a direct result of the
sanctions.

 How many more must die before the West concedes that the sanctions are a
 failed policy with predictable consequences so well-known, obvious, and
 continuing that they border on genocide?

 ___________________________
 Bob Harris is a political humorist whose morning radio show can be heard
 online from 8-11 am EST at http://www.radioforchange.com.

 To receive a free email subscription to The Scoop, just send a blank email
 to BobHarris-subscribe@listbot.com.

 ___________________________