Special report: Iraq
Denis J Halliday, Guardian Unlimited
Wednesday August 2, 2000
Here we are in the middle of the
millennium year and we are responsible
for genocide in Iraq. Saddam Hussein
certainly gave Bush and Thatcher a gift
when he invaded Kuwait in 1990. He
facilitated the opening of the much-needed
respectability of a UN umbrella for a
US-led alliance to destroy Iraq.
Why? Because despite the costly
debacle of the war with Iran, Saddam
Hussein remained the only Arab head of
state capable of providing Arab leadership
and resistance to neo-colonial US/UK and
western domination of the Middle East,
and its oil.
The war was always about controlling oil
supplies, and never really about Kuwait.
But Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, in
breach of international law, provided the
opportunity for showing American military
muscle, damaged by the Vietnam defeat;
for experimentation with depleted uranium;
and for the destruction of Iraq, combined
with impoverishment of the rich Arab world
.
All of us that live in the silent democracies
are responsible for sustained genocide in
Iraq. Today the prime minister, Tony Blair,
is on the defensive on a range of largely
domestic issues. He does not appear to
be on the defensive over genocide. His
unending endorsement of the
Clinton/Albright programme for killing the
children of Iraq is seldom mentioned.
Have decision-makers learned nothing
from the Pinochet humiliation? Or do they
still feel immune under international law
for crimes against humanity?
What does that say about us all? Does it
say that, after 10 long decimating years of
the UN economic embargo on the people
of Iraq, we simply do not care? We do not
care when Unicef reports that 5,000
children under five years old die each
month unnecessarily from
embargo-related deprivation. And Unicef
does not count the teenagers, the adults
and the aged that die.
Do we not care that the UN allies, in
breach of Geneva conventions, destroyed
the lives of civilians through direct
bombing and destruction of electric power
capabilities, clean water systems,
sanitation and health care?
Do we not care that Iraqi society, culture
and learning, rooted in the cities of
Mesopotamia, is dying alongside its
people? Are we really that racist? Are we
really that anti-Islamic? Could Britain
stand by and watch the same holocaust
within a white Christian state?
What can be done? Why not set aside
US propaganda and demonisation and do
a Nixon to China, or a Clinton-Putin
outreach to Pyongyang - ie,
communicate. Begin to understand what
is happening in Iraq, and begin perhaps to
influence change and better relations
within the Middle East.
Why not address the concerns of the
Kuwaiti and Saudi leadership, who fear a
resurgence of Iraqi regional ambition, by
encouraging their political collaboration
with Baghdad? At the same time ease
fears through control of purchasing by,
and sales to, Iraq of offensive weapons of
mass or other forms of destruction.
Demand the removal of weapons of mass
destruction from the region, including
Israel, as in the US-drafted paragraph 14
of UN Resolution 687.
Critically, end the economic embargo and
allow the Iraqi economy to resurface. End
malnutrition and high child mortality rates.
Get people back to work. Re-establish the
dinar and its purchasing power. Repair the
power, water and urban sewage systems.
Rebuild agricultural production, health
care and education.
End the killing now. Remove any excuse
that Baghdad has today for the ongoing
catastrophe. End human rights abuses by
the UN via the embargo. Demand an end
to civil and political rights abuses by
Baghdad.
Acknowledge we have reduced the Iraqis
to refugees in their own country, being fed
inadequately despite use of their own oil
revenues.
Let us not be blinded by wasteful
expenditures on palaces or luxury cars.
Should we expect a higher standard in
Iraq when the UK spends millions of
pounds on a dome while British people
are homeless and hungry?
Let us be honest. We do not care for
democracy in the Middle East as much
too threatening to that oil cow Saudi
Arabia and its offspring Kuwait. Admit the
US/UK governments want country stability
so that they can invest profitably and be
sure of oil but regional instability so that
demand for arms manufacturing and sales
is sustained.
Let us invest in people and peaceful
coexistence in the world, including the
Middle East. Let's rally around the world
as the one small threatened unit it is
today, just as the Iraqis have rallied
around Saddam Hussein under western
attack.
Let us recognise the calamity of the
US/UK- driven UN economic embargo on
Iraq. Calamitous not only for Iraq and its
people, but for us all, including the very
survival of the UN itself as a credible
instrument for peace and security.
Let us take some risks. Let us even
remain ultimately self-serving and yet
visionary - by responding to such global
crises as Africa, global poverty, HIV-Aids,
the environment, globalisation ills - the
things that really matter, while allowing
the children of Iraq to live.
• Denis J Halliday, a visiting professor at
Swarthmore college in Pennsylvania, is a
former UN assistant secretary general and
UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq
1997-98