A Crusader Frustrated by Indifference

              Denis Halliday's message is not getting across, at least not fast enough. Halliday, an Irishman who resigned
              as chief of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq because he found it to be a sham and shameful, came to
              the Bay Area in February 1999, saying U.N. sanctions were killing Iraqi civilians. He was back last
              weekend, running from event to event. He acknowledged that although some minds have changed in the
              West, the deprivation in Iraq is the same or worse: Thousands of children under 5 die each month.

              Halliday assigns Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 30 percent of the blame: He could build fewer palaces
              and provide more for his people. He could be more amenable to U.N. demands. But Saddam's
              ammunition against sanctions is the visible suffering of civilians. He uses that suffering to get at the West, as
              we use it to get at him. Neither strategy works, so the stalemate and the deaths continue. But Halliday asks
              why we should expect more of a cruel dictator than we expect of ourselves. And why aren't more of us
              outraged at what is done in our name?

              In the American past, if children had no-account parents who did not provide for them, that was not our
              problem. Now, some say, ``It Takes a Village.'' They are all our sons and daughters. But Iraq is not part of
              our village. It's a different culture; it's an enemy; it's far away. And Saddam Hussein keeps making
              threatening noises.

              Halliday says: Perhaps Americans don't understand that this is not a question of not helping, this is about
              hurting. The sin is one of commission, not omission. We are preventing Iraqi civilians -- children --
 
               from getting the necessities of life. Such as clean water.
 

              At the U.N. Millennium Summit, Halliday's former boss, Secretary- General Kofi Annan, advocated
              humanitarian intervention. Annan said governments and dictators cannot be allowed to hide behind
              borders; we must reach out and protect the human rights of all peoples. Halliday says that includes Iraqis.
              We think of protecting people from a bad ruler; Halliday is asking us to stop persecuting a people in order
              to oust a bad ruler.

              Scott Ritter, a former arms inspector in Iraq, appeared with Halliday last weekend. He says that the United
              States never set out to hurt children but that by 1995, the U.S. government knew sanctions were not
              succeeding and saw the collateral damage. ``We're not supposed to operate this way. I was trained for
              war. But even in war, it's not legal to carry out orders to kill children.''