How many more must die?

              By Rania Masri

              Page: A25

              Imagine what it feels like to live for 10 years under sanctions and
              bombardment. You're in Basra, Iraq's southern-most city. It's morning and
              120 degrees in the shade. The electricity is off three hours out of every
              six. You're thirsty, but the tap water is unsafe to drink. You're hungry,
              but the monthly food ration has almost run out, and all that is left is
              some rice and tea. Your 8-year-old son has started screaming in fright
              again, as he does every time a fighter jet flies overhead. He is scared of
              the bombs that have been dropped almost daily. Your 4-year-old daughter is
              suffering from diarrhea, as a result of the dirty drinking water, and the
              doctor has said the simple medicine needed to cure her is not
              available. Most likely, your little girl will die in your arms.

              This story is replayed in homes throughout much of Iraq.

              Sanctions supporters claim this siege on Iraq is required to ensure that
              Iraq is disarmed. Even if true, how can we permit this continued killing
              of children through disease and malnutrition? And how can we continue this
              policy - or remain silent about this tragedy - when former weapons
              inspectors have repeatedly documented that Iraq is already disarmed?

              Former lead weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote in the Boston Globe in
              March that "... from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been
              disarmed. ... The chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range ballistic
              missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been
              destroyed or rendered harmless."

              These sanctions have cost the United States as much as $19 billion a year
              in lost exports, according to a study by the Institute for International
              Economics. The same study found that economic sanctions have rarely
              achieved policy goals.

              Sanctions supporters in the United States and Britain complain that the
              sanctions have failed in achieving their unwritten goal - that of removing
              the Iraqi regime. They also state that the sanctions have hurt the Iraqi
              people, not the regime. So why maintain these sanctions when they cause so
              much suffering?

              Denis Halliday, after resigning in protest from his post as
              U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq and U.N. assistant secretary
              general, said: "We are in the process of destroying an entire country. It
              is as simple and as terrifying as that."

              U.S. and British bombing attacks continue against Iraq. In the past two
              years, more than 20,000 sorties have flown over Iraq. These bombing raids,
              which are not sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council, have cost the
              taxpayer an average of

              $1 billion a year and have killed more than 300 civilians in Iraq since
              December 1998.

              Despite the horror of the regular bombardment, the sanctions kill many
              more people. For the past 10 years, U.N. reports have regularly documented
              the fatal effects of these sanctions. A 1998 UNICEF report stated that
              approximately 250 people, including 150 toddlers and infants, die every
              day in Iraq because of the sanctions.

              A 1999 U.N. report further documented that Iraq "has experienced a shift
              >from relative affluence to massive poverty. In marked contrast to the
              prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant mortality
              rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world. ... Chronic
              malnutrition affects every fourth child under 5 years of age. ...The Iraqi
              health-care system is today in a decrepit state."

              It is particularly disheartening since Iraqis used to enjoy one of the
              world's best and most accessible health-care systems. Furthermore, nearly
              half of the people in Iraq today do not have access to safe drinking
              water, in contrast to more than 90 percent before the imposition of
              sanctions in 1990.

              The U.N. oil-for-food program, presented as "humanitarian relief" by the
              mainstream media, provides less than 70 cents per person daily. It is no
              surprise that UNICEF found that "the oil-for-food plan has not resulted in
              adequate protection of Iraq's children from malnutrition/disease. Those
              children spared from death continue to remain deprived of essential rights
              addressed in the Convention of Rights of the Child."

              The solution? Lift the economic sanctions on the people of Iraq.

              Seventy-plus members of Congress, along with the National Gulf War
              Resource Center, former weapons inspectors, the U.N. Human Rights
              Commission, numerous national and international human-rights organizations
              and religious leaders, more than a dozen U.S. universities, and tens of
              thousands of concerned Americans have called for the immediate lifting of
              these sanctions.

              I repeat the question that Hans von Sponeck, the second U.N. humanitarian
              coordinator in Iraq, asked in February before resigning in protest, "How
              long [should] the civilian population, which is totally innocent on all
              this, be exposed to such punishment for something that they have never
              done?"

              ###

              Rania Masri is coordinator of the Iraq Action Coalition in Raleigh. She
              has contributed to the book "Iraq Under Siege."