Iraqi Sanctions
Summary:
The Australian
President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War,
Dr. Susan Wareham,
talks about the the suffering the Iraqi sanctions inflict
on the Iraqi
population, particularly the children.
Transcript:
Robyn Williams:
Trade sanctions can be tricky. They made a great deal
of difference
to the outcome in South Africa, and have just been eased
after some success
in Yugoslavia, but are being questioned more and more
as a lever to
policy in Iraq.
In today’s talk,
Dr. Susan Wareham, President of the Medical Association
for the Prevention
of War, presents a case for their re-examination.
Susan Wareham:
Walid spends most of his time on the streets of
Baghdad. He
is 14 years old and shines shoes each day to earn a meagre
existence for
his mother and brothers. If he had been born ten years earlier,
Walid like all
children in Iraq, would have attended school until at least age
15, but times
have changed. Since 1990 the people in Iraq have lived, and
died, under
economic sanctions. And Walid and the rest of his generation
are the major
victims.
I met Walid in
April last year when I visited Iraq as part of an international
delegation which
travelled there to deliver pharmaceutical and medical
supplies and
to make contact with a people whose suffering has been
largely forgotten
by the world community.
We did not go
to collect data on the effects of the sanctions, for the plight
of the people
of Iraq has been repeatedly documented by the UN and
other bodies.
UNICEF has estimated that over half a million children under
five alone have
died because of the sanctions.
To fully understand
the extent of the crisis, we must see it in context. Iraq,
with its vast
reserves of oil, is a very wealthy country. Until August 1990,
the people enjoyed
all the economic benefits of a well developed society.
The health care
system was one of the best in the region; rates of
malnutrition
were very low; education was free and compulsory, and
literacy rates
were high.
On the 16-hour
bus trip through the desert from Amman in Jordan to
Baghdad, we
were struck by the sudden widening of the road as we
entered Iraq.
Such expensive infrastructure from a decade ago, and
Baghdad’s impressive
monuments, pay tribute to the past glory of the
country, and
especially its capital. But today the remnants of grandeur
stand in stark
contrast to the disrepair and the despair which characterise
Iraqi society.
The streets are full of dilapidated vehicles, and a ride in a taxi
with an unbroken
windscreen is indeed a luxury. Saddam Hussein
continues to
live in grandeur himself of course, as does a small elite; and for
those with money,
goods are available. But for most of the population,
even the cost
of sufficient food for the family is prohibitive.
The primary area
of interest for our delegation was the health care facilities.
We visited a
number of hospitals in Baghdad, and the situation in all of
them was similar.
Basic supplies such as antibiotics, nutritional supplements
and other essential
medicines and intravenous fluids are severely deficient.
Infectious illnesses
such as cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, measles, polio
and rubella
are much more common now than ten years ago, and some of
the older doctors
to whom we spoke said that they are now seeing
conditions such
as rickets, which they had not seen since their student days.
Rates of malnutrition
are high; according to UNICEF, over a quarter of
children under
five are chronically malnourished.
We heard also
of the greatly increased rates of malignancies, especially
leukaemias in
children, and saw many children with leukaemia. Most of
them die, and
even for the dying there is no dignity, for even morphine and
simple aspirin
are severely rationed. Many suspect that the use of depleted
uranium in the
1991 Gulf War is responsible for the high cancer rates.
Two memories
of health care in Iraq stand out in my mind. The first is the
nauseating stench
of sewerage which pervades many of the hospital wards.
Even in the
hospitals, blocked pipes often cannot be cleared. Plumbing and
other mechanical
parts are regarded as ‘dual-use’ by the UN Security
Council Sanctions
Committee, that is, they can be used by the civilian or
military sectors,
so contracts for them are blocked or delayed.
The second is
the silent tears in the eyes of the parents as they watch their
limp and wasted
children. Strangely they didn’t seem like demons bent on
resurgence of
Iraqi military power, they seemed like ordinary parents who
love their children
beyond life itself.
Theoretically
food and medicines are exempt from the sanctions, but
without Iraq
being able to sell sufficient oil to pay for them, the exemption is
meaningless,
and indeed rather cynical. The oil industry, like everything
else, functions
at a fraction of its former capacity, and is still bombed from
time to time
by the US and British. The much-vaunted ‘Oil-for-food’
program is,
according to both the former UN administrators of the
program, Denis
Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, hopelessly inadequate at
easing the suffering
of the Iraqi people. Halliday and von Sponeck both
resigned their
positions in protest at the effects of the sanctions. Halliday
even says that
the program was never intended to resolve the humanitarian
crisis, but
merely to prevent it from getting any worse.
Education has
fared no better than health care. Basics such as text books
and paper are
in short supply. Education is still free, including at university
level, but school
drop-out rates are now high. Many children are too
hungry to concentrate,
or need to work so that the family can eat properly,
or have simply
lost hope in a decaying society. Wherever one walks on the
streets there
are children like Walid, selling cigarettes or chewing gum, or
just begging.
Ten years ago this would have been unheard of.
Mr. Michel Nahal,
the Middle East Council of Churches’ representative in
Baghdad, described
to us the fascination with learning which has
characterised
the 7,000 years of civilisation in the region, and the
desperation
which is felt now as the education system crumbles.
Professionals,
many of whom had previously studied and worked in other
countries are
now cut off from the outside world. Unemployment rates are
very high, and
the salaries of doctors, engineers, civil servants and others
amount to a
few dollars a month.
We spoke also
with Hans von Sponeck who was at the time of our visit,
still in charge
of the ‘Oil-for-food’ program. Von Sponeck considers the
destruction
of education, skilled trades and professions as one of the most
serious aspects
of the sanctions. He referred to the ‘intellectual genocide’
of the youth
of Iraq who, when the sanctions are lifted, will be expected to
interact constructively
with a world they hardly know.
So how did all
this come about? How can such a situation arise under the
auspices of
the United Nations, the body charged with protecting the
security and
welfare of the world’s people? The answer lies not with the
United Nations
as a whole, but with the Security Council. One of the most
scathing critics
of the sanctions is Ramsey Clark, former US
Attorney-General,
who refers to the sanctions as ‘a genocide by Security
Council imposed
starvation and illness.’ He says, ‘The sanctions against
Iraq are a crime
against humanity, one of the deadliest and curliest in
history.
Within days of
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the Security
Council banned
all trade with Iraq, the aim being to restore the government
of Kuwait. The
government of Kuwait was restored militarily early the
following year,
but then the goalposts moved. In April 1991, at the
completion of
the Gulf War, the Security Council passed Resolution 687
which set further
conditions to be fulfilled before the sanctions would be
lifted.
The major requirement
was that Iraq get rid of all its weapons of mass
destruction
and the capacity to produce them. An admirable and essential
goal, and one
which was achieved, for all practical purposes, by the
UNSCOM weapons
inspection teams. Scott Ritter, one of the UNSCOM
inspectors,
has stated that Iraq has no nuclear, chemical or biological
weapons capacity
left. However it is impossible to absolutely prove
disarmament
down to the last document, plan or test-tube, and Iraq is now
in the impossible
position of having to prove a negative, that they have no
capacity for
producing weapons of mass destruction. Halliday states that to
maintain the
sanctions on the pretext of looking for more weapons is a
political decision
which has some other agenda.
And while there
is little doubt, judging from history, that Saddam Hussein
would like to
produce such weapons again, the sanctions are actually now
preventing the
resumption of on-site military inspections in Iraq and making
the process
easier for him. The Iraqi government has stated that they will
not allow a
new round of inspectors into the country until the sanctions are
lifted.
It is interesting
to recall also that Resolution 687 did not refer only to Iraq’s
weapons, but
also to ‘the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free
from weapons
of mass destruction and all missiles from their delivery.’ The
implications
for Israel and other military powers in the region are clear, but
ignored.
We should not
forget also that two members of the Security Council, the
US and Britain,
the two nations which insist on maintaining the sanctions,
continue to
bomb Iraq regularly, on average every few days, killing civilians
in the process.
While there is barely a murmur of protest from the world
community at
such illegal acts and the arrogant hypocrisy which underlies
them, in the
long run this strategy is likely to backfire, with terrible
consequences.
Many questions
remain unanswered. By what justification does the UN
Security Council
violate the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the
Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the
Rights of the
Child, which all prohibit, implicitly or explicitly, the use of
civilian suffering
as a weapon? How can the Security Council regard with
almost supreme
indifference the reports of the UN’s own humanitarian
agencies, which
all but beg for the lifting of the sanctions? When is
international
law to be rigidly enforced against other aggressor states in the
Middle East
and elsewhere, including even the members of the Security
Council themselves?
When is a Middle East nuclear weapons free zone to
be implemented,
as called for in Security Council Resolution 687 of 1991?
How can Saddam
Hussein be both Public Enemy No.1 in the 1990s and a
prize asset
in the 1980s, armed with the finest weaponry the West had to
offer, including
agents for biological weapons from the US, even after the
Iraqi leader
was known to be using chemical weapons?
Denis Halliday,
like Ramsey Clark, refers to the sanctions as genocide. He
says that they
do nothing but target civilians and that they strengthen the
position of
Saddam Hussein. He was in Australia in April this year to
attempt to persuade
the Australian government to rethink its strong support
for the sanctions.
Unfortunately, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer did
not budge from
support for US policy.
Regardless of
whether the sanctions helped with the process of Iraq’s
disarmament
between 1991 and 1998, the time has come now to say,
enough is enough,
for five main reasons:
Firstly, while
the Iraqi government has removed the political rights of the
Iraqi people,
the UN Security Council has removed their right to food,
medical care,
clean water, education and hope for the future. Innocent
people, and
especially children, are being punished for crimes they have not
committed.
Secondly, Saddam
Hussein is able to use the sanctions to demonise the
West and strengthen
his own position.
Thirdly, in a
region already tense and heavily militarised, Iraqi resentment is
increasing,
and in this context, let us not forget the example of Germany’s
resentment of
the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, and Hitler’s
subsequent rise
to power.
Fourthly, the
sanctions are preventing the return of UN weapons inspectors
to Iraq.
Fifthly, the
Security Council, through its violation of the spirit of the UN
Charter, is
severely undermining the authority and legitimacy of the whole
UN system.
When the sanctions
are finally lifted, we will see and hear the full horror of
a nation humiliated,
ill-educated and, barring miracles, seeking revenge.
History will
tell whether those responsible will be held accountable for their
crimes.
Robyn Williams:
That was Dr. Susan Wareham. She’s a GP working in
Canberra and
is the Australian President of the Medical Association for the
Prevention of
War.
Next week, Ockham’s
Razor comes from Melbourne where Professor
Hugh Taylor
looks at Australia’s eyesight. I’m Robyn Williams.
Guests on this program:
Dr. Susan Wareham
President,
Medical Association for
Prevention of War (Australia),
3 Katz Place,
Spence ACT 2615