'It is an outrage that you repeat fabricated disinformation'
Letter to the Guardian from Graf Hans von Sponeck
Thursday January 4, 2001

As the Bush administration prepares for power, the UN policy of
sanctions against Baghdad, introduced 10 years ago, must be one of the first
areas to claim its attention. A former senior UN official writes an open
letter to Britain's minister with responsibility for Iraq, Peter Hain,
a leading voice in defence of a policy now widely seen as ineffective
and immoral

 Dear Minister Hain,

17 December 2000 was the first anniversary of UN Resolution 1284. This
resolution was offered by the UN security council last year as a step
forward in resolving outstanding disarmament, and arms monitoring issues
as a precondition for the suspension of comprehensive economic
sanctions against Iraq.

As many feared, including myself, this resolution was a still-born
creation. For this neither the British nor the Iraqi governments but rather
the people of Iraq continue to pay dearly and daily. The European
public is increasingly unwilling to accept such a policy. There is deep
concern because of the suffering of innocent civilians and the irrefutable
evidence of violations of international law by the UN security council.

Without a transparent political agenda and a determined end to
contaminating information, I do not see an end to this costly human tragedy in
Iraq. Your speech of 7 November at Chatham House has not helped in this
regard. Let me single out nine specific points of what you have said:

€ "Our air crews risk their lives patrolling the skies above southern
Iraq."

The public does not know that you do this without a mandate by the UN
security council. It is in your hands to stop endangering your pilots by
withdrawing them from Iraqi skies. It angered your office that I
introduced air-strike reporting for 1999 while serving in Iraq. I did so as
the UN secretary general's designated official for security because of
the dangers for the security of a highly mobile team of UN observers
travelling daily on the roads of Iraq. The report showed that out of 132
incidents, UN staff was witness to such air strikes on 28 occasions.

The public does not know that in the very areas you established as
'no-fly zones' to protect  the population living there, 144 civilians died
and 446 were wounded by UK/US airforces. The FCO classified these
reports as [³?]Iraqi propaganda with a UN imprimatur" even though much of it
was collected and verified by UN staff travelling in the areas at the
time of the strikes.

€ "Our sailors are involved in activities to curb the illegal export of
Iraqi oil."

This is known. You are silent, as you have been in all your statements,
about the UK condoned export of illegal oil from Iraq into Turkey. Your
silence is understandable albeit not acceptable if you want the full
story to be known. US/UK concurrence to this illegal export of oil is in
exchange for Turkish government agreement to the use of Incirlik
airbase in south-eastern Anatolia for allied sorties into the northern no-fly
zone of Iraq.

€ "I firmly believe that he (President of Iraq) remains determined to
develop his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacity."

You offer no evidence. What I in turn 'firmly believe' is that you want
to keep a picture of Iraq alive even though it no longer reflects the
realities on the ground. This is not surprising. Without it the case for
sanctions would be over. I remind [you] here of what former Unscom
chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter recently said: "There is absolutely no
reason to believe that Iraq could have meaningfully reconstituted any
element of its WMB capabilities in the past 18 months." Around the same
time, Dr Blix, executive chairman of Unmovic, answered the question
whether there was any indication that Iraq was trying to rearm. "No, I do
not think you can say this. We have nothing to substantiate this."

€ Iraq resolution 1284 "represents the collective will of the Security
Council and has the full force of International Law."

You know how deceptive this assertion is. Three out of five permanent
members and Malaysia did not support this resolution. Yes, security
council decisions constitute international law. This puts a formidable
responsibility on the shoulders of the UN security council. You are aware,
no doubt, of the increasing numbers of serious objections by
international legal experts to the continued application of these laws. The
evidence is overwhelming that after ten years of sanctions these 'acts' have
become illegal.

€ (UN) "resolution 1284 removed the ceiling on the amount of oil Iraq
is allowed to export."

This is a political ploy. Your government knows well from annual UN
reports on the state of the Iraqi oil industry that Iraq cannot pump more
oil unless the UN security council allows a complete overhaul of the
oil industry. You mention "recent increases' in (oil) production." Why do
you do this when you know that the Iraqi oil output has not increased
at all but exports have fluctuated around 2.2m barrels per day?

€ "With this large amount of revenue available, one cannot help but ask
why we still see pictures of malnourished and sick children?"

My first reaction to this tendentious statement is to ask whether your
officials ever show you UN documents? Unicef has repeatedly pointed out
that this reality is only going to change when the sanctions regime is
once again replaced by a normally functioning economy. Let me add that
more often than not, it is the blocking of contracts by the US/UK which
has created immense problems in implementing the oil-for-food
programme. The present volume of blocked items amounts to $2.3bn the highest
ever.

€ "It is an outrage that the Iraqi government wilfully denies food and
medicine...".

Please forgive me if I say that it is an outrage that against your
better knowledge you repeat again and again truly fabricated and
self-serving disinformation. Why do you ignore UN stock reports which give you
the monthly distribution situation and which, verified by UN observers,
show for food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies an average of
over 90% distributed per month?

€ "Contrast the situation with northern Iraq where the same sanctions
apply but Saddam's writ does not run."

This statement is correct. The Kurdish areas are indeed doing better. I
am distressed, however, about the false impression you create with the
simplistic causality you offer. A fair comparison would mention that i)
the Kurdish population received 19.4% of the oil revenue, i.e. a
disproportionately higher amount than the population in central/southern
Iraq; ii) sanctions are regularly broken in northern Iraq; iii) there is
extensive cross-border trade with Turkey and therefore good income
earning opportunities; iv) the UN security council does not block many
contracts benefiting the Kurdish areas; v) the climatic conditions in the
hilly areas of the north are more favourable. Why are you, Minister, not
mentioning these factors?

€ "... there are those who are undermining sanctions and challenging
the authority of the UN."

Yes, this is true, and it includes me. Do accept, Minister Hain, that I
do so with the utmost discomfort. I am fully aware that this weakens
the very machinery which has been set up to deal with conflicts like this
one. However, I see no other alternative when the fundamentals of human
rights and international law are applied in a biased and lopsided
manner. The human rights coin has two sides, Minister. Lawlessness of one
kind does not justify lawlessness of another kind! This has grave
consequences not only for the suffering of the Iraqi people but also for the
importance we should ascribe in Europe to the laws earlier governments
have helped to create. The FCO should carefully study the deposition of
Professor Bossuyt to the Human Rights Commission in June 2000. It
provides comprehensive legal arguments by a large group of jurists of the
serious violation of international law by the UN security council in
which the UK has always played such an important role.

Let me end by saying, the Iraq file cannot be handled objectively and
in the interest of the people of Iraq unless the hidden agenda
disappears. When this happens then but only then does this sentence in the
closing paragraph of your Chatham House speech get the value it deserves. "
We support human rights, transparency and accountability for other
people because [these are?] the values we demand for ourselves!" Yes, this
is how it should be, Minister!

Yours Sincerely
H.C. Graf Sponeck
Former Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq
Geneva, December 2000