As a project initiated by the Quebec group, OCVC (Objection de conscience/Voices of Conscience), our delegation visited Iraq from January 5 to 14, 2000. The purpose of the mission was to observe how the sanctions imposed on Iraq have affected the civilian population. This report represents the gist of our observations and conclusions. It also includes background information on the historical, political, social and religious context in order to facilitate a better understanding of the issues involved.

The report is based, in part, on our personal observations, as well as on testimony from both ordinary Iraqis and other people we met who had more expert comments to make.

However, since we only directly experienced the situation for some ten days, this was not sufficient time to grasp the overall impact of the bombings and sanctions. Our report is therefore also based, to a large extent, on information taken from several official documents published by international organizations. We studied some of these documents before our trip and gathered others during our stay in Iraq. A list of these reports is included as an appendix.

It should be noted, in conclusion, that, just as we worked both individually and collectively in preparing and carrying out the mission, this report too is the outcome of both individual and collective contributions. Although the final version has been endorsed by the delegation as a whole, individual authors wrote the various specific sections. We naturally recognize that each of these authors is entitled to benefit personally from having their individual work reproduced or used in other publications.

I would first like to pay tribute to Objection de conscience for its role in initiating this project. Despite the group's lack of infrastructure and financial resources, it succeeded in mobilizing various other organizations as its partners. They then carried out the first humanitarian mission to Iraq from Quebec and other parts of Canada in the last nine years. For these last nine years, the Iraqi people have been suffering from a criminal international embargo that is supported by the Canadian government and, often unwittingly, by the Canadian people. The Objection de conscience initiative is a concrete example of the role that "civil society," as it is commonly called, can play in bringing about social justice on the international scene.

The members of the Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI) are an integral part of this civil society. They have been working for years to bring about a fairer world, based on human development values. In quest of these noble ideals, we can count on the voluntary commitment of tens of thousands of citizens who are involved, in one way or another, with the various organizations that make up AQOCI or with other organizations of civil society. This, in itself, is a great wealth underlying what we do. However, as everyone knows, if you want to do things, you have to have money, and that is why we are also appealing for both donations from the general public and financial support from our governments.

However, government funding, valuable as it is, still has pitfalls, particularly in the way it can influence us to act in ways that are consistent with its foreign policy, even though we do not support such policy. This is where civic responsibility comes into its own. We are duty-bound to bear witness to what we know – that thousands of human lives are in danger. The embargo is solely responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Iraq each year. We do not have the right to remain silent, and we are therefore grateful to Objection de conscience for reminding us of our duty in this critical situation.

The embargo on Iraq must be lifted urgently. That is why I want to pay tribute to the exemplary work accomplished by those who took part in this "humanitarian mission." Since they came back, they have succeeded, despite their many obligations, in not only helping to prepare this report, but also in speaking about the tragedy they observed at every possible opportunity. Their efforts and perseverance should encourage us to pursue our campaign to mobilize the Canadian people on this issue: together, we have to exert sufficient pressure on the Canadian government so that it finally withdraws its support for such a murderous embargo and decides, instead, to invest resources in rebuilding Iraq and restoring the dignity of its humiliated population. Saddam Hussein's autocratic regime has not been undermined in the slightest by the embargo – quite the contrary, the embargo has only made it stronger. It is civilians that we are deliberately destroying. As a United Nations Security Council member, Canada should do everything in its power to put an end to this tragic situation. We are duty-bound to keep on reminding the government until justice is done.

Francine Néméh

Executive Director

Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale

I. THE MISSION

The Quebec organization, OCVC (Objection de conscience/Voices of Conscience), has launched a campaign against the sanctions imposed on Iraq, and the observer mission from Quebec and other parts of Canada that visited Iraq from January 5 to 14, 2000, was the result of OCVC's initiative.

Our mission had the following main objectives:

The initial delegation was made up of the following people (in alphabetical order):

• Rachad Antonius, Middle East expert, representing the Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation (NECEF);
• Denise Byrnes, representing the Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI);
• Françoise David, president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ);
• Caroline Harvey, author-composer-singer, member of the Artistes pour la paix board of directors, and now an OCVC member;
• Amir Khadir, infectious disease specialist, representing Médecins du Monde - Canada and also an OCVC member;
• Josée Lambert, photographer, recipient of the 1998 "Artiste pour la paix" award;
• Raymond Legault, professor at Collège Ahuntsic and an OCVC member;
• Suzanne Loiselle, Executive Director, Entraide missionnaire; and
• Svend Robinson, federal MP and NDP spokesperson on international affairs and international human rights issues.

A doctor from Barcelona, David Dalmau, later joined the delegation as a representative of Doctors Without Borders (Spain). In addition, two journalists travelled with the group: Pierre Foglia of La Presse and Daniel Black of Radio Canada International (RCI).

A final member of the group was Rick McDowell of Voices in the Wilderness (ViW), the American organization that has been one of the pioneers in the anti-sanction struggle and which has organized some thirty missions to Iraq. Rick McDowell acted as our guide and logistics manager during the trip.

Itinerary, visits and meetings

The members of our delegation first went to Amman, the Jordanian capital. From there, very early on the morning of January 5, we set off for Baghdad on an approximately 1,000-kilometre road trip that was almost entirely across the desert. We reached Baghdad in the evening.

Our observer mission focussed on the central and southern regions of Iraq where 86% of the Iraqi population lives under the jurisdiction of the central government. More specifically, we visited two major cities: Baghdad itself, the capital, and Basrah in the south. The Basrah region has been particularly affected – first, by the Iran-Iraq war, then by the war in 1991, and now by sanctions. Our daily visit schedule was decided collectively a few days ahead of time, based on suggestions from Rick McDowell of ViW, as well as on some of the delegates’ specific objectives and pre-arranged contacts.

Our visits to public institutions had to be submitted for approval to the Iraqi Red Crescent. Generally speaking, we went on visits as a group, accompanied by a Red Crescent representative and, because one of our members was a Canadian MP, a representative of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. Within this overall framework, we visited schools, hospitals, a clinic, an orphanage, a centre for "street children," an internal refugee camp, a public bomb shelter ('Amiriyah, which was bombed in 1991), and a residential neighbourhood that was hit by a missile in 1999.

In addition, meetings with UN agencies, NGOs working in Iraq, religious communities and private institutions took place without any official chaperones present. In this context, we met with representatives of the following organizations: the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (UNOHCI); UNICEF; the World Health Organization (WHO); the World Food Program (WFP); the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; the Italian NGO, Un Ponte Per Bagdad; the French NGOs, Première Urgence and Enfants du Monde-Droits de l'Homme; and the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC). We also met with the Catholic Archbishop of Basrah.

Several members of our delegation, notably, the NDP MP Svend Robinson, also requested and were granted meetings of a more official character. We were thus able to have discussions with the Ministry of Information and Culture, the Ministry of Education, the Deputy Foreign Minister, a representative of the Federation of Iraqi Women, the government's Cultural Advisor, and the Director of the School of Architecture.

At these meetings, we unequivocally voiced our concerns about human rights violations by the Iraqi regime, in addition to discussing the situation created by the war and the sanctions that followed.

Outside the common schedule, delegation members, either as individuals or in small groups, were also able to arrange unchaperoned appointments with a certain number of people from the following groups, in particular: the artistic community, religious communities, doctors, students, NGO workers, sociologists and educational experts.

Finally, there were times we simply walked around, seeing what was going on and striking up casual conversation with people we ran into. Sometimes, these chance meetings even led to invitations in the homes of the people we met.

We found the Iraqi people extremely warm, hospitable and dignified, in spite of the terrible conditions in which they live. And this overall experience deeply affected us.

During our stay, it was very easy to notice the suffocating, repressive character of the Iraqi regime, particularly as reflected in the presence of police and soldiers everywhere and the general population's obvious fear of voicing opinions on the country's domestic policy. However, from the start of the mission, we had decided not to prioritize this aspect of the situation, since it was generally well known and often used for propaganda purposes in justifying the bombings and sanctions. After all, it is the Iraqi people themselves who, first and foremost, will have to find a solution to these problems .

Instead, we preferred to concentrate on publicizing the catastrophic effects that over nine years of bombing and sanctions have had on the Iraqi population. We wanted to do this, partly because the major television networks have never adequately reported on the cruel destruction caused by the bombing in 1991. Furthermore, the same media have only occasionally mentioned the disastrous effects the sanctions program has produced, and have been superficial and cynical in the way they have covered the oil-for-food program. To a very great extent, people in Quebec and other parts of Canada know very little about all this. We also wanted to make this situation known because the pain and suffering caused by this "war" of sanctions intrinsically involves our responsibility, since it is a direct result of the international policies the Canadian government subscribes to and has actively supported from the start as a stalwart ally of the United States of America.

The following pages describe in some detail what we saw. We have included a considerable quantity of background information, because this helps to appreciate not only the effects of the sanctions, but also how these are understood by the victims. We have to make an effort to empathize, without abandoning a critical perspective.

The country of Iraq developed around Mesopotamia, a fertile land situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and surrounded by desert. Iraq shares borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan and Syria to the west, Turkey to the north, and Iran to the east. It has limited access to the Persian Gulf. Iraq is a relatively wealthy country, having in its possession the main factors of development: natural resources (mines, oil, agriculture and water), well-trained human resources, and financial capital, based mainly on oil revenues. This combination of factors makes it unique among Arab countries, since the others have individually one or more of these assets, but not all of them together. This explains, in part, why a number of civilizations were established and prospered on this land, a fact the Iraqi people are well aware of, and which gives them a great amount of pride and dignity.

The Kingdom of Iraq was created as a result of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. On July 14, 1958, a bloody coup d'état overthrew the monarchy and a republic was proclaimed. Two other coups d'état in 1963 and 1968 respectively gave rise to the new republic of Iraq. After this, Iraq withdrew from the pro-Western Baghdad Pact and developed closer ties with the USSR. In 1961, the Iraqi government claimed Kuweit as part of Iraq, but backed down in the face of unanimous opposition from Arab League countries who did not want to wake up the dormant issue of national boundaries inherited from the colonial era.

The government regime that resulted from the 1968 coup set up a welfare state and a centralized state economy. In 1970, agrarian reform was introduced, involving programs both to redistribute land and set up cooperatives. These measures resulted in a significant redistribution of wealth and income, and the economic system became more egalitarian. Medical services improved and became free. Education was extended to rural areas, and the number of children and young people receiving education increased at all levels from primary school to university.

Women benefited from these developments in a number of specific ways. First, modernization of the economy accelerated urbanization, offering women more work and educational opportunities. The transition from the traditional, patriarchal, extended family to the nuclear family and changes in the patterns of behavior gave women more autonomy. Women living in urban areas benefited from these changes more than rural women. On the other hand, changes to the Personal Status Code liberalized prevailing legislation to some extent, allowing women to extricate themselves more easily from the traditional authority of the men in the family with respect to choosing a husband, working and even divorce. Finally, women were encouraged to participate politically within very strict limits – namely, they were not allowed to challenge in any way the authority of the party in power or its leaders. In the traditional rural areas, these reforms only had minimal impact, except in terms of the female literacy rate, which became the highest in the Arab world.

A program of nationalizing natural resources was ordered at the same time as these social reforms. Oil companies were nationalized, and this enabled the government to control both the production and exportation of oil and thereby fund its social programs.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the regime embarked on a steadily increasing program of militarization. The army expanded in size and was provided more equipment; the same thing happened to the various external and internal security services. A large percentage of the male population was drafted into the military, particularly after the outbreak of the war against Iran in 1980. While Iraq's heavy weaponry was generally supplied by the Soviet Union, many of its arms also came from western countries, who saw Saddam Hussein as a bulwark against the Islamic revolution in Iran and therefore supported the Iraqi war effort.

The regime based its legitimacy on its revolutionary rhetoric and the social programs it had set up, particularly in health and education. This "carrot" was combined with a "stick": strict surveillance of the civilian population, carried out partly by leaders of the Ba'ath party, and partly by the plethora of secret police services. A system of conscription into these networks of domestic spies and informers was set up. A total, blind allegiance to the regime was required, and this was rewarded by material benefits and preferential access to certain resources. For young people, party membership meant opportunities to obtain scholarships to study abroad, take part in official trips, qualify for promotion within the party itself and generally enjoy upward social mobility.

One of the consequences of this situation was that it suffocated the civilian population and did not allow non-governmental organizations to develop. Any political opposition was physically exterminated. Torture became the standard treatment for dissidents, and political assassination or liquidation in prison or abroad became the likely fate of activists belonging to non-Ba'ath parties or dissidents within the Ba'ath party itself. To all intents and purposes, the country was governed by a "rule of terror." The only sections of society that had a very limited degree of freedom were to be found in the existing religious and clan structures. This explains that when the regime was seriously challenged in 1991, revolt took the form of either religious or ethnic opposition: the Shi'ites in the south and the Kurds in the north.

Political opposition

In the contemporary context, three types of political opposition can be distinguished:

For reasons of brevity, the following descriptions will be necessarily schematic and almost certainly reductionist:

In the first group of political opponents are found the KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party), the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan), the SPK (Socialist Party of Kurdistan), the Patriotic United Front of Kurdistan and the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan. The KDP, led by the Barzani clan, maintains good relations with both Turkey and the United States, and has kept its lines of communication with Baghdad open. It has benefited through the increased trade with Turkey caused by sanctions. The PUK, led by the Talabani clan, controls the southern portion of the Kurdish autonomous region. This party was created as a breakaway movement from the KDP. Fighting between these two factions has resulted in more than 3,000 deaths since 1994. The SPK is a left-wing party founded in 1979, but it does not enjoy the same level of popular support as the first two. Since 1988, the Patriotic United Front of Kurdistan has combined the KDP and the PUK, as well as six left-wing Kurdish parties and a nationalist Assyrian party, representing the Christian minority in Iraq. The Islamic Movement of Kurdistan has close ties to Teheran and the Shi'ite opposition.

The main political movements belonging to the second group are the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which has very close ties to Teheran, and the Al Da'wa Party, which plays an important role among the Iraqi opposition groups and which lost several of its leaders through assassination by the Ba'ath regime. Another Islamic party is the Sunni Islamic Liberation Party, which has close links with the Muslim Brothers in Jordan.

The third group mainly consists of the Communist Party of Iraq, which has historical roots in Iraq and a significant following among Iraqi intellectuals. This party was tolerated by the Ba'ath regime, as long as the regime was in the process of consolidating its power. However, it was declared illegal most of the time and many of its members were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. A few other much smaller parties also belong to this category.

It would also be possible to include in this category a number of organizations that are not political parties as such, but which base their opposition to the current regime on universal principles of human rights. There is at least one organization of this type in Canada: the Iraqi Society of Human Rights - Canada.

Several coalition movements have come into being, but some of them (including the Iraqi National Congress) have lost a part of their credibility because they are subordinate to American initiatives and are financially dependent on Washington. On the other hand, other opposition groups have maintained a certain distance from the US government.

In Canada, the Canadian-Iraqi Coordination Committee (CICC) is a coalition group, comprising several Iraqi parties, which is particularly active in Ontario. Other groups do exist, but they have problems operating, even in exile, because of the repressive action that can be taken against either their members in Iraq or their members' relatives when the members live abroad.

In general, Iraqi opposition groups criticize the economic sanctions against Iraq and want them lifted immediately. However, they believe that such a demand has to be associated with a condemnation of the Saddam Hussein regime because of its bloody repression of the Iraqi people and its responsibility for the current state of conflict. In addition, some opposition parties, undoubtedly because of the very severe persecution they have suffered and the regime's record of false promises, have become very mistrustful of the other political movements, and this has made attempts to combine efforts all the more difficult.

The Makeup of Iraqi Society

It is commonly observed that Iraqi society is composed of several social groupings which can be described in terms of ethnicity and religion: the Sunni Arabs, the Shi'ite Arabs, the Kurds with their own language and culture that they share with other Kurds in Iran and Turkey, and, lastly, the small Christian minority. The Iraqi Jewish community, with its long-standing historical roots in Iraqi soil, existed until midway through the twentieth century. However, virtually all of its members emigrated, and there now remains only a hundred or so families at most, primarily consisting of older people.

Most Iraqi Muslims are Shi'ites. On the other hand, the vast majority of the world's Muslims are Sunni (an Arabic word referring to what is related to tradition), and only about ten per cent belong to other branches of Islam. The most important non-Sunni branch is the Shi'ite, who are followers of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law and the fourth Caliph, who was assassinated. Most Shi'ites live in Iraq and Iran.

The Republic of Iraq's Constitution is based on secular principles, including the separation of religion and the state. The national religion remains Islam, nonetheless, and some 95% of the Iraqi people are Muslims. Of these, some 65% are Shi'ite who are mostly located in the southern part of the country. The remaining Sunni 35% are to be found mainly in the capital and the central region, and have been dominant in government since independence. There have been a number of major Shi'ite insurrections against the central government, including one in the Spring of 1991.

Iraq's Christian population is approximately 5% of a total of some 24 million mainly Muslim inhabitants. This group consists of several denominational groupings: Chaldean, Nestorian and Syriac (as the largest three), plus some Melkite and Armenian groups that all use traditional forms of service originating in the Middle East and the Caucasus. In addition, some Iraqi Christians follow the Latin rite, and there are also some Reform and Evangelical groups. Christian communities are located mainly in Mosul and Baghdad, but can be found all over the country. They are free to practice their religion and do social and pastoral work in their respective communities. The freedom to practice monotheistic religions is an integral part of the Iraqi Constitution.

The Catholic Church has existed in Iraq from ancient times. Although it has very few members, it plays a significant role in the country's social and cultural life. Women play a major role in the dynamism of the Christian communities. On more than one occasion during the mission, delegation members found themselves among Iraqi Christians and noticed their bitterness towards the international community. These Christians totally disapprove of the embargo and its train of sanctions that have totally paralyzed the country's development and impoverished its civilian population almost beyond the point of no return. A comparatively larger proportion of the Iraqis who left for exile come from these Christian communities.

However, it would be a mistake to consider that such a system of classification, based on ethnicity or religion, is the most natural approach, or to think that all these groups are homogeneous entities. On the one hand, certain divisions (particularly based on economic level or class) separate these various groups that are made up of landowners, urban and trading elites, as well as poor peasants and underprivileged urban classes. On the other hand, in recent times, these groups were able to join forces in their struggle against British colonialism. The creation of a secular welfare state after independence facilitated a genuine process of national integration and witnessed several notable successes. The regime's failures, caused by both external and internal factors, especially its reign of terror, have resulted in a resurgence of ethnic and religious identity that has seriously threatened Iraq's national unity. This is reflected in the fact that several contemporary Iraqi political movements are based on either religion or ethnicity.

The war against Iran

The conflict between Iran and Irak has a long history, but, during the 1970s, two major factors heightened tension between the two countries. One of two causes was a border conflict involving the Shatt Al-Arab (a waterway located at the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates) and a few islands in the vicinity. This conflict resulted in an agreement signed between the Shah of Iran and the Iraqi government in 1975. Iraq made territorial concessions in exchange for a cessation of Iranian support to Kurdish groups in the north, the second issue that was creating tension between the two countries. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 aggravated these sources of tension with Kurdish groups finding it easier to cross the Iran-Iraq border to carry out attacks on Iraqi soil before returning for refuge to the Iranian side. In addition, the Shi'ites of southern Iraq felt the call of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and this added an ideological element to the tense relations between the two countries. At the same time, the internal upheavals caused by the Islamic Revolution gave Saddam Hussein's regime the impression that the balance of power had temporarily swung in its favour, and that an attack against Iran would accomplish a number of objectives at once: recover the border territory conceded in 1975; put a stop to Iranian support for dissident Shi'ites and Kurds; and establish Iraqi dominance in the region. Several analysts claim that American intelligence services encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack Iran by painting a glowing picture of an easy victory because of the disorganized state of the Iranian army. The Iranian army was experiencing a crisis of loyalty, because its past allegiance to the overthrown Shah made it suspect in the eyes of Iran's Islamic revolutionaries. It should also be noted that the other Middle East oil kingdoms felt threatened by the Iranian Revolution. In other words, a convergence of interests between the western powers, the oil kingdoms and Saddam Hussein's regime induced Iraq to start the war. In a nutshell, support from both the West and other Arab countries made Iraq feel that it was in a position of strength vis-à-vis Iran. In this situation, Iraq portrayed itself as the defender of the Arab world against the "Persian aggressor." (In fact, it was virtually in such terms that some Iraqi officials described this period of history for us.)

The Iran-Iraq war lasted almost eight years and caused more than a million casualties, especially on the Iranian side. It also imposed a heavy burden on the Iraqi economy. Saddam Hussein's government was hoping that the other Arab countries would cover Iraq's war debt. On the contrary, it was subjected to economic pressures which threatened its existence, given the need to maintain the social programs that were the basis of his legitimacy. These pressures consisted in a policy of lowering of the oil prices and the pumping by Kuwait of Iraqi oil in a disputed border area (the Rumeilah oil fields). This was the context of growing tension with Kuwait.

The invasion of Kuwait and subsequent sanctions

The invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, was thus the outcome of a period of tension and failed negotiations. The reasons for the invasion were economic in nature, but there were also strategic geopolitical overtones (let's not forget that Iraq had been claiming Kuwait as part of Iraq since 1961). However, Saddam Hussein had miscalculated the international reaction, especially that of the other Arab countries. He might have been also "encouraged" in his mistake by April Glaspie, the American Ambassador in Iraq who told him a few days before the invasion that the United States had "no opinion on Arab-Arab conflict" and had no defence agreement with Kuwait. Saddam Hussein took these statements as a "green light" for his occupation of all of Kuwait. Some analysts claim that April Glaspie's statements were a tactic to push Saddam Hussein into attacking Kuwait, which would then provide the perfect alibi for destroying Iraq's military capability and justifying an expanded American military presence in the oil kingdoms that were America's allies.

This was the background to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. The UN Security Council called on Iraq to withdraw immediately (Resolution 660 of August 2, 1990) and froze Iraqi assets in most western countries. On August 6, 1990, the Security Council ordered a full trade, financial and military embargo of Iraq (Resolution 661) in order to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. In the face of Iraq's refusal to withdraw, the Security Council issued an ultimatum: Resolution 678 of November 29, 1990, which set January 15, 1991, as the deadline for Iraq to apply all relevant UN resolutions, including those covering its withdrawal from Iraq, and warned that failure to do so would entail the use of all necessary means to enforce the resolutions.

In January 1991, after Iraq had repeatedly turned a deaf ear to many appeals to withdraw from Iraq and after a final effort by France to find a diplomatic solution was blocked by the United States and Great Britain, a 26-country coalition, under American command and made up of many western countries, including Canada, and most Arab states, went to war against Iraq.

"The human toll of the Persian Gulf war — as many as 100 000 death, five million displaced persons, and over $ 200 billion in property damage — ranks this conflict as the single most devastating event in the Middle East since World War I" wrote the Middle East Report .

During the six weeks of war, a considerable portion of Iraq's infrastructure (particularly health facilities) was completely destroyed. The conflict also had catastrophic economic and social consequences in Jordan. In fact, in addition to having its economy thrown into disarray, Jordan had to absorb a large number of refugees. However, it did not receive any assistance in this respect because it had not supported a military solution to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

One of the results of the rout of the Iraqi army in the South was the seizure of tons of records detailing the repression exercised by the Iraqi regime, its treatment of prisoners of opinion and of their families, and the methods of conscription of individuals into the Iraqi secret intelligence services (for example, rape followed by blackmail and other forms of coercion).

Fighting ended on February 28, 1991, and a provisional cease-fire agreement was signed on March 3. On April 3, a formal cease-fire was established (Resolution 687). In the same resolution, the Security Council required Iraq to dispose of all its weapons of mass destruction, and set up a UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) to oversee the disarming of Iraq.

In the Spring of 1991, two uprisings (one in the North by the Kurds and one in the South by the Shi'ites) were bloodily repressed to the great disillusionment of the insurgents who had been tricked by Washington into believing that support would be forthcoming, when, in fact, this never materialized.

On December 20, 1991, the UN decided to maintain the total embargo on Iraq, established by Resolution 661, and this has continued until now, with the exception of the oil-for-food program introduced in 1996, which we will talk about further down in this report.

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