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(Catholic Worker Magazine, January/February 1998)
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the United Nations imposed several economic sanctions in order to try and pressure them to leave (Source W). These impositions lasted until March of 1991. After that, the sanctions took on a new responsibility: convincing Iraq to meet the terms of the aforementioned resolution 687. While, overall sanctions are not necessarily a bad idea, and they are generally better than military options, they also have the potential to be equally devastating (Source W). With the results of the continuing imposition of sanctions on Iraq, military options may have been a better idea.
Although several nations are in favor of lifting the sanctions placed on Iraq, both the United States and the UK, associated with the United Nations, are against and such movements. And, despite the fact that "the sanctions themselves are illegal and have had gross consequences for the people of Iraq" (Source M), they refuse to change their minds.
Not more then ten years ago, before the sanctions were imposed on the country, Iraq had one of the highest measures in the world for standards of living (Source M). However, only a decade later, after taking away the availability of medicines needed to cure children of treatable diseases, the blocking of several essential supplies to live, and several other sanctions, the country suffers from increasing poverty, malnutrition, starvation, and the widespread of usually treatable diseases (Source M). Innocent people suffer and die everyday, in an unnecessary battle that has nothing to do with the civilians.
United Nations figures show that there have been more than 1.7 million Iraqi civilian deaths since sanctions have been imposed on the country (Source B). Although British and American officials will publicly deny that the sanctions have contributed to the suffering of civilians in Iraq, the state of Iraq has consistently degraded. In 1995, UNICEF reports stated that:
"Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq... What has become increasingly clear is that no significant movement towards food security can be achieved so long as the embargo remains in place" (Source B).
In addition, in September of 1995, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, reported that:
"Famine threatens four million people in sanctions -hit Iraq- one-fifth of the population- following a poor grain harvest... The human situation is deteriorating. Living conditions are precarious and are at a pre-famine level for at least four million people... The deterioration in nutritional status of children is reflected in the significant increase of child mortality, which has risen nearly fivefold since 1990" (Source B).
Another organization, the WHO, World Health Organization, concured in a report in MArch of 1996 that since the beginning of the sanction on the country, the mortality rate for children under the age of five had increased six times what it was before. The WHO also documented that the majority of the country's occupants had been on a "semi starvation diet" (Source B).
In addition to the WHO, another renowned world organization, UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, aforementioned, claimed in the same year, "4,5000 children under the age of five are dying each month from hunger and disease... The situation is disastrous for children. Many are living on the margin of survival" (Source B).
As the sanctions continue to be imposed on the country, the situation for Iraqi civilians only continues to worsen. In April of 1997, approximately seven years after the establishment of the sanctions, the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP), in coalition with UNICEF , testified that, "One out of every four Iraqi infants is malnourished...Chronic malnutrition among children under five has reached 27.5 percent" (Source B). Unfortunately, once the child has reached two or three years of age, the effects of malnutrition is almost impossible to reverse, and the damage on the child's development is more than likely to be a permanent condition (Source B).
Six months after that information was released, UNICEF noted that, "32 percent of children under five, some 960,000 children are chronically malnourished- a rise of 72 percent since 1991" (Source B).Nearly one-fourth of the children are underweight, which is twice as high as the neighboring countries of Jordan and Turkey's rates (Source B). By April of 1998, the situation had only worsened. Once again, for children under the age of five, public hospital reports showed an increase of mortality of an excess of some 40,000 deaths a year when compared to reports from 1989, before the sanctions were imposed. Malnutrition, pneumonia, and diarrhea attributed to the majority of these deaths. In civilians over the age of five, another increase in mortality was visible. Hospital reports showed an excess of approximately 50,000 deaths yearly compared to the year 1989. These deaths were mainly caused from heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney disease (Source B).