From August 2, 1990, the UN Security Council imposed a comprehensive package of financial and economic sanctions against Iraq. Under Resolution 661, Iraq’s foreign assets were frozen, the sale of its oil to the international community was banned and an exhaustive embargo of over 300 items including food, baby milk powder and medical supplies, vital to the health and well-being of the civilian population, was instituted. Iraq today stands defeated and exhausted. The combined effects of the Gulf War and United Nations sanctions have crippled a once great and prosperous nation.

From the late 1970’s onwards, Iraq’s petrochemical industry situated around its southern oilfields, Basra and Zubair, produced in excess of 95 per cent of all foreign earnings, which were directed towards the creation of a manufacturing industry and essential infrastructure. As of mid 1990 Iraq, although a Third World nation, was, in certain aspects, fast approaching a standard comparable to that of some European countries. Income from exports of foreign oil allowed Iraq to import 70 per cent of its basic needs. The Baath government provided its 18 million people with national health care, school meals, overseas training, housing and electricity. Preventable childhood diseases, such as measles and polio were well controlled.

The sanctions enforced under UN Resolution 661 of 1990 have brought incalculable suffering to millions of innocent Iraqi civilians, particularly women and children. Hospitals are operating in squalid conditions with acute lack of even basic medications and rudimentary equipment. The black market flourishes with sales of human organs such as livers and kidneys. The poor try to scrape together a few Dinars to purchase items on the black market, while the rich sell their carpets and the middle class, their televisions. One of the few flourishing industries in Iraq today is the manufacture of children’s coffins.

Over 88 500 bombs were dropped on Iraq during the Gulf War, the equivalent of seven Hiroshimas. Most of the bombs missed their targets, precipitating one of the greatest civilian slaughters of the late 20th century. Unknown to journalists, corralled by the military authorities in Saudi Arabia in the last two days before the Gulf War cease-fire, American armoured bulldozers, ruthlessly deployed at night, buried Iraqi soldiers alive in more than 70 miles of trenches.

During the Gulf War, Iraq’s strategic warehouses of foodstuff and medicines, key public services such as power stations, water purification systems and sewage systems were obliterated. Telecommunication systems were wrecked, bridges demolished and roads made impassable after the war. The Iraqi government instituted a system of food rationing, providing for up to 50 percent of the food needs of its citizens. But the state-run programs were soon shelved, as the sanctions began to bite.

On March 22, 1991, the all out embargo on humanitarian shipments of food to Iraq was lifted, but the embargo on foreign financial transactions, the freezing of Iraq’s assets and the ban on Iraqi sales of crude oil, made it extremely hard to import all but a small amount of food.

UN Resolution 985 of 1995 allowed Iraq to resume exportation of a limited amount of oil through the Kirkuk-Yumurtalik pipeline in Turkey. The so called "oil for food swap" allowed Iraq to export up to US$2 billion worth of oil every six months, with one third of that sum being garnished to pay for war reparations. In 1998, this figure was increased to US$5.2 billion per six months. Despite the increase in value of oil exports, Iraq has only the ability to pump US$4 billion worth of oil per month as it is unable to import vital components to repair its war damaged oil wells.

The "oil for food" swaps are just that, oil for food. Iraqi essential services remain in an immediate post war state as the importation of parts and components to repair them are embargoed. Just to restore Iraq’s electrical system would require US$14 billion. The country which used oil revenue to purchase and import 70 per cent of its basic needs cannot now even obtain aspirin, toilet paper or disinfectant.

The crisis of the health care system in Iraq is reflected in the high infant mortality rate which UNICEF puts at 4 500 infants under five years old per month (150 children per day). The infant mortality rose from 61 per thousand in 1990 to 117 per thousand in 1996. Although the UN embargo does not, at present, apply to the purchase of medicines, foreign drug companies are unwilling or forbidden by their individual governments to sell to Iraq, even where they are paid for in advance by international humanitarian relief agencies.

Apart from the dire consequences of economic sanctions, Iraq is also grappling with the rise of diseases such as leukemia, cancer and childhood deformities, a direct result of exposure to toxic Depleted Uranium Weapons used by allied forces during the Gulf War. The contamination of Iraq with over three hundred pounds of Depleted Uranium, the equivalent of ten Chernobyls, requires the urgent attention of the international community.

In a strongly worded critique of the UN sanctions against Iraq, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark described the sanctions against Iraq as genocidal.

At a time when Iraq should be in the process of rebuilding and recovering from the ravages of war, its people are being pushed to the brink of destruction. As citizens of the global community, we cannot allow our silence to echo complicity, we cannot allow wholesale destruction of Iraq to continue.

As you read this report, another Iraqi infant dies. The greatest casualty of the Gulf War and the resulting sanctions, has not been the Iraqi military or President Saddam Hussein, but Iraqi people, particularly infants and children. The real effect of sanctions on Iraq is to rally support for the Iraqi President throughout the world in a movement which is opposed to continued US domination of the United Nations Security Council.

According to the UN special rapporteur in 1991, Iraq is now "a country bombed back to a pre-industrial age for a considerable time to come". Journalist Robert Fisk, reporting from Baghdad for the Sydney Morning Herald in February 1998 described the capital as "a city gone to seed, its people impoverished, its children begging in the streets, the Iraqi people are living in the ruins of empire". This is indeed an odd picture of a capital supposedly threatening "the whole world."

In February 1998, the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday, who headed the UN’s oil for food program, called upon the Security Council to stop punishing the Iraqi people, "some of whom are being left to die in appalling hospital conditions". In an impassioned letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Halliday described sanctions as "undermining the credibility of the UN...it seemed to me that what we were doing was in contradiction to the human rights provision in the UN charter".

In September 1998, Halliday resigned his post in protest of the terrible situation inside Iraq. Speaking in an interview, Halliday commented that "conditions in Iraq are appalling," with "malnutrition running at about 30 percent for children under 5 years old." In terms of mortality, he said that "probably 5 or 6 thousand children are dying per month," and this "is directly attributable to the impact of sanctions, which have caused the breakdown of the clean water system, health facilities and all the things that young children require."

Halliday said that he did not want to administer a program that results in these kind of figures. "Sanctions are being sustained by member states, knowing of this calamity. I wanted to be in a position to speak out on sanctions and the dreadful impact that they are having on the people — particularly the children — and the future of Iraq. I want to work with different groups and see if we can come up with some alternatives to sanctions as a means of the United Nations imposing its will in situations where it's required," he added.

Thousands of voices of conscience including the Vatican, The World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, humanitarian relief agencies, educators and socially responsible professionals have called upon the UN to end the silent sanctions war — to bring an end to sanctions against Iraq as a weapon of mass destruction.

Despite dire warnings from eminent international organisations, including the United Nations' own Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the regime of sanctions against Iraq remains in place.

The imposition of sanctions raises the question of the lack of democracy in the UN and tells us something about the so-called New World Order, which is a return to the imperialism of the 19th century. In the fifty years since the inception of the United Nations, there have been ten instances of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council. Eight have been during the 1990’s.

British MP, Tony Benn, says "the way sanctions are being used now is really an act of political and economic warfare without war." The continuation of the sanctions on Iraq has become symbolic of the threat of sanctions as a frightening prospect held over the world's poor by the big powers. They have become the ultimate weapon in which the First World can threaten the Third World. They are a demonstration of the counter-revolution against democracy which has been occurring on a global scale. Sanctions are the ultimate weapon of the rich to threaten the poor.

Dr. Safia Safwat, member of the Permanent Bureau of the Union of Arab Jurists, has pointed out that the UN resolutions against Iraq "have failed to observe the conditions of reasonableness and proportionality required by the UN Charter."

Resolution 661, passed on August 6, 1990, was enforced as a result of Iraq’s non-compliance with Resolution 660, demanding it withdraw from Kuwait. The UN Security Council relied on the same reason to pass subsequent Resolutions 665 on August 25, and 678 on November 29. It is therefore clear that the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq was designed to achieve the withdrawal of Iraq from Kuwait and Iraq’s compliance with the resolution in this respect. The sanctions therefore should have ended when it was announced that Iraq had withdrawn from Kuwait.

Another factor to consider is the haste with which the resolutions initiating sanctions against Iraq were passed. For example, Resolution 660 demanding Iraq withdraw from Kuwait and hold immediate negotiations with Kuwait was passed on the evening of August 2, 1990. This was swiftly followed by Resolution 661 on August 6, 1990, passed because Iraq had failed to comply with Resolution 660. This resolution imposed a total blockade on Iraq.

The swiftness with which the Security Council’s resolutions were drafted and passed gave the impression that such resolutions had been prepared in advance — especially as the US carried out the task of drafting them and even announced them before the Security Council did. Further, the resolutions have deliberately opted to employ the severest provisions available.

There are numerous official reports about the impact of UN sanctions upon Iraq. Among the important early reports on the effect of sanctions are:

1. The call by the UN Secretary General for an urgent humanitarian plan in April 1991

2. Under Secretary General Martti Ahtisaari’s report in May 1991

3. The report of the Harvard Medical Team in May 1991

4. Sadruddin Aga Khan’s report in July 1991

5. The report by the International Committee of the Red Cross in October 1991

6. The report by the General Federation of Iraqi Women in November 1991.

These reports pointed out severe shortages in clean drinking water, the total collapse of electricity power supply which resulted in the destruction and stoppage of sewage systems and hence, the rapid spread of disease causing dire consequences among the population and in particular among infants, sick and elderly people.

Despite these early warnings, the regime of sanctions continued. From 1990, when sanctions were imposed on Iraq until 1995, half a million children under the age of five died of malnutrition and preventable diseases. A third of Iraq’s surviving children today have stunted growth and nutritional deficiencies that will deform their shortened lives.

In the immediate post Gulf War aftermath, widespread starvation in Iraq was averted by the provision of low-cost food under the Government Public Rationing System. But with embargoes against even basic agricultural utilities such as tractors, water pumps and wheelbarrows, Iraq's fragile agricultural sector soon collapsed, and with it, the government rationing system.

A poor cereal harvest in 1995 forced the government to reduce the food ration that was provided to the whole population of Iraq by 50%. 1997 yields were at least one third of what Iraq harvested before the UN sanctions were imposed.

The 1995 report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations in Iraq warned:

"The efforts of both the government and the international organisation are grossly inadequate in relation to the problems faced by the agricultural sector in Iraq. The main bottlenecks include lack of farm machinery tractors, combine harvesters, irrigation facilities, drainage, pumps, sprayers, flour milling machinery and their spare parts and critical shortage of quality seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. These problems are common and serious throughout the country. The failure to import machinery and spare parts over the past 5 years has plunged the technological state of agriculture as well as that of other sectors to a precarious level."

The situation in Iraq is currently so grave that it cannot be met through UN and NGO food assistance. The only sensible solution is to enable Iraq, a potentially rich country, to import food to meet its entire requirements.

Iraq’s 20 power plants, targeted and obliterated during the Gulf War, are the principal cause of the deterioration in Iraq’s public health system. In 1995, a nutrition and mortality survey of children under 5 years old was conducted in Baghdad by the FAO and Baghdad’s Nutrition Research Institute. The survey revealed infant mortality had increased approximately 3.6 times and child mortality increased 8.5 times compared with pre sanction figures for the same group. The number of babies weighing less than 2.5kg is 26% as compared to 9 percent in 1991. The collapse of immunisation programs means that diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, meningitis and measles have become common among Iraq’s infants.

Millions of Iraqis continue to drink water contaminated by sewage. A 1995 survey of drinking water in 158 randomly selected households nationwide showed that 106 of the samples tested positive for "gross coliform contamination", a key factor in the spread of diarrheal diseases like typhoid and cholera (US Aggression and Economic Embargo Devastate Public Health In Iraq, p.17). The problems of water-borne disease is exacerbated by the pre-Gulf War policy of encouraging the use of infant formula, which is being mixed with sewage contaminated water.

The statistics displayed in the tables on this page, provided by the Iraqi government, show the dramatic increase in mortality, and particularly the rise in preventable diseases.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its October 1991 resolution on Iraq called upon member states of the WHO and the UN to provide medical assistance to the Iraqi people in order to relieve suffering and to enable Iraq to obtain its needs of drugs and medical supplies.

Investigations into the impact of sanctions against Iraq by the Harvard University Medical Team in May 1991 revealed that there had been a 100 per cent increase in infant and child mortality in Iraq.

The report described a "public health catastrophe" with extraordinary prevalence of malnutrition. The report recorded epidemics of cholera, typhoid and gastroenteritis throughout Iraq, adding that the incidence of these water-borne diseases will increase further during hot summer months.

Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had a universal health care system and imported $550 million worth of medicines per year. In 1994, it imported only $5 million and its medical system had crumbled.

Community health facilities and hospitals in Iraq are currently in a state of acute crisis. The destruction of the power grid, lack of clean water and devastated sewage systems, means hospitals are crammed to capacity and overcrowded. In southern hospitals, worst affected by allied bombing raids during the Gulf War, doctors are forced to reuse rubber gloves during operations and work in wards without clean water.

The Special Mission of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies which conducted a field visit to Iraq in October 1994 described pharmacies in Iraq as "almost empty" and referred to the progressive closing of chemists and other medical units in hospitals. The report also underscores the serious danger posed by malnutrition to newborn infants in Iraq and echoes the "grave concern" recently expressed by UNICEF about the health and lives of some 2.25 million children in Iraq.

"The chain of death created by the Gulf War is an awesome thing. But the really scary part comes later — now — when we find that things which looked alive are really dead or doomed." These words are from Barbara Nimir Aziz, anthropologist and journalist specialising in Middle East issues, describing the hidden holocaust of the Gulf War.

Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons are a new generation of radioactive conventional weapons, widely referred to by the media during the Gulf War as "armour penetrating missiles". Depleted Uranium is a metal residue (Uranium 238) left after natural uranium is refined and all but a minuscule level of its radioactivity is removed.

The residue is used in artillery shells and bombs for its effectiveness in piercing tank armour. When Depleted Uranium hits a target it burns and oxidises into small particles, which are toxic when inhaled. Depleted Uranium projectiles were used for the first time by allied troops during the Gulf War in 1991, with devastating effects and consequences.

There are two types of hazard posed by DU: a radiation hazard, and a chemical toxicity hazard, which is similar to that posed by other heavy metals such as lead. DU causes adverse health affects if ingested, inhaled or absorbed.

Professor Dr. Siegwart-Horst Guenther, writing in Metal of Dishonor, the groundbreaking book investigating the use of Depleted Uranium weapons in Gulf War, carried out extensive studies in Iraq over the past five years. His results produced ample evidence to show that contact with DU ammunition had the following consequences for Iraqis, especially for children:

• a considerable increase in infectious diseases caused by most severe immuno-deficiencies in a great part of the population

• frequent occurrence of massive herpes and zoster afflictions in children

• AIDS-like syndromes

• a hitherto unknown syndrome caused by renal and hepatic dysfunctions

• leukemia, aplastic anemia and malignant neoplasms

• congenital deformities caused by genetic defects which are also being found in animals

What can only be described as the silent radiation holocaust in Iraq is growing every day. In the pediatric wards of hospitals of Baghdad, Mosul and Basrah the rising number of leukemia, aplastic anemia and tumour development is of grave concern. Moreover, a new up-to-date undiagnosed disease is seen with abnormal abdominal distention, possibly related to disturbed liver and kidney function. Because of the impossibility of treatment, the children die, most painfully from secondary infections.

The sharp rise in spontaneous abortions, cancers and childhood cancers has lead the Austrian Yellow Cross International to systematically study evidence of possible Gulf War Syndrome inside Iraq and the high incidence across the country of abnormal births. Premature births in Iraq are numerous. Congenital malformations, central nervous system disorders and mongolism of the newborn show a post war percentage increase of 26.8 per cent according to the Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, University of Baghdad. In the countryside children die in great numbers and are buried without possibility of diagnosis.

On January 8, 1998, a report by the US Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, made a sweeping but little noted admission that thousands of troops may have been exposed to DU during the Gulf War. It acknowledged "serious deficiencies" in what troops were told about the dangers of Depleted Uranium. It said the hazards were well documented, but unfortunately known only to technical specialists and were not relayed to troops. The US administration has said little to date about the effects of DU weapons upon the people of Iraq. On 30 April 1998, the British Foreign Office admitted that British troops acting with the coalition forces against Iraq in 1991 used Depleted Uranium shells.

The use of DU is in contravention to the UN Charter and the international conventions and agreements on prohibiting the use of weapons of excessive damage and indiscriminate effect. Enormous energy emissions from the massive bombing in the forty days of war in 1991 and the resulting ionisation, is now of great concern to Iraqi officials. Oxidised radiation particles are now diffused throughout the entire airspace of Iraq and has likely spread to neighbouring countries as well, possibly as far north as the southern border of Russia. The prolonged effect of this ionisation is, over a period of more than 10 years, equal to one hundred Chernobyls. There is reportedly three hundred tonnes of Depleted Uranium waste left on the battlefield in southern Iraq.

Nearly 1.5 million people have died in Iraq as a direct result of economic sanctions. There is an urgent need for people to become further informed and take direct action to end the genocide in Iraq.

Middle powers such as Australia have a moral obligation to lobby strongly for an end to sanctions and give generously, regardless of the rights or wrongs of President Saddam Hussein. We should imagine how as a nation we would survive if, overnight, 90 percent of our social budget was removed, our foreign assets were frozen and our imports and exports were curtailed. What would be our response if 150 Australian children per day died from malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases?

Consider the plight of the Iraqi people. Perhaps you are diabetic — in Iraq you could not get any insulin. Perhaps your child has gastroenteritis — in Iraq you cannot get antibiotics. Perhaps your frail aged mother has broken a hip — in Iraq there are no drugs for pain relief. Perhaps you have cancer — in Iraq there is no chemotherapy available. As you throw out your food scraps into the bin tonight, consider the starving Iraqi people, who cannot even obtain 50 percent of the required daily intake of food. As your children play in the backyard, consider how you would feel if you knew your country was contaminated with toxic and deadly Depleted Uranium — you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, but you know it’s there.

The impacts of sanctions against Iraq are well known today, and yet sanctions are still endorsed by world leaders through the UN Security Council. The actions of the world’s leaders speak louder than their words: the UN Security Council, inspired by the USA, has brought suffering, misery and death to millions in Iraq. The sanctions are ineffective: President Saddam Hussein has not been driven from power, but his people are being driven from life. Sanctions do not separate the leadership from the people. By acceding to US wishes concerning sanctions, the UN has made itself equally responsible for committing genocide. It is ironic that the United Nations, which raises and spends billions of dollars to combat malnutrition, hunger and disease, should cause hunger, malnutrition and disease to so many Iraqi people.

A concerted effort is required to reverse the worldwide trend towards sanctions, and to ensure the long term survival of Iraq as a sovereign state. All countries, especially the largest industrial economies, need to rethink the use of economic embargoes.

The sanctions against Iraq and their impact upon civilians are in contravention to the Geneva Convention; the UN Charter; the constitution of the World Health Organisation; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of the States. Our silence and inaction would amount to complicity in the perpetration of crimes against humanity which the United Nations is committing through its actions.

There are several measures that can be taken by the international community to avert the further catastrophe in Iraq. They are:

1. Immediately provide all food and medical supplies necessary for the health and well-being of Iraqi children and adults. Iraq’s frozen assets could be used to enable Iraq to import the essential basic food stuffs and medical supplies for its population.

2. End the sanctions against Iraq so that the nation may import the components to restore at least essential services and make good its agricultural sector.

3. Investigate and report upon the wide ranging impacts of the use of Depleted Uranium weapons during the Gulf War.

This tragedy cannot be allowed to continue. The Hands Off Iraq Committee requests your denunciation of these crimes against humanity and support of Iraq’s legitimate demands to end economic sanctions.

 References

"Troops fear Deadly Taint", The Australian, March 4, 1998.

"Rich sell carpets, poor sell kidneys", The Australian, February 17, 1998, p 10

Barkho, Leon, 1998, "UN warns food stocks may dry up", Sydney Morning Herald, February 23.

Clark, Magnus, 1995, The Wars of Iraq, Deakin University.

Cockburn, Patrick, 1998, "Baghdad going to the dogs as sanctions bite", The Canberra Times, April 21.

International Action Center, 1997, Metal of Dishonor - How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers & Civilians with DU Weapons, IAC, New York

Kiley, Sam, 1998, "Poverty offers unlikely hope for deprived Iraqis", Weekend Australian, February 21 - 22

Labelle, G.G, 1998, "Innocents at risk if bombs blast palaces", Sydney Morning Herald, February 17.

McGeough, Paul, 1998 "People starve as oil-for-food deal blocked", Sydney Morning Herald, February 18.

Fisk, Robert, 1998, "The terrible fate that still awaits the long-suffering people of Iraq", The Age, 26 February.

Fisk, Robert, 1998, "Tiny victims in ward of death evoke a deep sense of unease", The Canberra Times, March 6.

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 1995, Evaluation of Food and Nutrition Situation in Iraq, FAO, Baghdad.

Iraqi Ministry of Information and Culture, 1991, US Aggression and Economic Embargo Devastate Public Health In Iraq, Al-Hurriya Press, Baghdad.

Pilger, John, 1998, "War by Media", Sydney Morning Herald, February 21

Rahir, Patrick, 1998, "Seven years of sanctions devastate a generation of Iraqi children", The Age, February 14.

http://www2.one.net.au/~newdawn/iraq.htm

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http://leb.net/IAC/