|
|
Sanctions on Iraq and
Kurdistan
MIDDLE
EAST REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (MERIA)JOURNAL
Volume
5, Number 4 (December 2001)
Abstract: In the
wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many academics and policymakers
cite America's support for United Nations sanctions on Iraq, and
the oft-reported figure of one million resulting deaths, as a legitimate
grievance against Washington's foreign policy. However, the
facts upon which these critics make their case do not hold up under
close scrutiny. Not only does the one million dead figure
and other statistics originate with Iraqi government (and not UN
research as is so often cited), but portions of Iraq are actually
doing better under sanctions than before their implementation.
One UN study even reported nine years into sanctions that half the
Iraqi population was overweight. Comparing the impact of sanctions
between opposition-controlled Iraqi provinces and the portions of
the country ruled by Saddam Husayn indicates that, while the deleterious
impact of sanctions upon the Iraqi population has been grossly exaggerated,
what problems do occur are a result of Baghdad's political leadership.
SANCTIONS ON IRAQ: A VALID ANTI-AMERICAN GRIEVANCE?
By Michael Rubin*
In his taped broadcast following the beginning
of U.S. military action against Afghanistan in October 2001, Usama
bin Ladin blamed the United States for the suffering of the Iraqi
people. The claim that international sanctions have led to
the death of one million Iraqis is often accepted at face value
by academics, activists, UN officials, and even some policymakers.
Tracing such claims to their origin, however, casts doubt not only
on the numbers but also regarding the often-assumed linkage between
sanctions and suffering in Iraq.
On October 7, as the U.S. military campaign
against in Afghanistan began, the Qatar-based television station
al-Jazeera broadcast a tape from Usama bin Ladin. In an effort
to push populist buttons in the Middle East, bin Ladin blamed America
for suffering in Iraq, declaring, "There are civilians, innocent
children being killed every day in Iraq without any guilt, and we
never hear anybody."(1)
Not only does bin Ladin's claim have an
audience in the Islamic world for those believing that the United
States seeks to undermine the Muslim nations, but also among many
U.S. academics, journalists, and policymakers who readily accept
claims that the U.S. is responsible for the deaths of more than
a million Iraqis. For example, just two days after bin Ladin's
video aired, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) blamed sanctions for
suffering in Iraq. The same day, the online political news
magazine Slate declared (based on the statement of UNICEF director
Carol Bellamy) in an article about the alleged death of one million
children in Iraq that "UNICEF's data on Iraqi child mortality
rates haven't been disputed."(2) Such claims have found a receptive
audience on college campuses. For example, in April 1999,
the Yale College government voted on behalf of the entire Yale University
student body to condemn sanctions on Iraq.(3)
The claim that sanctions have caused upwards
of one million deaths in Iraq has been so often repeated, it is
now accepted as unquestioned truth. Perennial opponents of
U.S. policy Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, among others, declare,
"The sanctions [on Iraq] are weapons of mass destruction."(4)
The American Friends Service Committee has been very vocal in its
opposition to U.S. sanctions policy, arguing that, "During
the past ten years, sanctions have led to an almost complete breakdown
in economic, medical, social, and educational structures."(5)
When resigning from his UN post, Denis Halliday, the former United
Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, declared, "We are
in the process of destroying an entire society."(6)
Even some practitioners of U.S. foreign
policy have questioned sanctions. Richard Haass, later appointed
to head the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and Meghan O'Sullivan
wrote in their comprehensive critique of sanctions, "Sanctions
can be costly for innocent bystanders, particularly the poorest
in the target country and American businesses and commercial interests.
In addition, sanctions often evoke unintended consequences, such
as the strengthening of obnoxious regimes."(7)
But where does the claim of mass death
or even genocide in Iraq originate?
In short, with the Iraqi government itself.
Saddam Husayn's government has since the mid-1990s claimed that
United Nations sanctions had resulted in more than a million deaths.
Surprisingly, Baghdad also prevented humanitarian organizations
to conduct their own fieldwork to verify the claims. Unable to conduct
their own large-scale surveying, some humanitarian organizations
adopted Iraqi government figures, thus amplifying the claim.
In 1995, for example, UNICEF estimated that more than 1.2 million
Iraqis had died as a result of sanctions, while the US-based International
Action Coalition claimed that by 1997, the economic embargo upon
Iraq had killed 1.4 million people.(8)
Baghdad's claims were spacious, though.
Iraq expert Amatzia Baram compared the country's population growth
rates over the last three censuses and found there to be almost
no difference between in the rate of Iraq's population growth between
1977 and 1987 (35.8 percent), and between 1987 and 1997 (35.1 percent).(9)
So how did the claim of more than a million
sanctions-related deaths in Iraq persist? In 1999, UNICEF
released a glossy, detailed report that again concluded that sanctions
had contributed to the deaths of one million Iraqis. UNICEF
did not complete the report independently however, but rather co-authored
it with the Iraqi government's health ministry (according to the
report's own front cover). It is this report that is most
often cited by activists and journalists, although seldom do they
refer to it as a joint publication of Saddam's government. Both
current and former UN personnel admit this report to be problematic
especially because its statistics come from the Iraqi government,
which blocks independent information gathering.(10) Former
UN officials related that many statistics are of questionable veracity.(11)
One troubling sign of lack of objectivity is a map on the first
page of the first chapter. While purporting to show the region,
the map omits Kuwait, and makes it appear that the country is actually
part of Iraq.(12) The inclusion of the map raises issue of
what compromises UNICEF made to complete the study.
Many academics as well as those in the
activist and conflict resolution communities nevertheless accept
the UNICEF statistics at face value. However, a careful examination
shows that the reported results make no sense. According to
data presented in the report, the mortality rate for children under
five years old and the infant mortality rate increased after the
adoption of the oil-for-food program almost doubled caloric intake.
For example, in 1995, the infant mortality rate allegedly was 98
deaths per thousand while, in 1998, it was 103 deaths per thousand.
Likewise, the under five years old mortality rate reportedly rose
to 125 deaths per thousand in 1998, from 117 in 1995.(13) Ironically,
the suspicious implication here is that the reduction of sanctions
increases suffering in Iraq.
Further, according to the UNICEF study,
child mortality rose in the portion of Iraq controlled by Saddam
Husayn from 56 per thousand before sanctions to 131 per thousand
in 1999, a magnitude rise for which there is no evidence. Curiously,
UNICEF (or perhaps the Iraqi government) did not provide a breakdown
of the figures by quarters of Baghdad, where one-third of the Iraqi
population lives. Accordingly, no comparison among various
constituencies in the city is possible, to see if food is getting,
for example, to Arab Sunnis, but not to Arab Shi'i or Kurds.(14)
However, a comparison can be made within
the report between those areas under Saddam's control and those
areas administered by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). In Iraqi Kurdistan, the
figures dropped from 80 per thousand before sanctions, to 72 per
thousand. The far higher original figures for the north show the
traditional neglect of that area by the Baghdad government.
At the same time, though, northern Iraq
also faced both the same international sanctions as did Baghdad,
additional sanctions imposed by the Saddam Husayn government, and
had poorer medical facilities than the part of the country controlled
by the Baghdad regime. The difference between falling mortality
rates in the north and claims that these rates were rising elsewhere
may be due to the fact that outsiders can measure statistics in
the north. Thus, the numbers for Iraqi Kurdistan, showing a decline
in child mortality, are more accurate than those for the part of
the country ruled by the central government. The claim that child
mortality increased by almost 250 percent is a fiction.
The increase in mortality in Iraqi government
areas is also curious given the well-established food distribution
system prior to the oil-for-food implementation in the center and
south of the country, but not in the double-embargoed and civil
war-torn northern governorates.(15) Aside from the fact that the
Iraqi statistics are themselves questionable, even if they had some
validity, why did the Kurdish autonomy area fare better than the
rest of the Iraq? The other answer is that the Kurdish administration
not only budgeted oil-for-food income to benefit the population,
but also used available discretionary tax revenues for development
and services, while Saddam Husayn's government consistently sought
to undermine the oil-for-food program, while using its smuggling
and tax revenues to support its military.
In short, most of the evidence for claims
of severe suffering under sanctions comes from the Iraqi government
itself, whose record for veracity is not good and which has an obvious
interest in exaggerating the deprivations of sanctions in order
to end them and to turn international public opinion against its
enemies.
Further undercutting the 1999 UNICEF report
is an often ignored and independently produced September 2000 Food
and Agriculture Report, written in collaboration with the World
Health Organization, which found half of the Iraqi adult population
to be overweight and one of the leading causes of mortality to be
hypertension and diabetes, not commonly diseases of the hungry.(16)
Dismissing the value of the UNICEF/Iraqi
government-authored survey does not indicate that there is not suffering
in Iraq-reports from some (predominantly Shi'i) cities in southern
Iraq indicate the situation is bad-but nowhere near the extent suggested
by anti-sanctions activists and academics. Problems with the
UNICEF/Iraqi government report also highlight the difficulty of
balancing compromise with access.
Structural impediments on the ability of
the UN to operate in Iraq outside of Baghdad's control raises further
questions about the Iraqi government's desire to hide the true situation
so it can make false claims about the humanitarian cost of sanctions.
Under the terms of the 1996 Memorandum of Understanding, the Iraqi
government controls visa issuance for UN employees, giving it effective
veto power over the hiring of consultants and specialists.(17) Since
1998, Iraq has banned British and American citizens from UN jobs
declaring them spies. In September, Iraq expelled a number of Nigerian
and Bosnian UN workers on similar, unsubstantiated charges.
At the same time, however, officials in
the Kurdish autonomous area of northern Iraq have no control over
such personnel, though they complain that the World Health Organization,
World Food Program, and UNICEF hire nationals from countries like
Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, and Sudan whose governments are increasingly
sympathetic to the Iraqi government, and who are often selected
based upon their home government connections(18) In a 2001 UNICEF
report of its activities in Iraq over the past decade, one senior
UNICEF employee spoke of having to "go through the report with
a red pen" to remove the biased data and propaganda inserted
by his predecessor, a Jordanian Palestinian.(19)
Whatever the case with anyone's individual
bias, the 1996 Memorandum of Understanding governing relief work
creates a dynamic that discourages UN workers in Iraq from straying
from Baghdad's official line. Because UN workers must renew
their Iraq visas every six months, Baghdad can encourage self-censorship
by forcing anyone whose views it doesn't like to leave the country.
One German UN worker commented that his colleagues from poorer countries
like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia, were "scared to death"
they might do something that might antagonize Baghdad and cause
them to lose the best paying job they ever had.
Another problem is that local people make
it difficult to achieve accurate survey results because of an understandable
belief that exaggerating will result in more help for themselves.(20)
One NGO working with disabled children, found three different families
claiming the same mentally retarded child as a dependent, figuring
each would get aid payments.
WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE SANCTIONS ON IRAQ?
International sanctions on Iraq have become
a lightening rod for anti-American criticism, leading to calls for
change even within the U.S. government (or, at least, within the
State Department). Yet an examination of exactly what sanctions
the UN imposed, and how they work contradicts many of the criticisms.
One fundamental problem is that it is easy
to view sanctions as a blockade, an attempt to stop anything from
getting in or out of Iraq. In fact, the sanctions have three important
special features that make them into something quite different from
a generalized blockade:
First, the sanctions are selective, designed
to keep out weapons and not food or medicine.
Second, the sanctions can be ended any
time by a decision by the Iraqi government to cooperate. Such a
choice would have let the regime stay in power and actually improved
its political, diplomatic, and economic position-albeit at the cost
of accepting reduced military power.
Third, the sanctions took the form of directed
spending. Far from keeping the Iraqi government from spending money
on food, housing, medicine, health or education, the sanctions regime
tried to force a reluctant Iraqi government to put a larger proportion
of its income into such social services.
Hours after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August
2, 1990, the UN Security Council condemned the invasion.(21)
Iraq refused to withdrawal, so the Security Council adopted Resolution
661, which imposed comprehensive sanctions prohibiting import or
exports of goods with Iraq (export for food and medicine) or investment
in that country.(22) This is an important point since claims that
sanctions are inflicting great suffering on Iraqi civilians often
seem predicated on a belief that they block food and medicine from
reaching the people.
After an extended air campaign and a 100-hour
ground war, the UN and Iraq agreed to a cease-fire in March 1991,
outlined in Resolution 687, many terms of which Iraq continues to
violate.(23) The Resolution obligated Iraq to respect the
inviolability of Kuwait's borders (an obligation Iraq threatened
in 1994, and which Saddam Husayn's son 'Uday dismissed in a prominent
December 30, 2000 article in the official Babil newspaper).(24)
Resolution 687 also provides the basis
for Iraqi payment of war damage compensation and for international
inspections to locate and eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
programs. The resolution noted that, under Saddam Husayn's government,
Iraq was in contravention to many commitments, including the 1925
Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating,
Poisonous, or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare;
the 1989 Final Declaration of states party to the Geneva Convention
in which Iraq obligated itself to the objective of eliminating chemical
and biological weapons; the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of
the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological
(Biological) and Toxin Weapons and their Destruction; and the 1968
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.(25)
The Security Council also considered Iraq's
threats to use weapons of mass destruction. Accordingly, UNSCR 687
mandated that Iraq "shall unconditionally accept" the
destruction under international supervision of all biological and
chemical weapons, and ballistic missiles with a range greater than
150 kilometers. To verify this, the resolution authorized on-site
UN inspections. This provided the basis for the UN Special Commission
(UNSCOM). However, Iraq consistently refused to cooperate. Swedish
Ambassador and UNSCOM chief Rolf Ekeus reported that Iraq did not
unconditionally accept inspections. As UNSCOM began to investigate
Iraq's methods of concealing its retained WMD capabilities, Iraq
increased its resistance to inspections in direct contradiction
to its commitments.(26)
Why have sanctions-and any consequent suffering
for Iraq's people-lasted so long? The Iraqi government has deliberately
rejected meeting its commitments to eliminate WMD, believing that
international pressure will force an end to sanctions without its
having to make any concessions. In order to force the UN to surrender,
Baghdad has used five main strategies:
To intimidate the UN by making threats
and refusing to cooperate.
To wear down its adversaries by stretching
out the need to maintain sanctions over many years, when the issues
could have been resolved in a much shorter time period.
To fool the UN by a superficial pretense
to cooperation at times and by supplying misinformation.
To undermine the coalition by offering
various countries-notably China, France, and Russia-lucrative oil,
arms, and other contracts to be implemented when sanctions are removed.
To gain support from international public
opinion by depriving its own citizens of their material needs, exaggerate
the suffering, and blame the problem on the United States. Portraying
Iraq as a nation of hungry people and sick children became a cynical
propaganda tool. Blaming foreigners for the regime's decisions and
mismanagement could also increase domestic support for the government.
On one level, this strategy has met with
a great deal of success. But at the same time this strategy has
also failed to destroy sanctions (though they have been eroded).
In short, Saddam Husayn has delayed Iraq's return to a better international,
economic, and even military situation, but it has been his decision
to do so.
The fact that the Iraqi government has
once again victimized its own citizens is clear on a number of fronts.
Consider two very telling examples. In both 1998 and 1999, Saddam
Husayn repeatedly refused to order baby formula for his population
even though he had the funds to do so and was urged to take such
action by the UN.(27) In addition, while claiming to face dire food
shortages, Iraq actually exported food to other countries.(28)
Perhaps the most important single case
was that it was Saddam and not the United States or UN that delayed
implementation of the oil-for-food program. Less than six
months after the end of hostilities, the Security Council adopted
resolutions to allow Iraq to sell its oil in order to provide revenue
for the purchase of essential humanitarian supplies.(29) However,
the Iraqi government refused to accept the resolution.(30)
The UN again sought to deliver food and
humanitarian supplies to the people of Iraq. On April 14,
1995, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 986, the "oil-for-food"
program.(31) Declaring the need for the "equitable distribution
of humanitarian relief to all segments of the Iraqi population,"
the resolution created an escrow account for Iraqi oil proceeds.
The UN in turn could use these proceeds to purchase supplies and
monitor their distribution. Again, the Iraqi government refused
to accept the program.(32)
International pressure mounted on Saddam's
government to allow relief, though he succumbed only after lack
of hard currency income caused the value of the Iraqi Dinar to plummet.(33)
On May 20, 1996, the UN Secretariat and the Iraqi government signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to implement the oil-for-food
program, almost five years after the UN first offered such assistance.(34)
However, in order to get Saddam to let it help the Iraqi people
the UN compromise in accepting Iraq's demands, setting up a system
that made it easier for Baghdad to smuggle in military-related items.
It allowed the Iraqi government to contract directly with suppliers,
and to be the sole body allowed to request supplies.
Moreover, in exchange, the Iraqi government
was supposed to "provide to United Nations personnel the assistance
required to facilitate the performance of their functions,"
including "unrestricted freedom of movement." It repeatedly
violated this commitment. According to Benon Sevon, executive director
of the Iraq Program at the UN, as of July 11, 2001, the Iraqi government
had failed to grant visas to 280 UN officials involved with the
humanitarian program visas to do their jobs in Iraq.(35) One reason
for this lack of cooperation may be to conceal corruption. Supplies
are taken and resold on the market by Iraqi officials. The government
turns a blind eye to such practices which, by benefiting loyalists,
actually strengthen the regime itself.
Once implemented, however, the oil-for-food
program did provide a huge pool of funds for humanitarian programs.
The program initially allowed the Iraqi government to sell up to
$2 billion in oil every 180 days, the proceeds of which could be
used to purchase food and medicine, as well as to repair vital infrastructure.
In 1999, the UN eliminated the cap on oil sales.(36) From the beginning
of the program through August 2001, Iraq sold more than $46 billion
in oil, an amount greater than initially anticipated because of
the rise in world oil prices.(37)
Thus, the UN tried to ensure that the Iraqi
people would have adequate food and medicine. The Iraqi government
had the funds to do so and had dictated the arrangements for making
such purchases. Yet it still did not fulfill these responsibilities.
Indeed, the UN and the coalition have been more concerned about
the welfare of the Iraqi people than was the Iraqi government.
This statement is most clearly proven by
comparing the priorities of the Iraqi government and the sanctioning
authorities. Before the invasion of Kuwait and imposition of sanctions,
the Iraqi government spent less than 25 percent of its income on
humanitarian programs. However, under the sanctions regime, Iraq
was ordered to allocate 72 percent of its oil income for humanitarian
projects.(38) Another 25 percent is allocated to the compensation
committee, while the UN applies 3 percent to administrative expenses.
To cite only one example of what this oil-for-food funding has achieved,
throughout all of Iraq it has supported almost $2 billion in housing
contracts.(39) In short, Iraq's real objection is that while there
is plenty of money for meeting the needs of the Iraqi people, there
are supposed to be no funds left over for obtaining weapons.
THE CONTRAST IN IRAQI KURDISTAN
While Baghdad manages program implementation
in regions of its control, the UN implements the humanitarian programs
in the Kurdish-controlled north, funded by 13 percent of the total
oil-sale revenue, a figure proportional to the northern governorates'
population.(40) The Kurds very much value the 13 percent allocation,
fear that they will lose the humanitarian guarantees if sanctions
are lifted. Barham Salih, prime minister of the PUK's half
of the Kurdistan Regional Government, recently called the oil-for-food
program "truly revolutionary" in that "never before
in our history have we had a government obliged by international
law to devote Iraq's oil revenues to the well being of the Iraqi
people."(41)
Despite its faults, the 1999 UNICEF/Iraqi
government report highlighted the possible discrepancy between the
situation in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and the portions of
Iraq under Saddam Husayn's rule. While the entire country
remains under why is it that a large portion of the country run
by an alternative administration is now healthier than before the
imposition of sanctions? The very success of northern Iraq
is all the more impressive given the region's desperate situation
at the time sanctions were first imposed in 1990. After all, two
years earlier, the Iraqi government had carried out its Anfal campaign,
an ethnic cleansing operation in which 182,000 people died, and
hundreds of thousands more were displaced.(42)
Even though neither the Kurds nor the Iraqi
government have spent the full amount of money allocated to them,
Iraqi Kurdistan thrives, while Baghdad complains that the same sanctions
cause suffering. The fact that the health and welfare of the northern
governorates has increased since the implementation of the oil-for-food
program indicates that it is Saddam's governance, and not sanctions,
which causes suffering in Iraq. Such a comparison creates a dilemma
for the aid community, which must confront evidence that suffering
in Iraq is not due to lack of access to food, money, or humanitarian
supplies, but instead may be intentional on the part of the Iraqi
government. This observation is shared not only by Kurds,
but also by Arab Iraqis living under Saddam, whom I met in the northern
safe-haven. (Perhaps because of this, the Iraqi government is now
curtailing freedom of travel between its area of control and the
safe-haven).(43)
Everywhere in the safe-haven, blue signs
announcing UN oil-for food projects are omnipresent, even in the
smallest villages. According to Nasreen Mustafa Sideek, minister
of reconstruction and development in Iraqi Kurdistan:
"Since the programs began, more than
20,000 families throughout Iraqi Kurdistan have been provided with
accommodation. Hundreds of schools with thousands of classrooms
have been constructed and many more are being planned. Hundreds
of kilometers of village access roads have been completed along
with water systems, health centers, irrigation channels, veterinary
centers, and other works."(44)
The sheer scale of reconstruction is impressive.
In the Dahuk governorate, Saddam Husayn had destroyed 809 villages
of an original 1,123. Since 1991, the Kurdish administration, relying
heavily on oil-for-food income, rebuilt 470. In the Irbil governorate,
the Iraqi government razed 1,205 of an original 1,497 villages.
Already, the Kurdish government has been able rebuild 800. In the
Sulaymaniyah governorate, where 1,992 of an original 2,035 villages
were laid to waste, the Kurdish authorities have rebuilt 1,350.
In the Dahuk and Irbil governorates alone, the oil-for-food program
has spent $110 million so far on housing units, $27 million on schools,
and $9 million on health centers, $37 million on water projects,
and $7 million on sewage channels.(45)
Qualitatively, it is hard to go anywhere
in northern Iraq without seeing the fruits of the sanctions-related
development. The town of Sa'id Sadiq, razed by Saddam's forces in
1988, had been reconstructed. New schools dot dusty villages near
the Turkish border. Sulaymaniyah, Irbil, and Dahuk have new
sewer systems, telephone networks, and diesel-fueled 29-megawatt
electrical generating plants.
In contrast to the situation in the areas
ruled by the central government-which carefully escorts selected
delegations and journalists-the ability to travel freely in the
north allows an observer to judge the situation more accurately.
These achievements are even more relatively impressive since they
have been attained despite the constant infighting and lack of cooperation
between the two ruling factions, while the rest of the country supposedly
enjoys the potential benefits of having a single, well-established
government apparatus. The fact that workers from non-UN humanitarian
agencies can help in the north, while being barred from Iraqi government
areas, is another factor, albeit a marginal one, contributing to
the people's improved welfare (the budget of the 17 non-UN international
NGOs operating in Iraqi Kurdistan is miniscule, and is generally
limited to a few housing projects, a handful of clinics, and a small
number of vocational centers.
NUTRITION: THREE MEALS A DAY: THE FRUIT OF SANCTIONS
Ironically, much of the international interpretation
of sanctions, prompted by Iraqi propaganda, is the exact opposite
of the intent and effort being made. While trying to pressure the
Iraqi government to dispense with its WMD programs, the sanctions
regime has also tried to force that same government to pay more
attention to the needs of its own people.
The health and welfare of those in Iraq
has increased tremendously, not only in northern Iraq, but also
in Iraq proper, at least when the Iraqi government does not interfere
with the implementation of the oil-for-food program. It is difficult
to be hungry when receiving oil-for-food rations. Each month, every
man, woman, and child in Iraq receives 9 kilograms of wheat flour,
3 kilograms of rice, 2 kilograms of sugar, 0.2 kilograms of tea,
1.5 kilograms of vitamin A-fortified cooking oil, 3.6 kilograms
of milk powder, an additional kilogram of dried whole milk and/or
cheese, 0.8 kilograms of fortified weaning cereal, 1.5 kilograms
of pulses (vegetable protein), and 0.15 kilograms of iodized salt.
To ensure that every individual receives the minimum stipulated
rations, retail agents are provided with an additional four percent
of flour, rice, and pulses, two percent sugar, oil, salt, and 0.5
percent tea above their local needs. All told, rations support
a diet of 2,472 kilocalories per day, double the food intake in
1996, before the program's implementation.(46)
As of June 31, 2001, the oil-for-food program
had bought more than $7 billion in rations. Contrary to the complaints
of some anti-sanctions activists, the UN Security Council had absolutely
no food contracts on hold. Importantly, the ration package
does not include fresh fruits and vegetables many Iraqis grow themselves,
buy in the market, or for which they trade excess. Because
the UN does not buy local produce, the
fruits of local agriculture are also cheaper; farmers are desperate
for a market.
While still serving as the UN Humanitarian
Coordinator in Iraq, Hans Von Sponeck, insinuated that the food
basket supplied by the oil-for-food program could be enlarged if
the Iraqi government requested it-only Baghdad repeatedly refused
to order more food. In November 1999, the Secretary General
of the United Nations reported Iraqi government "under procurement"
of food was a serious problem. Indeed, for ten months in 1998
and 1999, despite adequate oil-for-food revenue, the Iraqi government
simply refused to order pulses, resulting in reduced rations though
out the country.(47)
Indeed, Iraqis eat much better than those
in most neighboring and regional countries. Most Iraqis interviewed
said they ate at least some meat five times per week. In contrast,
Iranians in Tehran said they often eat meat only once per month.(48)
Under the terms of the oil-for-food ration
system, every resident of Iraq is entitled to a ration card. Registration
centers compile lists of families and households that are then processed
at a computer center, copies of which then are distributed to both
the retail ration agent and the local food distribution centers.
However, interviews with recently displaced persons arriving in
the northern safe-haven from Iraqi government-controlled territory
indicate that the Iraq government is regularly confiscating the
UN ration cards of its own citizens. One woman in Kalar complained
that when she refused to divorce her husband, whom the Iraqi government
accused of supporting the opposition, the Iraqi government expelled
her four children from school and confiscated the family's ration
cards.(49) Many residents of the internally-displaced persons
camp, all ethnic Kurds or Turkmens expelled from their homes in
or near Kirkuk by Saddam's government, reported that police first
confiscated their UN ration cards to force them to move.(50)
Many Iraqis find it disturbing that proponents
of lifting sanctions on Iraq trust Saddam Husayn to not use food
as a weapon, given not only his ongoing violations of international
law, but also the precedent of the 1980's, when he waged war not
only upon Iran, but also upon his own people.
HEALTHCARE UNDER SANCTIONS
The healthcare situation in the north has
also benefited under the oil-for-food program. According to the
director of one of northern Iraq's maternity hospitals, fertility
is increasing. In 1990, there were 6,669 babies born in the hospital,
while a decade later the figure was 11,455. The rise in fertility
has not been steady. Indeed, in the early years of sanctions when
Kurds also faced a blockade from Saddam, fertility decreased. It
stayed below 1990 levels until 1998, when the hospital first felt
the sustained benefits of the oil-for-food program. And of course
problems and shortages of facilities remain. The doctor complained
that on a single table per day, there could be three or four deliveries,
not leaving the staff adequate time for sterilizing instruments.(51)
Generally, however, drugs and medical supplies
are available, though doctors and medical administrators in the
safe haven complain of Iraqi government obstructionism, and an indifferent,
inefficient UN bureaucracy that often is unresponsive and slow.
The director of one general hospital, for example, complained that
endoscopy equipment ordered in Phase III of the oil-for-food program
(each phase refers to a six month cycle) still has not arrived.
Of the 40 ultrasound monitors requested, only ten had arrived by
January 2001. The hospital director complained that he could get
no one at the World Health Organization to explain the discrepancy
or the status of the equipment order.(52)
Often, vaccinations and other oil-for-food
drug purchases fall short of needs.(53) An administrator at
a northern Iraqi teaching hospital said that in a single year he
must spend approximately $50,000 for medicines outside the oil-for-food
program. Ironically, pharmacists say that about 20 percent of drugs
on street markets come from Iraqi UN employees siphoning off and
selling medicine from UN warehouses in Iraqi government-controlled
areas. Since the Iraqi government determines which Iraqis can work
for foreign and UN organizations, such jobs often go to Ba'th party
loyalists (an issue which also raises issues about the accuracy
of UN reports).(54)
Not only do Iraqi officials block the distribution
of food and medicine for their "own" people but also attempt
to sabotage supplies for the northern safehaven, attempting to weaken
the "rebel" government there.
For example, a high-level health ministry
official in the north notes that despite having the oil-for-food
money and submitting orders well ahead of schedule, the Iraqi government
still systematically refused to order enough medicine for the northern
governorates. On September 3, 2001, PUK Health Minister Yadgar
Heshmet complained of problems in obtaining such essentials as surgical
gloves, sutures, as well as oncology drugs and kidney dialysis machines.(55)
Certainly, the oil-for-food program does
not work perfectly, both PUK and KDP health ministry officials and
hospital workers agreed that the health care income generated because
of the sanctions regime has saved lives and had an overall positive
benefit. Far from the images of overcrowded hospitals portrayed
on official Iraqi government television and escorted tours for journalist
and anti-sanctions activists, hospital pharmacies in Halabja, Sulaymaniyah,
Dahuk, Zakho, and Irbil were well-stocked with supplies and no patients
shared beds.(56) In Dahuk, the hospital administrators showed newly-delivered
Siemens CAT scan and mammography units upon which staff were training.(57)
As of June 30, 2001, more than $1.3 billion in medical equipment
had arrived in Iraq under the oil-for-food program, with more than
$500 million more approved and in the delivery pipeline.(58)
SELECTIVE REPORTING: IS WATER TO BLAME?
Increasingly, anti-sanctions activists
blame the quality of water for death and misery in Iraq, and accuse
the United States and Britain of deliberately degrading Iraq's water
purification systems. In a cover story in the British monthly, The
Progressive, George Washington University instructor Thomas Nagy
argued that, "the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions
against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf
War."(59) He based his arguments on declassified U.S.
Defense Intelligence Agency documents posted on a Defense Department
website dedicated to information relating to Gulf War syndrome.(60)
He concluded that the U.S. government sought purposely to undermine
Iraq's potable water supply in order to increase pressure on Saddam
Husayn's regime.
Nagy's analysis is problematic. He relies
on documents more than ten years old, and systematically ignores
documents written after the war, when a greater flow of information
existed. Nagy's citations themselves are quite selective.
For example, one document not cited by Nagy concludes, "Restoration
of Iraq's public health services and shortages of major medical
materiel apparently are being emphatically exploited by Saddam Husayn
in an effort to keep public opinion firmly against the U.S. and
its Coalition allies and to keep blame away from the Iraqi government."(61)
Nagy dismissed another document in the same collection because it
had "a distinct damage-control feel to it," even though
in this case Nagy appears to apply the "damage control"
label because the document provides evidence that contradicts Nagy's
thesis.(62) The document in question reads:
"Disease incidence above pre-war levels
is more attributable to the regime's inequitable post-war restoration
of public health services rather than the effects of the war and
United Nations (UN)-imposed sanctions. Although current countrywide
infectious disease incidence in Iraq is higher than it was before
the Gulf War, it is not at the catastrophic levels that some groups
predicted. The Iraqi regime will continue to exploit disease incidence
data for its own political purposes."(63)
Nagy concludes by arguing that the U.S.
government is guilty of violating the Geneva Convention. While
the documentary evidence eviscerates Nagy's conclusions, the case
raises ethical questions as to how activists deal with facts on
the ground that may contradict political ideology. This problem
is heightened in the case of Iraq, since access to the real feelings
of ordinary Iraqis still living in the country remains so hard to
obtain.
Water purity is a problem is some areas
of Iraq, much as it is in areas of southern Iran and Bahrain, where
it is heavily saline and not potable. In northern Iraq, quality
is extremely good: bottled water is not widely available in Irbil
or Sulaymaniyah, and most foreigners drink the water without getting
sick. Water is also of adequate quality in large government-controlled
cities like Baghdad, Mosul, and Kirkuk, according to Iraqi travelers.
However, the quality of water declines in the predominantly Shi'i
cities of Basra and Nasiriya. Nevertheless, the oil-for-food program
has already spent more than $1 billion in water and sanitation projects
in Iraq.(64)
Baghdad estimates that providing adequate
sanitation and water resources would cost an additional $328 million.
However, such an allocation is more than possible given the billions
of dollars in oil revenue Baghdad receives each year under sanctions,
and the additional $1 billion dollars per year it receives from
transport of smuggled oil on the Syrian pipeline alone.(65)
Indeed, if Saddam Husayn's government has managed to spend more
than $2 billion for new presidential palaces since the end of the
Persian Gulf War, and offer to donate nearly $1 billion to support
the Palestinian intifada, there is no reason to blame sanctions
for any degradation in water and sanitation systems.(66)
HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS: TRYING TO IGNORE THE NORTH
Northern Iraq presents a problem for both
Saddam Husayn and human rights' advocates like those from the American
Friends Service Committee, Voices in the Wilderness, and the Campaign
Against Sanctions on Iraq ideologically opposed to sanctions. After
all, northern Iraq suffered much more damage from war-though ironically
mostly at the hands of Iraq's own army-than the rest of the country.
Yet that area has been rebuilt due to the sanctions system. The
comparison between northern Iraq and the rest of the country puts
the onus of responsibility for the humanitarian tragedy on Saddam,
not sanctions. Accordingly, many opponents of sanctions actively
seek to undermine this comparison.
Some anti-sanctions campaigners argue that
the north receives disproportionate income. The root of this
complaint is that while the northern governorates receive income
proportional to their population, the rest of Iraq is shortchanged
because of Iraqi payments to the compensation committee. Indeed,
parts of Iraq controlled by Saddam receive just 59 percent of the
oil-for-food revenue.(67) If accounted this way, then the north
does receive slightly more per capita than the rest of Iraq, but
not nearly so much as some anti-sanctions activists claim. They
argue that the north receives 22 percent of the total humanitarian
income. Actually, the figure is closer to 14.5 percent, when
one includes the population of PUK-controlled towns such as Kalar,
Kifri, and Darbandikan in the Kirkuk (Ta'mim) governorate.
A former high official in the UN's Office
of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq (UNOCHI) also noted that
northern Iraq has started from a lower baseline, because Saddam
Husayn's government had razed 4,006 out of 4,655 villages, and forced
northern Iraq to accommodate more than 800,000 internally-displaced
persons, one-quarter of whom have been expelled from their homes
in portions of Iraq governed by Saddam Husayn since the end of 1991.(68)
However, even if Iraqi Kurdistan did receive
disproportionate income in the early years of the oil-for-food program,
the combination of the rise in world oil prices and the five percent
increase in the allotment of revenue to go to Baghdad means that
the portion of Iraq administered by Saddam should be doing at least
as well as Iraqi Kurdistan had been. The per capita income
available in Saddam's Iraq is now far higher than it was in Iraqi
Kurdistan, and yet the Iraqi government continues to either not
spend the revenue available, or not spend it wisely.(69)
Opponents of sanctions also sometimes dismiss
northern Iraq's success under sanctions because of the so-called
"cash component" granted to northern Iraq by the United
Nations.(70) The United Nations pays the administrative costs
to implement its programs in northern Iraq, but the Iraqi government
has to pay the implementation costs in the portion of the country
it administers. The reasoning behind this is that the UN is administering
the oil-for-food program in the northern Iraqi governorates on behalf
of the government of Iraq, and does not formally recognize the democratically
elected administration in northern Iraq. Further, the northern administration
developed in a vacuum created by the unilateral withdrawal of Iraqi
government administration in 1991. While the center-south
controlled by Saddam Husayn enjoys basic governmental infrastructure,
northern Iraq initially did not. Northern Iraq's success comes despite
constant impediments laid down by Baghdad which, under terms of
the 1996 Memorandum of Understanding, has acquired the means to
block visas for UN workers and thus derail UN programs. The
latest report by the Secretary-General of the UN on Phase X of the
oil-for-food program concluded, "the effective implementation
of the [oil-for-food] programme in the three northern governorates.has
also been adversely affected by the inordinate delays in the granting
of visas to United Nations personnel, as well as the difficulties
encountered in the importation of esential equipment and supplies."(71)
Most damning to arguments about disproportionate funding in the
north is that, according to oil-for-food coordinators in Irbil,
northern Iraq has so far only spent half the money actually allocated
to it.
Often, the anti-sanctions crowd argues
that the blame for any lack of recovery in Saddam's Iraq lies not
with Saddam's administration, but with the holds placed on goods
at the behest of the United States. It is true that
some material is on hold. For example, after the chemical
weapons attacks of the 1980s, the United Nations does look suspiciously
upon requests for crop dusters and aerial sprayers. However,
only 13 percent of the total contracts (by value) are on hold, and
many of these will be allowed to proceed once the Iraqi government
completes missing paper work or elaborates on where and how the
goods will be used(72).
It is true that the United Nations bureaucracy
is slow, clumsy, and inefficient, but UN ineptitude remains constant
over both northern Iraq and those regions controlled by Saddam,
and therefore cannot be considered a major reason for suffering.
Rather, much of the problem rests in the Iraqi government simply
refusing to order goods. For example, as of September 15,
2001, the Iraqi government had failed to even allocate almost $2
billion dollars.
When the Iraqi government does proceed
with contracting, it inexplicably delays submitting the paperwork
to the United Nations. According to the latest report of the
Secretary General of the United Nations, the Iraqi government tends
to wait between a month and a month and a half between signing contracts
and submitting relevant applications to United Nations committees.(73)
CONCLUSIONS
The success of northern Iraq under sanctions
poses a challenge to anti-sanctions activists, who continue to cling
to the hypothesis that it is sanctions and not Saddam Husayn causing
suffering in Iraq. However, rather than dismiss such evidence
(and harming ordinary Iraqis in the process), the human rights community
should instead embrace the sanctions on Iraq as a tool to rebuild
the society and protect basic human rights for people living under
an uncaring dictatorship. In condemning the sanctions regime,
the implicit argument is that the benign Saddam Husayn government
wants to take care of its people and is being prevented from exercising
its humanitarian intention by foreign imperialists who are the real
war criminals. One can well doubt that the Iraqi people themselves
accept this interpretation, though they are unlikely to say so in
public precisely because they know the brutality of that government.
The day after the "smart sanctions" plan was announced,
an Iraqi farmer near the Iranian border asked me, "Why do they
talk about war crimes one day, and reward Saddam the next?"(74)
Relatively few non-military tools exist
in peacetime to change the behavior of rogue regimes, regardless
of how one chooses to define them. Sanctions remain a powerful
tool that should not be abandoned. In the case of Iraq, sanctions
can be used to preserve basic rights. Lifting sanctions would
allow Saddam Husayn to renew his aggressive policy and encourages
others to behave the same way. Moreover, it would not benefit and
might well even harm the Iraqi people.
Given the fact that Saddam prefers to have
sanctions rather than give up his WMD capacity, and that he has
spent billions of dollars on presidential palaces and a special
amusement park for Baath Party officials, it is hard to argue that
the triumph of human rights and humanitarian considerations require
returning Iraqis to his total control.(75)
* Michael Rubin is an adjunct fellow of The Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, currently resident in Jerusalem at Hebrew
University's Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations.
He lived nine months during the academic year 2000-2001 as a Carnegie
Council fellow in Iraq, where he taught English and history in the
universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Dahuk, and previously
was a lecturer in history at Yale University. He has lived
in and traveled extensively in Iran, the Arab world, Israel, and
Central Asia, and is the author of a newly-published monograph,
Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, 2001).
NOTES
1. "Bin Ladin: America Filled With Fear." CNN.com.
October 7, 2001.
2. Chris Suellentrop. "Are 1 million children dying in
Iraq?" Slate. October 9, 2001. <http://slate.msn.com/?id=1008414>.
3. Meghan Casey. "Dwight Hall, YCC Vote to Condemn Sanctions
against Iraq." Yale Daily News. April 8, 1999.
4. Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Howard Zinn et al. "Sanctions
are Weapons of Mass Destruction." In: Anthony Arnove,
ed. Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War,
(Cambridge: South End Press, 2000), 181.
5. "About the Campaign [of Conscience]." Iraq Peacebuilding
Program,
American Friends Service Committee. <http://www.afsc.org/conscience/quakers.htm>
6. Robert Fisk. "Women fighting to stem disaster in Iraq."
The Independent, 15 October 1998. Pg. 15.
7. Richard N. Haass and Meghan O'Sullivan, eds. Honey and
Vinegar:
Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy. (Washington: Brookings,
2000).
8. Amatzia Baram. "The Effect of Iraqi Sanctions: Statistical
Pitfalls and Responsibility." The Middle East Journal.
Volume 54, No. 2, Spring 2000. Pg. 196.
9. Ibid.
10. See: UNICEF and Ministry of Health. "Child and maternal
mortality
surveys 1999. Preliminary Report." July 1999. Cover and
acknowledgements. <http://www.unicef.org/reseval/pdfs/irqscvak.pdf>
11. Interview with former UNOCHI official. Irbil, Iraq. March 21,
2001;
interview with UNICEF consultant, Washington, August 2, 2001.
12. "Child and maternal mortality surveys 1999. Preliminary
Report."
July 1999. Chapter
1, page 3.
<http://www.unicef.org/reseval/pdfs/irqscvak.pdf>.
13.
"Research and Evaluation: Child Mortality- Iraq."
UNICEF. August
27, 1999. <http://www.unicef.org/reseval/cmrirq.html>
14. Baram. Op. Cit. Pg. 206.
15. Alexander Sternberg. "Lifting Sanctions on Iraq: Center-South
versus Kurdistan." The Kurdistan Observer. July 25, 2001.
<http://members.home.net/kurdistanobserver/25-7-01-opinion-sternberg.html>
16. "Assessment of the Food and Nutrition Situation: Iraq"
FAO. Rome,
2000.
17. Barbara Crossette. "Iraq is Undermining Aid Projects by Blocking
Visas, U.N. Says." The New York Times. May 1, 2001. Pg.
A5.
18. Derk Kinnane Roelofsma. "Saddam Pressure UN Agencies in
North."
United Press International. March 28, 2001. In an August 18, 2001,
interview conducted via e-mail, Dr. Barham Salih, prime minister
of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, refused to cite specific officials,
but
acknowledged problems with some UN officials "going native."
19. Interview with an NGO director. Dahuk, Iraq, March 24, 2001.
20. Interview with managers of three different NGOs. Sulaymaniyah,
Iraq, January 11, 2001; also, interviews with senior Iraqi Kurdish
political officials.
21. UN S/RES/660 (1990), 2 August 1990. All United Nations documents,
unless otherwise noted, are cited from: The United Nations
and the
Iraq-Kuwait Conflict, 1990-1996. Volume IX. (United Nations, New
York:
United Nations Blue Book Series, 1996).
22. UN S/RES/661 (1990), 6 August 1990.
23. UN S/RES/687 (1991), 3 April 1991.
24. David Nissman. "'Uday wants Kuwait Off the Map."
Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty Iraq Report. Vol. 4. No. 3. January 19, 2001.
<http://www.rferl.org/iraq-report/2001/01/3-190101.html>
25. UN S/RES/687 (1991), 3 April 1991.
26. Rolf Ekeus. "From UNSCOM to UNMOVIC: The Future of Weapons
Inspections in Iraq." Policywatch No. 477, July 19, 2000,
in: In
Peacewatch/Policywatch Anthology 2000 (Washington: Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001), 334-336. . No. 477. July 19, 2000.
27. Baram. Op cit. Pg. 217.
28. Patrick Clawson. "A look at sanctioning Iraq-The numbers
don't
lie, Saddam does." The Washington Post. February 27,
2000. B3.
29. UN S/RES/705 (1991), 15 August 1991; UN S/RES/706 (1991), 15
August 1991.
30.
UN Doc. No. S/PV.
3004, August 15, 1991, in preparation of SCR
705, 706, and 707.
31. UN S/RES/986 (1995), 14 April 1996.
32. "UN Committee condemns human rights in Iraq, Iran."
Agence France
Presse. December
13, 1995.
33. Baram. Op cit. Pg. 214.
34. UN S/1996/356 (1996), 20 May 1996. Available online:
<http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/undocs/s1996356.htm>
35. Benon
V. Sevan. "Statement at the 221st meeting of the Security
Council Committee established by Resolution 661 (1990). July 12,
2001.
<http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/BVS120701.htm>.
36. UN S/RES/1284 (1999), 17 December 1999.
37. "Statement by Benon Sevan, executive director of the Iraq
Programme, at the 221st meeting of the Security Council Committee
Established by Resolution 661, July 12, 2001.
<http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/BVS120701.htm>. See also: UN
S/2001/738 ("Annual Report of the Security Council Committee
established by resolution 661 (1990) concerning the situation between
Iraq and Kuwait.").
38. Alexander Sternberg. "Lifting Sanctions on Iraq: Center-South
versus Kurdistan." The Kurdistan Observer. July 25, 2001.
<http://members.home.net/kurdistanobserver/25-7-01-opinion-sternberg.html>
39. United Nations' Office of the Iraq Programme- Oil-for-Food.
"Basic
Figures" (Status as of June 30, 2001).
<http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/basicfigures.html>
40. UN S/1996/356 (1996), 20 May 1996; S/RES/1330 (2000), 5 December
2000.
41. Interview with Dr. Barham Salih, prime minister of the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, via internet between Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, and
Washington, DC, August 18, 2001.
42. For a detailed discussion of these events, see Kenan Makiya,
Cruelty and Silence (NY, 1993).
43. David Nissman. "New Baghdad Rules Hinder Travel to Kurdistan."
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Iraq Report. Vol. 4. No. 27. August
31,
2001. <http://www.rferl.org/iraq-report/2001/08/27-310801.html>
44. "Interview: Nasreen Mustafa Sideek." Middle
East Intelligence
Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 7. July/August 2001.
<http://www.meib.org/articles/0107_iri.htm>
45. "Interview: Nasreen Mustafa Sideek." Middle
East Intelligence
Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 7. July/August 2001.
46. "Distribution Plan for Phase X, Submitted by the Government
of
Iraq to the Secretary-General in accordance with the Memorandum
of
Understanding of 20 May 1996 and Security Council resolution 1360
(2001). Approved by the Secretary General (S/2001/758).
<http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/dp10/execsummary.pdf>
47. Baram. Op cit. Pg. 216.
48. Multiple interviews in northern Iraq, September 2000-May 2001,
and in Iran, July-August, 1999.
49. Interviews with IDPs, December 19, 2000. Kalar, Iraq. See also:
Michael Rubin, "Banasiaw Dispatch: Arabian Rights."
The New Republic.
July 23, 2001.
50. Michael Rubin. "Banasiaw Dispatch-Arabian Nights."
The New
Republic. July 25, 2001. Pg. 16-17.
51. Interview with director of a maternity hospital. January 23,
2001.
(City withheld for doctor's security).
52. Interview with director of a general hospital. January 23, 2001.
(City withheld for doctor's security).
53. Interview with an employee of a vaccination warehouse.
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. January 21, 2001; interview with a pharmacist
from
Baghdad. Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. January 21, 2001.
54. Interview with director of a teaching hospital. January 23,
2001.
(City withheld for doctor's security).
55. Letter from Yadgar Heshmet to Tun Myat, Chief Coordinator, Office
of the Iraq Programme, Iraq.
56. Numrous hospital inspections in northern Iraq. September 2000
-
May 2001.
57. Tour of Azadi Hospital, Dahuk, Iraq. March 4, 2001.
58. Office of the Iraq Programme- Oil-for-Food. "Basic Figures"
(Status as of June 30, 2001).
<http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/basicfigures.html>
59. Thomas J. Nagy. "The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the
U.S.
Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply." The Progressive.
September 2001.
60. See: www.gulflink.osd.mil
61.
Filename:0116pgv.00p. (Release date: October 31, 1996).
62. Thomas J. Nagy. "The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the
U.S.
Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply." The Progressive.
September 2001.
63. "Iraq: Assessment of Current Health Threats and Capabilities."
November 15, 1991. Filename:0404pgf.91. (Release date: September
1,
1995).
64. United Nations' Office of the Iraq Programme- Oil-for-Food.
"Basic
Figures" (Status as of June 30, 2001).
http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/basicfigures.html>
65. "Distribution
Plan for Phase X, Submitted by the Government of
Iraq to the Secretary-General in accordance with the Memorandum
of
Understanding of 20 May 1996 and Security Council resolution 1360
(2001). Approved by the Secretary General (S/2001/758); Patrick
Clawson. "Can Iraq Reconstitute the Arab Eastern Front Against
Israel?
Policywatch. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. No.509.
January 8, 2001.
66. Patrick Clawson. "A look at sanctioning Iraq-The numbers
don't
lie, Saddam does." The Washington Post. February 27,
2000. B3; Randa
Habib. "Saddam forges Arab ties, emerges as champion
of Palestinian
intifada." Agence France Press. August 27, 2001.
67. Voices in the Wilderness. "Myths and Realities Regarding
Iraq and
Sanctions." In: Anthony Arnove, ed. Iraq Under Siege:
The Deadly
Impact of Sanctions and War, (Cambridge: South End Press,
2000), 72.
68. Interviews with former UN officials and senior Kurdistan Regional
Government officials, Irbil, Iraq. March 27, 2001. Also, "Interview:
Nasreen Mustafa Sideek." Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.
Vol. 3,
No. 7. July/August 2001.
69. Interview with Patrick Clawson, research director, Washington
Institute for Near East Policy. November 6, 2001.
70. Anthony Arnove, ed. Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of
Sanctions and War, (Cambridge: South End Press, 2000), 72.
71. "Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph
5 of resolution 1360 (2001)." UN S/2001/919. Pg. 15.
72.
Ibid., Pg. 20.
73. Ibid., Pg. 3.
74. Interview with a farmer, near Mawat, Iraq. May 17, 2001.
75. Patrick Clawson. "A look at sanctioning Iraq-The numbers
don't
lie, Saddam does." The Washington Post. February 27, 2000.
B3.
|
 |
