How will the world see Blix in six months?

[Ambro2000]

I would not be surprised if US planted some convenient chemical weapons and such if they don’t find any to try to justify this war……

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
I would not be surprised if US planted some convenient chemical weapons and such if they don’t find any to try to justify this war……

what's your point? Would this be a bad thing? And when the US does find banned weapons... how will the US prove to the world that they are for real? Can that be done?

[Ambro2000]

My point is that it is not impossible that US plant some chemical weapons in Iraq and then say how meaningless the UN weapon inspectiones where...

[My Wife Hates CIV]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
My point is that it is not impossible that US plant some chemical weapons in Iraq and then say how meaningless the UN weapon inspectiones where...

but as soon as the US finds anything along those lines everyone will say the US has planted it. No matter what - no one will believe the US.

[gunkulator]

Hans Blix will be remembered as the consultant he is. Like all successful consultants, his main focus was to find ways to continue to collect his large fees. The standard formula for most consultants is to perform an initial assessment that shows that yes, there may indeed be problems (or WMD) to uncover. Consultant recommendations always suggest that, surprise, surprise, what is needed is more of the services that the consultant provides.

Consultants always produce periodic reports that show slow but steady improvement, but just when you might see the light at the end of the tunnel, a new problem arises. I, for one, am not shocked that Blix kept saying that, nope, he's still not done. Better send me back. BTW, here's the latest bill.

US and UK finally called his bluff. demanding some timetable for completion. Of course, this is the bane of all successful consultants. Years and years of inspections but, by golly, we're still not done and ya know what might help? More inspections! Three times as many. Just think of the bills! Woohoo!

[Ambro2000]

but as soon as the US finds anything along those lines everyone will say the US has planted it. No matter what - no one will believe the US.

I think that many people will believe in the Bush administration. Especially in the US. It’s a matter of trust. Internationally the trust for US has probably never been as low…

US and UK finally called his bluff. demanding some timetable for completion. Of course, this is the bane of all successful consultants. Years and years of inspections but, by golly, we're still not done and ya know what might help? More inspections! Three times as many. Just think of the bills! Woohoo!

and the bills for the war was cheaper?

[Kramerman]

and the bills for the war was cheaper?

By no means, but it got somthn freakin accomplished

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


So where are these NBC weapons? By the looks of Powell's report, Iraq should be overflowing with them. None has been discovered so far. Whatever happened to all those intelligence sources that the CIA had to protect? So what's the hold up? Why haven't the US forces made a beeline to those nasty caches so alleged?

The pro-war faction is now trying to divert attention to somewhere else.

I'm sorry, UR, apparently you did not read what I wrote. It was Blix's job to verify the Dec. 8 report - not ignore it.

That report said that Saddam had no WMD or had destroyed what he had. Blix had to verify that report. He had to verify the destruction claim. He made no serious attempt to do so.

What he did, instead, is run around Iraq looking for WMD!

No you want to divert attention again from Blix's failure by saying that we have not found WMD. What we need to find are the scientists who can confirm or not the truth of Saddam's statement.

If it turns out that he had in fact destroyed the chemical weapons and these scientist can verify that, I hope you will admit that Blix failed the UN and the world for not interviewing the scientists and verifying Saddam's claims.

[Ambro2000]

By no means, but it got somthn freakin accomplished

Yes, the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqis civilians. Fantastic!

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ambro2000


Yes, the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqis civilians. Fantastic!

Thousands?

Nobody knows yet how many were killed, directly from the war, a reaonable estimate would probably be a little more than a thousand...
(EDIT: unfortunately some more thousands will die/are dying from indirect effects of the war)

Answer me this... how many would have died this year alone under Saddam's regime? How many would have died next year? The year after? The year after that?

Hopefully, their suffering will end here.

[Ambro2000]

You are absolutely right! The exact number from both of the wars including the sanctions could very well measure up to half a million, maybe more…
I doubt that Saddam would kill so many and even if he would that’s not important. What gives you the right to kill x number of people just to get a dictator that no longer plays by your whistle? How many countries have USA manage to bomb in to a democracy? Answer = none
If I should follow your logic it would be all right for me to kill a few million Americans because that’s likely so many that your regime will kill in foreign countries in a couple of years to come and have done so in the past I might add……

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
You are absolutely right! The exact number from both of the wars including the sanctions could very well measure up to half a million, maybe more…
I doubt that Saddam would kill so many and even if he would that’s not important. What gives you the right to kill x number of people just to get a dictator that no longer plays by your whistle? How many countries have USA manage to bomb in to a democracy? Answer = none
If I should follow your logic it would be all right for me to kill a few million Americans because that’s likely so many that your regime will kill in foreign countries in a couple of years to come and have done so in the past I might add……

How many? Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines to start. The people Puerto Rico seem to like being "occupied" by America.

My God, the anti-Americans here refuse to acknowledge the significant American successes in spreading democracy. To them, Iraq is still about Oil and not about freedom.

I find it difficult to believe that such people really exist. I suspect that they even believe the American revolution was about Oil.

[Chris 62]

US killed thousands....HA HA HA HA

I guess the money for food, that instead went for palaces had NOTHING to do with that, eh?

Lame troll, not even on my rating scale.

Blix is on the record as saying if there are such weapons, they are planted by the coalition, which is consistant with his behavior.
I was told by a Swedish friend he made his rep as a Soviet appeaser in the cold war, and we was selected for his current job by Russia and france, and low and behold, he was unable to find anything, which supported their postion.

What a coincedence,

Opinion of him won't change, whatever is held of him now will remain the same, for or against.

[Drake Tungsten]

Blix also has the honor of being the head of one of the two IAEA nuclear inspections regimes that declared Iraq to be nuke free. Both pronouncements were found to be false later. He has a real storied career...

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Chris 62
US killed thousands....HA HA HA HA

I guess the money for food, that instead went for palaces had NOTHING to do with that, eh?

I'm sorry but I have to react to such willfull ignorance about the Iraqi sanctions program. Have you any idea just how the sanctions program was set up and under which conditions it operated? There is a darker side to the UN sanction program you don't seem to be aware of. It seems ordinary Iraqis were simple reduced to political bargaining chips in the process.

Chapter 5. Oil-for-Food

In the mid-1990s, as political support for Iraq sanctions declined, the Security Council decided to revise its earlier plan on humanitarian trade, proposing that Iraq export oil on a controlled basis and use the revenues, under UN supervision, to buy humanitarian supplies. The Council passed Resolution 986 as a “temporary” measure on April 12, 1995, with a restrictive cap on oil sales. The government of Iraq, facing an increasingly serious economic crisis, agreed to the Council’s conditions a year later. Though Oil-for-Food brought undoubted short term benefits to a desperate population, it never eliminated the humanitarian crisis.

5.1. A Short Term Policy

When the Security Council and the government of Iraq finally agreed in May 1996 to allow the sale of oil for the purchase of food and other necessities, no one supposed that six years later the UN would be still be operating on the same basis, running a program to provide the Iraqi population with an inadequate supply of even the most basic necessities. (91)

In November 2000 the UN Secretariat reported to the Security Council that
the humanitarian programme was never intended to meet all the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi population or to be a substitute for normal economic activity. Also the programme is not geared to address the longer term deterioration of living standards or to remedy declining health standards and infrastructure. (92) The Secretary-General repeated this concern in his report of March 2, 2001, reminding the Council that Oil for Food "was never meant to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people and cannot be a substitute for normal economic activity in Iraq."

The US and the UK have consistently ignored the implications of such warnings. As year after year of this “short term” program passes, it results in further deterioration of the country’s dilapidated infrastructure, more human suffering, and deeper damage to Iraqi society. Officials in the United Nations with direct experience in administering Oil-for-Food, like Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, concluded that the system was unworkable and should not continue.

5.2 Deductions and Delays

Under Resolution 986, the Council initially allowed Iraq to sell $2.0 billion worth of oil every six months. The resolution called for deductions of 30% from all Iraqi oil sales to finance the Compensation Fund. The resolution allowed additional deductions of about 4% for UN agencies including the Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP), the arms inspection units (the UN Special Commission - UNSCOM - and the International Atomic Energy Authority – IAEA), and for fees for the use of the Turkish pipeline for Iraq’s oil exports. Of the remaining 66%, the resolution earmarked 13% for the three autonomous Kurdish northern governorates of Dahuk, Arbil and Suleymaniyah, where a UN inter-agency group would run the humanitarian program, and the remaining 53% for the balance of the country where the government would be in charge of distribution. The government of Iraq accepted the resolution in May 1996, and oil started flowing in December 1996. Because of procurement and shipping lags, the UN humanitarian supplies did not arrive in Iraq until April 1997.

This arrangement contained a strange allocation of the deductions, taking them all from the portion allocated to the Baghdad-controlled population. Thus the 13% of the population in the Kurdish areas of the North got 13% of the total oil sales, while 87% of the population in the Baghdad-controlled areas in the Center and South got just 53% of oil sales – 61% of the rate available in the North. (93)

Contrary to common perception, the Oil-for-Food program is not “humanitarian aid.” No foreign government or NGO donates food, medicines or other necessities to Iraq under the program. The government of Iraq sells oil and then pays in hard currency (from a UN-controlled “escrow account”) for imports which the Security Council Sanctions Committee must approve. Thereafter, the UN distributes the imports in the North and UN staff oversee Iraqi government distribution in the Center and South.

From December 10, 1996 until July 19, 2002, a period of over five and a half years, the government of Iraq sold a total of $55.4 billion in oil through UN-controlled sales. This amount looks impressive. However, far less in value of goods has arrived in Iraq. After 33% deductions for a combination of war reparations, UN operations and other items, the Council and the UN Secretariat approved $35.8 billion in contracts. (94) As of July 19, 2002, only $23.5 billion worth of goods had actually arrived in Iraq. (95) A combination of factors explain this $10.2 disparity, including cumbersome procedures imposed by Security Council rules, poor or obstructionist Iraqi management, “holds” mostly imposed by the United States, and other factors.

Over a period of about five years, serving an Iraqi population of 23 million, the program has delivered roughly $200 worth of goods per capita per year, including oil spare parts and other goods not directly consumed by the population. Allowing for domestic production outside the Oil-for-Food program and for smuggling, the result still appears to leave Iraqi citizens an exceedingly low per capita income which may be at or below the $1 per day World Bank threshold of absolute poverty.

Responding to criticisms of slow delivery, the Security Council has streamlined procedures for contract approval since the early days of the program. By 2002, the UN Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP) had introduced procedural reforms including electronic submission of contract technical details, electronic signatures from border inspection personnel, several fast-track lists for items with no dual-use concern, a pre-vetting of contracts by OIP experts, and improved means for financial transactions. But OIP has been under-staffed and faced with a huge and growing task of contract management and oversight.

For the country as a whole, less than two-thirds of the ordered items have arrived during the whole program. Sanctions proponents argue that this discrepancy is largely due to deliberate Iraqi obstruction. The evidence, rather, is that the contract approval system put in place by the Security Council bears a substantial responsibility for these delays and delivery blockages. In spite of improvements and reforms and in spite of the good will of many UN officials who do their best to speed the process along, oil-for-food still suffers from heavy bureaucratic centralization and red tape, as well as political manipulation, for which the Iraqi people pay a heavy price.

5.3 Blocked Contracts, Holds and “Dual-Use”

In the period before Oil-for-Food, the Iraq Sanctions Committee reviewed proposed import contracts to determine whether they should be exempted from the import ban under Resolution 687. Foods and medicines considered strictly humanitarian most readily won approval, but even in this humanitarian area the Committee blocked contracts when a single delegation objected. The United States tended to block foods that might be inputs to Iraqi food processing industries as well as a range of medicines that were alleged to have potential military use. Additionally, the United States, blocked a large number of contracts for other goods, including wrist watches, paper, textiles, shoe soles and other ordinary items that had no possible military use. The US blocked shoe soles as inputs to Iraqi industry but allowed complete shoes to be imported, it blocked textiles but allowed ready-to-wear clothes to be imported. The Committee never developed any criteria, addressing each contract on an ad hoc basis. The United States and the UK were not the only delegations to propose blockage of contracts, but they were responsible for the great majority of blockages. Their actions appeared to many observers to be arbitrary, capricious and punitive. (96)

After the passage of Resolution 986, the ground rules changed, but barriers to contracts remained a major issue of contention. The United States and the UK insisted that Iraq be prevented from importing not only weapons but also items that appear to be for civilian use but which might in some way contribute to the government’s military capacity or be turned into weapons through re-manufacturing. Such items are known as “dual-use.” A Council member could place such items, or any other that they chose, on “hold” – blocking them as an agreed import. Of fifteen Council members, only two made regular use of holds: the United States and the UK. The United States imposed the overwhelming majority. As of July 19, 2002, no less than $5.4 billion in contracts were on hold, (97) up from $3.7 billion on May 14, 2001.

Holds have blocked vital goods. They have affected water purification systems, sewage pipes, medicines, hospital equipment, fertilizers, electricity and communications infrastructure, oil field equipment, and much else. Sometimes just a small part of these contracts is alleged to have dual use. Other Council members do not agree that these items represent a credible dual-use threat, and they have often noted that holds are imposed inconsistently – an item may be placed on hold on one occasion and let through on another, even on contract with the same firm. Because the Sanctions Committee works by consensus, a single member can block any contract, even if all other members are ready to approve. As a result of these holds, contracts for many critical infrastructure projects failed to gain approval, generating much international criticism of the holds process and contributing to the broad loss of credibility of the Iraq sanctions regime.

On December 18, 2001, the OIP weekly update noted that
The total value of contracts placed on hold by the 661 Committee continued to rise . . . The “holds” covered 1,610 contracts for the purchase of various humanitarian supplies and equipment, including 1,072 contracts, worth $3.85 billion, for humanitarian supplies and 538 contracts, worth $527 million, for oil industry equipment. During the week, the Committee released from hold 14 contracts, worth $19.8 million. However, it placed on hold 57 new contracts, worth $140.6 million. (98) These numbers dwarfed the 161 contracts on the same date, worth $253 million, that were on “inactive hold,” that is, for which the problem was the result of some administrative irregularity. (99)

Many present and past members of the Council and other expert observers believe that the United States often has used the system of “holds” for political purposes and not because of real concerns over the dual-use potential in contracts. Even the UK, which has imposed a very small minority of holds, has quietly expressed concern that US holds are excessive and impossible to defend. The UK government took a diplomatic initiative in 2000 to persuade Washington to ease up on the holds and let more goods through. The United States, however, did not agree. Since the UK démarche, the value of contracts on hold has more than doubled, from $2.25 billion in October 2000 to $5.4 billion in mid-July 2002. As of February 2001, the most recent date for which we have a complete breakdown, the US was solely responsible for over 93% of all holds, the US and the UK together for 5%, and the UK alone for 1%, while 1% was attributable to all other Council delegations, past and present. Approximately the same breakdown has continued to July, 2002, according to knowledgeable delegates.

Though the holds add up to a very large figure, the numbers alone do not tell the full story. The United States delegation may have insisted on putting a “hold” on just one item in a large contract, with the result that the whole contract was blocked. In the worst case, one contract put on hold can endanger an entire investment project. As OIP Director Benon Sevan noted in 1999,
The absence of a single spare part or item of equipment, as small as it may be, could be sufficient to prevent the completion of an entire water injection project or well completion programme. (100) Sevan notes that the oil sector is the source of all the humanitarian revenue. Yet this sector was at first prevented entirely from importing equipment and spare parts (101) and it continues to suffer severe dilapidation because of a large number of holds that result in permanent damage to oil wells, serious safety risks, dangers of environmental damage, and risk to the country’s future production capacity. (102) Sevan has noted that such vital items as pumping controls, exploration equipment, well-drilling, degassing, hydrostatic testing and much more have been placed on hold. (103) Such goods are vital for rehabilitation and modernization of the oil sector, a precondition for Iraq to produce more oil to pay for its immediate needs and long-term reconstruction.

Holds placed on pesticides and animal vaccines have resulted in serious loss of domestic food production. Even essential health care equipment has not escaped the dubious charge of “dual-use.” There have been holds on heart-lung machines, blood gas analyzers, and other equipment. In some cases, the US has argued that it has put holds on such orders because of associated computers or data processing capacity. Sevan expressed his scepticism of this approach in comments in February 2002:
Many of the items such as computers placed on hold are readily available in the markets and shops of Baghdad . . . what is being placed on hold is the utilization of funds from the escrow account. (104) In one case, an ambulance contract suffered because it contained communication equipment. In the end, though, the vehicles got through, but only because they were delivered without radios, which had to be removed from the contracts as a condition of lifting the holds. (105)

The UN can track the end-use of imports and determine that they were used for stated, purely civilian purposes. This is known as the “end-use/user verification” process and some 300 UN staff are currently available in Iraq for this purpose. UN officials, including the Secretary General, have regularly criticised the “holds” and argued that the UN has a much-enhanced capacity for on-site inspections and end-use verification. (106) But the United States insists that it has little faith in such options, preferring to impose holds instead. While perfect verification is probably impossible, the US approach imposes a very high cost for a very slight benefit. Its holds prevent many critical goods from reaching Iraq, blocking essential humanitarian supplies and urgently needed equipment and infrastructure. The import of modern ambulances without communications radio suggests the unacceptably compromised humanitarian system that Iraq must endure under the UN flag.

Resolution 1409 of May 14, 2002 theoretically eliminates holds, but it will probably not eliminate blocked goods. The massive Goods Review List, with suspect items totalling more than 300 pages,(107) provides a substantial barrier to future importation of goods into Iraq. Further, the Iraq Sanctions Committee will continue to exercise oversight and we can expect, based on past practice, that the US will find ways to block large numbers of contracts and insist that the Goods Review List be administered in a restrictive way.

Some knowledgeable observers believe that the new arrangements under Resolution 1409, including the administration of the Goods Review List, may prove equally onerous than the system that preceded it. No one expects that shipments for vital infrastructure like water, sanitation, communications, and electricity will suddenly rise to acceptable levels. Nor is it expected that the oil industry, which provides the essential funding of the humanitarian program, will be able to obtain sufficient badly needed parts and equipment, much less new investment.

Looking at the accumulated records of holds, the biggest disparity between orders and deliveries exists in the Telecommunications-Transport sector, where the US has placed so many holds that the value of contracts on hold recently exceeded the value of all contracts delivered throughout the program. (108) The Electricity, Oil Spares and Water-Sanitation sectors likewise suffer from large numbers of “holds” on contracts that are vital to Iraq’s infrastructure. UN officials implementing the program have insisted repeatedly that such holds gravely damage the program. Sevan has spoken about holds’ “direct negative effect on the program,” about the “interminable quagmire,” and the “appalling disrepair” of Iraqi infrastructure” but to no avail. (109) Resolution 1409 may at least partially relieve this nightmare, but progress initially appears very slow. In the first week of implementation, just $7.6 million in holds were released, (110) a rate that if sustained would require more than 13 years to work down the entire backlog.

source: Global policy
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/irqindx.htm

[CapTVK]

5.4 War Reparations Fund: Oil-for-Compensation

As we have seen, the United Nations deducts a substantial proportion of Iraq’s oil sales for payment into a fund to compensate for war damages. The Council set up the Compensation Commission with Resolution 692 and in Resolution 705 it set the deductions from the Oil-for-Food account at the very high level of 30%, against the advice of the Secretary General.

The Compensation Commission has considered a very large number of claims, including claims on behalf of many individuals. According to the Commission’s web site, the Commission received approximately 1,356,500 small individual claims and settled them all with payments of approximately $16 billion. Many of the claimants had been migrant workers from Egypt and other countries, working in Iraq and Kuwait at the time the war broke out. A strong case can be made for compensating these individuals. The Commission wisely gave priority to their claims. (111)

Corporations and governments have made most of the remaining claims, which come to an additional sum of about $290 billion. This includes claims by various Kuwait government ministries and by the Kuwait Oil Company concerning wartime losses. Considering the wealth of Kuwait and the absence of humanitarian problems there, the deduction of a large share of Iraq’s oil sales for war reparations to such claimants appears punitive and not attuned to Iraq’s urgent humanitarian and reconstruction needs. (112)

These are probably the most severe war reparations since the Treaty of Versailles, at the end of World War I. Taking a lesson from the interwar crisis, the victors of World War II did not impose war reparations on Germany and Japan, in spite of terrible damage they inflicted on other countries and personal hardship imposed on millions of people.

The Council has given the Compensation Commission unusual authority and power. The Commission operates secretively and allows Iraq only to comment on a summary of each case. The operations of the Commission alone absorb more than $50 million per year, also deducted from the Iraq’s oil export funds. (113)

The reparations process appears even more troubling when its results are compared with the results of the humanitarian goods going to Iraq. While the compensation fund received an allocation of about 29% on average, it actually awarded a total of $38 billion in compensation as of April 2002 compared to just $47 billion in humanitarian supplies ordered by Iraq as of the same date, putting the compensation fund awards at 45% vs. humanitarian orders placed at 55%. As of the same date, the compensation fund had paid out $16 billion to settle claims, while the humanitarian program had received only $21 billion in goods, putting the compensation fund at 43%, while the actual humanitarian outlays came to just 57%.

The reparations fund appears punitive and contrary to basic humanitarian principles due to its exceptionally large claim on total resources. Many Council members have taken this view, but they have been unable to persuade the sanctions protagonists that humanitarian needs should have priority over compensation claimants, especially wealthy claimants such as the Government of Kuwait, Kuwait’s state oil company, and other governments and large corporations.

Responding to growing criticism and a sharp controversy within the Council following a Compensation Commission award of $15.9 billion to the Kuwait Petroleum Corporatioin, the US and the UK agreed to reduce reparations deductions from 30% to 25% in Resolution 1330 of December 5, 2000, after the small claimants had been paid. Though very welcome, especially since the funds were allocated to the Center and South, this step fell far short of humanitarian standards. The reparations deduction should instead be eliminated completely until humanitarian needs in Iraq are completely met. Further, a limit should be placed on the corporate and government compensation level, so as not to hobble the Iraqi economy for decades to come and stoke future resentment.

5.5 North vs. Center-South

Sanctions advocates make much of differences in humanitarian conditions between the three Kurdish governates in the North of Iraq, where the UN directly administers Oil-for-Food and the 15 governates in the Center and South, where the Governmant of Iraq administers the program. Better conditions in the North are alleged to prove that Saddam Hussein’s misrule is the sole explanation of the difference. On March 24, 2000, Peter Hain, Minister of State at the Foreign Office told the UK House of Commons:
exactly the same sanctions regime applies [in the north] . . . The difference is that Saddam’s writ does not run there. Why do sanctions critics prefer to ignore that inconvenient but crucial fact. (114) But Hain was seriously misstating the case. Other important variables enter the equation, some an integral part of the Security Council sanctions’ architecture, of which the UK was a principal author and defender.

First, as we have already seen, the system of deductions results in per capita spending in the Center-South that was only 61% of the rate in the North until December 5, 2000 (69% thereafter), a very substantial difference. Second, the sanctions allow contracts going to the North to contain a “commercial clause” that enforces the quality of goods received, whereas the Center-South cannot include such a clause and must accept shoddy and even unusable merchandise with no legal recourse. Third, the sanctions allow the North to derive cash from 10% of its oil sales allocation, while absolutely no cash is available in the Center-South. Cash is needed to pay for services in the local economy, including staff for health clinics and food distribution programs. Fourth, while many important contracts in the South are blocked by holds, the United States puts relatively few holds on goods for the North, resulting in real infrastructure improvement in such sectors as electricity and public health. The US and the UK designed these four differences into the sanctions regime, but their propaganda pretends that the differences do not exist.

Several other regional differences explain part of the humanitarian variation. There is very active clandestine cross-border trade (smuggling) in the North, invigorating the economy there and putting money in the pockets of local people. Also, the climate in the North is more favorable, with cooler weather and more rainfall, resulting in better water supplies, more local food crops, and better overall health conditions. The North, with just 9% of the land area of the country, has nearly 50% of the productive, arable land.

The Government of Iraq is the seventh variable. Its administration is clearly less concerned with human welfare than the UN efforts in the North. It has not used imported goods as well, and it has failed to effectively implement targeted programs. But a fair appraisal of the North/Center-South differences must conclude that the Security Council bears considerable responsibility by imposing exceptionally harsh sanction conditions on the Center-South region, where 87% of the Iraqi population lives.

Conditions in the North may be better than the Center-South, but they are by no means acceptable. According to a study published in January 2002 by Save the Children, 60% of the population in the North live in deep poverty – with 40% living on incomes of under $300 per household per year and a further 20% living on less than $150 per household per year. The report concludes that the sanctions and ration system has “destroyed normal economic life for the vast majority,” who subsist largely through “unprecedented levels of dependency.” Up to 85% of the population are “at risk” in case of any reduction of their food access through the ration system. (115)

5.6 Nutrition and Health

Survey information by the World Food Programme/Food and Agriculture Organisa-tion in 2000 indicated 800,000 Iraqi children “chronically malnourished.” (116) The UNICEF 1999 study, also based on extensive field surveys, had shown 21% of children under five underweight, 20% stunted (chronic malnutrition) and 9% wasted (acute malnutrition). Several recent reports have noted that the UN has created initiatives to help the most vulnerable in the Center and South through targeted nutrition programs. These have had some positive results, but it is clear that the government of Iraq has not adequately implemented them.

The FAO 2000 report pointed out that at 2,000 kilocalories, the universal ration provided under the UN program was insufficient in total yield, absent substantial local food additions. The same report insisted also that the composition of the food basket remained nutritionally inadequate:
Of great concern is the lack of a number of important vitamins and minerals such as vitamin A, C, riboflavin, folate and iron in the diet. Although the planned ration is reasonably adequate in energy and total protein, it is lacking in vegetables, fruit, and animal products and is therefore deficient in micronutrients." (117) Despite the Oil-for-Food program and the $11 billion worth of food that has entered the country, infant mortality remains very high. Today, most child deaths are not directly due to malnutrition, though. Rather, they are water-related, from such conditions as diarrhoea. Poor water quality and lack of sanitation, combined with existing malnourishment, have taken over from poor nutrition as the prime killer of children in Iraq. UNICEF reported in July 2001 that “Diarrhoea leading to death from dehydration and acute respiratory infections (ARI), together account for 70 per cent of child deaths.” (118)

Deliberate bombing of water treatment facilities during the Gulf War originally degraded the water quality. Since that time, sanctions-based “holds” have blocked the rebuilding of much of Iraq’s water treatment infrastructure. Additionally, sanctions have blocked the rebuilding of the electricity sector which powers pumps and other vital water treatment equipment.

Health problems in Iraq arise from multiple factors, many of which can be attributed to the sanctions. Electricity shortages, in addition to shutting down water-treatment, seriously disrupt hospital care and disrupt the storage of certain types of medicines. Sanctions also result in shortages of medical equipment and spare parts, blockages of certain important medicines, shortage of skilled medical staff, and more.

There can be no doubt, based on health and mortality surveys, that Iraqis are suffering from a major public health crisis. The sanctions both deepen that crisis as a cause and also block measures that could mitigate it through public health measures and curative medical procedures. The health status of the Iraqi people has been a key indicator of the humanitarian consequences of the Iraq sanctions regime.

5.7 Deaths

None deny that Iraq sanctions have caused many deaths, but a debate has raged over how many. The larger the number, the greater the burden on sanction advocates to justify their actions. Unfortunately, wrangling over numbers obscures the unavoidable reality: a tragically large humanitarian disaster.

The measurement of deaths rests on the concept of “excess” mortality – those deaths that exceed the mortality rate in the previous, pre-sanctions period or that exceed a projection of the earlier trend towards further gains. The previous mortality rate is well-established, but two arguments arise – first, what is the present mortality rate (which, some argue, may be distorted by false Iraq government statistics) and second, what is the cause of such mortality increase. Neither of these questions has a simple answer. Not surprisingly, the government of Iraq claims a very large increase and blames most of its child mortality on sanctions. UNICEF, in a widely-publicised study carried out jointly with the Iraq Ministry of Health, determined that 500,000 children under five years old had died in “excess” numbers in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, though UNICEF insisted that this number could not all be ascribed directly to sanctions. (119) UNICEF used surveys of its own as part of the basic research and involved respected outside experts in designing the study and evaluating the data. UNICEF remains confident in the accuracy of its numbers and points out that they have never been subject to a scientific challenge.

Prof. Richard Garfield of Columbia University carried out a separate and well-regarded study of excess mortality in Iraq. Garfield considered the same age group and the same time period as the UNICEF study. (120) He minimized reliance on official Iraqi statistics by using many different statistical sources, including independent surveys in Iraq and inferences from comparative public health data from other countries. Garfield concluded that there had been a minimum of 100,000 excess deaths and that the more likely number was 227,000. He compared this estimate to a maximum estimate of 66,663 civilian and military deaths during the Gulf War. Garfield now thinks the most probable number of deaths of under-five children from August 1991 to June 2002 would be about 400,000. (121)

There are no reliable estimates of the total number of excess deaths in Iraq beyond the under-five population. Even with conservative assumptions, though, the total of all excess deaths must be far above 400,000.

All of these excess deaths should not be ascribed to sanctions. Some may be due to a variety of other causes. But all major studies make it clear that sanctions have been the primary cause, because of the sanctions’ impact on food, medical care, water, and other health-related factors. Though oil-for-food has changed the situation studied by UNICEF and Garfield, resulting in less malnutrition, recent field reports suggest that infant mortality remains high, due to water-borne disease. (122) The mortality rate for under-five children has probably not continued to rise since the 1999 studies, but the rate apparently remains very much higher than that reported in Iraq before 1990.

In the face of such powerful evidence, the US and UK governments have sometimes practiced bold denial. Brian Wilson, Minister of State at the UK Foreign Office told a BBC interviewer on February 26, 2001 “There is no evidence that sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people.” When denial has proved impossible, officials have occasionally fallen back on astonishingly callous affirmations. In a famous interview with Madeleine Albright, then US representative at the United Nations, Leslie Stahl of the television show 60 Minutes said: “We have heard that half a million children have died . . . is the price worth it? Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” (123)

Six years after Albright’s statement and twelve years after Security Council Resolution 661, comprehensive economic sanctions continue to impose on Iraq a very high number of deaths of young children, as measured by careful and well-regarded estimates. Combined with the deaths of older children and adults, this adds up to a great and unjustifiable humanitarian tragedy.

[Ned]

Captvk, There is no doubt that proponents of containment and continued sanctions were wrong. We needed to end the sanctions in one way or the other.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by Ned
Captvk, There is no doubt that proponents of containment and continued sanctions were wrong. We needed to end the sanctions in one way or the other.

Yes, but the point is it's already too late, the damage has already been done...

[gunkulator]

Ya know, if we just had left ol' Saddam alone in 90/91, I'm sure he wouldn't have bothered anyone.

[Ned]

When the war ended in '9I, I thought it was a good idea to leave Saddam in power. I thought that taking out Saddam would have left us in the middle of Iraq where we did not want to be. I was still thinking of the problems we had when we sent our troops ito Lebanon. We had grand designs to fix that country, end their Civil War and restore law and order everywhere. We ended up leaving Lebanon abruptly after we lost over 200 Marines when their barracks was blown up. I thought the same kind of thing would happened to us if we took Iraq. I was unaware, at the time, just how much the people of Iraq hated Saddam.

My primary goal at that time was for us to poll our troops out of the region entirely. I felt that we should not get to deeply involved in the region. I recognize that by leaving Saddam in power, we had to a small residual force in Kuwait. But what I did not expect was that we would ask the people of Iraq to revolt and that we would not back them except for overflights. I did not expect that we would demand that Saddam disarm and destroy his WoMD and employ sanctions until he did.

The revolt, the sanctions and the overflights maintained hostilties with Saddam while leaving him in power. This was a real bad idea even at the time. In retrospect, one should have fully expected the continuing disputes over inspections and declarations. War or UN appeasement and/or capitulation was inevitable.

Let's hope that we can learn something from this experience. What I take away from this is that one should never rely on sanctions and inspections against a brutal dictator in order to disarm him. He will endlessly play games with the inspectors, with the UN and with people of good will. We should either let the dictator have his weapons, or take him out. No half measures please.

In a parallel situation, I find it interesting that Kennedy got the Russian missles out of Cuba by threatening to invade, guaranteed that we would not invade Cuba in exchange for their being withdrawn, but still left the US sanctions against Castro in place. All this did was harm the people of Cuba just like the Iraqi sanctions hurt the people of Iraq. The dictator, Castro, could care less about the sanctions and is not about to leave or to permit real elections because of them.

Looking back, Bush I should have made it clear to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that if we came to help them, that we would insist that we go all the way. I am almost willing to believe that our limited objective of just forcing Saddam out of Kuwait caused war in the first place. Had we made it clear to Saddam that we would continue until he surrendered, I think he would have pulled his troops out of Kuwait.

Limited objectives, half measures and sanctions do not work and only cause the situation to worsen.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
You are absolutely right! The exact number from both of the wars including the sanctions could very well measure up to half a million, maybe more…
I doubt that Saddam would kill so many and even if he would that’s not important. What gives you the right to kill x number of people just to get a dictator that no longer plays by your whistle? How many countries have USA manage to bomb in to a democracy? Answer = none
If I should follow your logic it would be all right for me to kill a few million Americans because that’s likely so many that your regime will kill in foreign countries in a couple of years to come and have done so in the past I might add……

I see that this lame post has already been addressed...

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That's exactly why I wrote the post right above yours.

Any responses to that?

It's fine that you don't believe the CIA. Do you believe the UN itself then?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2590265.stm

[Zero]

Ned VS UR

Rah is right. Give them time. We'll forget about the WMD and revel in just how democratic Iraq now is.

[Ambro2000]

I see that this lame post has already been addressed...

Is that your answer when you know I am right? Be a man and admit when you are wrong!

[Ambro2000]

How many? Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines to start. The people Puerto Rico seem to like being "occupied" by America.

My God, the anti-Americans here refuse to acknowledge the significant American successes in spreading democracy. To them, Iraq is still about Oil and not about freedom.

I find it difficult to believe that such people really exist. I suspect that they even believe the American revolution was about Oil.

I believe that the people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima are VERY happy about the way you “liberated” them don’t’ you think?

Why did USA give money to Saddam during the time when he killed and tortured more people than ever before? Heck if it weren’t for Us funds Saddam would probably not have the power to do the things he did. Tell me, was that to for the freedom of the Iraqi people?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ambro2000
Tell me, was that to for the freedom of the Iraqi people?

Yes. We kept them free of being overrun by Iran.

[CerberusIV]

Getting back to the topic it seems we may not have heard the last of Blix unfortunately.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2952627.stm

Presumably this will finish up with UN and US inspection teams arguing over whether anything they find is or is not a WMD. I did think the UN should have a role in Iraq but not if they are wasting money that should go to the Iraqis and everyones time with this farce.

[yago]

Yes. We kept them free of being overrun by Iran.

And what is, if the people of Iraq want to be overrun by Iran ?

[Ned]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
Getting back to the topic it seems we may not have heard the last of Blix unfortunately.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/2952627.stm

Presumably this will finish up with UN and US inspection teams arguing over whether anything they find is or is not a WMD. I did think the UN should have a role in Iraq but not if they are wasting money that should go to the Iraqis and everyones time with this farce.

Blix could be very useful -- in Syria.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ambro2000


I believe that the people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima are VERY happy about the way you “liberated” them don’t’ you think?

Why did USA give money to Saddam during the time when he killed and tortured more people than ever before? Heck if it weren’t for Us funds Saddam would probably not have the power to do the things he did. Tell me, was that to for the freedom of the Iraqi people?

Why did the US help Stalin?