IAC Condemns US provaction Against Iraq

International Action Center press release, 12 January 1998

International Action Center
39 West 14th St., #206
New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646 fax:212-633-2889
http://www.iacenter.org
email: iacenter@iacenter.org

For Immediate Release

Press Contact: Sara Flounders
Brian Becker
212-633-6646

Attention Assignment editor
January 12, 1998

Protest Meeting Saturday, January 17th

International Action Center condemns U.S.-British dominated weapons inspection team as a provocation meant to serve as justification for a new military strike against Iraq

Anti-war organization led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, call for withdrawal of U.S. military forces from gulf region & an end to U.S./UN sanctions which have killed 1.5 million Iraqi people

The International Action Center (IAC), an anti-war organization led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, today called the latest UN weapons inspection team a blatant provocation meant to serve as justification for a new U.S. military strike against Iraq. The IAC is sponsoring a protest meeting Saturday, January 17th at the UN Church Center 777 UN Plaza, 44th Street and 1st Ave. at 1:00 p.m.

The U.S. and Britain jointly controlled Iraq and its oil wealth before 1958, said Richard Becker of the IAC. The U.S. and British conducted the overwhelming majority of the 110,000 air sorties flown during the Gulf War, deliberately destroying Iraq's civilian infrastructure - power, water, sewage treatment, agriculture and industry.

To send a new 'United Nations' inspection team which is 88% U.S. and British, and led by a U.S. Marine captain who fought in the Gulf War - especially after the issue of balance was the focus of a major crisis just two months ago - makes clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a provocation, Becker continued. This move also demonstrates conclusively that the United Nations Security Council is totally under the domination of Washington.

Deirdre Sinnott of the IAC, who traveled to Iraq on a fact-finding trip at the height of last November's crisis with Ramsey Clark, condemned the utter hypocrisy of the U.S. government position. While Clinton talks about the `threat' posed by Iraq the U.S. insists on keeping in place a weapon which is killing 10,000 Iraqis - half of them children under the age of 5 - every month. That weapon is the sanctions, the near-total blockade of Iraq.

We saw the human cost of the sanctions policy that Washington insists on maintaining in the hospitals of Iraq. There are no antibiotics or medications of any kind. The incubators and dialysis machines no longer work. Hundreds of Iraqi people are dying every week for easily curable diseases. Millions are malnourished.

The sanctions against Iraq, said Sinnott, are a crime against humanity. Sinnott will be speaking on the seventh anniversary of the Gulf War Saturday January 17th at the UN Church Center 44th Street and 1st Avenue at 1:00 p.m., speakers include Ramsey Clark, Sonya Ostrom of Metro Peace Action, Rania Masri the coordinator of the Iraq Action Coalition and John Jones, a Vietnam War combat veteran.