Iraq buries children, criticizes U.S.

CNN, 30 November 1997, Web posted at: 11:27 a.m. EST (1627 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Thousands of people lined the streets of the Iraqi capital on Sunday as part of a mass funeral for more than 50 children who Iraq claims had died because of international sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The wooden coffins were carried on the tops of cars as the funeral procession made its way down Baghdad's main al-Rashid thoroughfare.

There is no God but God, and America is God's enemy, the crowd chanted. One woman shouted, May God kill Clinton's children.

Iraq maintains that about 100 children, some less than a year old, have died over the past few days because of a lack of food or medicine. However, there has been no independent confirmation of the precise number of deaths or their causes.

Iraqi officials have repeatedly accused the United States of intending to uphold the sanctions for as long as President Saddam Hussein is in power.

The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday that 32 percent of Iraqi children under 5 years of age were chronically malnourished. This constitutes an increase of 72 percent since 1991, a year after the sanctions were imposed against Iraq.

For several years, Hussein had rejected a U.N. food-for-oil program that allowed Baghdad to sell $2 billion worth of oil over a period of six months and use the proceeds to buy food and medicine. Hussein finally agreed, and the food-for-oil program came into effect 11 months ago.

The program is to be reviewed again next week. Iraq says it wants to renew the oil-for-food project, but only under certain conditions.

Iraq desires to renew the oil-for-food (program), but with its terms, I mean the terms of Iraq, National Assembly member Sultan al-Shawi told CNN. According to a Western diplomat in Baghdad, Iraq is demanding that the contract approval process be streamlined.

U.N. spokesman Eric Falt acknowledged that the process was lengthy. It takes about 125 days from when a contract is submitted to 661 committee for approval to the time when the goods from that contract effectively cross the border, Falt said.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, has left Iraq for New York, where the United Nations is to debate whether to renew the program for a third six-month period next week.

Halliday has said that oil exports from Iraq should be increased because the money coming in does not meet Iraq's needs.

Iraq blasts U.S. Iraq said Sunday that the atmosphere in the Gulf region is similar to the eve of the 1991 Gulf War.

The official Iraqi newspaper al-Jumhouriya said the U.S. administration was under internal pressure to launch a decisive showdown with Baghdad.

When pursuing what is taking place an accurate observer will easily notice the similarity between what happened before the 30-state aggression on Iraq (Gulf War) and what is happening now, al-Jumhouriya said in a front-page editorial.

Despite the harsh rhetoric, U.N. arms inspectors in Baghdad left their base early on Sunday in search of Iraq's banned weapons.

We have faced no problems so far. Inspections are going on smoothly, said Nils Carlstrom, director of U.N. Monitoring and Verification Center in Baghdad.