UN sanctions—Weapons of mass destruction against Iraq

By Ramsey Clark, Pacific News Service, 21 November 1997

BAGHDAD—The latest diplomatic standoff between Baghdad and Washington seems to have passed but this can have little meaning to those suffering most from sanctions—the people of Iraq.

In seven visits to Iraq since UN sanctions were imposed in 1990, I have seen the health of the people deteriorate steadily and drastically. My latest visit, shortly before the eviction of U.S. personnel from UN weapons inspection teams, revealed a human disaster in the making.

Rates of illness in every category are higher than ever, supplies of medicines and equipment lower than ever, and medical care facilities continue to decline. Every doctor tells me about patients who have died from want of the proper medicine or equipment.

Diseases related to malnutrition have increased some twentyfold since 1980. Last year there were over 1.5 million reported cases—in a country of some 20 million—directly attributable to the sanctions.

Similarly, diseases linked to poor sanitation continue to spread at extraordinary rates. Most areas in the city of Basra and parts of Baghdad have no running water or sewage disposal system—they were destroyed in the bombing, and sanctions make replacement impossible. Not surprisingly, the number of cholera cases—virtually non-existent the year before sanctions were imposed—reached 3,000 during the first nine months of the year.

The striking increase in mortality, particularly among children, reflects both widespread malnutrition and the deteriorating sanitation. For children under 5, the number of deaths increased eightfold between 1989 and 1996. Those older than five have experienced a fourfold increase.

But no amount of statistics can convey the human horror of the sanctions.

In a large general hospital in Basra, I saw the first child of a young Bedouin woman, 11 months old, bloated, not expected to live more than a day. In Qadisiya Hospital in Baghdad, I saw a 19-month-old boy and a 3-year-old boy lying wasted and dying in adjoining beds. Ample food and water would have saved all three.

In the hospital I visited in Basra, a 35-year-old man was dying because there were no catheters available to connect him to the renal dialysis machine. Before sanctions, this unit of the hospital could treat 175 patients a month.

Few hospitals in either city have ambulances—a contract with a French company for new ambulances has been delayed by the sanctions committee.

Doctors I talked to everywhere say they are seeing an enormous increase in cancers, tumors, leukemia, birth defects and miscarriages. Most older patients now entering hospitals have multiple medical problems as a result of the sanctions.

Faced with this civilian tragedy, President Clinton assures Americans that any U.S. bombing of Iraq will be targeted. But the accuracy of U.S. missiles and bombs can be judged both from the assault in January and February, 1991 --which destroyed homes, apartments, markets, schools, hospitals, churches, synagogues—and from the later strikes which killed hotel workers, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, and a renowned woman artist in her home.

Washington's insistence that U.S. personnel participate on UN weapons inspection teams is shameful. How can these officials be deemed fair and objective when their country's highest officials proclaim that the aim of the sanctions is not just compliance with UN mandates but the removal of Saddam Hussein?

Meanwhile the Security Council has imposed a travel ban on Iraqi leaders which is a flagrant violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, granting freedom to travel. The ban is particularly offensive because it is clearly designed to silence voices, ensuring that the American public has no direct information about the ongoing suffering of the Iraqi people.

The Security Council also knows that sanctions ultimately rely on hunger as a weapon—in clear violation of every principle of human rights endorsed by the UN.

The United Nations must act to end the sanctions now, before that august body finds itself guilty of conducting a policy its own charter defines as genocide.