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THE HOSTAGE NATION
Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday Guardian Thursday
November 29, 2001
A major shift is occurring in US policy on Iraq. It is obvious
that Washington wants to end 11 years of a self-serving policy of
containment of the Iraqi regime and change to a policy of replacing,
by force, Saddam Hussein and his government.
The current policy of economic sanctions has destroyed society
in Iraq and caused the death of thousands, young and old. There
is evidence of that daily in reports from reputable international
organizations such as Caritas, Unicef, and Save the Children. A
change to a policy of replacement by force will increase that suffering.
The creators of the policy must no longer assume that they can
satisfy voters by expressing contempt for those who oppose them.
The problem is not the inability of the public to understand the
bigger picture, as former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright
likes to suggest. It is the opposite. The bigger picture, the hidden
agenda, is well understood by ordinary people. We should not forget
Henry Kissinger's brutally frank admission that "oil is much too
important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs".
How much longer can democratically elected governments hope
to get away with justifying policies that punish the Iraqi people
for something they did not do, through economic sanctions that target
them in the hope that those who survive will overthrow the regime?
Is international law only applicable to the losers? Does the UN
security council only serve the powerful?
The UK and the US, as permanent members of the council, are
fully aware that the UN embargo operates in breach of the UN covenants
on human rights, the Geneva and Hague conventions and other international
laws. It is neither anti-UK nor anti-US to point out that Washington
and London, more than anywhere else, have in the past decade helped
to write the Iraq chapter in the history of avoidable tragedies.
The UK and the US have deliberately pursued a policy of punishment
since the Gulf war victory in 1991. The two governments have consistently
opposed allowing the UN security council to carry out its mandated
responsibilities to assess the impact of sanctions policies on civilians.
We know about this first hand, because the governments repeatedly
tried to prevent us from briefing the security council about it.
The pitiful annual limits, of less than $170 per person, for humanitarian
supplies, set by them during the first three years of the oil-for-food
programme are unarguable evidence of such a policy.
We have seen the effects on the ground and cannot comprehend
how the US ambassador, James Cunningham, could look into the eyes
of his colleagues a year ago and say: "We (the US government) are
satisfied that the oil-for-food programme is meeting the needs of
the Iraqi people." Besides the provision of food and medicine, the
real issue today is that Iraqi oil revenues must be invested in
the reconstruction of civilian infrastructure destroyed in the Gulf
war.
Despite the severe inadequacy of the permitted oil revenue to
meet the minimum needs of the Iraqi people, 30 cents (now 25) of
each dollar that Iraqi oil earned from 1996 to 2000 were diverted
by the UN security council, at the behest of the UK and US governments,
to compensate outsiders for losses allegedly incurred because of
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. If this money had been made available
to Iraqis, it could have saved many lives.
The uncomfortable truth is that the west is holding the Iraqi
people hostage, in order to secure Saddam Hussein's compliance to
ever-shifting demands. The UN secretary-general, who would like
to be a mediator, has repeatedly been prevented from taking this
role by the US and the UK governments.
The imprecision of UN resolutions on Iraq - "constructive ambiguity"
as the US and UK define it - is seen by those governments as a useful
tool when dealing with this kind of conflict. The US and UK dismiss
criticism by pointing out that the Iraqi people are being punished
by Baghdad. If this is true, why do we punish them further?
The most recent report of the UN secretary-general, in October
2001, says that the US and UK governments' blocking of $4bn of humanitarian
supplies is by far the greatest constraint on the implementation
of the oil-for-food programme. The report says that, in contrast,
the Iraqi government's distribution of humanitarian supplies is
fully satisfactory (as it was when we headed this programme).
The death of some 5,000 - 6,000 children a month is mostly due
to contaminated water, lack of medicines and malnutrition. The US
and UK governments' delayed clearance of equipment and materials
is responsible for this tragedy, not Baghdad.
The expectation of a US attack on Iraq does not create conditions
in the UN security council suited to discussions on the future of
economic sanctions. This year's UK-sponsored proposal for "smart
sanctions" will not be retabled. Too many people realize that what
looked superficially like an improvement for civilians is really
an attempt to maintain the bridgeheads of the existing sanctions
policy: no foreign investments and no rights for the Iraqis to manage
their own oil revenues.
The proposal suggested sealing Iraq's borders, strangling the
Iraqi people. In the present political climate, a technical extension
of the current terms is considered the most expedient step by Washington.
That this condemns more Iraqis to death and destitution is shrugged
off as unavoidable.
What we describe is not conjecture. These are undeniable facts
known to us as two former insiders. We are outraged that the Iraqi
people continue to be made to pay the price for the lucrative arms
trade and power politics. We are reminded of Martin Luther King's
words: "A time has come when silence is betrayal. That time is now."
We want to encourage people everywhere to protest against unscrupulous
policies and against the appalling disinformation put out about
Iraq by those who know better, but are willing to sacrifice people's
lives with false and malicious arguments.
The US Defense Department, and Richard Butler, former head of
the UN arms inspection team in Baghdad, would prefer Iraq to have
been behind the anthrax scare. But they had to recognize that it
had its origin within the US. British and US intelligence agencies
know well that Iraq is qualitatively disarmed, and they have not
forgotten that the outgoing secretary of defense, William Cohen,
told incoming President George Bush in January: "Iraq no longer
poses a military threat to its neighbours". The same message has
come from former UN arms inspectors.
But to admit this would be to nail the entire UN policy, as
it has been developed and maintained by the US and UK governments.
We are horrified by the prospects of a new US-led war against Iraq.
The implications of "finishing unfinished business" in Iraq are
too serious for the global community to ignore. We hope that the
warnings of leaders in the Middle East and all of us who care about
human rights are not ignored by the US government. What is now most
urgently needed is an attack on injustice, not on the Iraqi people.
Hans von Sponeck was UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq from 1998
to 2000; Denis Halliday held the same post from 1997 to 1998. djhalliday@msn.com
von_sponeck@yahoo.com
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