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Dear CASI:
I rewrote my letter. This is the version I'll send.
Cheers
Eric
Peter Hain, MP
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AH
From: Dr. Eric Herring
29 September 1999
Dear Mr. Hain:
Sanctions on Iraq
I saw you on Newsnight on 22 September, and was very
concerned about many of the claims you made during that
programme. They were claims which the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office has been making for quite some time
despite repeated refutations from many independent and UN
sources.
I would like to mention briefly just two here.
First, you drew a parallel with the case of South Africa
(on which you were a wonderful campaigner). However, there
are important differences, most notably that it is
extremely unlikely that ordinary Iraqis are in favour of
the sanctions, and the scale of suffering in Iraq due to
the sanctions (partly due to the fact that the were
accompanied by an economically devastating war) is
dramatically higher.
Second, it is true that conditions in the north of Iraq
which is UN-controlled are much better than the centre and
south of the country where the programme is administered
directly by the Iraqi government and monitored by the UN.
The dispute is over what explains that contrast. Taking the
standard FCO line, you attributed all of the suffering to
Saddam Hussein and none to the sanctions. However, UNICEF
explicitly rejects this:
the difference in the current rate [of child
mortality] cannot be attributed to the differing ways the
Oil-for-Food Program is implemented in the two parts of
Iraq. The Oil-for-Food Program is two and a half years old.
Therefore it is too soon to measure any significant impact
of the Oil-for-Food Program on child mortality over the
five year period of 1994-1999 as reported in these surveys.
Caroline Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, says there
are a number of reasons for the difference - sanctions have
been more easy to evade in the north, agriculture is easier
there, and it has been receiving aid for a much longer
period. Indeed aid began arriving in the north in 1991
whereas it began to arrive in the rest of the country only
in 1997, and in large quantities only from the spring of
1998. In addition, according to Richard Garfield, a
Columbia University epidemiologist who has studied the
effects of the sanctions on Iraq, the north gets 22 per
cent more per capita from the oil sales programme; gets 10
per cent of the funds raised in cash (unlike the centre and
south which gets only commodities); and gets aid from 34
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) compared to eleven in
the centre and south. On this basis, the narrative that
the difference is caused by harsher sanctions rather than
harsher Saddam is much more plausible.
It is clear that Saddam Hussein could do a lot more
to cut the infant mortality rate in the centre and south
(for example through targeted nutrition programmes).
However, though he is undoubtedly vile, this does not prove
that he is deliberately keeping infant mortality high. The
UN consistently lambasts both sides for not doing more.
Kofi Annan stated in May 1999: ‘more can be done ... to
address the unacceptably high levels of child and maternal
mortality, particularly in the south and centre of Iraq,
through expedited implementation of targeted nutrition
programmes and expeditious approval by the Security Council
Committee of applications in water and sanitation and other
key sectors such as health, which have a direct bearing on
the unacceptably high malnutrition levels.’ Similarly
Executive Director of the UN Ofifce of the Iraq Programme
Benon Sevan complained to the Security Council in July 1999
that 'The improvement of the nutritional and health status
of the Iraqi people through [a] multi-sectoral approach ...
is being seriously affected as a result of [the] excessive
number of holds placed on supplies and equipment for water,
sanitation and electricity.' Just as we must not jump to
the conclusion that those Security Council members
responsible for the holds are deliberately keeping infant
mortality high, so we must not jump to the conclusion that
Iraq is deliberately keeping infant mortality high. Both
would require much more direct, as opposed to ambiguous and
disputed circumstantial evidence. Furthermore, even if the
Iraqi government did optimise the effectiveness of its
humanitarian programmes, the situation would still be dire:
the UN has stated repeatedly and consistently that the
scale of resources envisaged in the oil sales programme is
totally inadequate.
In addition to being briefed by the FCO, I strongly urge
you to seek independent counsel on these matters. Please
find enclosed a research paper which I hope will be of some
value to you and which deals with many of these and other
issues. I will be continuing to do research on the
sanctions on Iraq in the next few years and would be happy
to supply you with further material.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Eric Herring
----------------------
Dr. Eric Herring
Department of Politics
University of Bristol
10 Priory Road
Bristol BS8 1TU
England, UK
Tel. +44-(0)117-928-8582
Fax +44-(0)117-973-2133
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Politics
eric.herring@bristol.ac.uk
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