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I sent this letter to The Guardian today responding to Brian Whitaker's article in today's paper. A pretty second-rate performance from The Guardian's Middle East editor, in marked contrast to his superb piece 'Israel wins the war of words: the dangers of sloppy journalism' (spot the irony) -------------------------------- Brian Whitaker's article (UN gets more time to revamp Iraqi sanctions, 1 June) reveals a basic lack of understanding of who is behind the delays to humanitarian supplies for Iraq and the reasons for those delays. It is not the UN Sanctions Committee but the United States on that committee which imposes 90% of what are known as 'holds' (the UK imposes the other 10%). And the issue is often not about being 'strict' about items with potential military uses, but delays to important humanitarian supplies with no arms control value. The United States even imposes holds on items deemed by the UN weapons inspectors UNMOVIC to be innocuous, while Benon Sevan, head of the UN Office of the Iraq Programme condemns the holds for being 'excessive' and 'seriously impairing' the humanitarian programme. ---------------------- Dr. Eric Herring Senior Lecturer in International Politics 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 -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://www.casi.org.uk