The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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Dear all, Has anyone planned a response to this disappointing (yet typical Cortright) article?
It is truly necessary that we respond and respond in mass. If anyone has already written a response, or
has a set of talking points available, please let me know. If not, let me know
if you would like to contribute to a set of talking points I intend to write to
encourage mass letters to the editor. Thank you -Rania Masri -----Original Message----- The Nation -- one of the most visible newsmagazines on
the American left -- takes a "Hard Look at Sanctions" in the
following by David Cortwright. === The Nation A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions The humanitarian disaster resulting from sanctions
against Iraq has been frequently cited as a factor that motivated the September
11 terrorist attacks. Osama bin Laden himself mentioned the Iraq sanctions in a
recent tirade against the United States. Critics of US policy in Iraq claim
that sanctions have killed more than a million people, many of them children.
Saddam Hussein puts the death toll at one and a half million. The actual
numbers are lower than that, although still horrifying. Changing American policy in Iraq is an urgent
priority, both for humanitarian reasons and as a means of addressing an
intensely felt political grievance against the United States. An opportunity
for such a change may come soon, as the UN Security Council considers a "smart
sanctions" plan to ease civilian sanctions. As we work to change US policy
and relieve the pain of the Iraqi people, it is important that we use accurate
figures and acknowledge the shifting pattern of responsibility for the
continuing crisis. The grim question of how many people have died in Iraq
has sparked heated debate over the years. The controversy dates from 1995, when
researchers with a Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) study in Iraq wrote
to The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Society, asserting that
sanctions were responsible for the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children. The New
York Times picked up the story and declared "Iraq Sanctions Kill
Children." CBS followed up with a segment on 60 Minutes that repeated the
numbers and depicted sanctions as a murderous assault on children. This was the
program in which UN ambassador (and later Secretary of State) Madeleine
Albright, when asked about these numbers, coldly stated, "The price is
worth it." Albright's comments were shocking, as were the
numbers, but doubts were soon raised about their validity. A January 1996
letter to The Lancet found inconsistencies in the mortality figures. A
follow-up study in 1996, using the same methodology, found much lower rates of
child mortality. In October 1997 the authors of the initial letter wrote again
to The Lancet, this time reporting that mortality rates in the follow-up study
were "several-fold lower than the estimate for 1995--for unknown
reasons." While the initial report of more than 567,000 deaths attracted
major news coverage, the subsequent disavowal of those numbers passed unnoticed
in the press. The two most reliable scientific studies on sanctions
in Iraq are the 1999 report "Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi
Children," by Columbia University's Richard Garfield, and "Sanctions
and Childhood Mortality in Iraq," a May 2000 article by Mohamed Ali and
Iqbal Shah in The Lancet. Garfield, an expert on the public-health impact of
sanctions, conducted a comparative analysis of the more than two dozen major
studies that have analyzed malnutrition and mortality figures in Iraq during
the past decade. He estimated the most likely number of excess deaths among
children under five years of age from 1990 through March 1998 to be 227,000.
Garfield's analysis showed child mortality rates double those of the previous
decade. Ali, a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, and Shah, an analyst for the World Health Organization in
Geneva, conducted a demographic survey for UNICEF in cooperation with the
government of Iraq. In early 1999 their study surveyed 40,000 households in
south-central Iraq and in the northern Kurdish zone. In south-central Iraq,
child mortality rates rose from 56 per 1,000 births for the period 1984-89 to 131
per 1,000 for the period 1994-99. In the autonomous Kurdish region in the
north, Ali and Shah found that child mortality rates actually fell during the
same period, from 80 per 1,000 births to 72 per 1,000. Garfield has recently recalculated his numbers, based
on the additional findings of the Ali and Shah study, to arrive at an estimate
of approximately 350,000 through 2000. Most of these deaths are associated with
sanctions, according to Garfield, but some are also attributable to destruction
caused by the Gulf War air campaign, which dropped 90,000 tons of bombs in
forty-three days, a far more intensive attack than the current strikes against
Afghanistan. The bombing devastated Iraq's civilian infrastructure, destroying
eighteen of twenty electricity-generating plants and disabling vital
water-pumping and sanitation systems. Untreated sewage flowed into rivers used
for drinking water, resulting in a rapid spread of infectious disease.
Comprehensive trade sanctions compounded the effects of the war, making it
difficult to rebuild, and adding new horrors of hunger and malnutrition. Sanctions opponents place the blame for Iraq's
increased deaths squarely on the United States and the continuing UN sanctions.
Certainly the United States bears primary responsibility for the war and
unrelenting sanctions. Washington has pursued a punitive policy that has
victimized the people of Iraq in the name of isolating Saddam Hussein. The
United States has continued to bomb Iraq over the years, and if some in
Washington get their way, it will soon launch new military attacks in the name
of antiterrorism. The government of Iraq also bears considerable
responsibility for the humanitarian crisis, however. Sanctions could have been
suspended years ago if Baghdad had been more cooperative with UN weapons
inspectors. The progress toward disarmament that was achieved came despite
Iraq's constant falsifications and obstruction. Also significant has been Iraq's denial and disruption
of the oil-for-food humanitarian program. UN officials proposed the relief
effort in 1991 when evidence was first reported of rising disease and
malnutrition. The idea was to permit limited oil sales, with the revenues
deposited in a UN-controlled account, for the purchase of approved food and
medical supplies. Baghdad flatly rejected the proposal as a violation of
sovereignty. Concern about worsening humanitarian conditions led the Security
Council to develop a new oil-for-food plan in 1995. It increased the level of
permitted oil sales and gave responsibility for relief distribution in the
south-central part of the country to the Iraqi government. Again Iraq rejected
the program, but after further negotiations, Baghdad finally consented in 1996,
and the first deliveries of food and medicine arrived in 1997. The oil-for-food program was never intended to be, and
did not provide, the needed economic stimulus that alone could end the crisis
in Iraq. But it was a bona fide effort by the Security Council to relieve
humanitarian suffering. If the government of Iraq had accepted the program when
it was first proposed, much of the suffering that occurred in the intervening
years could have been avoided. The Security Council has steadily expanded the
oil-for-food program. In 1998 it raised the limits on permitted oil sales, and
in 1999 it removed the ceiling altogether. Production has risen to
approximately 2.6 million barrels per day, levels approaching those before the
Gulf War. Oil revenues during the last six months of 2000 reached nearly $10
billion. This is hardly what one would call an oil embargo. Oil exports are
regulated, not prohibited. Funds are still controlled through the UN escrow
account, with a nearly 30 percent deduction for war reparations and UN costs,
but Baghdad has more than sufficient money to address continuing humanitarian
needs. Said Secretary General Kofi Annan in his latest report, "With the
improved funding level for the programme, the Government of Iraq is indeed in a
position to address the nutritional and health concerns of the Iraqi
people." Not only are additional revenues available, but the
categories for which funds can be expended have been broadened to include oil
production, power generation, water and sanitation, agriculture, transportation
and telecommunications. The program is no longer simply an oil-for-food effort.
The emphasis has shifted from simple humanitarian relief to broader economic
assistance and the rebuilding of infrastructure. Despite these improvements, Baghdad has continued to
obstruct and undermine the aid program. Iraq has periodically halted oil sales
as a way of protesting sanctions. During the first half of 2001, oil sales were
approximately $4 billion less than in the previous 180-day period. According to
Annan, the oil-for-food program "suffered considerably because...oil
exports...[have] been reduced or totally suspended by the government of
Iraq." In June and July 2001, as the Security Council considered a new
"smart sanctions" plan, Iraq again withheld oil exports to register
its disapproval of the proposal. The result was a further loss of oil revenues
and a reduction of the funds available for humanitarian needs. The differential between child mortality rates in
northern Iraq, where the UN manages the relief program, and in the
south-center, where Saddam Hussein is in charge, says a great deal about
relative responsibility for the continued crisis. As noted, child mortality
rates have declined in the north but have more than doubled in the
south-center. The difference is especially significant given the historical
pattern prior to the Gulf War. In the 1970s child mortality rates in the
northern Kurdish region were more than double those in the rest of the country.
Today the situation is reversed, with child mortality rates in the south-center
nearly double those in the north. The Kurdish zone has enjoyed a favored status
in the relief program, with per capita allocations 22 percent higher than in
the south-center. The region contains most of the country's rain-fed
agriculture. Local authorities have welcomed the continuing efforts of private
relief agencies, and have permitted a lively cross-border trade with
surrounding countries. But these differences alone do not explain the stark
contrast in mortality rates. The tens of thousands of excess deaths in the
south-center, compared to the similarly sanctioned but UN-administered north,
are also the result of Baghdad's failure to accept and properly manage the UN
humanitarian relief effort. Despite the evidence of Baghdad's shared
responsibility for the ongoing crisis, sanctions opponents have continued to
direct their ire exclusively at the United States and Britain. To parry this
criticism, and to further expand relief efforts, Washington and London have
developed a smart-sanctions plan to lift most restrictions on civilian imports,
while retaining a tightly enforced arms embargo. Under the US/British plan,
civilian imports would be permitted to flow freely into Iraq. Weapons and
military-related goods would continue to be prohibited, and dual-use items would
be subject to review. Oil revenues would still flow through the UN escrow
account, but there would be no limits on the volume or range of civilian goods
that could be purchased with these funds. While not a formal lifting of
sanctions, the proposed restructuring plan would further remove restrictions on
the civilian economy and provide additional relief for the Iraqi people. Most
governments have supported the plan, and fourteen of the fifteen members of the
Security Council were prepared to vote in favor when it was considered in July.
Russia balked at the proposal, however, primarily out of economic
self-interest, with Baghdad promising lucrative contracts to Russian oil
companies in exchange for Moscow's support for a complete lifting of the sanctions.
The plan was shelved, but it is expected to come up again at the Security
Council in December. Many peace and religious groups opposed the
smart-sanctions plan when it was proposed. Some condemned the proposal even
before the details were announced, flatly asserting that smart sanctions kill
children. A more effective response would be to highlight the shortcomings of
the plan and urge further steps toward the easing of civilian sanctions. Such
steps would include permitting foreign investment in Iraq, eliminating
restrictions on non-oil exports, and providing cash for the purchase of food
and other goods from local producers rather than foreign suppliers. It is also
important, peace and human rights groups surely would agree, to maintain
military sanctions until Iraq complies fully with the UN disarmament mandate
and permits a final round of weapons inspection. We can and must do more to help the Iraqi people. The
more credible we are, the more effective we will be. |