Re: can we trust Iraqi sources?

["Voices uk" <voices@DELETETHISviwuk.freeserve.co.uk>]

I've not much to add to Per's e-mail, except perhaps to stress that these
remarks extend beyond the child mortality figures (which seem to be the
focus of Per's e-mail). It's a matter of historical record that the Iraqi
Government has often put out figures - and made statements - that are either
misleading, false or inconsistent with earlier figures / statements of their
own (and, as Per says, they are also clearly *not* a disinterested party).

Dirk actually sent me a classic example last week - an AFP report (December
5th) in which the Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Saleh 'accused the UN
sanctions committee ... of blocking six billion worth of contracts concluded
within the framework of the "oil-for-food" program.' According to this
report Saleh claimed that 'six billion dollars worth of contracts were
*still* blocked by the UN sanctions committee' (emphasis added,  unlike the
report Glenn mentions there doesn't seem to be any ambiguity here). Of
course, the reporter had no problem finding out - and reporting - that there
were actually $4.37 billion worth of goods on hold.

Finally, Dirk wrote that 'There have been so many "independent reports",
with "independent figures".' However if we're talking about child mortality
figures this isn't actually true. Indeed, in his March '99 'Morbidity and
Mortality' paper Richard Garfield noted that, whilst there was good data
available on child nutrition, water quality and a number of other social and
health indicators which influence child mortality, data was 'not available
from any reliable studies on mortality since 1991' (the oft-cited 1995 FAO
mission study 'suffered from serious flaws in methods and interpretation'
and its results were subsequently withdrawn by its authors). This remained
the case until the August '99 UNICEFsurvey.

If it weren't for the UNICEF report the pro-sanctions lobby would find it
much easier to claim that the humanitarian crisis was a propaganda
fabrication, or deny its scale (for a good - if extreme - example of this
see eg. Anthony Cordemann's book 'Iraq and the War of Sanctions'). I think
it's also fair to say that  the UNICEF report played an important role in
shifting public opinion over here in the UK.

Best wishes,

Gabriel


-----Original Message-----
From: Dirk Adriaensens <dirk.adriaensens@skynet.be>
To: soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk <soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk>; Per
Klevnäs <pok20@cam.ac.uk>
Date: 16 December 2001 18:02
Subject: Re: can we trust Iraqi sources?


Dear Per and others,

Prof.Waterlow, the "pope" of the nutritionists, wrote a letter in november
1991 to the Lancet, appealing at the UN to monitor child mortality and the
food situation on a monthly basis (J.C. Waterlow, "Malnutrition in Iraq" in
The Lancet, 338,ii,23/11/1991). The answer in the Lancet of 21-28/12/1991: "
there is compelling evidence that economic sanctions against Iraq have led
to dangerous shortage of essential commodities, including food and medicine.
Immediate action, rather than statistical analyses, is what's needed to
avert a public health disaster in that country". A report of the WHO ("The
effect of Embargo on Iraqi Children health status") in 1993 says: " it is
not necessary to do another study to demonstrate that the embargo has a
negative impact on the health status of the Iraqi children. What will the
political decision be if there is an increase of mortality with 200 or 400%.
Does it really depend on the amount of the increase? Is there a figure past
which the embargo is no longer tolerated on humanitarian grounds?"
There have been so many "independent reports", with "independent figures".
The Harvard Study Team, "The effect of the Gulf Crisis on the Children of
Iraq, published in the New England Journal Of Medicine, 1991. There was the
International Study Team, "Infant and Child Mortality and Nutritional Status
of Iraqi children after the Gulf Conflict", Cambridge, april 1992. There was
the FAO report in 1993 "Nutritional Status Assessment Report" And so on, and
so on. Report after "independent" report has been written. What has been
done with the information in all these reports? Not much really. We are
almost 2002 now, and still the child mortality is increasing, and in 6
months time Iraq might be looking at the worst of things: the "smart
sanctions" or even a new war. Of course it is important to have the correct
facts & figures, but that is only one side of the medal. The other side is
the analysis on why these sanctions are held in place. And there the answer
is: oil, natural resources and the Iraqi will to reign over their own
resources, independently from Western multinationals and their New World
Order. There you have the reason for the creation of this humanitarian
disaster. I think that the focus should be on both sides of the medal. We
have to express our solidarity with the Iraqi people in their struggle
against this New World Order. Otherwise "we risk to drown an emotional and
humanly sensitive topic in dry numbers and discussion about statistics", as
Per puts it.
Greetings.
Dirk Adriaensens.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Per Klevnäs" <pok20@cam.ac.uk>
To: "Dirk Adriaensens" <dirk.adriaensens@skynet.be>;
<soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk>
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2001 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: can we trust Iraqi sources?


> Dear all,
>
> First of all, I would like to note what has previously been said on this
> discussion list in relation to this topic: we risk to drown an emotional
and
> humanly sensitive topic in dry numbers and discussion about statistics. I
> hope the below discussion can nonetheless be justified.  In my view, the
> most powerful tool we have in engaging with those who disagree with us on
> this issue is good information, and maintaining a credibility that makes
it
> possible for others - especially those who do not agree with out
initially -
> to believe the information we present to be correct.
>
> The most detailed critique of Government of Iraq figures I have read is in
> an article by Amatzia Baram in the Middle East
> Journal(http://www.mideasti.org/articles/baram.html).  I disagree with
> Baram's overall conclusion (that sanctions is the least worst option), but
> think that many of statements he makes about the figures of the Government
> of Iraq are plausible: its statistics are often are often internally
> inconsistent, too precise to be possible, presented without any account of
> the methodology used to arrive at them, and - crucially - tainted by a
> clearly identifiable political interest that would serve to inflate them.
> This is not to say that they are always incorrect: in fact, the 1999
Unicef
> mortality study arrived at a figure which was remarkably similar to that
of
> excess under-five deaths which had previously been presented by the Iraqi
> Ministry of Health.
>
> However, it is precisely because it can be corroborated with Unicef's
figure
> that we know the Ministry of Health claim to have (at least quantitative)
> substance.  Without impartial verification, we would end up in a situation
> where argument is from authority only, and the basis for our claims would
be
> that for various reasons we trust the Government of Iraq to be right.
This
> we might choose to do, but we have no good basis for asking others to do
so.
> Instead they might, with the same argument from authority, choose another
> authority: say, the US State Department or the UK FCO, which claim that
the
> Iraqi figures are entirely unreliable and that we do not know that
sanctions
> have caused any harm.  In my view, this polarisation of the discussion of
> sanctions is not helpful, as it cannot lead anywhere as long as people
> choose to rely on different authorities.  To us, this is nonsense, but
there
> the discussion simply comes to and end.  At its worst, such discussion has
> tended to obscure the desperately important message we have: that our
policy
> on Iraq is contributing to a humanitarian disaster.
>
> The situation would be different if there was no other information, but as
> it is not, we do not actually need to rely on Iraqi government claims.
> There is much other information on which to draw.  One of the most telling
> aspects of Amatzia Baram's (Spring 2000) article was that although it
> purports to discuss under-five mortality in Iraq, it is entirely silent on
> Unicef's 1999 survey, which studies precisly this.  This is disingenuous:
> what reason is there to omit from a detailed discussion the only impartial
> and most comprehensive survey we know of?  Information on living standards
> in Iraq under sanctions is publicly available: from Unicef, from the FAO
and
> WFP, from the WHO, and many independent studies, to argue conclusively
that
> the decade of economic sanctions has been one of a humanitarian disaster
in
> Iraq.
>
> I personally think this information is more than enough to argue against
> sanctions.  While including Iraqi government statements in our argument
> might sharpen the rhetorical edge of our claims somewhat, by slapping
> (generally) higher and more numerically precise figures on what other,
> impartial sources have already told us, they do so at the desperately high
> price of undermining the credibility of what we are saying.  It gives
> precious ammunition for the proponents of continued economic sanctions,
> adding actual substance to the claim that we are merely dupes of the
> Saddam's regime.  And, crucially, we would not have any way of ridding
> ourselves of this claim: repeating a claim that is correct (whether in
> substance or in absolute) does little good if one cannot say why it is
true.
>
> In this situation, relying on Iraqi claims that cannot be independently
> verified does us little good.  More importantly, I personally believe that
> it does little good for the process of ending sanctions.
>
> Yours,
>
> Per Klevnäs



--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings.


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings.