The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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For what it's worth here are the letters that voices and myself sent to the Observer. ************************************* Since their imposition in August 1990 economic sanctions 'have contributed in a major way to persistent life-threatening conditions in [Iraq]' (Save the Children Fund UK). John Sweeney seeks to obscure this basic fact (How Saddam 'staged' fake baby funerals, 23 June). He would do well to take the advice of the leading human rights NGO Human Rights Watch and 'stop pretending that the sanctions have nothing to do with the dire public health crisis confronting millions of Iraqis.' Andrea Needham voices in the wilderness uk 16b Cherwell Street Oxford e-mail: voices@viwuk.freeserve.co.uk tel. 0845 458 2564. ************************************************** John Sweeney writes that UNICEF's August 1999 child mortality estimates for Iraq are 'open to question' because the surveys upon which they were based were conducted jointly with the Iraqi Government (How Saddam 'staged' fake baby funerals, 23 June). He omits to mention that UNICEF had direct input into the design of these surveys, were involved in the training of all survey supervisors, conducted field visits to every governorate while the survey was being conducted, oversaw the process of data entry, and had full access to the hard copies of the interview records and the complete data sets for both surveys at all times. If the Iraqi Government had attempted to manipulate the data by influencing the survey interviewers to over-record the number of deaths or by directly manipulating the survey data on the computer, this would have been detected when UNICEF analysed the spread of births and deaths. The panel of experts who reviewed the survey methodology and results for UNICEF looked for evidence of such manipulation, they found none. In reality it is only apologists for the sanctions, such as Mr Sweeney, who 'question' the reliability of these surveys. Gabriel Carlyle 46 Rymers Lane Oxford tel. 01865 - 714 036 _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk