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Dear Tom, Colin & all I do not want to say, but it is a painful fact that BLOCKADE becomes our style of life. This article is perfect American the writer tries to say that Oil 4 Food is a miracle, just because he saw crowds were waiting ice-cream! And saw double-deck buses! but he did not say that 6ooo Iraqi children died in last March because American and Britain representatives did not approve on many medical contracts through 661 Committee. Yes, it is true that (Step by step, economic and social life is rebounding), yet, it is because as I said we used to blockade. (While U.S. officials contend that much of the money is being spent to refit the Iraqi military, develop long-range missiles and possibly assemble nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, )! He writes depending on American information, even he did not bother himself to ask an Iraqi official or any Iraqi, so he presents a poisoned honey. by the way, just bfore days Peter Arnet said in a meeting with Iraqi jhournalists that the White House was and still controlling the information about Iraq. (Per capita income now stands at around $2,500 annually -- double that of Egypt, according to the CIA World Factbook). Still, it is CIA number. 2500$ means about 5 million ID! It is another wrong number. The article as I said is a poisoned honey cake. We are doing our best to survive, to raise our children, but still the circumstances created by the embargo is very hard. No Oil 4 Food nor UNSCR 1409 would help, but lifting the blockade We know if the article was really pro Iraqi nation, Washington Post would not publish it. Best regards Nermin ----- Original Message ----- From: " Tom Nagy, Ph.D." <nagy@gwu.edu> To: "farbuthnot" <asceptic@freenetname.co.uk> Cc: <soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk>; <nagy@gwu.edu> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 10:38 PM Subject: [casi] please reply to Washington Post Dear Colleagues, Thought someone on this list might want to formulate a response to the following page one "news" feature in yesterday's Washington Post. It reads to me like a rehash of press releases from the State Department. Sadly, in a awesome act of willed ignorance, this article is accepted by most in Washington as god's honest truth. Little by Little, Iraq Shows Signs of Economic Life By Howard Schneider Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, May 17, 2002; Page A01 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- It was a breezy Monday night, and the mood in Horreya Square was festive as a crowd that included college students, old men and shy young girls gathered outside the Faqma ice cream shop to indulge. In the Iraq of the mid-1990s, such a scene would have been impossible. People were penniless and the government strictly rationed milk and sugar to ensure that the country's embargoed food supplies covered necessities. But those days are past. Step by step, economic and social life is rebounding and the country is breaking out of limits imposed on it by the United States and other Western powers after the Persian Gulf War a decade ago. Iraq is now sufficiently flush to independently launch an oil embargo, as it did last month, suspending exports of crude as a protest against Israeli occupation of Palestinian cities in the West Bank. That won Iraq admiration in many Arab countries, as have its payments of $25,000 that U.S. officials said have been made to the families of each Palestinian suicide bomber. Many Iraqis and foreign diplomats here said the country's resurgence will make the U.S. goal of unseating President Saddam Hussein all the more difficult to achieve. And, in the meantime, the growing prosperity is allowing Hussein's political apparatus to proclaim that Iraq was the ultimate victor in the Persian Gulf conflict. "Many people predicted that Iraq would collapse in 1991, but we have reconstructed our country," Oil Minister Amir Mohammad Rasheed said recently at a news conference in Baghdad. "We know it is difficult for those without thousands of years of history to understand, but oil is not the only resource of the Iraqi people." Oil, however, is what's driving the rebound. Iraq is allowed to sell as much petroleum as it wants under U.N. sanctions to buy food, medicine and other necessities. But money is also entering the country illegally through oil smuggling and a complicated surcharge scheme that a Wall Street Journal analysis recently estimated provides around $2.5 billion annually outside the control of sanctions. While U.S. officials contend that much of the money is being spent to refit the Iraqi military, develop long-range missiles and possibly assemble nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, clearly some of it is improving the lives of Iraqi citizens. Per capita income now stands at around $2,500 annually -- double that of Egypt, according to the CIA World Factbook. Iraq's gross domestic product grew about 15 percent in the year 2000. "Little by little, things are getting better. You can find everything," said Sinan Abdul Hamid, 20, an engineering student whose chief complaint about life is that the lasers used in his classes are out of date. Entrepreneurs are bringing shiploads of computers, televisions, stereos, appliances and other goods from Dubai to stock the the shelves of Baghdad's shops. Wealthy Iraqis can arrange long-distance special deliveries of their favorite foods from grocery stores in Amman, Jordan, 12 hours by car and a few bribes away from the Iraqi capital. Farmers are buying new trucks; new double-decker buses are moving about the capital. A few privately owned luxury cars are breaking the previous monotony of wobbly taxis and private cars with shattered windshields. Even such areas as an impoverished corner of Saddam City south of Baghdad are feeling gains. There, vegetable seller Rabbia Jassim at first pointed to his 6-year-old son's dilapidated sneakers and said that for the poorest in Iraq, many basics remain out of reach. But later he conceded there was some improvement: His family can now afford an occasional chicken. As part of the upturn, Iraq has again become a major force in the regional economy. Much of its $13 billion in annual imports come from Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan, Iraqi officials said, helping bolster economies in the region. They added that Turkey's sales to Iraq doubled in the past year, to nearly $1 billion, while Egypt, starved for hard currency, now gets $2 billion a year from goods its sells to Iraq. Iraqis are traveling abroad more easily, too, on the expanding network of flights available since Saddam International Airport reopened a year ago. Royal Jordanian Airlines offers four flights a week between Amman and Baghdad, and service is also available to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and to Moscow. Iraqi diplomats circle the globe pressing their nation's case, while business leaders from the Arab world, Russia and Europe fill Iraq's version of a five-star hotel, the Al Rasheed. The future of Iraq and Hussein has been a chief preoccupation of the region, as well as of world powers, for more than a decade now. While there is agreement that Iraq's isolation as a nation should end, there is disagreement over whether that should happen while Hussein is still in power. To Washington, he remains a global menace, intent on developing weapons of mass destruction and likely to use them against Israel, Arab neighbors or even the United States. At a recent U.N. Security Council briefing, U.S. officials presented evidence of new long-range missile sites, and foreign diplomats in Baghdad cite suspicions that Iraqi officials have stepped up efforts to acquire material for a nuclear device. President Bush has called Iraq part of an "axis of evil" that includes its neighbor Iran and North Korea. U.S. officials have not made a case linking Iraq with al Qaeda or any terrorist attack against U.S. interests. But they insist that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction and say action against the country, perhaps armed action, is needed. "The combination of a dangerous regime with such destructive weapons is not acceptable," said Patrick Clawson, research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Among Iraq's Arab neighbors, the view is less apocalyptic. Hussein is viewed as a brutal leader, but many say he became more cautious after seeing his army expelled from Kuwait in 1991. An international coalition might well retaliate against any aggressive act tied to Baghdad, spelling an end to the Baath Party that controls the country. One diplomat here, whose government has counseled the United States to avoid military action in the absence of clear provocation, said the risks of toppling Hussein might be as great as the risks of leaving him in power. In society here, the diplomat said, "there is a big hate for the U.S. Every malaise is attributed to them and not the regime. The complexity of the problem is that once Pandora's box is open, are we in a more difficult position than now?" A U.S. attack could lead to a fracturing of the country among the quasi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north, the Iranian-influenced Shiite populations in the south, and the Sunni Muslims who dominate the central region, the diplomat said. Some Iraqis who privately dislike the regime are also uneasy about the prospect of an attack. They would rather wait for the 65-year-old Hussein's natural demise than risk a war or revolution. "Borders are closed, brains are closed," said one businessman, who asked not to be identified. "But it has been 20 years. What is three or four more? This is what is in the heart of Iraqis." Advisers in the president's office, meanwhile, say the government's public bravado -- defiant, anti-American and ready for a fight -- isn't the whole story. "What are we going to say if [Bush] says we are the axis of evil? We fought Iran for eight years. How can you just throw us in one bottle?" one Iraqi official said. "We have learned lessons, and we will make use of those lessons. We will try to avoid our people suffering again." Despite the talk of war, the United States hasn't much changed the military pressure that it has exerted against Iraq since the end of the Gulf War. Every day a panoply of U.S. planes, including high-flying U-2 reconnaissance jets and RC-135 eavesdropping aircraft, course the skies of northern Saudi Arabia and southern Turkey, monitoring the Iraqi military. Warplanes stage periodic strikes against antiaircraft positions. But some diplomats in Baghdad and analysts in Washington say that Bush's war threats may already be paying off with the rise of what amounts, by Iraqi standards, to a group of pragmatists on the Baath Party's ruling Revolutionary Command Council. The diplomats said they believe Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has developed an influential voice in alliance with Hussein's younger son and possible successor, Qusay. Sabri is said to have pushed for recent efforts to mend fences with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. At a recent Arab League summit in Beirut, Iraq went further than ever, promising to respect Kuwait's sovereignty. Iraq has also reopened talks with the United Nations on the possible return of U.N. weapons inspection teams, who were withdrawn from the country in 1998 hours before the United States and Britain launched airstrikes on Baghdad. The talks now involve Iraqi scientists and generals. Before Sept. 11, Iraq maintained that inspectors would never return. Hussein remains the ultimate arbiter, however, holding on to power despite a record of domestic mismanagement, political executions and atrocities against his people. Increasingly elaborate statues of Hussein continue to sprout throughout the capital, as do state-financed mosques. The Mother of All Battles Mosque opened recently. Still in progress is Saddam Mammoth Mosque, intended to be the largest in the world. Along one boulevard stands what people call The Big "La," ("No" in Arabic), a granite symbol of the country's defiance. Hussein is lionized in party tracts as the rightful heir of history's great Muslim leaders, such as the 12th-century warrior Saladin, who fought the Christian Crusaders. The revisionism has turned the invasion of Kuwait into a "Zionist trap" that ended with U.S. troops encircled and begging for a cease-fire. It is unclear how many people accept that account, doled out incessantly by Iraqi newspapers and television. But the hardships of the last decade have been real, and many ordinary Iraqis appear to view the recent easing as a triumph over the United States. In their offices in the capital, Iraqi officials tried to build on those feelings. They said that what is really behind Bush's talk of war is Hussein's refusal to follow the recent path of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arab states and submit to what they perceive as U.S. dominance. Bush "wants Iraqi oil. Saddam Hussein won't let him. He wants to put a stooge government in. Saddam Hussein won't let him," said Abdelrazak Hashimi, a semi-official government spokesman. "Nobody has the right to go into another country and change the system of government. . . . Nobody can just scratch Iraq off their calendar." (C) 2002 The Washington Post Company _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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