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Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995
From: "A.E.Mail Journal" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Half a Million Children Die in Iraq
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Views Expressed In this Open Forum are of the Authors Only
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LEGACY OF THE LAST WAR: HALF A MILLION CHILDREN DIE IN IRAQ
By Rebeca Toledo
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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 14, 1995
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Since the end of the U.S. war against Iraq in 1991, some 576,000
children have died there as the direct result of sanctions imposed
by the United Nations Security Council. This was the conclusion of a
survey conducted in Baghdad by two scientists for the Food and
Agriculture Organization.
According to the report, malnutrition among children has
reached epidemic proportions. Twenty-eight percent of Iraqi
children are stunted in growth, compared to 12 percent in
1991. Deaths related to diarrheal diseases have tripled.
Water and sanitation systems have deteriorated and hospitals
are functioning at 40 percent of capacity.
The mortality rate among children has increased to five
times the level before the war. Infant deaths, which have
doubled since the war, are continuing to rise at an alarming
rate.
The sanctions were rammed through the UN Security Council
in August 1990, mainly by strong-arm U.S. tactics. They
continue basically unchanged to this day.
The sanctions stomp on every aspect of Iraqi sovereignty--
economic, political and social. They illegally prohibit the
Iraqi government from purchasing medicine and food for its
population.
They also prohibit Iraq from selling oil, its main source
of income, on the world market. And Iraqi assets in other
countries have been frozen illegally.
Attempts by Iraq or other countries to end the sanctions
over the past five years have met with strong opposition
from the United States and its junior partner, Britain. These two
imperialist countries have a near monopoly on refining and marketing
Middle East oil.
Washington claims Iraq has not met all conditions imposed
on it in order for the sanctions to be lifted. But
ultimately the subtle, and not so subtle, demands that the
United States insists upon include the overthrow of Iraq's
head of state, Saddam Hussein.
Washington has threatened economic penalties against
countries that do business with Iraq. And it says it will
withhold funds the United States owes the UN if the
sanctions that are killing Iraqi children are lifted.
This is the same President Bill Clinton, it should be
recalled, who said he was sending 20,000 U.S. troops to
Bosnia primarily to save "women and children." Such
shameless demagogy goes unchallenged in the corporate media.
WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL
The recent UN study is not the first to warn about the
horrific conditions in Iraq. As early as 1991, the Commission
of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal, an
independent body of distinguished anti-war and anti-
imperialist figures, conducted trips to Iraq and reported on
the results of the U.S. war.
Headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the
Tribunal charged the U.S. government with crimes against
humanity for using mass punishment in the form of
indiscriminate bombings of Iraq and the continued sanctions.
"Iraq has suffered doubly because its infrastructure was
destroyed by U.S. bombing, and the sanctions have prevented
Iraq from rebuilding its country," the Tribunal concluded.
In letters to the United Nations urging an end to the
sanctions, Clark said they were affecting 2.4 million Iraqi
children, 600,000 pregnant women, and hundreds of thousands
of elderly people.
Just this past September, a delegation from the World Food
Program toured Iraq and reported that food shortages were
causing irreparable damage to an entire generation of
children. More than 4 million people, one fifth of the
population, are at severe risk, according to the UN agency.
The Security Council will vote once again in the first
week of January on the question of continued sanctions
against Iraq. It will be the perfect time for all those
opposed to U.S. imperialist war abroad, whether in Iraq or
Bosnia, to take a stand against this continued genocide of
the Iraqi people.
The International Action Center plans actions in several
cities in mid-January to coincide with the anniversary of
the beginning of the Gulf War. The IAC's national office can
be reached at (212) 633-6646.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint
granted if source is cited. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
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