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focus away from the Iraqi Government, a look inside circumstances the Iraqi Civilian
is currently facing... In his July 1991 report on humanitarian conditions in Iraq, UN official Sadruddin Aga Khan estimated the cost of restoring Iraqís power, oil, water, sanitation, food, agriculture, and health sectors to pre-war levels to be $22 billion. Damage caused by the Gulf War was at least $30 billion (New York Times, 2 June 1991). Due to further breakdowns and lack of maintenance, the costs of restoration have increased. The UN deducts 33% of Iraq's oil revenues for UN costs & war reparations to Kuwait, leaving a fraction of what Iraq earned prior to sanctions. The UN 661 Sanctions Committee decides what orders Iraq can and cannot import. Even with "Oil-for-Food" exceptions, import controls restrict and delay much of what funds remain. Contracts for desperately needed equipment routinely get held up in the Security Council for months at a time. In a February 2000, briefing to the Security Council, Executive Dir. Benon Sevon of the Iraq Humanitarian Program criticized the excessive holds placed on items: "There is currently a backlog of around 800 humanitarian & oil sector applications - my colleagues and I believe this is unacceptable." 100% of all contracts for telecommunications, 65.5% of electricity contracts, 53% of water and sanitation contracts, and 43% of oil sector contracts were held up in 1999, according to a November report by Mr. Sevon. Such holds aggravate the humanitarian crisis. Mr. Sevon reported, "Iraq could potentially achieve a 50% increase in electricity supply if these holds were released... [and] there is a direct link between reliable power generation and the provision of health care, water supplies and other basic services." If spare parts for Iraq's oil sector had been delivered in 1999, its year 2000 oil sales would be ~$19 billion. Unfortunately, as a result of the UN's failure to deliver, and if many of the pending oil sector contracts remain on hold, Iraq will likely earn less than $14 billion this year. This represents a loss of over $5 billion in potential oil sales in 2000, diminishing funds available for the humanitarian program. From December 1996 to 29 February 2000, Iraq sold $25.3 billion of oil under the Oil-for-Food program. After UN deductions, $17 billion was allocated toward the purchase of food, medicine and other goods. Largely because the U.S. has vetoed more than a thousand contracts in the past three years (not to mention holds), only $7 billion in goods reached the Iraqi people as of 2000! In 1991, Iraq was forced into an unprecedented disarmament process and its military has been greatly reduced. UNSCOM Chief Richard Butler said in July 1998, "if Iraqi disarmament were a five-lap race, we would be three quarters of the way around the fifth and final lap." Ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote in the Boston Globe (3/9/00) that, "...from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed... The chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless." Sanctions undermine U.S. interests, both in Iraq and throughout the region. Punitive broad sanctions and bombings (all "stick" and no "carrot") provide no incentive for Iraq to cooperate in disarmament efforts. In targeting civilians, sanctions have fostered resentment among the Iraqi people toward the United States, not Saddam Hussein. They have strengthened Hussein's power and undermined institutions of civil society necessary for democratic change. Most Iraqi dissidents and refugees oppose economic sanctions. U.S. indifference to abject suffering in Iraq has elevated anti-American sentiment in the Arab world. Lifting economic sanctions would take a powerful propaganda weapon away from Saddam Hussein, who can currently blame the misery of the Iraqi people on the United States. Since
the U.S.-Iraq ceasefire of 1991, U.S. and British forces have regularly bombed
Iraqi sites - the longest continuous air campaign since the Vietnam War. The attacks,
allegedly on military targets, have resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties.
See one such report from CNN here . Under the rubic of Operation Southern Watch
and Operation Northern Watch, U.S. air attacks have continued through 2002 on
a weekly basis. Continued air assaults show that the U.S.-Iraq war has not ended.
Instead, the ongoing bombing undermines efforts to renew weapons inspections and
Iraqi disarmament. De-linking economic from military sanctions would effectively
end the humanitarian crisis, while strengthening a strict international arms embargo
on Iraq without targeting innocent civilians. | |||
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