Iraq: 13 years of suffering under sanctions and war...

Now: without water, medicine, security...
the war isn’t over for the people of Iraq

August 1990 UN imposes economic sanctions on Iraq - the harshest such regime ever imposed on a nation.

March 1991 UN reports ‘near-apocalyptic’ destruction in Iraq after the Gulf War.

Sept 1995 “After 24 years in the field, mostly in Africa...I didn’t think anything could shock me,” said Dieter Hannusch, the World Food Programme’s Chief Emergency Support Officer, on his return from an assessment mission in Iraq. “But this was comparable to the worst scenarios I have ever seen.”

Nov 1997 UNICEF reports that almost one million Iraqi children are chronically malnourished.

Aug 1999 UNICEF reports that child mortality rates in south/central Iraq have more than doubled since 1990. Half a million children are estimated to have died.

May 2003 Following the invasion of Iraq, Oxfam reports that ‘insecurity and uncertainty persist across Iraq… hospitals are overwhelmed, diarrhoea is endemic and the death toll is mounting.’

August 2003 After four months of US/UK occupation, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is still desperate, with massive shortages of electricity, clean water and health care, with an upsurge in violence and insecurity.

HALF A MILLION CHILDREN DIED....
Thirteen years ago today, on the 6th August 1990, the UN imposed comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq.

These sanctions devastated Iraq’s infrastructure, economy, health and well-being of the population in what the Save the Children Fund called ‘a silent war against Iraq’s children’.

Economic sanctions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, while countless others were physically and mentally scared from the hardship of this period. The collapse in living standards and quality of life has blighted the society. By any definition, such sanctions are a weapon of mass destruction. They were applied indiscriminately and actually led to the consolidation of the Iraqi regime’s power. They must never be allowed to happen again.

According to UNICEF these sanctions – which impoverished millions of Iraqis and prevented the repair and maintenance of Iraq’s essential civilian infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage etc…) - contributed to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children (www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm).

MORE LIES FROM BLAIR AND BUSH
The US and British governments – who blocked the lifting of sanctions for over 12½ years - bear a heavy responsibility for these deaths. Yet they continue to deny their role, claiming that ‘sanctions were not responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people’ (letter from the Foreign Office, July 2003). In reality, ‘sanctions… contributed to pervasive life-threatening public health conditions for millions of innocent people’ (Human Rights Watch, August 2000) – a policy which was ‘humanly catastrophic and morally indefensible’ (CAFOD, Feb. 2001).

Although sanctions were finally lifted in May 2003 the humanitarian situation in Iraq remains desperate. The country is under military occupation, with its political and economic future in the hands of foreign governments and corporations. The destruction caused by the invasion and the lack of planning for post-conflict humanitarian relief has left Iraq in an even worse situation than before the war. The country is now also littered with cluster bombs, unexploded ordnance and depleted uranium, creating a life-threatening environment long into the future.

Please write now to Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA to demand that the US and British governments accept their responsibilities and use all the resources at their disposal to restore public health and well-being in Iraq.