In all the media coverage of the looming war with Iraq, one topic has received virtually no attention: the potential impact on ordinary Iraqis. Whilst Tony Blair is keen to let us know about the supposed threat posed by Iraq, his silence on the issue of civilian casualties has been absolute.

This is not because nobody knows what the humanitarian consequences might be. Four years ago the Pentagon warned President Clinton that a military attack on Iraq might kill 10,000 Iraqis. One administration official described this as a ‘medium case scenario.’ [1] In reality the impact on civilians could be even more horrific.

During the 1991 Gulf War the US deliberately targeted Iraq’s infrastructure in what air force officers explained was an effort “to accelerate the effect of [economic] sanctions.” [2] Iraq’s electricity generating system was deliberately crippled - in breach of the Geneva Conventions - to create what Col. John Warden III, the deputy director of strategy, doctrine and plans for the Air Force, termed “long-term leverage.” [3]

By the time the air war was over Iraq’s electrical system was generating less than 4 percent of its pre-war output. [4] “Saddam Hussein cannot restore his own electricity . He needs help”, Warden explained. “If there are political objectives that the UN coalition has, it can say, ‘Saddam, when you agree to do these things, we will allow people to come in and fix your electricity’” [5]

The human consequences of pursuing ‘long term leverage’ were devastating. The electricity cut-off - in a highly mechanised, electricity-dependent society - led to a massive surge of water-borne and sewage-related diseases such as cholera, typhoid, gastroenteritis and malaria, with children particularly badly affected. [6] The southern city of Basra ‘came close to drowning in its own filth’, in the words of one Reuters reporter.

In my visit there three years ago, I saw children playing in pools of raw sewage. The hospital was full of tiny stick-like children suffering from severe malnutrition caused not so much by a lack of food as by a lack of clean water and the inevitable diarrhoea and vomiting. One mother sitting by the bedside of her sick child asked me, “Why does your government do this to our children?”. All I could do was shake my head and say “I’m sorry” in Arabic - a phrase I came to use all too often during my visit.

The suffering didn’t stop when the bombs stopped falling. Since the end of the war, economic sanctions have prevented Iraq from rebuilding its shattered infrastructure. Coupled with the economic collapse brought on by sanctions, this has created an ongoing humanitarian crisis that Save the Children Fund has termed ‘a silent war against Iraq’s children.’ [7] According to UNICEF, economic sanctions have contributed to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children since their imposition in August 1990. [8]

Today, as a direct consequence of the Gulf War and 12 years of economic sanctions, Iraqi children are still drinking dirty water and ordinary families are unable to earn a living wage. If Iraq’s electricity system is damaged again in a future military attack, it could collapse completely. According to the UN Secretary-General, the consequences of this ‘could potentially dwarf all other difficulties so far endured by the Iraqi people. ’ [9]

Another war on Iraq could serve only to deepen and prolong the suffering of ordinary Iraqis, as well as further increasing the anger that people in the Middle East feel at US and UK foreign policy. This is not the way to create peace.

Andrea Needham is honorary president of Voices in the Wilderness UK. She travelled to Iraq in August ’98 and May ’99 and is currently undertaking a Return to Practice course at Oxford Brookes University.

NOTES

1. Clinton Advisers Split on Halting Attack, Washington Post, November 16th 1998
2. Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq, Washington Post, June 23rd 1991
3. ibid
4. Needless Deaths in the Gulf War, Middle East Watch, 1991, page 173, citing the Harvard Study Team report.
5. Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq, Washington Post, June 23rd 1991.
6. Public Health and the Persian Gulf War by Eric Hoskins, in War and Public Health, Levy and Sidel eds. Oxford 1997.
7. SCF press release, 25 July 2000
8. ‘Iraq Surveys show ‘Humanitarian Emergency’, UNICEF press release, 12 August 1999
9. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 7 of Resolution 1143 (1997), 1 February 1998.