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| FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - QUICK RESPONSES A VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS BRIEFING, SEPT 2001
Voices in the Wilderness UK believes
that economic sanctions on Iraq must be lifted immediately and unconditionally
on humanitarian grounds.
We also
totally oppose so-called "smart" sanctions.
Contents
1) Sanctions have little or nothing to do with the current crisis.
According to UNICEF UK economic sanctions have been an 'important factor' in the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. Save the Children Fund UK have called the sanctions 'a silent war against Iraq's children.'
Last year, one of the world's leading human rights NGO's, Human Rights Watch - who certainly have no love for Saddam Hussein - admonished the US Government to 'stop pretending that the sanctions have nothing to do with the dire public health crisis confronting millions of Iraqis.' The British Government should do the same.
2) Iraq has plenty of money available to purchase food and medicines.
The humanitarian crisis isn't simply a matter of 'food and medicines.' Rather, the fundamental causes of the crisis are : (i) the massive deterioration of Iraq's civilian infrastructure (electricity, water, sanitation, sewage, hospitals etc...) and (ii) the collapse of Iraq's economy. These two factors are both overwhelmingly the result of the 1991 Gulf War and 11 years of economic sanctions.
Whilst there is more money available now (because of higher oil prices) :
3) Isn't it all Saddam's fault? After all he only has to co-operate with the inspectors and Iraq can be free of sanctions.
It's immoral to inflict collective punishment on the general population of Iraq as a means of exerting pressure on the Iraqi Government. The Economist put it this way (8th April 2000):
"If year in, year out,
the UN were systematically killing Iraqi children by airstrikes, western
governments would declare it intolerable, no matter
how noble the intention.
They should find their
existing policy just as unacceptable. In democracies, the end does not
justify the means."
4) Isn't Saddam spending all the money on palaces and luxuries for his cronies?
No. According to the British Government's own figures, last year, if all of the illicit revenues available to the Iraqi Government had been channelled into the official humanitarian programme ('oil for food') revenues would have been increased by less than 3%2. By contrast the UN currently diverts 28% of all 'oil for food' to pay for 'war reparations' and its own expenses. The mega-rich Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC) was recently awarded $15 billion compensation : the folk at the KPC aren't suffering from malnutrition and water-borne disease.
5) Isn't the Iraqi Government hoarding all the food and medicine?
No. According to the current UN
Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq, Tun Myat, Iraq's food distribution
system is "second to none" (October 2000). On 1st March 2000 his predecessor, Hans von Sponeck had stated that the distribution of
supplies coming into Iraq was "totally satisfactory" with 91.7 % of supplies distributed. For medical supplies the figure was
lower (72%) "but this reflected World Health Organisation recommended stockpiling practices" and
the time needed for quality control.
6) What about the 15,000 Ventolin inhalers that turned up in Lebanon ? [these inhalers were allegedly purchased under the 'oil for food' programme]
There has never been any evidence of large scale diversion under the programme. The UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq, Tun Myat, believes that all the necessary arrangements have been made to ensure that goods under oil-for-food are used for the agreed purposes (Press briefing, October 2000).
7) Isn't Saddam Hussein deliberately sabotaging the oil-for-food programme by failing to order medicines and other supplies. There's no evidence to support this allegation. Oil-for-food doesn't run perfectly and there have been
problems recently with the timely submission of contracts for medicines and other goods to the UN3. However, a number of
factors - including a major shake-up of the contracting system in an attempt to eliminate dodgy suppliers - probably account
for much of these delays. In January of this year the current Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq, Tun Myat, said
that there was 'nothing sinister' about these delays.
8) It's a myth that sanctions prevent goods from getting to Iraq.
Sanctions do prevent goods from getting to Iraq: there are currently more than $3.5 billion worth of humanitarian supplies that are being blocked by the UN Sanctions Committee. Whilst there are now a number of so-called 'green lists' of pre-approved goods which don't have to be submitted to the Committee, many desperately needed goods continue to be blocked and delayed. [Note, however, that these 'holds' aren't the root cause of the humanitarian crisis (see 2. above).]
9) The UK only puts a tiny percentage of goods on hold.
This may be true since the UK only comes a distant second place to the US, which is responsible for over 98% of the 'holds'.4 However a lot of mischief can be done with even a few holds since 'the absence of a single item of equipment, sometimes insignificant in size or value, can be sufficient to prevent the completion of an entire project' (Benon Sevan, Executive Director of oil-for-food). As Sevan put it 'What is the use, for example, if approval is given for the purchase of a very expensive truck and the application for the purchase of its ignition key is placed on hold?' 10) Income per head in Iraq is now the same as (or higher than) that in Egypt, Iran and Jordan yet no-one starves in those countries.
Even if the first claim were true5 (which is most unlikely) this is clearly the wrong comparison. The meaningful comparison is between the level of resources available to Iraq (which are still very limited) and the scale of its current needs (which are enormous).
None of the other countries listed have been subjected to the devastating 'coalition' assault of 1991 and over ten years of economic strangulation. Before sanctions Iraq had spent decades developing: lowering levels of child mortality; improving literacy, sanitation etc ... Much of this progress has been destroyed by the 1991 Gulf War and ten years of sanctions.
11) Child mortality rates have actually fallen in northern Iraq.
According to UNICEF, who conducted the surveys which produced these figures
on child mortality, "the difference [in child mortality rates between the north and south/center] cannot be attributed to the differing ways the Oil for Food Program is implemented in the two parts of Iraq". The UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator, Tun Myat, reiterated this point in a recent press briefing, stating "that [the] improvement in nutrition in the north was not due to differences in distribution, or the fact that the United Nations was responsible for implementation of the programme in the north." (UN
Press Briefing, 19th November 2000).
Important differences (between the north and the south/center) include :
According to the Economist 'the main reason for the relative prosperity of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is that has an economic life beyond oil-for-food.'
12) 'Smart' sanctions are the answer.
According to the Economist, 'smart' sanctions offered 'an aspirin where surgery is called for.'
'Smart' sanctions would continue to prevent the re-inflation of Iraq's economy - a necessary precondition for the end of the humanitarian crisis6 - whilst maintaining the current ban on foreign investment. Under 'smart' sanctions Iraq's economy would continue to be run like a gigantic refugee camp.
As one officer with a high-profile aid agency put it: 'It won't improve life for the ordinary Iraqi ... It will do nothing to tackle the real issue - how to stimulate the internal economy and allow civil society to come back.' (FT, 1 June 2001)
'Smart' sanctions would also attempt to choke off the only revenues Iraq has to pay its doctors and teachers and to install and distribute the goods it purchases under the humanitarian programme. This is why former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinators for Iraq, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, have condemned the proposal for actually 'tightening the rope around neck of the average Iraqi citizen.' Finally, note that it is incorrect to say that 'smart' sanctions would have ended all restrictions on civilian imports: rather, they might have reduced the extent to which the US and Britain currently obstruct the implementation of the oil-for-food (see 7. above)
13)
If sanctions are lifted Saddam Hussein will just spend all the money
on luxuries and the military.
According to the Financial Times 'Iraq's devastated economy' 'will not revive ... while control over Iraq's oil revenues remains in the hands of the UN, and foreign investment and credits are still prohibited.'
The Iraqi Government does not need to be forced to spend money on the Iraqi people: while there is no doubt that private appropriation and military expenditure are important priorities for the Iraqi leadership, the historical record shows that a
commitment to social welfare is also an important government priority in its own right.7
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (, prior to the imposition of sanctions the Iraqi welfare state was 'among the most comprehensive and generous in the Arab world.'
A December 1999 report the International Committee of the Red Cross noted
that 'Just a decade ago, Iraq boasted one of the most modern infrastructures
and highest standards of living in the middle east' with a 'modern, complex
health care system" and 'sophisticated water-treatment and pumping facilities.'
Sanctions have destroyed all this.
Despite a major diversion of resources to war, child mortality declined by 40% during the 1980's. Since sanctions were imposed, child mortality has more than doubled. Looking forward, we must realise the importance of Baghdad's longstanding commitment to public health and education, the role played by such investments in securing the Ba'ath Party's appeal to its supporters, and the huge pent-up demand for these public services caused by (and blamed on) the economic sanctions. There is only one guarantee: as long as the economic sanctions continue, so will the humanitarian crisis.
14) We have to maintain sanctions to stop Saddam Hussein from blowing up the world.
According to the former head of
UNSCOM, Richard Butler, economic sanctions "simply aren't working other than to harm the Iraqi people." "we
now know that using economic sanctions to bring about compliance in the
weapons area does not work. So de-linking [military sanctions from economic
sanctions] would address the need to stop doing something that isn't working."
According to the former chief
of UNSCOM's concealment unit, Scott Ritter "it was possible as early as 1997 to determine that, from a strictly qualitative standpoint, Iraq had been disarmed" :
Iraq no longer possessed any meaningful
quantities of chemical and biological agent, if it possessed any at all,
and the industrial means to produce these agents had either been eliminated
or were subject to stringent monitoring. The same was true of Iraq's nuclear
and ballistic missile capabilities. As long as monitoring inspections remained
in place, Iraq presented a WMD-based threat to no one ..." (Arms Control
Today, June 2000)
The US and Britain destroyed UNSCOM in December 1998 by launching an illegal bombing campaign against Iraq ('Operation Desert Fox') and prior to that the US had undermined UNSCOM by infiltrating it with members of its intelligence services.8
15) Critics of sanctions offer no alternative.
Untrue. Lifting economic sanctions immediately is a clear alternative to the existing policy of maintaining these sanctions. There are no good reasons for maintaining economic sanctions and plenty of reasons not to continue them.
Economic sanctions don't work to bring about compliance on the Weapons of Mass Destruction front (see 13. above), nor do they prevent human rights abuses by the Iraqi Government. They don't protect the Kurds in northern Iraq and they actually strengthen the Iraqi Government's grip on power. Most importantly, economic sanctions impose horrendous suffering on ordinary Iraqis and lifting these sanctions is a necessary pre-requisite for ending the current humanitarian crisis.
Note that critics of sanctions don't have to prove that lifting economic sanctions will solve all of Iraq's problems, or resolve all outstanding disputes between Iraq and the US/UK/UN. Lifting sanctions won't achieve this but then neither does the existing policy which kills thousands of children every month.
Footnotes
1 - See the figures on the oil-for-food web-site: www.un.org/Depts/oip. Revenues for the humanitarian programme for phases VII and VIII (12th December 1999 - 5th December 2000) amounted to $11.97 bn, of which $9.65 bn was allocated for south/central Iraq.
According to the FCO these unused funds are the sole reason for the ongoing humanitarian crisis: 'There is no reasons for the continued suffering of the Iraqi people other than the regime's decision to deny them the items they need' (letter from the FCO dated 21st June 2001).
It is worth comparing this $3 bn figure (which represents a delay, rather than a permanent denial) with the following:
i) The estimated $120 bn worth of funds that sanctions deprived Iraq during the period 1990 - 1998.
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