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Military Interdiction Ops troops from San Diego in Persian Gulf hunt for sanctioned chlorine & infant formula |
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R A Q antebellum a r c h i v e | |
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IraqDaily re "water supply" Turkey, Syria & Iraq water issues |
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extremely comprehensive links
from Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq
Fed. American Scientists re Iraq |
DIA Water Vulnerability Report Cong.Staff Delegation rpt 3.00 UN FAO report 9.13.00 UK & ICC Tribunal 8.25.00 | |||
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DEATH STATISTICS IN IRAQ UN imposed economic sanctions in place since the end of Gulf War in 1991. Sanctions had little effect on policies of Iraqi Govt, chilling toll on civilian population. The Iraqi Ministry of Health estimates that 109,720 persons have died annually between August 1990 and March 1994 as a direct result of the sanctions. • From The Children are Dying: Reports by UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Since Aug. 1990, 567,000 children in Iraq have died as a consequence of the sanctions. • THE LANCET, Volume 346 Number 8988. Saturday 12.2.95. After the sanctions, there was two-fold increase in infant mortality and five-fold increase in under-5 mortality. • The LANCET Volume 346, Number 8988. Saturday 12.2.95 There are 4,500 children under the age of 5 dying each month from hunger and disease. In Central/Southern Iraq, 27.5% of Iraq's three million children (some 900,000) are now at risk of acute malnutrition. • UNICEF Report Due to the hazards of the water supply, govt statistical office figures show 1,819 cases of typhoid fever in 1989 and 24,436 cases in 1994. Similarly, there were no reported cases of cholera in 1989, but 1,345 cases in 1994. • 4/99 Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility effect of sanctions on Iraqi citizens, especially children. Intentionally defied sanctions with, visit, medicine, equipt & medical textbooks without required UN approval. or US travel permit. 9/5/00 PDF Human Rights Impact of Economic Sanctions on Iraq bkgd paper by Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights for ExecComm on Humanitarian Affairs U.K.
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Join delegation to Iraq sanctions challenge IV 1.16.01 Ship Medicine to Challenge Genocide
Bellicose Saddam jangles world nerves
Dubai With a finely timed accusation that Kuwait is stealing Iraqi oil, Saddam Hussein has set
Western & Gulf nerves jangling once again. It took only a brief statement from Iraq's Oil Minister Amer Rashid last Thursday to ignite fears in Kuwait of a new war over the emirate's oil riches. The same accusation sparked the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, taking the world by surprise.
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Blair is walking into a dogfight on Bush's ranch
¹ Internal rivalry & factionalism driving US policy on Iraq 3.31.02 Dan Plesch Independent UK
auth."Sheriff & Outlaws in the Global Village Menard Press,
By this time next Sunday, Tony Blair will have finished discussing the attack on Iraq at President Bush's Texas
ranch. Mr Blair & his advisers are not just resigned to having to go along with the US; there is genuine
enthusiasm for taking action against a dictator whom the PM believes to be public enemy no. 1. But these
enthusiasms are confined to the inner circle at No 10. Chief of Defence Staff Sir Michael Boyce, has reflected the
views of senior military establishment by suggesting we should learn to live with weapons of mass destruction, and
that if, as he put it, Britain was deliberately going to put its "hand in the mangle" of Afghanistan, we should not
simultaneously do so in Iraq. Scepticism about military expeditions to Iraq and recent troop deployment to
Afghanistan has spread beyond the usual suspects. A retired wing commander rang me to express his fears about
our troops operating under the command of the U.S. army. His peacetime service under U.S. air force generals had
been bad enough, he said, and US army generals were of poorer quality.
This uncertainty means that Mr Blair has to take this opportunity to find out what military action Mr Bush really
intends in his expanding war against terror. Almost as important is the need to get an understanding of how the US
decision-making process works. As one US intelligence official told me, only 8 people in Washington are now
allowed to read even quite low-level intelligence assessments, which for decades had been circulated to several
dozen. Mr Bush's inner team already had a notoriously narrow worldview and are now preventing even their senior
advisers from being properly briefed. The broad strategy is very clear. For GOP strategists, the desire to crush
President Saddam Hussein is not really about revenge or weapons of mass destruction. It has far more to do with
the need to show that it is not possible for any state or individual to fight the U.S. and survive. For today's GOP,
"Make My Day" is a motto for the real world.
The plans being considered are intended to provoke internal coup & rebellion by the Kurdish & Shia
minorities. The optimum scenario involves massive air attack supporting ground attack from 3 directions. An
assault by 30,000 US troops already in Kuwait accompanied by seizure of Iraqi airbases by 82nd Airborne Div.
with, in the north, assistance of the Turkish army. Supporters of this view outside govt include Pres. Reagan's
former arms control adviser Ken Adelman, who believes that the war would be over in a month. It could take place
as early as this summer, be preceded by the production of evidence of Saddam's weapons programs, and base its
legitimacy under the UN on the argument that Saddam is in breach of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 1991
Gulf War. In this strategy, American troops would be hailed as liberators in Baghdad, and exiled Iraqi officers would
form a new govt.
Concerns over Iraq's use of chemical or biological weapons on Israel, the reaction in the Arab world, and lack of
international support would be dismissed as inevitable in any circumstance and so, it is argued, we might as well
get it over with. Mr Bush's natural decisiveness is supported by his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. She takes as a model the way she helped Mr Bush's father push
through German unification in the face of objections from both Margaret Thatcher & François Mitterrand. A
slower build-up, leading to an assault by 300,000 troops around the end of the year may be more likely, as it would
give a higher chance of military victory, but it runs the risk that Saddam or other international events will delay
things still further. In this scenario a cat & mouse game over UN weapons inspections would be allowed to run
on until after the US mid-term elections and until a massive force could be assembled.
All the current sabre-rattling is simply designed to intimidate Saddam into compliance. But a game of triple bluff is
also possible, in which Saddam is made to believe the current rhetoric is a bluff and then is attacked anyway.
US inter-service rivalries have also got in the way of the effective conduct of the war. At first USAF insisted on
using B-2 & B-1 bombers as well as the veteran B-52s, in order to justify their vast cost, but their defects soon
proved too obvious and the US fell back on the old and reliable B-52s. In recent weeks the ill-fated attack by U.S.
army at Gardez was the product of the desperate attempt by the army to get in on the action, previously dominated
by U.S. Marines. Up to Tora Bora, all the glory had gone to the USAF's carrier-based "top guns", special forces and
the marines. Fearing that it would lose out in the defence budget, army chiefs pushed for a mission. The result was
a laboriously planned attack by troops of the 10th Mountain & 101st Airborne Div. which was comprehensively
ambushed by the guerrillas. The ensuing row resulted in the urgent request for British help, one of our major assets
being that we are not part of the inter-service rivalries.
Communication has virtually broken down between U.S. top commanders.
Gen. Franks refuses to talk to or visit the Pentagon even to give press briefings. In a deliberate power play, Donald Rumsfeld walked out of a top White House meeting called by Ms Rice on options
for attacking Iraq after just 5 minutes, saying he was too busy to stay.
Such is the closed circle of US policy-making that whatever Tony Blair learns at the Crawford Ranch will be more
valuable than anything that MI6 could produce. I recall the honest query of one of Mr Rumsfeld's aides: "Why are
we getting all this support from Blair? Thatcher we could understand, but we know he's not one of us." Why
indeed? Mr Blair needs to return from the depths of Texas with an answer to convince his own party, his military top brass and the British people. If he does not, much more than just his premiership will be at stake.
Prince Charles against war On Iraq
A serious rift has opened up between Prince Charles & the govt because he is seen to be against a war on
Iraq and against Bush. Whitehall also believes the prince is sympathetic to the view of his Arab friends that war on
Saddam Hussein is a bid by the US to grab a stake in the Middle East's oil. Despite being colonel-in-chief to 17
regiments, Charles has shown little public support for the soldiers, airmen and sailors about to risk their lives in a
Gulf conflict. There are also worries that he makes no secret of his anti-American views in conversations with
members of Arab royal families and their leading officials.
A Whitehall source said: "Downing Street tries not to involve the prince in anything because they have concerns
over how he will react. He has this lunatic view he is the voice of the people." A diplomatic insider said: "It would be
very unhelpful if the prince were to indicate anything other than unswerving support for the govt."
Charles is rightly feted for his pioneering work creating understanding & tolerance between Islam & other faiths. He also holds many honorary military positions incl chief to the Welsh Guards, the Paras and the Gurkhas. He is Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy, Air Marshal in the RAF and Lt General in the Army.
The snub, directly from President Bush, came after security sources advised that Charles's presence in America
would be "very unhelpful". Washington diplomats were concerned the prince would show his disapproval during
meetings with President Bush. Charles, who reads the Koran every day & often adopts Islamic dress at home, spends long hours discussing MidEast problems with Saudi royal family members.
One of his closest friends is former Saudi ambassador Ghazi Algosaibi who wrote a poem in praise of the first
woman suicide bomber. Algosaibi said that the "doors of heaven are opened for her".
Charles is also close to King Abdullah of Jordan. His glamorous wife Queen Rania is a close friend of the prince's
partner, Camilla Parker Bowles and is a regular guest at St James's Palace. In private the prince talks about
"American imperialism" collapsing the whole of the MidEast. "Of course Saddam is an evil man, but American
imperialism will not solve the problem," he said in one discussion.
Charles's meeting 3 days ago with French President Jacques Chirac was fraught with diplomatic concerns.
Before the meeting the Foreign Office asked the Prince of Wales's staff if he would promise not to discuss Iraq.
They said yes, but Charles would feel free to give an opinion if Chirac raised Iraq first. Downing Street is
understood to have washed its hands of winning Charles's support. Saddam exchanged taunts with witnesses 12.31.06 Steven R. Hurst AP
Baghdad, Iraq Iraqis awoke Saturday to television images of a noose being slipped over Saddam Hussein's neck and his white-shrouded body, the pre-dawn work of black-hooded hangmen. They went to bed as new video emerged showing Saddam exchanging taunts with onlookers before the gallows floor dropped away and the former dictator swung from the rope.
In Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, victims of his three decades of autocratic rule took to the streets to celebrate, dancing, beating drums and hanging Saddam in effigy. Celebratory gunfire erupted across other Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and other predominantly Shiite regions of the country.
Outside the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital, loyalists marched with Saddam pictures and waved Iraqi flags. Defying curfews, hundreds took to the streets vowing revenge in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and gunmen paraded and fired into the air in support of Saddam in Tikrit, his hometown.
By several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was Iraq's savior, not its tyrant and scourge.
New video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party, who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam. Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they were not showing manhood.
"The tyrant has fallen," someone in the group of onlookers shouted. The video showed a close-up of Saddam's face as he swung from the rope. Then came another voice: "Let him swing for three minutes."
Some Arab govts denounced the timing the 69-year-old former president's hanging just before the start of the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Adha. Libya announced a three-day official mourning period and canceled all celebrations for Eid.
But some Iraqis, like 34-year-old Haider Hamed, a candy store owner in east Baghdad, wondered what would really change with the execution of Saddam, who was just four months shy of his 70th birthday.
The execution took place on the penultimate day of the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 109. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.
Um Abdullah, a Sunni and teacher in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, said she would wear black to mourn the city's favorite son.
Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew was imposed after about 500 went into the streets to protest the execution.
There were cheers at the cafeteria of a U.S. outpost in Baghdad as soldiers having breakfast learned Saddam had been hanged. But members of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, on patrol in an overwhelmingly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said the execution wouldn't get them home any faster, and therefore didn't make much difference.
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Saddam is itching to test another Bush Iraq resists the U.S. push for 'smart sanctions' 7.2.01 K.Whitelaw, M.Mazzetti US News & World Rpt
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein did not wait long to challenge the new Bush administration. Responding to an
American plan to create "smart sanctions," Iraq promptly turned off the spigot on the bulk of its oil exports.
Saddam's envoys are touring capitals in a campaign to intimidate countries into opposing the U.S. plan. Iraq's
military is on alert, while Baghdad is touting a reward for military personnel who shoot down U.S. or British jets
patrolling the no-fly zones. "We are approaching a new confrontation," Saddam warned his people earlier this
month. This time, Saddam clearly means business. He has spent the past several years chipping away at the
decade-old sanctions regime and is eager to destroy it. He has billions of dollars in the bank. And he has rarely
been so popular in the Arab world, with his support of the Palestinian intifada. Emboldened, Saddam is pledging to
withhold his oil until Washington backs down. The showdown begins this week when the UN holds a
public debate on the U.S. plan. "It's a game of chicken," says one U.S. govt analyst. "He is ready to stick it
out for the long term." Officials believe he can hold out through 2001.
Failing sanctions
Secretary of State Colin Powell's answer was "smart sanctions." The idea has strong intellectual appeal: Free up
more goods to reach Iraqi civilians, while tightening controls on weapons-related materials and restricting Iraq's
revenues from oil smuggling. But the reality is that new restrictions are likely unworkable. Tightening the embargo
depends on Iraq's neighbors, many of whom are heavily reliant on Iraqi trade and oil. Take Jordan, which is known
to be a busy corridor for smuggling into Iraq. The tiny nation receives its entire oil supply from Iraq at heavily
discounted rates. An additional $450 million in exports to Iraq is a crucial stimulus for its weak economy. If Jordan
clamps down on its border monitoring, Saddam has explicitly threatened to cut off the cheap oil and buy goods
elsewhere. Going along with the U.S. plan "would be suicidal," says a Jordanian official.
Where he could score politically would be in shooting down a U.S. fighter jet patrolling the no-fly zone. U.S. military
officials have seen a marked increase in the accuracy of Iraqi air defenses in recent months. U.S. News has
learned that the White House is concerned that the no-fly operation is not having much effect on Saddam's
behavior. As part of a broader review, officials are looking for new targets they could hit to inflict more pain on the
regime. The most controversial part of U.S. policy remains its commitment to effecting a change of regime. U.S.
officials are sending an additional $6 million to the Iraqi National Congress, mostly to create a radio station to
broadcast to Iraq. But in a conclusion many Western govts share, Israeli security sources dismiss Iraqi opposition groups as corrupt and ineffective, finding Saddam's grip as firm as ever.
A tyrant 40 years in the making
On the brink of war, both supporters & critics of U.S. policy on Iraq agree on the origins, at least, of the haunted relations that have brought us to this pass. America's dealings with Saddam Hussein, justifiable or not, began 2 decades ago with its shadowy, expedient support of his regime in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980's.
The Iraqi leader seen as a grave threat in 1963 was Abdel Karim Kassem, a general who 5 years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. Washington's role in the coup went unreported at the time and has been little noted since.
From 1958 to 1960, despite Kassem's harsh repression, the Eisenhower administration abided him as a counter to Washington's Arab nemesis of the era, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, much as Ronald Reagan & George H. W. Bush would aid Saddam Hussein in the 1980's against the common foe of Iran.
In 1963 Britain & Israel backed American intervention in Iraq, while other U.S. allies, chiefly France & Germany, resisted. But without significant opposition within the govt, Kennedy, like President Bush today, pressed on.
Then, on 2.8.63, the conspirators staged a coup in Baghdad. For a time the govt held out, but eventually Kassem gave up, and after a swift trial was shot; his body was later shown on Baghdad television.
According to Western scholars, as well as Iraqi refugees and a British human rights organization, the 1963 coup was accompanied by a bloodbath. Using lists of suspected Communists and other leftists provided by the C.I.A., the Baathists systematically murdered untold numbers of Iraq's educated elite, killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to have participated.
The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the U.S. had backed against Kassem and then abandoned.
Again, this coup, amid more factional violence, came with C.I.A. backing. Serving on the staff of the National Security Council under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the late 1960's, I often heard C.I.A. officers including Archibald Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and a ranking C.I.A. official for the Near East and Africa at the time, speak openly about their close relations with the Iraqi Baathists.
The Kassem episode raises questions about the war at hand. In the last half century, regime change in Iraq has been accompanied by bloody reprisals. How fierce, then, may be the resistance of hundreds of officers, scientists and others identified with Saddam Hussein's long rule? Why should they believe America and its latest Iraqi clients will act more wisely, or less vengefully, now than in the past?
Condoleezza war cry
GWBush's National Security Adviser yesterday admitted the President is pushing ahead with plans to topple
Saddam Hussein. Condoleezza Rice said there was a strong moral case for a change of regime in Iraq and the
West did not have "the luxury of doing nothing". Leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia are
reported to have received blunt letters from the US president warning them: "There will be no turning back from the military option.'' The nearly identical notes give notice of America's intent to oust Saddam and tell them to prepare public opinion. They are also said to disclose that the US is sending soldiers and military equipt to the region. Dr Rice's comments contradict claims by ministers here that war against Saddam is not inevitable.
She said: "He is is an evil man who, left to his own devices, will wreak havoc again on his own population, his
neighbours and, if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them, all of us, is a very powerful moral case for regime change." She added: "History is littered with cases of inaction that led to have grave consequences for the world. We just have to look back and ask how many dictators who ended up being a
tremendous global threat and killing thousands and, indeed, millions of people, should we have stopped in their
tracks. That is really the question." She claimed President Bush had not yet decided how to remove Saddam.
But she added, in a BBC radio interview: "We believe the case for regime change is very powerful.
Her hardline will cause problems for Tony Blair, already battling MPs opposed to a military attack. Labour MP
Gerald Kaufman said: "Bush, himself the most intellectually backward American president of my political lifetime, is surrounded by advisers whose bellicosity is exceeded only by their political, military and diplomatic illiteracy."
Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: "There will be no world order if the most powerful
states are entitled to remove other govts at will."
Saddam to be hanged by Sunday
Ex-dictator’s execution expected to be carried out by start of Eid holiday
12.28.06 Richard Engel NBC News
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, sentenced to death for his role in 148 killings in 1982, will have his sentence carried out by Sunday, NBC News reported Thursday. According to a U.S. military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, Saddam will be hanged before the start of the Eid religious holiday, which begins this Sunday. The hanging could take place as early as Friday, NBC’s Richard Engel reported.
Earlier Thursday, Saddam’s chief lawyer implored world leaders to prevent the United States from handing over the ousted leader to Iraqi authorities for execution, saying the former dictator should enjoy protection from his enemies as a “prisoner of war.”
Saddam met with two of his half-brothers on Thursday and passed on personal messages to his family, a lawyer said. Badie Aref, one of Saddam's lawyers, said the rare meeting with maternal half-brothers Sabawi and Watban Ibrahim Hassanal-Tikriti, who are in U.S. custody, was at the request of the ousted Iraqi leader and took place inside his heavily guarded prison cell in Baghdad.
Aref said prison sources who told him of the family meeting said Saddam was aware of an appeals court decision to uphold his death sentence for crimes against humanity during his 24-year rule.
An official close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said that Saddam would remain in a U.S. military prison until he is handed over to Iraqi authorities on the day of his execution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media.
Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI’s top prelate for justice issues and a former Vatican envoy to the U.N., condemned the death sentence in a newspaper interview published Thursday, saying capital punishment goes against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. |
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Iraqi arms dossier seen as rehashing old data Concerns grow that dossier is mostly previously discredited reports 12.12.02 Bob Drogin L.A. Times
Wash.D.C. The CIA delivered an initial assessment of Iraq's declaration of banned
weapons programs to the White House on Wednesday amid growing concerns that the bulk of the 12,000
page dossier consists of previously discredited Iraqi reports.
Thousands more pages that Iraq submitted over the weekend on its biological & chemical weapons programs
also appear to be copies of reports that U.N. weapons inspectors repeatedly rejected as inadequate &
incomplete between 1995 & 1998, officials said.
U.S. analysts are esp. looking to see whether Iraq has adequately answered scores of questions left unresolved
during the U.N. inspections that ended in 1998, and whether it can explain a body of intelligence since 1998
suggesting that Baghdad has rebuilt at least some of its proscribed weapons programs.
White House softened its rhetoric on Iraq this week as the review got underway. But a determination that President
Saddam Hussein's regime failed to provide an accurate & complete account of its proscribed weapons
programs, as mandated by 11.8.02 resolution by U.N. Security Council, almost certainly would rekindle Bush
administration efforts to disarm Baghdad by force
Pressure is growing on CIA to complete assessment. Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said Tuesday he
planned to complete analysis by Friday and give censored version of raw document to full Security
Council as early as Monday. Details are expected to quickly leak at that point.
CIA is still studying the trove of documents and CD-ROMs with teams of weapons specialists & other experts
from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, State Dept's Intelligence & Research division, Energy
Dept's Office of Intelligence, and a group of nuclear scientists & technicians from the Los Alamos National
Laboratory NM, among others.
Gaps in Iraq's previous declarations of its biological & chemical weapons program are of special concern,
officials said. And Iraq has a history of using fresh packaging for old reports. Summary of the previous U.N.
inspection effort in Iraq issued Jan. 1999 notes Baghdad denied even having a biological weapons program until
1995, for example, and that it used "fraudulent statements, forged documents, misrepresentation of the roles of
people and facilities and other specific acts" to perpetuate the deception.
Iraq then appealed for a review and met a team of U.N. experts in Vienna in March 1998. "Iraq did not present any
new information at that meeting and the experts therefore reviewed the same material for the third time," the report
notes. The inspectors particularly cited conflicting or insufficient credible details on the production & location
not only of such bulk biological warfare agents as anthrax, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin and wheat smut, but also of
warheads designed to deliver them.
Officials are also looking to see whether Iraq can explain its apparent attempts to procure & import uranium
and specialized parts for nuclear weapons development since 1998. One official said Iraqi officials have privately
acknowledged making 5 covert attempts since 1998 to obtain highly specialized aluminum tubes from overseas
sources. The Iraqis said the tubes were intended for conventional artillery rockets.
Iraq's nuclear weapons program was essentially destroyed or dismantled by the time weapons inspectors left in
1998, according to Intl Atomic Energy Agency. But U.S. & British intelligence reported in Oct. 2002 that
Hussein's regime secretly continued and even accelerated its effort to build a nuclear bomb since then.
Listings of production & other weapons sites in the Iraqi dossier are proving useful to U.N. inspectors. Newly
reinforced teams of inspectors visited 6 suspect sites Wednesday, the most in a day since inspections began 2
weeks ago. One group visited the Karama factory in Baghdad for missile & tank parts. The factory was built in
1999 and is part of Iraq's Military Industrialization Commission, but Iraqi officials insisted that nothing illegal was
being done there.
Inspectors' spokesman Hiro Ueki said in a statement that Iraq incl the site in a declaration it submitted 10.1.02 in
Vienna. That declaration focused on factories & facilities that used so-called dual-use materials or parts that
might have military applications.
2.4.02 CNN |
Iran rockets hit Baghdad, wreck houses, wound 1 9.17.00 Reuters
Iraq: 311 killed in US, UK raids since 1998
Between the attack Dec.r 1998 & the present, total of 18,607 sorties by raiding US & British
warplanes in south Iraq killed 311 citizens & wounded 927.
Turkey admits Iraqi air raid, probes casualty claims ANKARA Turkey admitted Friday that it launched an operation against Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and said it was investigating claims by Iraqi factions in the area that civilians were killed in the strike. "Turkey carries out operations in northern Iraq from time to time as part of the combat against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)," Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said. Dirioz said such military operations started only after measures were taken to prevent any harm to civilians in the Kurdish-held enclave. "In a similar operation Aug.15, necessary measures were taken once again to ensure civilian population would not be harmed," Dirioz said.
7.4.01 AP
After a day of wrangling over a reference to the U.S.-British plan in the resolution, which Russia opposed, the
council voted unanimously Tuesday night on 5 month extension of the oil-for-food program. The vote came
less than 6 hours before the current phase of the program was set to expire. To protest the proposed sanctions
overhaul, Iraq halted its oil exports June 4. Even before the council vote Tuesday, the Iraqi military's Al-Qadissya
newspaper called the extension "a victory for Iraq's rights.'' But Iraqi U.N. Amb. Mohammed al-Douri declined to
say Tuesday night whether Baghdad will reopen its oil taps. He said the new resolution's mention of an
earlier resolution that referred to the U.S.-British plan, "is not acceptable in principle.''
He said London & Washington will use coming months to press ahead with their plan and try to sway
Russia. "We have made considerable progress and come too close to agreement to concede the field to Baghdad,''
Cunningham said. "We've won a lot of the battles in this process. We haven't yet won the war. But we're going to
continue to go forward.'' Russia isn't giving up, either. Lavrov said Moscow's rival resolution to hasten end to
Iraqi sanctions remains on the council table. The Russian resolution would suspend sanctions on civilian goods
once U.N. weapons inspectors certify that a long-term program to monitor Iraq's weapons programs is fully
deployed. Under council resolutions, sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify Iraq dismantled weapons of mass destruction & long-range missiles. Weapons inspectors left Iraq ahead of U.S.-British airstrikes in Dec. 1998 and Baghdad has barred their return. Iraqi govt maintains it eliminated its weapons programs and has demanded immediate lifting of sanctions. Britain's U.N. Amb. Jeremy Greenstock said "there might be more credibility'' to Russia's approach if Moscow could persuade the Iraqi govt to accept U.N. inspectors. In the meantime, he said, it was "illogical'' to block humanitarian improvements for the Iraqi people.
7.5.01 Reuters
9.23.00 Howard Schneider Dawn LATimes - Wash.Post NewsService
Several countries, incl Russia, France, China & Malaysia, believed to want to delay the payout Kuwait's oil
company, which would represent largest award to a corporation since fund's inception. So far, the fund has paid out
more than $8 billion. Iraq highly critical of compensation commission, accusing it of unfair practices and asserting
that most claims, currently 2.6 million claims for a total of $320 billion, have no legal grounds. Some diplomats
& analysts suggested Iraq's accusation last week that Kuwait was stealing its oil designed to put pressure on
the commission to defer a decision on the Kuwait Petroleum Corp. claim. |
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UN to delay plan to revamp sanctions against Iraq 7.2.01 Reuters
UN U.N. Security Council members reached broad agreement Monday to drop for 5 or 6 months
revamp of sanctions against Iraq and extend current oil-for-food program without changes, diplomats said..
China's U.N. Amb. Wang Yingfan told reporters "extension was agreeable for every council member
but whether it is 5 or 6 months, we will have to consult with other council members." China holds this month's
Security Council's presidency. Russia objected to U.S.-British resolution that would ease sanctions on civilian
goods but spell out "dual use" supplies that could be utilized for military & civilian purposes. It would also seek
to stop smuggling of goods by Iraq, est. at $1 billion a year. Overhaul of sanctions procedures were to
be put in the context of the U.N.-humanitarian oil-for-food program, which expires on Tuesday. U.S. said it had to consult Washington before any final decision, which diplomats said concerned length of the delay. "The British have proposed it; I have to consult Washington about it. We have not made a decision," U.S. rep. James Cunningham told reporters. |
"Eisenberg set up Soros to launder for bin Laden." Also critical figure in PERMINDEX, JFK cover-up management firm ¹ º "Iraqi diesel is practically stolen from the people of Iraq; Hussein gets almost nothing. U.S. buys it in the oil for food deal at $5-6 per barrel. Diesel & guns are exchanged for opium that comes through from China. Iran is also a part of this exchange. The original network was set up by Meyer Lansky & Aristotle Onasis. |
This week team of intl oil experts working on behalf of UN secretary general completed a survey of Iraq's oil
industry suffering the effects of nine years of UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Deficiencies in
the process that allows Iraq to import limited quantities of oilfield equipt & services, to sustain a creaking
industry whose exports are needed to finance the multi-billion-dollar UN humanitarian aid programme, were high on
their list of priorities. Oil ministry officials in Baghdad say the UN team was generally sympathetic to the plight of
Iraq's oil industry, but there is deep scepticism about whether even a glowing report from the experts will ease the
situation.
Baghdad claims U.S. & U.K. deliberately undermined provisions in the process. Non-oil
contracts, covering such areas as power generation and water purification equipt, have also
fallen victim to concerns, again mainly from the US and UK, over their potential "dual use". Rarely in the history
of sanctions has the international community been faced with devising a system that sustains and improves
strategic civilian industries while ensuring that a still extensive military machine does not become an unintended
beneficiary.
Iraqi officials are especially critical of US and British representatives on the Security Council's so-called
"661 Committee", which controls the flow to Iraq of foreign-made spare parts and equipt under the UN
oil-for-food programme. "Out of 377 contracts put on hold by the 661 Committee, 343 are on hold because of
objections from the US representative," according to a senior ministry official. A further 28 are on hold because of
objections by both the US and UK, and four because of British objections only. Representatives from the other
Security Council members have asked that only a total of two contracts be put on hold.
|
Halliburton gets Iraq firefighting
nod
Halliburton subcontractors Boots & Coots Intl Well Control Inc. & Wild Well Control Inc., both also from
Houston, will handle the firefighting chores. However, unease around the oil fields in the far southeastern corner of
Iraq have delayed the beginning of work the last 2 days, officials said.
Analysts believe the wells may need significant work even if they aren't sabotaged. Daily production has slid from
3.5 million barrels per day in 1979 to about 2 million barrels per day, partly due to United Nations sanctions that
banned import of equipt. Iraq's proven oil reserves are second only to those of Saudi Arabia. |
Asylum Trail first step
¹ Back door entry lures Iraqis on a 2,500-mile voyage 2.1.03 Daniel McGrory Times
Sarajevo At the entrance to a scruffy hotel across from Sarajevo's main bus station, a huddle of
young men are careful to cover their faces with scarves as they congregate around a payphone, waiting their turn
to make a call home.
This group, thought to be Iraqi asylum-seekers, checked in together at the Sinovi Drine hotel 3 days ago, saying
they had come for the skiing. None had any sports equipt and the farthest they have moved is to a coffee shop in
the old quarter of the city which is known to shelter immigrants in an upstairs dormitory.
A search of the records of half a dozen rooming houses in the city shows how easy it is for this people-
trafficking racket to operate. Young men aged 20 to early 30s turn up in groups of no more than 4 or 5,
often carrying Turkish identity documents because Turks do not need a visa to enter Bosnia. The frustration of Bosnia's fledgeling investigation force with the activities of the people-smugglers is obvious. Sarajevo's immigration police head Edin Vranj admits: "We urgently need new immigration laws as the traffickers are making fools of us with our stupid rules." At present, Bosnia does not recognise the idea of "illegal entry". |
Detectives suspect that staff working for the local airline, travel agents and taxi firms are all involved in
providing package tours for asylum-seekers. On a recent flight from Istanbul, aircrew were seen counting
out fistfuls of cash. British police have helped in the crackdown at Sarajevo airport, which used to be
described as "Europe's back door". Even a year ago, of the 24,000 holidaymakers who turned up,
barely 1,000 ever went home.
As security makes it harder for the traffickers, so they charge more for their services. The cost can be as much as
£12,000 for anyone wanting to reach Britain. Newly formed State Border Service Inspector Ismail Saric estimates
more than 85% of illegal immigrants, 400,000 people, are smuggled through Kosovo by Mafia-style gangs
under the indifferent gaze of intl peacekeepers there.
A legacy of allegiances formed during the ruinous civil wars in the former Yugoslavia are hindering efforts
to curb illegal immigration. As a reward for Iraq's steadfast support for Slobodan Milosevic, its citizens do
not need visas to enter Serbia. From there, traffickers use any number of meandering routes into Bosnia
by river or road along the porous eastern border between Bijeljina & Visegrad.
After a recent operation near Visegrad, involving British police, to seal off a smuggling route, investigators found
that within 24 hours traffickers had bulldozed another track through forest to reach the Drina River. To give an idea
of the scale of this policing operation, Mr Saric runs his finger along a map of Bosnia's borders and says: "We
have 392 border crossing points and 1,600km (1,000 miles) of border, so we can't seal it all."
He is aware that Iraqi asylum-seekers have been using Turkish identity documents because Turks do not
need a visa to enter Bosnia. In recent months his force has uncovered 15,000 fake Turkish identity
documents, incl passports, and says: "I don't doubt some of those will have been used again by
immigrants to get into Europe some other way."
Nowadays, he says, traffickers are using "genuine" documents, stolen in Turkey, and faking the appearance of
some of the asylum-seekers to pass a cursory border inspection. British undercover officers in the Balkans are still
being told to concentrate their efforts on tracking Islamic extremists and have not got the manpower to investigate
the possible Iraqi menace.
Mr Saric says that if there is a mass exodus of Iraqis after the outbreak of a war, then his officers will not be able to cope. He gives warning that the UN & overseas countries must be ready to step in to deal with the approaching problem. During the 1991 Gulf War, more than 2.7 million people fled Iraq's borders. Greek authorities are watching a group of 100,000 already massing near Turkish ports.
|
3.28.01 UNIKOM SecGen rpt DMZ developments. Also reports on organizational matters & financial aspects of UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM). Incl observations &. 3.01 UNIKOM deployment map
9.24.00 Colum Lynch Wash.Post pA22
designer destabilization by the West
Child malnutrition in iraq 'unacceptably high' as drought, lack of Investment aggravate food and nutrition
situation While highlighting the UN's latest efforts to improve the effectiveness of the Oil-for-Food pgm, the report recommends speeding up the process for approving Oil-for-Food contracts and ensuring the timely delivery of humanitarian imports, incl food & medicine. The report also recommends more inputs for the rehabilitation of agriculture, particularly seeds and materials for water conservation & irrigation management.
2.8.00 BBC Online
"How long the civilian population, which is totally innocent on all this, should be exposed to such
punishment for something that they have never done?" Hans von Sponeck U.N. Security Council Resolution 986 authorizes sale of $5.2 billion (U.S.) worth of Iraq oil for each 6 month period. Every oil contract must be approved by the sanctions committee.
|
White House: "Saddam has missed 'last chance'" Officials say declaration falls short, but war not imminent 12.18.02 CNN
… The president's national security team recommended U.S. declare Iraq violated U.N. Security Council
resolution 1441 by failing to fully account for its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
"They [the Iraqis] have failed the test, and we will make it plain that they have done so," said a senior official
familiar with the process.
U.S. will deliver its verdict on the declaration after U.N. weapons inspectors present their analysis to the U.N.
Security Council Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "We will make statements after they have
presented to the Security Council, and then work with our partners on the Security Council to determine the way to
move forward," Powell said. U.S. will continue to work "within the U.N. process," he said.
Powell said a case could be made that Iraq is in "material breach" of the resolution. "Our analysis of the Iraqi
declaration to this point, almost 2 weeks into the process this weekend, shows problems with the declaration, gaps,
omissions. And all of this is troublesome," Powell said after the talks. "In my conversations with other permanent
members of the Security Council, I sense they also see deficiencies in the declaration."
U.S. officials said they believe Iraq has failed to account for mustard gas shells and other chemical &
biological weapons known to be in its stockpile, and has provided little or no information about developments the
U.S. says have occurred in its nuclear weapons program over the past decade.
Officials said administration's strategy was also designed to give weapons inspectors more time, and U.S. will
argue that deficiencies in Iraq's declaration should result in more aggressive inspections incl use of a provision
allowing inspectors to take Iraqi scientists out of the country for interviews.
US will lose war, says former UN inspector
Lisbon U.S. does not have the military means to take over Baghdad and will lose the war against
Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said. "U.S. is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs,
defeated. It is a war we can not win," he told private radio TSF in an interview broadcast here Tuesday evening.
"We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of U.S. in this war
is inevitable," he said.
"Every time we confront Iraqi troops we may win some tactical battles, as we did for 10 years in Vietnam but we will
not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost," Ritter added. Stiffening Iraqi resistance as US-led
forces close in on Baghdad have prompted questions about the strategy to use precision air power and a smaller,
fast moving ground force to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Some military analysts have said there are not enough allied troops in Iraq to take control of Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein's elite troops are said to be concentrated, and that the planning of the war was overly optimistic. |
British PM Blair told parliament Wednesday U.S. & Britain believe they have "sufficient forces" in Iraq &
London was not planning to send reinforcements to the country at this stage. A combination of bad weather &
heavy fighting in central Iraq has slowed the advance of coalition troops marching on Baghdad.
Ritter resigned Aug. 1998 after accusing both Wash.D.C. & the UN of not doing enough to support the
weapons inspectors. Since leaving the UN weapons inspectors team he has become an outspoken critic of US
policies towards Iraq.
House
Bush to sign congressional resolution on Iraq
10.15.02 Reuters
Wash.D.C. President Bush on Wednesday will hold an event to formally sign the congressional
resolution authorizing U.S. use of force against Iraq if needed. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate
last week voted overwhelmingly to give Bush the authorization he sought to wage war if necessary to disarm Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein of his suspected weapons of mass destruction.
Bush is due to formally sign the joint resolution on Wednesday in a White House East Room ceremony.
"Tomorrow the president will sign a resolution showing that America speaks with one voice. He hopes that it will
send a signal to the world and to Saddam Hussein that it's time for Saddam Hussein to disarm," said Wh.House
spokesman Fleischer.
Al-Khoei was among the prominent returned exiles. His father, Ayatollah Abul-Qassim al-Khoei, was the revered
Shiite spiritual leader at the time of the 1991 Shiite uprising crushed by Saddam. He died in 1993, 2 years after he
was forced to meet Saddam to prove his loyalty.
Al-Khoei fled Iraq after the uprising, and started a philanthropic group in London. Arriving in Najaf 4.3.03, he said
local clerics were attempting to negotiate a deal in which Iraqi loyalists who were barricaded in the mosque would
leave in return for safe passage out of the city.
A tearful Ghanem Jawad at the Khoei foundation in London confirmed that al-Khoei had been attacked, but didn't
know if he'd been killed. He accused a group of "followers of the regime" of attacking the 2 men. British PM Tony
Blair said he was "saddened & appalled" by news of al-Khoei's death. "He was a religious leader who
embodied hope & reconciliation and who was committed to building a better future for the people of Iraq," he
said in London.
Najaf is the third-holiest city for the world's nearly 120 million Shiites behind Mecca & Medina in Saudi Arabia.
Ali Mosque holds the tomb of the Shiites' most beloved saint, Imam Ali Ibn Abu Talib, Prophet Muhammad's cousin
& son-in-law.
Najaf, whose name in Arabic means "a high land," is located about 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad on a
high desert plateau overlooking the world's largest cemetery, where Shiites aspire to bury their dead.
Najaf also is a center for scientific, literary and theological studies for the Islamic world.
Get the old gang back 4.24.03 Arianna Huffington L.A. Times … Halliburton & former CEO Cheney. But Bechtel connections are really byzantine, starting with Geo. Shultz, former Bechtel president, former Reagan Sec.State and now both Bechtel board member and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq chair. Bechtel sr vp Jack Sheehan, member of Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board. Chair & CEO Riley Bechtel, who in Feb. 2003 was appointed by Bush to President's Export Council.
Access, influence and positions of ostensible public service (for) … most precious commodity of all:
experience. In the 1980s, the co. wanted to build a pipeline to carry oil from Iraq to the Jordanian port of Aqaba,
project ardently supported by the Reagan administration, which included Shultz & fellow Bechtel alumnus,
Sec.Defense Weinberger.
Though not on Bechtel payroll, one working hardest to convince Iraqis was Don Rumsfeld as Reagan's special
MidEast envoy in 1983. Rumsfeld met with Hussein to try to convince him to sign on to Bechtel's pipe dream.
U.S. Agency for Intl Development admin. Andrew Natsios, agency responsible for handing lucrative Iraqi rebuilding
contract to Bechtel, used to be in charge of overseeing Boston's "Big Dig," massive highway project managed by
Bechtel that went from a projected cost of $4.5 billion to an actual cost of $14 billion. |
Who sold what to Iraq? U.S. aims to hunt down companies that supplied Saddam 3.30.03 Nelson D. Schwartz Fortune
When the first wave of American soldiers swept out of the desert north toward Baghdad, Iraqis weren't the only
ones who experienced shock & awe. In the thick of battle, U.S. commanders discovered that the Iraqi army
was able to jam the global-positioning systems the military uses to pinpoint everything from cruise missile
attacks to the location of troops on the ground. "It was a technological preemptive strike," says a sr military
source.
That's because in addition to searching for weapons of mass destruction, U.S. forces are scouring Iraq for
evidence of who sold what to Saddam. Military sources have told FORTUNE that special teams are already on
the ground, sifting through files to determine where Iraq got everything from rocket parts to fiber-optic technology.
Despite both U.S. laws & UN sanctions that prohibited all but a handful of commercial dealings with Baghdad,
there have been persistent reports that companies from Russia, France, and China, among others, were breaking
the embargo.
Probing the byzantine web of deals that kept technology flowing to Iraq is a complex job. It's likely to involve teams
from the Treasury, State, and Commerce depts, as well as the Pentagon & CIA. For now the main task is
locating the forbidden goods and their paper trail. Sources say units made up of both military personnel and
representatives of the CIA & other agencies have been trained to operate in volatile areas inside Iraq, taking
inventory of contraband items and poring over records. |
If it turns out that companies intentionally evaded the ban, govt officials say they are loaded for bear. "We won't
tolerate the breaking of the embargo," says Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control dir. Richard Newcomb. "If
there's a knowing violation, we would prosecute to the full extent of the law." In 2001, the Commerce Dept hit
McDonnell Douglas, unit of Boeing, with a $2.12 million fine for improperly selling machine tools to China. Fines for
dealing with Iraq are likely to be larger.
If evidence turns up that a particular firm knowingly sold items like night-vision goggles or gas masks to Iraq,
federal agencies might impose what they call the "death penalty", total ban on all exports by the guilty firm. Criminal
charges for executives are also a distinct possibility.
It's going to take time to determine just who did business with Iraq. But the military, for one, seems eager to shine a light in some otherwise dark corners. "We will have everything at our disposal," says Army's V Corps officer Maj. Max Blumenfeld in Kuwait. Documenting Iraq's deals, he says, "will justify this operation and show the world what we've been saying all along about Saddam Hussein and his efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction."
3.24.03 CNN
Wash.D.C. U.S. on Monday continued to pressure Moscow to rein in 2 Russian companies it
accuses of supplying military equipt to Hussein. … Wash.Post identified 2 of the companies as
Aviaconversiya, which allegedly supplied jamming equipt, and KBP Tula, an optics co. Aviaconversiya, according to
the co. Web site, produces jamming equipt which can suppress radio signals from global positioning systems.
The heads of 2 accused Russian companies have denied any involvement and at a Pentagon briefing Monday Maj
Gen. Stanley McChrystal said that the equipt hadn't had an impact on coalition forces in Iraq. Sec.State Powell
… Powell said he had called Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov earlier in the day and was told the Russian
could find no evidence that such sales were occurring. |
Bush accuses Russian firms of aiding Iraq 3.24.03 Ron Fournier AP
Wash.D.C. Russia is putting American troops at risk by selling antitank guided missiles, jamming
devices and night-vision goggles to Iraq, the administration said Monday as President Bush called Vladimir Putin to
express U.S. complaints. Bush raised his objections in a tense telephone call with Putin, who in turn charged that
U.S. was creating "a humanitarian catastrophe'' in Iraq.
After months of monitoring sales to Iraq, U.S. received information in the past 48 hours about "the kind of equipt
that will put our men & women in harm's way,'' Sec.State Powell said Monday on Fox News. Later, he told
Britain's Sky News that he hoped to convey fresh information to Moscow. Asked if he is certain the equipt was in
Iraq, Powell replied, "Yes.'' U.S. officials declined to disclose how the Russian technology was transported to Iraq, but they said Iraq has its ways of importing items.In particular, U.S. officials alleged Russian technicians were in Iraq during the last few weeks to provide technical support for the GPS jammers. The technicians were from a Russian private co., not the govt. |
Russia demands seized tanker's immediate release
2.3.00 CNN
Moscow Russia on Thursday demanded immediate release of a tanker seized in the Persian
Gulf by the U.S. Navy on suspicion of violating the U.N.-imposed oil embargo on Iraq. "The Russian side resolutely
insists the tanker is immediately released," Interfax news agency quoted Russian deputy Foreign Minister Vasily
Seredin as saying. Russia "expressed puzzlement" to U.S. & United Arab Emirates over the incident, Seredin
said.
Sailors from the cruiser USS Monterey boarded the Russian ship Volgonef Wednesday without resistance from its
captain or crew, a sr U.S. official told CNN. The deputy minister, echoing earlier remarks by Transport Minister
Sergei Frank, said the tanker was carrying Iranian fuel oil. "The vessel never entered Iraqi territorial waters or Iraqi
ports," he said.
|
Of course, it would be absurd to claim that Gaullist France had deliberately armed Iraq, much less provided it
with weapons of mass destruction. France was simply advancing its national interests. Once the Iraqis promised
not to build nuclear weapons, it wasn't up to Paris to determine whether or not they were secretly taking steps to
turn the Osirak civilian nuclear reactor into a military facility. Earlier French govts had not been fussy about how the Israelis were using their French-built reactor at Dimona, in the Negev desert. The same Gaullist or post-Gaullist govts that negotiated with Saddam Hussein's Iraq were engaged in parallel talks & accords, even over nuclear facilities, with the shah's Iran, Iraq's rival for hegemony in the Persian Gulf. As for Chirac himself, he was not responsible for the most consequential step taken by France regarding Iraq in nuclear matters: the decision to provide Iraq enriched plutonium. That decision was made by his successor as prime minister, Raymond Barre. |
Baghdad Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle
Columbia & its 7 member crew incl the first Israeli in space was that its
was God's retribution on Americans."We are happy that it broke up," govt employee Abdul Jabbar al-
Quraishi said. "God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our
country. God is avenging us." Car mechanic Mohammed Jaber al-Tamini noted Israeli air force Col. Ilan Ramon was among the dead when the shuttle broke up shortly before its return to earth. "Israel launched an aggression on us when it raided our nuclear reactor without any reason (in 1981), now time has come and God has retaliated to their aggression," Tamini said. |
The French, who had just elected a Socialist president, François Mitterrand, for the first time in 27 years,
wondered whether they should continue the relationship with Iraq. One reason not to was that Saddam was an
unreliable customer. Most French companies involved with Iraq were actually getting paid by Coface, French
govt agency that backs export contracts.
Still, there was the prospect that Iraq might win the war with Iran and, with its enormous oil resources, become
the dominant Mideast power. Moreover, solidarity with Baghdad, cemented by the high-profile cooperation
& commercial contracts of the 1970s, had become quite popular with the French public. Gaullists saw it as
part of France's sacrosanct "Arab policy," a legacy from the general, as well as a personal achievement of
Chirac.
The Communists, still a significant political force in the 1980s, were supportive of the generally pro-Soviet Iraqi
regime. The anti-American left, a rising force within the Socialist party, saw Saddam as an "anti-imperialist
leader" and even as a "secularist bulwark" against Shiite fundamentalism. The Catholic church had contacts of
its own with Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's Christian foreign minister. Anti-Semites & anti-Zionists of all
stripes, incl latter-day Vichy loyalists, were enthusiastic, too.
Mitterrand eventually agreed to resume and even upgrade French cooperation with Iraq, both supplying weapons
and entering into industrial partnerships. By 1989, when Saddam Hussein finally defeated Khomeini,
about $10 billion worth of French arms had been delivered to Iraq, of which less than $5 billion had been paid for.
And Iraq-related orders accounted for about half of all French arms production.
Saddam's invasion of Kuwait a year later only rekindled the debate. Was Iraq to be fought or supported? A
significant part of French opinion, from the hard left to the far right, stood by Iraq. Its champion, the Socialist
defense minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, resigned from the cabinet rather than condone military intervention.
An even larger share of the public was inclined to neutrality. Mitterrand, however, joined the American-led intl
coalition for the liberation of Kuwait (not without engaging in last-minute negotiations with Baghdad), as well as
the smaller coalition that later forced Iraqi air forces out of Kurdistan & southern Iraq. He did this out of
sheer realpolitik. It was obvious to him that Iraq was no match for U.S. and that the old Gaullist strategy made no
sense now that the Cold War was over and the Soviet Union was disintegrating. It no longer served the national
interest of France to challenge America, but to be among the winners and so have a say in the final settlement,
whatever it might be.
Nearly a dozen years later, little has changed in this regard. For all its anti-American rhetoric, France actively
supported U.S. military endeavors all around the globe throughout the 1990s, be it in Bosnia, in Kosovo, or in
Afghanistan. The rationale is still to be seen as a peer of the one & only superpower, and incidentally to
keep in touch with the superpower's ever-improving military technology & training.
Regarding Iraq, France now confronts an ironic situation: Iraq was crushed in 1991, as Mitterrand foresaw it
would be, but GHWBush then Bill Clinton allowed Saddam to survive. The only sensible response for the French
was to keep their distance.
Now new American president GWBush, seems serious about getting rid of the Baathist dictatorship, things may
change again. France, too, has a new president, the very Jacques Chirac who helped Pompidou & Giscard
cement the Iraqi-French relationship in the 1970s.
French public opinion is arguably more pro-Iraq or neutralist than ever, if only because of France's growing
Islamic population. But Chirac's own position is more subtle. In recent months, he has repeatedly expressed
concern about a "preventive war" against Iraq not "authorized" by UN or the world community. Still, unlike the
neutralist German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, he has not ruled out war as such. That would be to step onto
the sidelines, and France must be a great power at any cost.
As of the spring of 2000, the US-led sanctions remain in place. But changes are undeniably afoot.
The passage of Security Council resolution 1284 provides a useful indication: it did not
qualitatively change the devastating impact of the existing economic sanctions (that failure led von
Sponeck to resign shortly after its passage). It tinkers with the sanctions regime, creates a new
arms monitoring agency and considers, more than a year down the line, the possibility that some
economic restrictions might be temporarily suspended. But economic sanctions remain the default
position, unless the Council, including the US, affirmatively votes to keep them suspended after
each four-month period. Under such restrictions, no oil company worth its stockholders is likely to
risk large-scale investment in Iraq, however much they may covet Iraq's oil wealth. Without such
investment, repair and reconstruction of the oil industry itself will remain impossible, and Iraq's
poverty will only deepen.
Even with those limitations, it is certain that 1284 could not have passed US muster as recently as
two years ago. Ironically, it has long been clear that the sanctions policy holds no strategic value.
Until the last few months, there was no political constituency (except the Kuwaiti royal family)
demanding that economic sanctions remain in place. The refusal even to consider lifting sanctions
reflected craven political concerns: the US couldn't appear "soft on Saddam Hussein."
In early spring 2000, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) suddenly seized the
pro-sanctions mantle. Until that time AIPAC had largely avoided the fray, deeming Iran a far more
serious potential threat to Israel than Baghdad's degraded military. In February 2000, after a
congressional letter had called on President Clinton to lift the economic sanctions, AIPAC, by
some reports at the urging of the White House, began a campaign supporting a "keep the
sanctions" letter initiated by Rep. Tom Lantos, chair of the House Human Rights Caucus.
By Dec. 1999, US policy faced isolation, both domestically and intlly. In the UN, only the British remained
qualitatively supportive. The Netherlands, with a new foreign minister from the conservative Liberal Party, moved to
defend the US-UK alliance, with half-hearted support from dismayed Dutch diplomats. But support for sanctions
was fraying. Resolution 1284 squeaked by with permanent members France, China and Russia,
as well as Malaysia, abstaining.
France, Russia and China were unwilling to spend the requisite political capital to veto 1284. But, as the Wall St
Journal described it on May 1, now it was "unclear which side is more isolated: the dictator who has successfully
defied sanctions, or the Anglo-US alliance that insists they remain in place." In that context, the growing domestic
opposition took on new visibility. In 1999 Cong. John Conyers had sent a letter to Clinton signed by 40 of his
colleagues, calling for a "delinking" of economic & military sanctions against Iraq. Earlier that year, during a
speaking tour sponsored by major peace, faith-based and Arab-American organizations, this writer and
former UN Humanitarian Coordinator Denis Halliday spoke to over 10,000 people directly, and
reached hundreds of thousands more through op-eds, radio and TV interviews in 22 cities. But
results would take a while longer.
In the summer of 1999, the first group of congressional staff traveled to Iraq to examine the impact
of sanctions. All but one represented members of the Progressive Caucus of the House; three
were also members of the Congressional Black Caucus. By spring 2000 the latest congressional
letter had 71 signatures, and demanded economic sanctions be lifted. Democratic Whip and close
Clinton ally David Bonior called the economic sanctions "infanticide masquerading as
policy." Rep. Tony Hall, known as "Mister Hunger" for his 20 year commitment to that issue, traveled to Iraq in
April 2000 to examine the humanitarian conditions. He did not call for lifting the economic sanctions, but brought
back a devastating critique of the sanctions and admitted that the US was the main problem within the UN's
Sanctions Committee. By May 2000, Rep. Conyers & Cynthia McKinney called for an official congressional
delegation to Iraq.
CIA gave Ba'ath party wherewithal for 1963 coup
contra regime of nationalist army officer Abd al-Karim Qassim
When US turned a blind eye to poison gas America knew Baghdad was using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988. Why has it taken 14 years to muster its outrage? ¹ ² 9.1.02 Dilip Hiro The Observer
When it comes to demonising Saddam Hussein, nothing captures the popular imagination in America better than
the statement that 'he gassed his own people'. This is an allusion to the deployment of chemical weapons by Iraq's
military in the Iraqi Kurdistan town of Halabja in March 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war, and then in the territory
administered by the Tehran-backed Kurdish rebels after the ceasefire 5 months later.
Between Oct. 1983 & autumn 1988, Baghdad deployed 100,000 munitions, containing mainly mustard gas,
which produces blisters on the skin & inside the lungs, and nerve gas, which damages the nervous system,
but also cyanide gas, which kills instantly.
That the Pentagon had first-hand knowledge of Iraq's use of chemical agents during these offensives was
confirmed by NY Times 2 weeks ago. 'After the Iraqi army, with American planning assistance, retook the Fao
peninsula, Defense Intelligence Agency officer Lt Col Rick Francona, now retired, was sent to tour the battlefield
with Iraqi officers,' wrote Patrick Tyler of the Times. 'Francona saw zones marked off for chemical contamination,
and containers for the drug atropine scattered around, indicating that Iraqi soldiers had taken injections to protect
themselves from the effects of gas that might blow back over their positions.'
In 1986, it was with the aim of recapturing the Fao peninsula, taken by the Iranians in February, that Saddam's
military used chemical agents so extensively that the UN Security Council stopped accepting its routine denials.
Following an examination of 700 Iranian casualties, UN experts concluded that Baghdad had deployed mustard
& nerve gases many times.
Despite its repeated reiteration of neutrality, the US had all along been pro-Baghdad. It lost no time in supplying
Iraq with intelligence collected by the Saudi-owned but Pentagon-operated Airborne Warning & Control
Systems (AWACS) in the region. Once Iraq and U.S. had resumed diplomatic links after the re-election of Reagan
as President in Nov.1984, the military cooperation blossomed.
Starting in July 1986, aided by the Pentagon which clandestinely seconded Air Force officers to work with their Iraqi
counterparts, Saddam's air force greatly improved its targeting accuracy, striking relentlessly the enemy's power
plants, factories and bridges, and extending the range of its strikes to Iran's oil terminals in the lower Gulf. Under
the rubric of escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers, the US built up an armada in the Gulf, which clashed with the small,
under-equipped Iranian navy and sank 2 Iranian offshore oil platforms in the lower Gulf in retaliation for Iran's
missile attack on an American-flagged supertanker docked in Kuwaiti waters.
Against this background, Iraq started hitting Tehran with its upgraded Scud ground-to-ground missiles in late Feb.
1988. To retake Halabja from Iran & its Kurdish allies, who had captured it in March, Iraq's air force attacked it
with poison gas bombs. The objective was to take out the occupying Iranian troops (who had by then left the town);
instead, the assault killed 3,200 to 5,000 civilians.
But instead of pressuring him to reverse his stand, or face a ban on the sale of American military equipt &
advanced technology to Iraq by the revival of the Senate's bill, US Sec.State Shultz chose to say only that
interviews with the Kurdish refugees in Turkey and 'other sources' (which remained obscure) pointed towards Iraqi
use of chemical agents. These 2 elements did not constitute 'conclusive' evidence. This was the verdict of Shultz's
British counterpart, Sir Geoffrey Howe: 'If conclusive evidence is obtained, then punitive measures against Iraq
have not been ruled out.' |
Spider's Web Alan Friedman Fin.Times London (1994, Bantam)
Secret history of White House illegally arming Iraq
Shell Game Peter Mantius (1995, St. Martin's Press)
The lessons of empire £
As Bush considers colonizing Iraq, he ought to look at the last attempt
The photograph below of a fierce-looking group of men cradling antique machine guns comes from an old album in my home. It dates from about 1930, and its caption reads, "Sheik Mahmoud of Kurdistan. Surrendered to Political Officer Victor Holt VC accompanied by F\O M.O."
I suspect, however, that his affection for Iraq was a rarity. Britain's attempt to rule there was a disaster. At a time
when broad-chested conservative believers in American power and dewy-eyed Wilsonian intlists
contemplate a new imperial adventure in Iraq, it's worth recalling what happened the last time.
GWBush's speech to the UN last month explicitly cast America's Iraq ambitions in terms much wider than the
removal of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Bush contemplated nothing less than a remaking of
the MidEast into an area of democracy & economic freedom. The President looked forward to a day when "the people of Iraq" can join a "democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world."
Who could argue with that? Yet there is a problem with Bush's vision: it will have to be imposed from the
outside. To be sure, in the past, American imperialist practice has usually been more benign than
Britain's. (The R.A.F. bombed Iraqi villages that were late in paying their taxes, which even the
Colonial Office in London thought was a bit much.) And America's ostensible motives today are pure (so
long as we don't mention oil).
Today's neoimperialists claim that if the U.S. could rebuild W.Germany & Japan after WWII, it can rebuild Iraq.
But the cases could hardly be more different. Both W.Germany & Japan had fixed national identities; Iraq does
not. Both nations, Germany esp., had memories of democratic institutions; Iraq does not. Neither Japan nor
Germany had bitter memories of prior attempts to impose colonial rule; Iraq does.
A free Iraq in a prosperous Arab world is in everyone's interest, and unseating Saddam would be a good
start down that road. It's what follows that's tricky. The lesson of history is that reforms succeed best if
they well up from within a nation, not when they are thrust upon it from outside. If the Administration
seriously thinks otherwise, it would be nice to know what lessons it has learned from the failed
imperialism of the past, not just about the finer points of pigsticking.
Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
to his executioners; |
at White Hall; for "The Glorious Dead" per Kipling
cf. Lord Wakehurst mention at +2:49;
ibid 5:03-5:23:
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The tragedy of Kut Military headstones have started arriving in Iraq from Britain. Not in preparation for an invasion but to commemorate allied soldiers who died in a previous attempt at 'regime
change'. 11.20.02 Ross Davies The Guardian
500 military headstones that have just arrived in Baghdad from England already bear names of soldiers killed in
action in Iraq. These troops died in ill-fated, little-remembered attempt at "regime change" nearly a century ago in
winter 1915 towards end of first full year of WWI when an Anglo-Indian force was sent to capture Baghdad. To
historian & veteran CRMF Cruttwell, the attack was "a capital sin": advance on Baghdad was "perhaps the
most remarkable example of an enormous military risk being taken, after full deliberation, for no definite or concrete military purpose."
Officials from the Commonwealth war graves commission have just arrived in Iraq to assess the damage done by 20 years of upheaval and many more years of decay to 13 war cemeteries the commission tends there. New
headstones are first phase of a major pgm: total 51,830 British & Commonwealth servicemen died during the war in what was then Mesopotamia; 22,400 graves (more than two-thirds of the troops who fought in Mesopotamia were Indians whose faith requires cremation rather than burial). Many of these deaths were result of decision to attack Baghdad, in particular in a loop of the Tigris river at Kut-al-Amara.
11.22.15 Gen. Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend & 6th Indian div. force of about 9,000 men advanced on
Baghdad by boat along the Tigris, the land being roadless, an "arid billiard table". At Ctesiphon 20 mi. short of the
capital, Indian & British troops came against larger, better armed and better supplied Turkish force which had
had months to dig in on both sides of the river.
Collecting other troops as he inched along, Townshend made his stand at Kut, strategic river junction he captured a
month previously, one of a number of cheap brilliant victories by clever & resourceful soldier who knew value
of morale, and until the end kept the respect of his men. He had argued all along against going on to Baghdad; he
lacked sufficient men, food and artillery as well as river transport & medical back-up.
Basra was taken & held with little cost at the end of 1914 by a small invasion force launched from India. By
late 1915, however, the war cabinet needed a success story to round off a year of military disaster, most recently at
Gallipoli, where the British were preparing to pull out, having failed to break out and take Constantinople. Gallipoli
campaign ended 1.8.16 with re-embarkation of Dunkirk proportions.
They held out in freezing cold then torrential rain against infantry assault, sniper fire, shelling, and bombing, until a
relief force could get near enough for the defenders to risk breaking out. It never happened. 3 attempts were made
to relieve Kut. Each failed, at a total cost of 23,000 casualties. Food began to run out, and many Indian troops
could or would not eat what meat there was. Defenders' draught animals, oxen, were the first to go, followed by
horses, camels, and finally, starlings, cats, dogs and even hedgehogs.
Desperate to keep his men alive, Townshend suggested and govt endorsed ransom of £2m (about £67m today) for defenders to go free. Turks, elated by Gallipoli and able to switch troops from there to Kut, refused. Finally 4.29.16, when vegetarian Indians were down to 7 ounces of grain a day, Kut capitulated. Townshend was given permission to surrender, and obtained promises of humane treatment for his men from the Turks.
It was then, after 5 months of siege, that Kut defenders' troubles really began. Turks had a different notion of what
constitutes "humane treatment" and, as they treated their own soldiers with extreme brutality, saw no reason to
pamper their captives.
Historian & war poet Geoffrey Elton was jr officer at Kut and saw the rank & file being marched away,
officerless, "none of them fit to march 5 miles … full of dysentery, beri-beri, scurvy, malaria and enteritis; they had no doctors, no medical stores and no transport; hot weather, just beginning, would have meant much sickness and many deaths, even among troops who were fit, well-cared for and well supplied."
Turks abandoned Kut Feb. 917; Baghdad fell in March. That June a royal commission reported on who was to
blame for ordering Townshend to advance so far forward. The answer was everybody but Townshend. His
commanding officer, Sir John Nixon, was censured. So too was the viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, the
commander-in-chief in India, Sir Beauchamp Duff, the secretary of state for India, Austen Chamberlain, and the war cabinet in London, which had disregarded the advice of its own secretary of state for war, Earl Kitchener. |
Of how Brittania rules the waves. Every Briton's song is just the same When singing of our soldiers brave.
All the world has heard it,
We're not forgetting it,
Fade away or gradually die.
So when we say that England's master,
It's the soldiers of the Queen, my lads,
In the fight for England's glory, lads,
And when we say we've always won,
War clouds gather over every land,
They may have thought us sleeping,
But Britons all unite,
The battle for old England's cause.
So when we say that England's master,
It's the soldiers of the Queen, my lads,
In the fight for England's glory, lads,
When we're roused
We do deeds to follow our words,
The sons of merry England
And though new at the game,
An Englishman can be a soldier too.
So when we say that England's master,
It's the soldiers of the Queen, my lads,
In the fight for England's glory, lads, Security worries as Iraqi forces take over central palace in southern city 9.3.07 AP
Basra, Iraq Iraqi soldiers hoisted the country’s flag over the Basra palace compound Monday after British troops withdrew from their last garrison in the city, a move that will hand control to an Iraqi force riddled with Shiite militiamen.
The departure of most of the remaining 500-member British force from the palace left the nation’s second largest city without any multinational presence for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
U.S. officials have raised concerns about the prospect of British troops leaving the city, which has seen rival armed militia groups, some linked to Iran, battling for control. The city controls a key land supply line from Kuwait to Baghdad and farther north, and is also near important oil fields.
The Basra palace had come under near daily rocket and mortar fire from Shiite militias until the British released about 30 gunmen a few months ago and spread the word that they would soon leave. Over the past years, Britain’s ability to control events in Basra waned as the militias rose in power. People on the streets of Basra cheered the departure of the British.
Another resident, Khazaal al-Nisiri, said he was confident the Iraqi army would be able to provide enough security without the British presence. Following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s rule, Britain controlled security across southern Iraq, but has since handed over most of the territory to Iraqi forces. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said it hoped to hand security responsibility for Basra, the last remaining province, over to Iraqi forces sometime this autumn. |
“The decision is an Iraqi-led initiative and is part of a coalition-endorsed process,” the ministry said.
British forces will operate from Basra Air Station, but “retain security responsibility for Basra until we hand over to provincial Iraqi control, which we anticipate in the autumn,” the statement said.
Elsewhere in Iraq, a car bomb exploded in central Baghdad, killing 2 people and wounding 5 others, police said. Another car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint outside Ramadi early Monday, killing two policemen and seriously injuring four others, as well as two civilians, said Ramadi police Lt. Col. Jubair Rashid Naif. The bridge, on a road that links Baghdad with Jordan and Syria, was unaffected by the blast, Naif said.
Iraq's cultural capital
1.5.03 Deborah Solomon NY Times
Ancient kingdom of Mesopotamia, which flourished in the region that became Iraq, is what textbooks like to call the
birthplace of urban civilization. The Mesopotamians were the first to record their thoughts in writing, the first to
divide the day into 24 hours, the first to eat off ceramic plates.
Iraq is home to some of the most important landmarks of the Judeo-Christian tradition, incl the reputed
Garden of Eden and Ur, birthplace of the patriarch Abraham. The area had a second flowering in the
Middle Ages, when it became a capital of the Islamic world and mosques sprang up everywhere. With war in Iraq
looming, many in the art historical world are worried about what might be damaged or destroyed.
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Hurt by sanctions, Iraqis sell antiquities despite export laws
6.23.96 Barbara Crossette NY Times
Browsing antiques markets of London a few years ago, Univ. of Chicago archaeology & Mesopotamian art
expert McGuire Gibson found some of his worst fears confirmed. In the stalls of Portobello Road & shops of
Bond St, dealers offered him antiquities probably smuggled from Iraq, modern nation in distress that sits astride
remains of several ancient civilizations.
"For decades, the Iraqis kept a very tight lid on stuff, and there was very, very little getting out," said the university's
Oriental Inst. prof. Gibson, leading archaeologist who conducted digs in Iraq from 964 until 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Experts say they cannot estimate the total value of Iraqi antiquities reaching the market illegally, but given that even
small individual pieces can be priced at $50,000 in some cases, and that there are so many objects involved, the
figure probably runs into the millions of dollars.
While some of the sellers of Mesopotamian antiquities are middle-class families parting with heirlooms and Iraqi
traders unable to sustain themselves because of an embargo imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in Aug. 1990,
looters & grave robbers working with intl smugglers are doing most of the damage, some experts say.
Diplomats, collectors, dealers and university experts, most of whom do not want to be identified, so their future
work in the region will not be disrupted, disagree on some details about the boom. Some believe that individuals,
incl govt employees, are taking the best pieces out overland through Jordan; others think that most of the
smuggling is done by professional rings operating through the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq into Iran.
Hamdoon said that many pieces had disappeared from provincial Iraqi museums after the war. American scholars
& collectors have varying opinions about the value of missing museum pieces. But several said they believed
that the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, which they described as one of the world's finest, had survived with most of its
collection intact.
But questions remain about how some objects, esp. large pieces, get out of the country undetected. In the current
issue of Ms. Lowenthal's newsletter, IFAR Reports, Columbia Univ. art historian & archaeologist John M.
Russell reports that parts of 3 large reliefs from the throne room of the Sennacherib Palace in Nineveh that he
photographed in 1990 are now on the intl market.
U.S. Customs Service sr agent Bonnie Goldblatt who specializes in art fraud in NY said law enforcement officials
had not yet seized any illegal Iraqi objects. She added that such items were often camouflaged as goods from
another country. A NY collector described a lot of the early museum pieces pilfered during and just after the gulf
war as "rubbish" but concurred that many very valuable objects began to appear later from other sources, incl
private collections held by families who, Iraqi & American experts say, have also sold off their modern art,
antique carpets, furniture and wooden doors to stay afloat financially.
Sympathy for these Iraqis seems widespread among U.S. collectors & archaeologists, who are critical of
continued sanctions against Hussein's govt. They say the sanctions are hurting cultured families &
intellectuals more than Iraq's leaders & soldiers, some of whom may be involved in trafficking in antiquities for
profit.
Experts agree that London, NY and Tokyo have become prime centers of the Mesopotamian antiquities trade, with
Asians often paying the highest prices. Univ. of Chicago's Gibson said dealers were sometimes sent videos of
objects from MidEastern sellers, with offers to bring pieces to a prospective buyer anywhere in the world for
inspection.
"Cylinder seals are special because they are very small, and to carve them takes extraordinary skill," said Gibson,
who has edited a catalogue of objects presumed stolen from Iraq. "They are spectacularly beautiful things."
"Except for the Assyrian reliefs with battle scenes and ritual scenes carved into them, there is nothing as
wonderfully narrative or varied as a cylinder seal," he said.
Ancient amulets are also small and easy to steal & smuggle, a NY collector said. Many were also carved from
semiprecious stones and worn on a string. Scholars believe that engravings on them indicate that they could have
been intended to ward off illness or evil. Gibson has seen one that says, in effect, "This is to scare away demons."
They may also have been used to protect a household.
"Mesopotamia is the first place in the world where what we call civilization does pop up," Gibson said. "This is the
first place where you get monumental architecture on a really grand scale, the first place you get an organization of
people along craft lines, the first place you get monumental art." |
1.31.98 Barbara Crossette NY Times
To burnish his reputation as a leader of Muslims everywhere, Saddam has just broken ground for the largest
mosque in the world. No one knows how Saddam can pay for these projects, after 7 years of crippling economic
sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Despite the oil embargo, Saddam seems stronger than ever. In 2 weeks of interviews here with Iraqis, UN officials,
diplomats and Asian & European business executives, many say they believe that he may even be picking up
political support in this period of unaccustomed hardships, esp. among the young who have been well indoctrinated
in the schools.
It is all but impossible to gauge public opinion, though, because Iraqis seem to be under scrutiny at all times by a
vast network of security agencies with outposts in most neighborhoods. "Please don't take pictures here," a taxi
driver begged a reporter who was dropped off at a well-known restaurant. "They will take down my number and
come to my house tonight to ask what I am doing with a foreigner in my car."
As television cameras moved in on the day of the vote, people were seen holding their ballots aloft and chanting,
"Naam, naam, Saddam!" or, 'Yes, yes, for Saddam!" The president won 99.96% of the vote.
signs of hardship everywhere in capital
Iraq's supply of drugs ran out in 1994, and doctors at Saddam Children's Hospital tell of children who die of curable
diseases because, they say, the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee has refused to allow them to import
some of the crucial medicine they need. Already-malnourished children are vulnerable to infection, yet the hospital
cannot maintain sterile isolation wards.
Years before the embargo was even imposed, though, Saddam's govt had made economic policy choices that
have now come back to haunt all 22 million Iraqis. From 1968 until the late 1980s, his Baath Party gave govt a
large role in the economy and relegated the private sector largely to minor industries, crafts and petty trade.
"We became oil junkies," an Iraqi intellectual said. Need something? Just pick up the phone and call Switzerland for
watches, Paris for cosmetics and a score of countries for processed foods or even fresh produce that could have
been grown locally. "Energy is still used with great abandon," said U.N. official in charge of distributing food &
medicine under the "oil for food" pgm Denis J. Halliday. Like Americans, Iraqis leave on lights & air
conditioners and, in the cold of winter, turn on several electric heaters in a room.
Iraq's 8 year war with Iran also drained the treasury, leading to heavy borrowing. A quarrel over Iraqi debt to Kuwait
was one of the reasons Saddam annexed it, prompting the Security Council to impose the sanctions. With oil sales
banned, the per capita gross domestic product of Iraqis plunged from more than $2,900 to about $60 annually.
Value of the Iraqi currency, the dinar, worth more than $3 in 1989, dropped sharply. Now $1 buys 1,500 dinars at
the bazaar money-changers' rates of exchange, or 450 dinars at the official rate.
Once the hard currency stopped flowing in, foreigners who had worked in jobs ranging from nursing to sanitation
and who had been paid with hard currency from oil vanished, leaving Iraqis seemingly incapable or unwilling to do
these jobs themselves. Garbage is piling up in many neighborhoods, on vacant lots & streets, worsening
health problems caused by the lack of medicine and by a breakdown in water & sanitation systems.
selling, emigrating or just surviving
Buying & selling, mostly selling, is the only money-earning pastime now left to many Iraqis who remain.
Antique stores have become pawn shops full of family treasures: watches, jewelry, cameras, silverware, china,
even souvenirs from trips abroad. Along the roadsides, impromptu markets have sprung up where people trying to
maintain their dignity come to sell their clothes, a chandelier, the household furniture. "I realized my dreams. I got my degree. Now you can't do what you want." she said. "There will always be a block in your way. You can almost not survive. The embargo has stopped almost everything in my life." |
Ms. Ihsaan, 29, and other women her age said they are unable to think of marriage & a family, and are forced
by circumstances to stay in their parents' homes to contribute to earnings and to share in what resources they can
muster. "The whole world is to blame," she said, echoing other youthful voices, some too young to remember very
clearly how Iraq got itself into this predicament.
At Univ. of Baghdad's College of Arts, English lecturer Lena Ali said many people were "going back to religion" in a
society that is socially conservative but was never militantly Islamic. Christian churches are strong here, and Iraqi
Christians of various Eastern & Western rites are among the better off and sometimes most influential people.
Deputy PM Tariq Aziz, Saddam's liaison with the outside world, is a Christian.
Search for solace in Islam is being encouraged by the govt, Iraqis say. It is beginning to cause some concern in
Christian families, a number of which have left the country. It is undermining Iraq's once-promising potential to be a
center for modernizing, reformist Islamic studies, a scholar said. Scholarship in all fields has suffered from a lack of
books and contacts with the world of learning.
Security Council sanctions committee has not allowed universities to import teaching materials, said Abdul Latif
Jumaily, head of the English literature Dept and Ms. Ali's boss at the College of Arts.
Iraqi scholars & medical specialists, considered among the best in the Arab world, once attended seminars
& professional meetings around the globe. Now they cannot afford to travel or are forbidden to do so. Too
many intellectuals joined the brain drain by going to conferences and never returning, a writer said. Iraq has
apparently computerized a list of scholars with higher degrees who are barred from travel as a result. In the
hospitals, doctors are not permitted to resign.
To leave Iraq costs hundreds of dollars in exit fees. But growing numbers of people are selling everything they own
to move. Universities in Yemen, Malaysia and a number of North African countries incl Libya bid for their services
and offer salaries in the thousands of dollars a month.
Those who stay make do with second-hand clothes and two or three jobs just to support their families. Cars with
cracked windows and threadbare tires are the norm for many; they are used judiciously so that they will not
collapse completely. During the boom years, Iraq built highways all over the country as good as those in U.S. and
many Iraqi families bought cars or pickup trucks.
"We have to lead a dog's life," said Jumaily, who teaches day & night courses, incl basic English-language
courses for which there is a skyrocketing demand. "We don't have time for research. With our noses to the
grindstone, who can think?"
His colleague, Saad Hasani, a popular literature professor, is more bitter. "I fail to see why literary works are being
denied to us," he said. "Books are not the tools of war. This is not a matter of war; it's a matter of malice."
Diplomats & other foreigners who have known Iraq over several decades say the society has experienced a
total inversion of values with the impoverishment of the professional middle classes. The people who matter now
are the buyers & sellers of prohibited goods, smugglers & business tycoons with connections to the
president or, increasingly, one of his two sons, Uday & Qusay.
Some people are getting very rich in Iraq. Their spacious new homes are being built in prime land along the banks
of the Tigris, which runs through this sprawling city. They have expensive imported cars and no shortage of food or
medicine. They travel back & forth to Jordan pretty much at will. Some also have lavish houses in Amman,
Jordan, where a leading Iraqi trader was recently assassinated in his home along with the second-ranking diplomat
at Iraq's Embassy and half a dozen other people.
At every level in Iraq, petty mafias are consolidating their power over monopolies of one kind or another. At the last
major hotel still functioning with any semblance of intl service standards, one clan has cornered the car-service
market and shakes down or physically threatens any other driver who tries to do business with hotel guests. All
such mafias are assumed to have connections in the president's family or the state security services.
"We are returning to tribalism, violent tribalism," an Iraqi said. All around, added a foreigner, "there is a sense of
decay." At the Saddam Central Children's Hospital, pediatrician Dr. Dhia Obaidi has not recovered from the shock
of seeing his once-comfortable world collapse around him, though he is politically powerless to do anything about it.
Proud Iraqis dread slipping backward into a third-world existence. Children begging on the streets are a sign that
this is already happening, other Iraqis said.
"We feel like they put you first into a big castle, then all of a sudden you are in a small cottage," Obaidi said.
"Imagine a child of 4 years or 5 years or 7 years; he has never seen an airplane in the sky." "We have two big
rivers," he said. "We have oil. It should not be like this. We ourselves cannot live like in India, between two trees or
along the side of the road."
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OCIAL JUSTICE |
Some of the country's most significant sites:
around 1750 B.C., when he developed one of the great legal codes. Babylon is only 6 miles from Iraq's Hilla
chemical arsenal.