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The Toll of US Policy Toward Iraq

By Robert Naiman

Ten years after the United States and its allies imposed economic sanctions following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the embargo remains largely in place. The embargo continues to exact a heavy toll on Iraqi society, even after the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 986 ("Oil for Food,") that allows Iraq to export oil to pay for food and medicine (and reparations to Kuwait). American and British obstructionism on the committee that approves imports sharply limits Iraq's ability to repair its war-damaged electrical, sanitation, and health care infrastructure. The draconian character of the sanctions regime guarantees that it will have a devastating impact on civilians; the centralized and anti-democratic character of the regime exacerbates the devastating impact. Ironically, the deprivation caused by the sanctions makes Iraqis more dependent on government rations for survival.

During the early 1990s, average incomes in Iraq (GNP per capita) fell more than 80%. This in itself indicates a catastrophic economic collapse, greater even than the 50% economic contraction suffered by Russia as a result of International Monetary Fund/World Bank "shock therapy" in the early 1990s, greater than the 30% contraction suffered by Cuba in the early 1990s due to the loss of its eastern European trading partners and the tightening of the US embargo.

A demographic survey conducted by UNICEF in 1999 indicated that the rate of death of children under five years of age in central and southern Iraq more than doubled in the second half of the 1990s from its level a decade earlier. This suggests that well over 300,000 Iraqi children, and likely more than half a million, have died as a result of the embargo.

In the 1990s primary school enrollment in central and southern Iraq fell from 98% of all children to 88% of boys and 80% of girls. In two years primary school drop-outs rose from 17% to 40%. As a result of these shifts literacy fell from 80% to 58% of the adult population.

The devastation caused by the sanctions has led to increasing criticism internationally and in the United States. Three UN officials charged with overseeing humanitarian efforts to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi population have resigned in protest of the continued brutality of the sanctions; former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Haliday referred to their "genocidal impact." In the spring of 2000 a US congressional letter demanding the lifting of the sanctions garnered 71 signatures, while House Democratic Whip David Bonior called the economic sanctions against Iraq "infanticide masquerading as policy."

Meanwhile, the periodic bombing of Iraq by the United States and Britain continues, having killed more than 140 Iraqi civilians in 1999 alone. In addition, Iraqis (and American and other veterans) continue to suspect continuing health effects from the use of depleted uranium shells during the Gulf War - over 340 tons of such shells were fired. (Recently, European governments - investigating following complaints from their veterans - have confirmed widespread radiation contamination in Kosovo as a result of the use of DU shells by US forces there.

Ten years of embargo have accomplished little except visiting unnecessary suffering on the Iraqi people. It is long past time for the US government to bring its policy towards Iraq into compliance with its obligation to protect the rights of Iraqi children to live. The economic siege against the Iraqi people must be lifted.