Iraqi regime's misuse of the sanction conditions
· Iraq is actually exporting food, even though the Iraqi people are malnourished. Iraqi rice, dates and other essential foods are been exported by the regime and are sold openly in the markets of the neighbouring countries, particularly in Iran and Jordan. Recently, the ship M/V MINIMARE containing 2,000 metric tons of rice and other material being exported from Iraq was intercepted in the gulf.
· Baby milk sold to Iraq through the oil-for-food program has been found in markets throughout the Gulf, demonstrating that the Iraqi regime is depriving its people of much-needed goods in order to make an illicit profit. A few months ago a shipment coming out of Iraq was seized and found to carry baby powder, baby bottles, and other nursing materials for resale overseas.
· The UN has reported that, despite of infant malnutrition, the government of Iraq has ordered only a fraction of the nutrition supplements for vulnerable children and pregnant and nursing mothers recommended by the UN. Only $1.7 million of $25 million set aside from oil-for-food revenues for nutritional supplements has been spent by Iraq. Despite a four fold increase in oil revenues from $2 billion to $8 billion every 6 months, the Iraqi government has increased the amount earmarked for food purchases by only 15%;
· The regime diverts supplies from the south to limit the Shia population's access to food, medicine and drinking water. According to the UN Special Rapporteur, thousands of persons in Nasiriyah, Amarah and Basra provinces were denied rations that should have been supplied under oil-for-food programme. Access to food is used to reward regime supporters and silence opponents. Senior Baathists and top military and security officials are provided with extra monthly food rations, Mercedes automobiles, and monthly stipends in the thousands of dollars. By comparison, the average monthly government salary is about £2.
· The UN has reported that $300 million worth of medicines and medical supplies sit undistributed in Iraqi warehouses. This is about a third of the value of all the medical supplies that have arrived in Iraq. Since the beginning of the programme, $26.6 million worth of anti-cancer drugs had arrived in the country, of which a quantity worth $13.3 million (50 %) had been distributed. Saddam can move his troops and missiles around the country and attack the population in the southern marshes, but claims that he doesn't have enough transportation to distribute these medicines.
· Medicines received through the oil-for-food program are sold by the regime to private hospitals at exorbitant prices.
· The Iraqi government keeps on trying to mask dual-use or other prohibited items by inserting them into contracts for humanitarian goods, knowing very well that those efforts only result in the delay of needed food, medicine and other humanitarian items.
· Saddam has spent over $2 billion in building 48 palaces for himself since the end of the Gulf War. Some of these palaces boast solid gold taps and handles, and some are bigger than the White House. During the draught of summer 1998, when even drinking water was rationed in a number of southern cities, Saddam ordered the diversion of the remaining water in Euphrates to fill the large lakes of his Abu Ghraib Palace.
· In April 1999, Iraqi officials inaugurated Saddamiat al Tharthar. Located 85 miles west of Baghdad, this sprawling lakeside vacation resort contains stadiums, an amusement park, and 625 homes to be used by government officials. This project cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
· In July 1999, Forbes Magazine estimated Saddam personal wealth at $6 billion, acquired primarily from oil smuggling.
What can be done?
Who is to blame for the suffering of the Iraqi people: the West, for imposing harsh economic sanctions, or Saddam Hussein for failing to comply with the disarmament terms required for lifting those sanctions.
The sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people while leaving Saddam firmly in power. Lifting sanctions per se would not offer the Iraqi people much relief from neglect and manipulation at the hands of Saddam's regime. Saddam's priorities are clear: palaces for himself, prison for the Iraqi people, and weapons to destroy Iraq's citizens and its neighbors. Baghdad's refusal to cooperate with the oil-for-food programme and its deliberate misuse of resources are cynical efforts to sacrifice the Iraqi people's welfare in order to bring an end to UN sanctions without giving up his weapons of mass destruction.
So, what can be done? I would endeavor to propose some measures that could alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people.
1. The link between economic sanctions and the military embargo should be broken, easing pressure on Iraqi people while keeping tight control of any arms going into Iraq.
2. The UN Sanctions Committee, ought to use much better judgment and their priority should be the relief of human suffering of the Iraqi people. They should make arrangement to expedite approval and shipment of humanitarian items. One way is to "preapprove" applications to import food, pharmaceuticals, medical, agricultural, and educational equipment;
3. The distribution criteria are established by the Government of Iraq, and the distribution program is generally assessed within those parameters. At the same time, it is constantly being reported that the available resources are not distributed to all the people in the southern governorates, who are the worst off and in the greatest need. A new universal distribution criteria should be set by UN Office of Iraq Programme (OIP) and enforced.
4. The OIP should set up its own depots and bulk distribution centres, and deal with the local distribution network directly without any hindrance or interference from Saddam's government.
5. The World Health Organization should carry a wide-scale scientific study to determine the causes of very high rates of cancer in Iraq, and particularly leukemia among the children. UN agencies should then carry out a large-scale clean-up operation to decontaminate the environment from agents responsible.
6. Steps should be taken to end the intellectual and informational isolation of Iraqi educators and health professionals in particular;
7. The pressure on Saddam's regime should be maintained or even increased, and linked not only with the elimination of WMD but also to human rights conditions in Iraq as required by UN SCR 688.
8. France, Russia, China and Qatar have been calling for unconditional lift of the sanctions. It is their own self-interest and not that of the Iraqi people at heart. France seems to have been promised good oil deals in post-sanctions Iraq, while Russia is hoping Iraq can pay it back for Soviet-era arms sales. Tragically, saving Iraqi lives--or, for that matter, the lives of others who might be endangered by weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's hands--does not appear to be their concern. The co-operation of these governments with Saddam's regime in deepening the suffering of the Iraqi people should be exposed to the public opinion in an effort to end this collaboration.
Dr. H Al-Shahristani is a prominent Iraqi nuclear scientist and was a chief scientific advisor to the Iraqi Government till 1979.
Dr. Al-Shahristani disagreed with the policies of the Iraqi Government to divert the nuclear research facilities from peaceful to military application which resulted in his imprisonment in December 1979 and was kept in a solitary confinement till his escape from Abu Ghraib prison in March 1991.
iraqwatch.org
written june 8 2000. but it gets better..........next post |
