http://indymedia.org.il
Get your facts straightThursday 06 Feb 2003
author: Paul Tremblay (phthenry@earthlink.net)
Your comments that the sanctions are not responsible for the deaths of over a million Iraqis is completely anti-intellectual.
Before the Gulf war, the main health problem with children was obeisity. Saddam, though a brutal dictator, fed his people well.
After the sanctions were imposed, roughly 5,000 children died a month. The article correctly points out that UNICEF attributes these deaths to the sanctions.
However, rather than address the conclusion of this report, it goes on to make completely irrelevant claims. It states that Saddam imported Scotch, as if this can account for the deaths of one million people.
The palaces that Saddam built did not cost 2 billion dollars--that is a figure derived at if you calcuate what Western workers would have earned. In the deprssed Iraqi economy, the cost was many times less.
The author states that the Northern region did not suffer from sanctions, drawing the incorrect conclusion that Saddam must be abusing the program.
What the author didn't state was that the explanations for this discrpenancy have been given again and again by UN experts who administer the program. 1. The Kurdish region gets more money per person. 2. Thd Kurdish region has advanced means to distribute the goods that Saddam does not have. 3. The Kurds can trade with Turkey.
The author also didn't mention the words of the foremost experts on this subject, namely Dennis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck. Both of these men were directors of the oil for food program. Both resigned in protest because they realized that this program and the sanctions was killing 5,000 children a month, as Dennis Halliday was directly quoted as saying.
The author mentions that the UNICEF report was written in collobration with Saddam's ministry of health. This implies that is is propaganda, when in fact the methodology is open for anyone to see, and has not been disputed by any experts. Besides, what is the author actually doubting in the report? On the one hand, the author states Saddam is responsible for the suffering of Iraqis. But then, since the report is propaganda, they are not suffering at all! So which is it?
In fact, the report--and I did read every word of it--makes no mention of blame. If it did, it would not be a scietific report but a political tract. Instead, the report shows the rates of death before and after the sanctions. The UNICEF report is backed up by other reports done indpendently and by Americans. Were these reports also influenced by Saddam? What, did Saddam place a chip in these American's behinds?
Nor did the author mention the words of virtually every UN person involved with the oil for food program, that the Iraqi regime does an admirable job in distributing the food it has.
The author also mentions that Saddam fails to live up to international law. It is true that Saddam has violated 13 UN security council resolutions. It is also true that Israel has violated 69. So should we bomb Israel back to the stone ages because it doesn't have any respect for international law?
The author mentions that Saddam has used weapons against his own people and neighbors. True, but with the US help. So if Saddam is guilty of these horrible crimes--and he is, of course--so is Donald Rumsfield and a slew of other Americans who helped him committ them. Is this so-called leftist willing to see Rumsfield and his crew stand before the world court for war crimes?
In short, this article is typical of propaganda. It exaggerates, falsifies, and omitts in order to give a false picture. I am suprised that with the mass of evidence about the effect of the UN sanctions, anyone would post such nonsense.