Review of International Studies (2002), 28, 39–56 ...



Between Iraq and a Hard Place: a Critique of the Case for UN Economic Sanctions*Eric Herringin Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier and Robert Jay Lifton (eds), Crimes of War? Iraq (New York: Nation Books, 2006).UN economic sanctions, bombing by a US-led UN coalition in 1991 and the policies of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein combined to produce a dramatic increase in the Iraqi death rate, including 500,000 deaths above the anticipated rate among Iraqi children under five years of age between 1991 and 1998. The sanctions continued until the invasion of Iraq by another US-led coalition in March 2003. The deaths hit children disproportionately because they were less able to cope with chronic malnutrition, polluted water and lack of proper medical care. Iraqis of all ages died at abnormally high rates, and many of those who survived had their lives blighted and shortened. The US and British governments were the key players at the UN in keeping the sanctions in place. In this article I argue that the case for the sanctions and the grounds for US and British denial of any share in the responsibility for the devastation of Iraqi society were unsustainable. The Iraqi people were being ground to pieces, caught between Saddam’s regime and the hard place that was US and British policy.Sanctions on Iraq: justifications, silences and countersIraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990. The UN Security Council declared this action to be illegal and imposed comprehensive sanctions under UN Security Council Resolution (SCR) 661 on 6 August 1990. All exports from Iraq or Kuwait were banned, as was the sale or supply to them of any goods. SCR 661 set up a Security Council committee (the Sanctions Committee, composed of Security Council members) to run the sanctions. The sanctions were intended officially to force unconditional Iraqi withdrawal, although the US may have preferred war with Iraq to cut it down to size. Iraq did not withdraw and a land offensive drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in February 1991. In spite of Saddam’s repression and the war with Iran, UNICEF concluded that ‘Iraq had converted oil wealth into enhanced social wellbeing with considerable success’ and The Economist observed that ‘the Iraqi welfare state was, until recently, among the most comprehensive and generous in the Arab world’. Saddam wanted to be as powerful as possible, and he saw an educated, healthy – and intimidated - population as well as military capabilities as a means to that end.The dire nature of the situation in Iraq caused by the sanctions and bombing was starkly clear: immediately after the war a report by UN Under Secretary General Martti Ahtisaari stated that, due to the ‘near apocalyptic’ bombing of the country’s infrastructure, ‘Iraq has for some time to come been relegated to a pre-industrial age, but with all the disabilities of post-industrial dependency on an intensive use of energy and technology.’ A Harvard University study team concluded that Iraq was heading for a ‘public health catastrophe’ involving tens of thousands of deaths by the end of 1991 alone. The US Defence Intelligence Agency concurred and had already concluded in January 1991 that: unless water treatment supplies are exempted from unsanctions [sic] for humanitarian reasons, no adequate solution exists … [to] meet Iraqi needs … Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. … Epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid could occur. … Full degradation of the water treatment system probably will take at least another 6 months.In spite of these horrific assessments, comprehensive sanctions remained in place. Water treatment supplies did not begin to arrive for nearly six years, not the necessary six months, and even then only in completely inadequate amounts. Policymakers who backed the sanctions cannot say that that they did not know what was going to happen. The Security Council set out the conditions for lifting the sanctions on 3 April 1991 in SCR 687. Under its terms, Iraq had to renounce nuclear weapons, biological and chemical (BC) weapons and ballistic missiles with a range of over 150 km; co-operate with the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) regarding BC weapon and ballistic missile issues and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding nuclear weapon issues; provide full information; and accept ongoing monitoring and verification of its compliance. Iraq was also required to recognize Kuwait, accept liability for losses and damage caused by the invasion, repatriate Kuwaiti and other nationals and renounce terrorism. SCR 1284, passed in December 1999, proposed to trade suspension of sanctions in return for cooperation with specific disarmament tasks ahead of full lifting of sanctions.Iraq complied - eventually - with the key elements of the relevant UN resolutionsThe US and British governments claimed that Iraq failed to comply with the relevant UN resolutions, and that this led Iraq being invaded. The IAEA reported on 15 December 1998 that it had eliminated Iraq’s nuclear weapon programs ‘efficiently and effectively’. By 2000 Rolf Ekeus, UNSCOM Executive Chairman from 1991 to 1997, was able to say that ‘in all areas we have eliminated Iraq’s capabilities fundamentally. There are some question marks left.’ Iraq had disarmed and was being monitored even if a perfect record of its past capabilities could not be constructed. It had recognized Kuwait, had begun paying compensation and had repatriated most of the property and possibly most of the people it had held. Iraq was invaded not because of its non-compliance but despite its compliance. The main objective of the sanctions for the US and Britain: not compliance, but ‘stability’ then overthrowThe US and British governments argued that the sanctions were aimed primarily at disarming and thus containing the dire threat Iraq poses to its own population, its neighbors and the rest of the world. However, before Iraq invaded Kuwait, the regime had engaged in horrific domestic repression, war against Iran, CW use and ill-concealed weapon programs. Far from perceiving a threat, successive US and British governments ignored all this or made understanding noises. Before and during the sanctions their concern was with ‘stability’, that is, at having an Iraqi regime weak enough to be contained by them and yet strong enough to control its population by any means necessary and supply oil on acceptable terms. US conservatives pressed for a change of agenda to one of overthrow of the regime, as expressed in the Iraq Liberation Act passed by the US Congress in 1998. Once George W. Bush was elected president, weapons inspections were not a means of disarming Iraq but a means of provoking a crisis to provide a pretext for invading Iraq. Bush had been persuaded that Iraq could be transformed quickly into a pro-US liberal democracy and trigger more pro-US shifts in Iran and Syria. UN-supervised oil sales were puny in comparison with the humanitarian needThe US and British governments claimed that they shared no blame for the suffering of the Iraqi people because they offered to permit Iraq to sell oil through the UN to buy humanitarian goods. However, this claim does not survive scrutiny. The oil sales proposal contained in SCR 706 in August 1991 gave no indication of how the $1,600 m to be raised through the oil sales would be divided between humanitarian relief, UN costs and payments to the UN Compensation Fund. An indeterminate share of a one-off sum of $1,600 m—about $73 per person—was hardly going to provide for the needs of the Iraqi people. There was little reason to believe that Iraq would acquiesce and when Iraq did not, the US and Britain had a propaganda tool for trying to avoid their share of the blame for the suffering in Iraq. Actually averting it was not a priority.They proposed another oil sales deal in April 1995 under SCR 986 which Iraq finally accepted in May 1996. Under SCR 986 the revenue was divided as follows: 53% for humanitarian programs in the center and south run by the Iraqi government with UN monitoring; 13% cent for humanitarian programs in the north run by the UN; 30% for the UN Compensation Fund; and the remainder for UN costs. Hence, although the UN referred to it as ‘Oil For Food’ (OFF), only two-thirds of it was intended for humanitarian purposes in Iraq. SCR 1330 of 5 December 2000 reduced the Compensation Fund proportion by 5 per cent and allocated it to the center and south. By 31 March 2001, a total of $12,083 m—$549 per person—of OFF goods had arrived in Iraq not only for immediate needs such as food and medicine but also to rebuild the society’s shattered infrastructure. This averaged a puny $52 per person per year of the sanctions, or $118 per person per year of the OFF program. The fact that the figure was so low is indicative of the fact that Iraq could not import humanitarian goods freely.Iraq was not allowed to purchase humanitarian supplies freelyThe US and Britain frequently claimed that Iraq was allowed to import humanitarian supplies freely within the Oil For Food framework. This was false. The Sanctions Committee could veto exports to Iraq (the UN’s term for this was ‘blocked’) or withhold approval pending a final decision (put on ‘hold’). A key point is that a hold could only be lifted by the Sanctions Committee member which imposed it. In August 1999, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed as he had done many times before to the Sanctions Committee—in other words Britain and especially the US—to speed up its review of items it had placed on hold. All to no avail: as of 12 October 1999, 23.7% of contracts for that particular OFF phase were on hold, including 100 per cent for telecommunications, 65.5% for electricity, 53.4% for water and sanitation and 43% for oil spare parts and equipment. Benon Sevan, Executive Director of the UN OIP, complained to the Security Council in July 1999 that ‘The improvement of the nutritional and health status of the Iraqi people through [a] multi-sectoral approach ... is being seriously affected as a result of [the] excessive number of holds placed on supplies and equipment for water, sanitation and electricity’. Giving examples, Sevan showed that the absence of even one small item was enough to stall an entire project.To reduce the number of holds, the Security Council’s Humanitarian Panel proposed in March 1999 that ‘green’ lists of humanitarian goods should be drawn up. All contracts for such items were merely to be notified to the Sanctions Committee rather than being circulated to it for approval. It took the Security Council until December 1999 to agree to these proposals as part of SCR 1284. The US obstructed the setting up of the green lists. For example, in February 2001, the OIP circulated the draft green list of items for the housing sector aimed at prioritizing the most vulnerable in Iraq. Even though the entire list had been approved by the successor to UNSCOM, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), the US without explanation vetoed the inclusion of 27 out of 53 of the items, including switches, sockets, window frames, ceramic tiles and paint. Despite the (heavily truncated) green lists, the use of holds continued to be extensive and damaging. On 25 May 2001, there were 1,696 OFF holds with a value of $3,670 m, amounting to 17.4% of the total contract value. The argument that these holds were necessary to prevent Iraq from acquiring potentially dangerous dual use items (that is, items which may have been diverted to prohibited weapons activities) rarely stood up. 16 heart and lung machines which were put on hold because of the computers used to run them even though black market computers were available. The US put on hold a contract for $5.7 m worth of ambulances because they contained ordinary vacuum flasks, on the grounds that the vacuum flasks, used for keeping medical supplies cool, might be diverted to biological weapons production. When in Iraq in April 2002, I saw shop windows full of vacuum flasks. Britain successfully promoted the adoption of by the UN in 2002 of a system of supposedly ‘smart’ sanctions involving freer movement of civilian goods into Iraq and tighter UN control of Iraq’s oil revenues. However, this did not deal with the fundamental problem that the sanctions were still causing a humanitarian catastrophe. As the UN’s Humanitarian Panel argued ‘the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn cannot be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts.’ Smart sanctions mainly served the function of saving the increasingly discredited sanctions rather saving Iraqis. To divert attention, the US and Britain misrepresented UN reports such as those on the distribution of medical supplies.The Iraqi government did not obstruct the distribution of medical suppliesThe US and British governments claimed frequently that the Iraqi government was deliberately not distributing medical supplies in order create suffering and exploit humanitarian concern as a means of getting the sanctions lifted. The stockpiling of medical supplies was also cited as conclusive proof of the irrelevance of sanctions to the suffering of ordinary Iraqis. They maintained that these claims were proven by UN documents. However, not only did the UN favour stockpiling, but the World Health Organisation (WHO) argued for more of it. In November 1997, Annan reported that Iraq was maintaining a buffer stock for emergencies and that it ‘releases supplies from the buffer stock as newly arrived stock becomes available as replacement’. Annan commented approvingly in June 1998:The current stock, consisting of a 5 to 10 per cent reserve has been designed to cope with emergencies and has assisted in ensuring the availability of needed items. ... WHO has indicated that a more substantial reserve is the only practical solution to the procurement cycle with a delay of some four to five months before the start of arrivals [of replacements for depleted items].The problems were exacerbated, according to Annan, by ‘a surge in arrivals of commodities from April 1998 onwards’, lack of transport, bulky equipment, and failure of some suppliers to indicate how to test supplies. Once again the US and British government’s story was sustained by misrepresenting the contents of the UN reports on which they purported to be based.Conclusion: a callous, racist policy defended through deception and self-deceptionIn a propaganda scandal just as great as the one over Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, the US and British governments defended the sanctions through deception and self-deception. Carne Ross was a key player, the member of the British UN delegation with responsibility for Iraq issues. Ross, who resigned over the invasion, admitted that he and his colleagues sifted through the UN’s reports to quote them selectively in ways that justified the sanctions. He argues that they were engaged in self-deception rather than outright deception but also says that the sanctions ‘did immeasurable damage to the Iraqi civilian population. We were conscious of that damage but we did too little to address it’. Hence they knew the truth and yet the materials he and his colleagues produced denied that this terrible damage was occurring. His most damning assessment is that the sanctions policy was racist: ‘We would not have treated a European or American people in that way’. Whatever the political purpose, the sanctions involved a callous, dishonest and racist choice to deny an entire society the means necessary to survive. ................
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