IRAQ
Philip Ferguson
From "Living Marxism" no. 58, August 1993
The rotting remains of Iraq
Three years ago, in August 1990, the Gulf crisis began with Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait. The US missile attack on Baghdad in June 1993
confirmed that the West is still waging war on the Iraqi people. Not
content with bombing Iraq into oblivion, the United Nations security
council is starving the Iraqis of food and medical supplies and robbing
them of their land. JUDE EDWARDS reports on the hidden horrors of the
Gulf War:
On 26 June, president Bill Clinton claimed to be striking a blow against
international terrorism as he authorised a cruise missile attack on the
centre of Baghdad, killing at least eight civilians. The US attack was
presented as a response to an Iraqi-sponsored attempt on the life of
ex-president George Bush. Shortly before the attack, the United Nations
security council had voted to maintain sanctions on Iraq in view of its
failure to comply with UN resolutions. Three days after the bombing of
Baghdad, a US congressional committee reported that Iraq had rebuilt
much of its nuclear capacity and was defying UN demands on disarmament.
The image of Iraq in the West remains that of a powerful military
threat. The reality is a country devastated by the impact of 90 000
tonnes of bombs dropped in 43 days during the Gulf War of 1991, and by
the subsequent effects of punitive sanctions imposed by the Western-run
UN security council. This picture of Iraq is carefully hidden from the
public eye, as Harvard public health expert, Eric Hoskins recently
discovered.
Shelving the truth
In February Hoskins was commissioned by Unicef (United Nations
International Children's Emergency Fund) to compile a 'situation
analysis' on Iraq. His 32-page draft, 'Children, war and sanctions'
presents a picture of a ruined country whose 18m inhabitants are
fighting a daily battle for survival. It includes expert witnesses who
conclude that the main threat to the health of Iraqi children comes from
continued UN sanctions and the infrastructural damage caused by Allied
bombing.
Unicef refused to publish the Hoskins report. 'We did not commission him
to do a report on the effect of war and sanctions', said an official,
'we are not satisfied with it. We have, in fact, shelved it'
(Independent, 24 June 1993). While the UN security council continues to
strangle Iraq's economy and endorses military strikes against Iraqi
targets, Unicef helps to ensure that what the West has done to the Iraqi
people remains hidden.
The public image of the 42-day bombing campaign in 1991 was one of
hi-tech warfare, in which F-117A batwing stealth bombers launched
precision-guided bombs against sophisticated laser targeting systems
on the rooftop of the Iraqi Ministry of Defence. Journalists and
politicians presented the West's battle with Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a
'robo-war' against military targets, resulting in minimal 'collateral
damage' (civilian casualties). The reality was a war of attrition waged
against the entire Iraqi population.
88 500 tonnes
Coalition forces dropped 88 500 tonnes of bombs in 109 000 sorties. In
all 250 000 bombs were dropped, and only 22 000 of these were
'smart-bombs' (guided missiles). The bulk of the bombing was carried out
by B52s flying at 40 000 feet. They have only one function in war -
carpet-bombing. At 4.30am on 13 February 1991, US pilots sent a
laser-guided missile down a ventilation shaft at the al-Amariyah bomb
shelter in Baghdad. At least 300 people, and possibly as many as 1600,
were killed.
While US president George Bush was accusing Saddam of concealing
his 'weapons of mass destruction', the American and British forces were
openly deploying theirs. These included napalm, fuel air explosives
which create a gas cloud that blasts a shockwave over 50 000 square feet
destroying everything in its path, and 'daisy-cutters', 15 000lb bombs
containing gelled slurry explosive. The Iraqis were subjected to an
additional 20-30 000 tonnes of explosives from artillery shells and
rocket-launchers. (See P Walker, 'The myth of surgical bombing in the
Gulf War', in R Clark et al, War Crimes, pp85-6)
The Western forces also used some more low-tech killing methods. In the
first two days of the ground offensive that began in February 1991, the
Americans employed tanks and earth movers to bury thousands of Iraqi
soldiers alive. Sand was piled into Iraqi trenches as armoured vehicles
poured machine gun fire into the ditches, making surrender impossible.
According to General Anthony Moreno, 'what you saw was a bunch of
buried trenches with people's arms and things sticking out of them'
(quoted in F Kelly, 'War crimes against the Iraqi people', in War
Crimes, p50).
Early on 26 February 1991 Iraqi troops began to pull out of Kuwait. The
allies left open only two roads out of Kuwait City. They met at the
Kuwaiti town of al-Mutlaa where the fleeing soldiers became a human
traffic jam. Despite Bush's assurances that retreating Iraqis would not
be fired on, coalition forces were given orders to 'find anything that
was moving and take it out' (W Arkin, D Durrant and M Cherni, On Impact:
Modern Warfare and the Environment - A Case Study of the Gulf War,
p109).
'Turkey-shoot'
Kill zones were assigned every 70 miles along the road (later known as
the highway of death). 'As we drove slowly through the wreckage, our
armoured personnel carrier's tracks splashed through pools of bloody
water' (On Impact, p108). Refugees, mostly Palestinians, trying to
escape Kuwait were caught up in the fire, as North Carolina guardsman
Mike Ange explained: 'You know, you have a little Toyota pick-up truck
that was loaded down with the furniture and the suitcases and rugs and
the pet cat and that type of thing all over the back of this truck, and
those trucks were taken out just like the military vehicles' (quoted in
B Moyers, PBS Special Report: After the War, p51). The massacre of
soldiers and civilians on the road out of Kuwait was dubbed a
'turkey-shoot' by US airmen. An estimated 25 000 were killed.
The Gulf War devastated Iraq, sending a developing country back to the
Dark Ages. The allied bombing campaign effectively destroyed Iraq's
infrastructure. Bombs wrecked 90 per cent of Iraq's electricity
generating plants. To date only 40 per cent of prewar output has been
restored. Almost half of Iraq's 900 000 telephone lines were rendered
irreparable. Around 1200 tonnes of explosives were dropped on the 28
major oil installations.
The bombing devastated living standards and, in particular, healthcare
in Iraq. Shortly after the bombing campaign ended in February 1991, the
UN sent a team to report on postwar conditions in Iraq. In the
introduction to their report the team, headed by UN under secretary
general Martti Ahtisaari wrote that 'nothing we had seen or read
prepared us for what has befallen the country':
'The recent conflict has wrought near apocalyptic results upon what had
been, until January 1991, a rather highly urbanised and mechanised
society. Now most of modern life's supports have been destroyed or
rendered tenuous. 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.' (UN document
s/22366).
In 1990 the World Health Organisation (WHO) classed Iraq as a
developed country in terms of its healthcare facilities. In 1993 Iraq
cannot even supply its citizens with clean drinking water. The result is
that diseases which were nearly eradicated in 1990, have reappeared with
a vengeance taking thousands of lives.
Sewage swamps
Before the Gulf War Baghdad received 450 litres of water a day per
citizen, the rest of the country receiving 200-250 litres. The bombs
closed down all of Iraq's electricity-operated water-treatment stations.
After the war Baghdad could only be supplied with 10 litres a day for
each citizen. That figure gradually rose to 30-40 litres, less than 10
per cent of prewar supplies. Even this was sporadic and did not cover
the whole city, never mind the whole country. Large areas of Iraq are
still entirely cut off from the water system. The lack of water, coupled
with a severe decline in the quality of what little water there is, has
ruined the health of many Iraqis. The landscape of southern Iraq is
marred by the appearance of immense swamps of raw sewage caused by the
failure of pumping stations which resulted from the electricity
shortage. Untreated sewage from Baghdad is dumped directly into rivers
which are also the main source of drinking water.
Infrastructural damage in Iraq has been compounded by the impact of
sanctions. UN sanctions were imposed against Iraq three years ago, in
August 1990 (Resolution 661). To be allowed to import any product Iraq
must plead before the UN sanctions committee - even when it wished to
import black cloth to provide mourning clothes for the one in 10 married
Iraqi women who are war widows.
In September 1990 the sanctions were strengthened by UN Resolution
666, which stated that no food was to be allowed into Iraq until the UN
security council declared the country a humanitarian emergency (how
many Iraqis had to starve before this became an emergency was not
spelled out). Between August 1990 and April 1991 the total amount of
food to reach Iraq was enough to last its population one day. Before the
war Iraq imported over 70 per cent of its food. In March 1991, pressure
from non-governmental groups working in Iraq resulted in the declaration
that Iraq was a humanitarian emergency. Even then, Iraq was not allowed
to import food; the UN was to provide supplies. In fact the UN ensured
that the process for getting food into the country was so complex that
agencies and businessmen were deterred from dealing with Iraq.
'A mystery'
By November 1991 the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation
had noted that 'serious food shortages are now affecting the majority of
the population of Iraq'. Staple foods are rationed by the government.
But the rations last only 10 days out of each month. The rest of the
time people are forced to buy on the black market where the average
monthly salary of a government employee is worth between £7.50 and £11;
for a non-government employee it is £6.50, while a doctor would make
approximately £11.50. With inflation running at 1000 per cent in
February 1993, food prices are around 45 times higher than prewar. By
1991 real wages had dropped to between five and seven per cent of 1990
levels, and to date there has been no increase. Unemployment among Iraqi
males tops 50 per cent.
As Charles Richards noted in the Independent early this year, 'it
remains a mystery how ordinary Iraqis make ends meet' (24 January 1993).
For many thousands of Iraqis the answer is simple; they don't. According
to Iraqi figures supplied to the United Nations on 14 May 1993,
incidents of death from malnutrition in children under the age of five
have risen from 90 in August 1990 to 1183 in February 1992. WHO confirm
a four-fold increase in child mortality.
The high incidence of malnutrition and infectious diseases resulting
primarily from the inadequate water supply place a huge burden on Iraq's
health system. Yet sanctions prevent even the most basic medicines from
reaching patients. Before the Gulf War Iraq imported $500m worth of
medicine each year. UN sanctions make it illegal for Iraq to purchase
medicine or medical equipment. Unofficial sanctions, such as the
complex licensing system for companies trying to export anything from
the USA to Iraq, make matters worse. Experts today estimate that since
August 1990 less than a thirtieth of Iraq's medicine requirements have
been met.
Cholera returns
Doctors in major hospitals are re-using disposable needles 10 times. In
the country's main paediatric hospital, 98 per cent of admissions are
children with infectious diarrhoea. The hospital has no drugs and no
medicated milk with which to treat them. By April 1991, cholera had
returned to Iraq. By May 1992, polio was again claiming the lives of
children, diphtheria has doubled and meningitis quadrupled. The
bombing ensured that hospitals could not be supplied with basics like
electricity, windows and water, and the sanctions have prevented the
import of medicines.
In May 1991 a team of experts from Harvard University led by Eric
Hoskins, published a report entitled 'Public health in Iraq after the
Gulf War'. It estimated that 50 000 children under the age of five had
died during and directly after the war, and that a further 170 000
under-fives were likely to die in 1992 of malnutrition resulting from
the effect of UN sanctions. (Quoted in A Alnasrawi, 'Iraq: economic
consequences of the 1991 Gulf War and future outlook', Third World
Quarterly, Vol13 No2, 1992.)
Child killers
Hoskins' team found that Iraqi hospitals had been 'reduced to mere
reservoirs of infection since most medicines are in short supply,
laboratories cannot function, operating theatres have no supplies, and
basic services including food, water and electricity are unavailable' (E
Hoskins, 'The truth behind the economic sanctions', in War Crimes). At
Kirkuk hospital a nurse told them that she had just completed an
emergency cesarian section with 'flies swarming over the incision
because the operating room windows had been shattered during bomb
blasts', and sanctions will not allow their replacement.
In March 1992 Iraq's health ministry claimed that 21 772 people had died
in the previous two months as a direct result of UN sanctions. WHO then
announced that between August 1990 and January 1992, 31 330 children
below the age of five and 67 636 over fives had died of malnutrition and
disease. The mortality rate for infants had trebled since 1990 (quoted
in Middle East International, 15 May 1992) Despite these figures the
security council of the UN has renewed the sanctions every six weeks.
Not content with destroying Iraq, the Western powers have laid down the
conditions on which they might allow it to exist. On 6 April 1991 the
Iraqis reluctantly accepted the West's ceasefire conditions; sanctions
would be maintained indefinitely, American planes would continue to
control Iraqi airspace, and the UN would have a free hand to redraw
Iraq's borders. On 27 May this year, the security council agreed to move
the border and give a piece of Iraqi territory to Kuwait, virtually
landlocking Iraq. 'The council wishes to stress to Iraq the inviability
of the international boundary between Iraq and Kuwait', it stated, 'and
that serious consequences would ensue from any breach thereof'.
The original Kuwait-Iraq border had been drawn in the sand in 1922 by
Sir Percy Cox, British High Commissioner, at a time when both were under
imperial occupation. The UN has now gone further. As BBC
correspondent Tim Llewellyn has noted in the Spectator, the boundary the
UN has drawn goes 'slap through the middle of Umm Qasr', Iraq's only
remaining working port: 'This leaves the naval base and about a dozen
civilian houses in what is now, de jure, Kuwait, though there is not a
single Kuwaiti in sight...the nearest properly populated Kuwaiti area is
an oilfield over 40 miles south of Umm Qasr.' (5 June 1993)
Ignoring Iraqi protests at the iniquity and breach of sovereignty which
this policy represents, the UN security council is today able to act
like the old colonialist Sir Percy Cox, while passing its actions off as
a justified defence against Iraqi 'aggression'.
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