Harsh sanctions may strengthen Iranian regime

just like sanctions strengthened Saddam, Chomsky argues:

'The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as “genocidal” by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.

The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues’ gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K. – tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.'

UN to end Saddam-era sanctions on Iraq

I thought they were ended in 2003. The Wikipedia article on Iraq sanctions says "they began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and continued until May 22, 2003." The economic situation in Iraq has changed drastically since 2003. Multi-national companies have signed oil deals with the Iraqi government, even without an oil law, and Iraqis can buy pretty much whatever they want these days. I think this proves that the UN sanctions were really enforced by the US and its allies. It didn't matter that UN sanctions on Iraq existed. What really mattered was US enforcement of those sanctions.

"The UN Security Council will on Wednesday end a swathe of Saddam Hussein-era sanctions against Iraq in a sign of the changes in the country, diplomats said.

US Vice President Joe Biden will chair a Security Council meeting that will lift the international penalties mainly dating from Saddam's 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait that set off the first Gulf War.

...There will still be sanctions against some minor members of the Saddam regime who are still on the run. Iraq is also required to pay five percent of its oil revenues into a UN fund for reparations for Kuwait.

More than 30 billion dollars has already been paid out by the fund, and Iraq has protested that the measure is too severe and should be lifted.

Kuwait has countered that before being released from the sanctions, Iraq needs to agree the border between the two countries, and pay a further 22 billion dollars due in war reparations."

What was moral alternative to regime change?

Kan'an Makiya in March 2008: 'Perhaps it is incumbent upon those who now regret supporting regime change back in 2003 to tell us what the alternative moral course of action was. Was it to wait and watch until the time bomb that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq blew up in everyone's faces?

True, I underestimated the self-centeredness and sectarianism of the Iraqi ruling elite put in power by U.S. military action in 2003. I knew them well, after all. And I underestimated the extent to which Iraqi state institutions had already been dismantled by U.N. sanctions, which changed a totalitarian regime into a criminal regime during the 1990s, long before anyone thought of unseating Saddam Hussein by force. Nor did I ever imagine that the conversion of the Iraqi army into a civil reconstruction force—which is what I and others called for in the run-up to 2003—would be translated into Paul Bremer's order for the overnight firing, without pension, of half a million or so men. Certainly, I never imagined the breathtaking incompetence of the American occupation. Then again, I supported de-Bathification, comparing it all too glibly in interviews to de-Nazification. I did so naively, not allowing myself to think that it would be practiced by my fellow Iraqis as de-Sunnification and that the committee in charge of it would behave like an Iraqi version of McCarthy's committee on un-American activities.

But my biggest political sin is that in spite of nearly a quarter of a century of writing about the abuses of the Baath Party, I, and more generally the whole community of Iraqi exiles, grossly underestimated the consequences on a society of 30 years of extreme dictatorship. Iraqis were, it is true, liberated by the U.S. action in 2003; they were not defeated as the German and Japanese peoples had been in 1945. A regime was removed and a people liberated overnight, but it was a people that did not understand what had happened to it or why. Iraqis emerged into the light of day in a daze, having been in a prison or a giant concentration camp, cut off from the rest of the world to a degree that is difficult to imagine if you have not lived among them.

All of a sudden this raw, profoundly abused population, traumatized by decades of war, repression, uprisings, and brutal campaigns of social extermination, was handed the opportunity to build a nation from scratch. True, they were adept at learning the most arresting symbols of their re-entry into the world—the mobile phone and the satellite dish, for example. But it proved infinitely harder to get rid of the mistrust, fear, and unwillingness to take initiative or responsibility that was ingrained into a people by a whole way of survival in police-state conditions. No one made allowances for the deleterious consequences of all this on reconstruction, identity-formation, and nation-building. Is that an argument for, or against, regime change in 2003?'

USA negligent in Iraqi deaths since 1980s

PS (Dec 2): If the 100,000 "excess deaths" in Iraq since 2003 can be blamed entirely on the US, so can deaths resulting from US support for Saddam during the 80s and the US failure in 1991 to help the Iraqi Shia who wanted very badly to see Saddam's murderous regime overthrown. UN sanctions, which Clinton continued to enforce, caused much suffering among ordinary Iraqis while Saddam built palaces.

I commented on a post entitled "Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?" on the Palestinian Pundit, and I think my comment is worth posting here:

'According to the UN, sanctions actually resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqis by 1998, and I remember Secretary of State Madeline Albright on 60 Minutes saying the price was worth it.'

Albright's 60 Minutes interview took place in 1996, not 1998:


My comment continued:

'I think it's also worth mentioning US support of Saddam's murderous regime in the 80s and the war between Iraq and Iran, which resulted in the deaths of a million Muslims. Turns out the US was supporting both sides.

Furthermore, the Shia rebellion in 1991 was brutally put down, and one of Saddam's guys admitted the regime killed 300,000 Shia (Muslims) in April, 1991 alone. They did this as US soldiers stood not far away - Bush apparently gave the order not to intervene, as his Saudi buddies did not want the Shia to take over Iraq. I consider the US to be partially negligent in the mass murders committed by Saddam's regime, and I think the real numbers are much larger.'

In a second comment I also posted a link to this video, which I've posted before and watched again today, only to be angered again:



I'm glad the US overthrew Saddam's murderous regime, but it shoulda happened in 1991.

Saddam Built 81 Palaces

while ordinary Iraqis starved and were imprisoned in their own country.

"These extraordinary images—published here for the first time—show the imperial palaces of Saddam Hussein converted into temporary housing for the U.S military. Vast, self-indulgent halls of columned marble and extravagant chandeliers, surrounded by pools, walls, moats, and, beyond that, empty desert, suddenly look more like college dormitories.

...I had heard plenty about Saddam's palaces. They were the focus of the International Atomic Energy Association's tedious investigations in the years preceding the invasion, and the news was always full of delegations being turned away from this or that palace. Why were we so keen to get inside Saddam's palaces? Because he built so many—81 in total. Surely, we thought, he must be hiding something in those palace complexes. Surely he must be building subterranean particle accelerators. And, in the end, our curiosity got the better of us.

In fact, Saddam was building palaces in every city as an expression of his authority. Palace architecture in Iraq served as a constant reminder of Saddam's immanence. A palace in your city simply fed the sense that Saddam was not just nearby—he was everywhere. Saddam was omnipresent.

...Marble that was used in the palace (such as in the great spacious bathrooms) was imported from Italy, in spite of the trade embargo. And the plaster cast frescoes in the ceilings were imported from Morocco."

Either sanctions had to end or Saddam had to end

From a January 2003 article: 'As Peter Hain, a minister in the British Foreign Office, said:
"There's $24 billion of oil wealth under the control of the United Nations that he'd like to get his hands on, to re-arm himself to inflict tyranny in the region and on his own people again, which he has not been able to do under the sanctions regime." [He was still able to inflict tyranny on "his own" people and HE DID]

'A HARD CHOICE'
Still, the humanitarian suffering linked to the sanctions has vexed the West. Then-chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations Madeleine Albright was asked by Leslie Stahl in a "60 Minutes" interview in 1996 about reports that half a million children had died and whether the price was worth the benefits of sanctions.

Said Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."
It is a statement that foes of sanctions repeat angrily and regularly.
Foes of sanctions oft point to two U.N. reports issued in 1999.
A Security Council's special panel to report the effects of sanctions, released in March 1999, said:
"In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant-mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23 percent of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under 5 years of age, only 41 percent of the population have regular access to clean water."
A UNICEF report of August 1999 said children younger than 5 were dying at more than twice the rate of 10 years ago.
Sanction backers argue that Saddam could easily end sanctions by fully cooperating with the U.N.
And they argue that Saddam is not directing the resources he has, legal oil sales and black-market sales, to the Iraqis, but is squandering them on palaces, other luxuries and weapons.
Foes of sanctions argue Saddam's resources — legal and illegal — are not enough to rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure, nor to feed the people and supply the hospitals.
Furthermore, they say, sanctions have prevented the importation of many vital items, such as chlorine and pumps, that would be used in water systems, because they also can be used in weapons production. [Meanwhile Saddam built palaces for himself and his family all over Iraq]

OIL FOR FOOD
Since 1996, Iraq has been allowed to sell oil to raise money for humanitarian relief. Sanctions foes say the program has been too little too late.
Originally, Iraq was allowed to sell up to $2 billion of oil every six months. That amount has expanded through the years to where it is now open-ended. About a quarter of the money goes to Kuwait as war reparations, and about 3 percent goes to the U.N. for administration of the program.'

Sanctions killed Iraqi children

Watch this excerpt of a 2000 UK documentary to see what Muttanabi Street looked like. John Pilger interviews Dennis Halliday, who describes life for ordinary Iraqis under sanctions, and he points out that Iraqi professionals often sold their books to feed themselves and their kids. It's hard to believe that Iraq experienced 12 years of cruel sanctions.

Sanctions kill poor people

Last night my mom told me about her relatives who died in 1991. I have written about my mother's aunt (we called her 3amma), who suffered from asthma in her later years. After sanctions were imposed on Iraq in August, 1990, asthma inhalers were nowhere to be found in Baghdad, and soon after she ran out of her medicine, during the intense bombing in January, 1991, she died. My cousin told me how difficult it was during the bombing to transport her body from Baghdad to Najaf for burial.

My mom also told me about my cousin's wife's mother, who had adult-onset diabetes. She developed a kidney infection during the summer of 1991. With no antibiotics in any Iraqi pharmacy, she died. Countless Iraqis died as a result of sanctions. Rich Iraqis were not affected by sanctions. Sanctions only made Saddam stronger, which is perhaps why Saddam said no in 2001 to a British proposal to ease sanctions.

So maybe it's not quite true to claim that none of my relatives have been killed by the US.

"Oil For Food"

I just noticed how many links I have on my blog.  One of them is http://www.iraqinews.com/ - I must admit that I do not visit this site often, and in fact this is probably the second or third time I looked at their site, and I was surprised to learn that today is Monday, 28 Muharram 1429 H 4 February 2008.  Also I learned (from their "Today In Iraqi History" feature, which needs to be updated) that on February 1, 1998, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an increase in the amount of oil Iraq can sell under the UN-sponsored "Oil-for-Food" program.  I wonder if Kofi knew at the time about the corruption that was taking place under his nose.  Saddam built palaces; the Iraqi people got food rations. It seems unfair to me. 

"February 1, 1998 U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls for an increase in the amount of oil Iraq can sell under the U.N.-sponsored "Oil-for-Food" program"

PS: Compare the plight of the Iraqi people in the 1990s to the plight of Saddam Hussein: "A 1999 State Department study reported Saddam’s regime had spent $2.2 billion building about 48 palaces since the 1991 Gulf War. Some estimates put the total number of palaces between 70 and 80."

Saddam's Yacht For Sale

This may be old and the yacht may have been sold already, but I just wanted to post the photos to remind people how lavishly Saddam lived while Iraqis starved during the sanctions era. Thanks dad for the forward.

More on this story.

Stealing From the Poor and Giving to the Rich

Let us not forget about the complicity of the United Nations in starving the Iraqi people. I have asserted before that fundamentalism spreads as a result of poverty.

Stealing From the Poor and Giving to the Rich

'As von Sponeck spoke, I reflected on my lengthy interview with Iraq’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Mohammed Al-Duri. Al Duri, being interviewed for the first time by English speaking media since claiming his post at the UN, revealed to me in early 2001, in equally shocking details, what sanctions had done to his country and people. He claimed that the UN was part of the problem. Led by two countries, the US and Britain, the UN Oil for Food Program and the “humanitarian” mission it established in Iraq was, he said, robbing the country blind and mismanaging funds, with needy Iraqi families receiving next to nothing. He spoke of the manipulation of Iraq’s wealth for political purposes and alleged that the UN was a tool in the hands of the United States government aimed at encouraging widespread popular disatisfaction with Saddam’s government before the country was dragged off to war.

In hindsight, Al-Duri’s assessment was very accurate. Promoting his new book: “A Different Kind of War,” von Sponeck reiterated in essence and substance Al-Duri’s claims; the only difference is that von Sponeck was an insider; his numbers and stories were impeccable and could hardly be contested. It’s no wonder that one and a half years after assuming his post in Baghdad in 1998, he resigned. Even at such uncongenial bureaucracy like the UN, some people still possess a living conscience; von Sponeck was and remains a man of great qualities.

By March 2003, when Iraq was invaded by American forces, the UN was generating $64 billion in sales of Iraqi oil, according to von Sponeck. But, scandalously, only $28 billion reached the Iraqi people. Around 70 percent of the Iraqi people benefited from the program. If distributed evenly, each Iraqi received half a US dollar per day. According to UN figures, an individual living under one dollar per day is classified as living in “abject poverty”. Even during the most destructive phases of war with Iran, Iraq has managed to provide relatively high living standards. Its hospitals were neither dilapidated, nor did its oil industry lie in ruins. Only after the UN sanctions in 1991 did the Iraqis suffer at such an appalling magnitude. Alas, the tyranny of Saddam expanded to become the tyranny of the international community as well.

“Neither the welfare of the Iraqi people nor the sovereignty of the Iraqis was respected,” by the UN and its two main benefactors, asserted von Sponeck. The UN Security Council’s “elected 10 or veto-wielding five” had nothing for Iraq but “empty words,” but there were “deliberate efforts to make life uncomfortable (for the Iraqis) through the Oil for Food program.” All efforts to modernize Iraq’s oil industry were blocked, said von Sponeck, all at the behest of “two governments that blocked all sorts of items,” which could’ve made that possible: Again, the United States and Britain, coincidently the same two countries that invaded and currently occupy Iraq. The logic in all of this is clear; the “preemptive” war on Iraq was factored into the sanctions from its early days.

The assessments of Al-Duri and von Sponeck converge, revealing the disagreeable intents of the US government and its followers many years before the horror of 9/11 polarized public opinion and allowed Washington’s political elites, the neoconservatives and contractors to make their case for war.

But where did the money go, during the sanctions and now, four years after the invasion?

Von Sponeck reported that a large chunk of the money generated from Iraq’s oil, 55 percent, went to fund the UN’s own inadequate “humanitarian” programs. Much of the rest was taken by the UN compensation commission, entrusted in handling claims of damages made by those allegedly harmed by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. According to von Sponeck, the Iraqi oil pie was so large, there was plenty for everyone: Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, and all the rest. But most ironically, the commission awarded a large sum of money to two Israeli kibbutzim in the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights, for allegedly losing some of their income due to the fact that the war damaged the tourism industry in Israel.'

The First American War Against Iraq

'In 1980, Iraq started an eight-year war with neighboring Iran. That prolonged battle left Iraq in dire economic straits. So Hussein borrowed money from his Arab neighbors, including Kuwait. When Kuwait began to call in those debts and pump oil from a disputed border field, Hussein responded by flexing his muscles, again' explains CNN. The reasons Saddam decided to invade Kuwait are a bit more complicated than this, which I will explain later. I remember watching CNN from campus with my brother - we were the only Iraqis (Iraqi Americans) on campus, and I remember thinking how bizarre it was that we were living in a country that was bombing the country we were born in. It was very sad, but in the end there was no choice but to see Baghdad bombed, and it was televised, and many Arab states participated in the 'liberation' of Kuwait, the '19th province of Iraq' as Saddam Hussein so astutely observed. The bombing was intense: 40+ days/nights of heavy bombing by the US and its allies.

My mother's aunt, a sweet 70-something-year old woman who was blind and had asthma, lived with my aunt (my mom's sister) for many years in Baghdad. We called her 'Amma' which means 'aunt' in Arabic, and we loved her - my cousins who lived with her regarded her as a second mother. Their household was one of our favorites to stay with every summer we visited Iraq in the 70s. Immediately after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the UN imposed economic sanctions against Iraq, and no 'dual use' medicines were allowed to be sold to Iraq. I don't know how asthma medicine can be converted to a weapon, but it was on the long list of medicines that were considered to be 'dual use' and were therefore prohibited by the sanctions. By the time the coalition started bombing Iraq, Amma had run out of her asthma medicine, and in late January, 1991, she died as a result. One of my cousins, who eventually moved to the US, told me that during the intense bombing he and one of his brothers had to take Amma's body to Nejef and bury her there. He told me that it was the saddest experience of his life.

Back to why Iraq invaded Kuwait. After the war with Iran, Iraq was $40 billion in debt, and Iraq was desperate for money. In 1989 Kuwait started selling oil 20% beyond their OPEC quota. This extra oil on the market caused a drop in the price of oil on the world market, and as a result, Iraq lost about one-third of its oil income. In the following months, Iraq's Oil Minister demanded that Kuwait reduce its oil sales, but Kuwait refused. In 1990 Saddam Hussein publicly threatened to invade Kuwait. The official response from the US was surprising. The American ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, states at a US State Department briefing that "there are no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait" - this was 6 days before Iraq invaded Kuwait.

The US relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime, the events that led to Gulf War I and the sanctions are well explained and chronicled in the excellent documentary, Hidden Wars of Desert Storm, which features former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Phyllis Bennis, Dennis Haliday, Norman Schwartzkopf, and other officials and experts. It explains how the CIA helped Saddam and the Baath party come to power in Iraq. In 'Hidden Wars' an American Arms Trade analyst explains that 52 countries supplied arms to Iraq or Iran during their long war. 29 of those countries, including the US, supplied arms to BOTH sides. The documentary shows a clip of April Glaspie saying that there's no security agreement with Kuwait in August 1990, and the look on her face is rather odd, as if she was being forced to say this. I was surprised to learn that the US apparently lied to the Saudis about satellite photos which allegedly showed that Iraqi troops were massed at the Saudi border in order to receive a Saudi invitation to allow US troops into their country. An investigative reporter says in the documentary that these photos do not exist, and the St. Petersburg Times along with ABC ran stories in January 1991 that also questioned the buildup of Iraqi troops at the Saudi border. A sinister-looking James Baker (former Secretary of State) is shown at the UN meeting at which members voted on whether force should be used to force Iraq out of Kuwait, and Phyllis Bennis explains that three days after Yemem voted 'No' on the use of force, the US cut its entire aid budget to Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world. Hidden Wars goes on to discuss the uprising in southern Iraq and the lack of support for the uprising from the US. The documentary spends a great deal of time on sanctions and their devastating impact on ordinary Iraqis during the following decade. Sanctions made Saddam stronger, and the documentary explains how. The remainder of Hidden Wars discusses the use of depleted uranium and its horrible effects on Iraqis and US soldiers and their families. I believe that this documentary is so good that I've added a link to hiddenwars.com on my side bar.

To learn more about the impact sanctions had on Iraq click here.