Text from a speech given by VVAW AI on 1/25/96.
When the build-up for the Gulf War began in August 1990, lots of people in the progressive and anti-war community called for continuing the sanctions so they would have more time to work. Some of these people saw it as the only way to avoid the war. Vietnam vets said the sanctions are being used as a softening blow to prepare the target.
The bombing proceded. The so-called clean, high-tech war was declared. Most of us are aware of how Bush and Company purchased and manipulated heads-of-state to build their so-called world-wide coalition and how they broke and twisted their own national and international laws in order to fight and win this war.
Since 1990, the U.S. has maintained a stranglehold on
Iraq by refusing to lift the economic sanctions. The
U.S. is one of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security
Council that have veto power. Russia, France and China
want the ban lifted. The United Kingdom is siding with
the U.S. The UN demands of Iraq in order to lift the
sanctions are as follows:
We could argue about whether or not these demands have or have not been met. But I think we would miss the real point. The U.S. has no right to make these demands! The United States has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. They've not accounted for thousands of Iraqis staughtered in the Gulf War, some burned beyond recognition on the road to Basra. What of the mass graves discovered in Panama after their frightful invasion there?
The impact of the sanctions since the war was made all the more deadly because of the way imperialism fights-in particular, how the U.S. fought the Gulf War. They bombarded electric facilities, water storage areas, schools, hospitals, residential areas, and hotels. They called them surgical strikes, but according to Merrill McPeak, Air Force Chief of Staff during the war, only 7% of the bombs dropped on Iraq were even laser guided and out of these 10% missed their targets. All told, 67,000 tons of ordinance dropped on Iraq didn't even hit its targets. I won't go into all these facts in detail. There are many good books that lay all that out. The point being, the U.S. military systematically, on purpose, destroyed an infrastructure that supported over 18 million people.
Before the Gulf War, Iraq was considered a nearly developed, industrial society. Cholera, Typhoid, gastroenteritis, malnutrition, Polio and Diptheria are illnesses that were well in check before the war and have been in epidemic proportions ever since. In 1990, there were 2240 cases of typhoid. In 1994, there were 24,436. That's an increase of 1,000%. I'd call this biological warfare! Because of these criminal sanctions, medicines like antibiotics, IV fluids, pain medication and hospital beds are in very short supply or not available at all. Clean water and food that is not contaminated with sewage and bacteria are scarce for the ordinary people in Iraq. A British Medical Association report, dated August 1995, stated that 576,000 Iraqi children have died since August 1990 because of the sanctions. The mortality rate of children under five has increased by 5 times. According to UNICEF over 4,000 children under the age of 5 die each month. In affect, this means an entire generation of Iraqi youth is being starved to death. The sanctions supposedly allow food and medicine to be imported, but because Iraq is not allowed to sell their own oil, there is no money to pay for them. The dinar has inflated by 5000% since the war. Before the war, Iraq imported 70% of its food.
Carl Von Clausewitz, a soldier and philosopher, said War is a mere continuation of policy by other means. Sanctions are indeed policy, but they are nothing more than an even more insidious form of war. Some people think that sanctions are a softer way of conducting war-less bloody. If you think about it, how would you rather die? By having a bomb drop on your home? Or by watching your family slowly starve or rot from disease, without even a pain pill or clean water to give them to ease their suffering?
During the war, the U.S. war machine tried to win over the anti-war movement to support the troops with yellow ribbons and calls for patriotism. We've since figured out how this was used to divide us. This is one of the lessons of the Gulf War. We'll be a lot more hip the next time they use it. The lesson we need to remember about sanctions is that they are also acts of war, and should never, ever, be supported.
The U.S. banning economic aid and the ability to trade with other countries is causing the basic people in Iraq to suffer and die. Saddam and the rulers don't suffer. They continue to eat, drink, receive medical care and live comfortably. The U.S. government would have us believe that Saddam is the true source of the Iraqi people's misery. These sanctions are about the U.S. imposing their interests, not the Kuwaiti's, and certainly not ours. They call Saddam a tyrant and call on him to be overthrown. But it is the real enemy of the Iraqi people, U.S. imperialism, that needs to be smashed. This truth runs deep. This fight against imperialism is what unites the anti-intervention movement to all the other important battles for justice in this country and around the world. U.S. troops enforcing peace in Bosnia, troops occupying Haiti, Sanctions, Police Actions, Humanitarian War, peaceful occupation, CIA covert operations-We need to be clear-IT ALL MEANS WAR !
The real history, the truth and the fact that the U.S. War on Iraq continues, cannot and must not be hidden. We all must continue to struggle to put the people's verdict on the Gulf War, end the sanctions now, and end the imperialist meddling of the United States anywhere/anytime and by any means.