WPSR Middle East Activities
Gerri Haynes, Middle East Task Force Chair
November 1999
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R. Haynes |
Weapons of mass destruction take many forms. In the Middle East, nuclear weapons capability probably exists in only one country but a silent weapon of mass destruction is being deployed on the people of Iraq. In 1993 WPSR delegates met with IPPNW colleagues in Palestine and Israel and began a study of this volatile area. In 1997, a second delegation of WPSR members, including US Congressman Jim McDermott, traveled through Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, meeting with government leaders and peace workers and learning more about the intricacies of Middle East developments. In 1999, WPSR delegates have traveled twice to Iraq.
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, speaking at the annual WPSR dinner in 1996, awakened our awareness about the devastating effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq. Mr. Clark warned that the sanctions are a silent weapon of mass destruction – one about which people dedicated to ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction must be concerned.
In May 1998 Middle East Task Force Chairperson Gerri Haynes traveled to Iraq with a delegation led by Mr. Clark. Iraqi physicians pleaded for their international colleagues to know about the ongoing catastrophe of public health created by the sanctions. They also voiced a need to hear about current developments in medicine – information that is denied to them under the sanctions.
Physicians and other medical professionals, peace activists and journalists from Australia, England, Palestine, Canada and the U.S. comprised the first WPSR delegation to Iraq in April 1999. Ramsey Clark and representatives of Voices in the Wilderness (a group dedicated to ending the sanctions against the people of Iraq) assisted in getting permission from the Iraqi government for this group to enter Iraq. The delegates took medicines, school supplies and medical textbooks and journals to give as gifts to their Iraqi contacts. For personnel at the lonely border outpost between Jordan and Iraq, the group took sodas and nutrient bars. Two members of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer staff traveled with the spring delegation. Their work was published on May 11 in an eight-page newspaper insert – a publication that has been distributed to every member of the United States Congress.
In October, a second WPSR delegation traveled to Iraq. Four physicians, one doctor of psychology and one nurse taught classes in the school of medicine and discussed with their colleagues the effects of the ongoing sanctions. Two delegates traveled to southern Iraq to learn more about the effects of current U.S. and British bombing.
The delegates each carried 140 pounds of medical texts, journals and school supplies. Gary Novak, founder of the "Pencils for Peace" campaign, brought thousands of pencils contributed in protest of the sanctions by the people of his hometown, Port Townsend, Washington. All educational supplies are denied by sanctions. Schools are in disrepair. Three or four students share one school desk. Hans von Sponeck, Director of the Humanitarian Mission of the UN in Iraq, told the April delegation that the ban on educational materials: books, pencils, journals, paper etc. is causing a frightening decline in the level of education in Iraq – "intellectual genocide."
Iraqi medical education is conducted exclusively in English. All reports and patient records are documented in English. Receiving the updated books, one professor said of a new edition Medicine text, "Oh, I've read that this was coming, but I didn't think I'd see one. My edition is from the mid-eighties."
UNICEF, the UN, the World Health Organization, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and many non-governmental organizations document the effects of the sanctions on the people of Iraq. Conservative estimates indicate that more that 250,000 children under five years of age have died as a direct result of the sanctions. Some reports state that as many as two million people may have died in the last ten years from sanctions-related causes.
Destruction of the civilian infrastructure during the 1991 Gulf War included electrical power plants, water and sewage treatment plants and medicine and medical supply facilities. We met a little boy born prematurely during the 1991 bombing. With no electricity, no heat and no access to hospital care, this little boy did not receive what is basic medical care in the U.S. This little boy symbolizes the effects of sanctions that mortality statistics do not reveal. His brain is permanently damaged.
Repair of the infrastructure has been slow – materials for repair are denied in the sanctions and slow to be released under the Oil for Food arrangement. During the summer of 1999 temperatures soared into the mid-50s (Celsius) and electrical power cuts occurred for three to six hours twice each day. Vaccines – in constant short supply for people and animals – were ruined. Polio vaccine was destroyed. This once-eradicated disease has joined other "previously eradicated" diseases such as cholera on the list of re-emerging, rapidly increasing diseases.
The latest UNICEF (August, 1999) report indicates that 23% of the children in south and central Iraq are chronically malnourished. While food provided through the Oil for Food arrangement has helped to slow (not stop) the incidence of marasmus and kwashiorkor, chronically malnourished children experience decreased mental development and growth retardation – problems of intergenerational consequence. Many young mothers are reportedly so poorly nourished that they are unable to nurse their babies. More than 50% of the drinking water in Iraq unsafe to consume and babies whose formula is "stretched" with water are in double jeopardy.
Prior to the sanctions, Iraq had access to all the money from its oil sales. Iraqis (men and women) were offered free education, including books, through post-graduate school. In 1990, 92% of the country had potable drinking water, roads were paved, women's rights were advancing more rapidly than in any other Arab country (with the possible exception of Lebanon), from 1960 to 1990 the infant death rate had plummeted, 93% of children in urban areas attended school, and obesity was a pressing health problem.
With the limited amount of money now available through Oil for Food, Iraq is on inadequate "rations." All of the Oil for Food money (Iraq's money) is deposited in a bank in Paris - none of it is available to the Iraqi regime. To access the funds, a requisition is made to the Oil for Food committee, approval obtained, a contract submitted and approved, an order submitted and approved, the goods received, inspected, approved. At any point along the way, a HOLD can be placed on needed goods. Partial orders such as insulin may be received while syringes essential for insulin delivery are HOLD. In April, Mr. von Sponeck told our delegation that the total annual dollar amount available for all expenses in Iraq (food, medicine, roads, hospitals, schools, books, clothing, electricity, water, sewage – everything) is $178 per person.
The incidence of cancer and congenital malformations in Iraq is rising dramatically. Iraqi scientists implicate the tons of depleted uranium used by the United States in Gulf War bombing. They report cancer rates ranging from four to seven times pre-1991 numbers. Combined with a profound lack of anti-cancer drugs, the death rate from these cancers is stated by physicians we interviewed to be absolute. Gulf War veterans in the U.S. and England report similar effects of exposure to depleted uranium.
In his book on Iraq in 1995, Paul Roberts wrote of Baghdad, "Those who won't give peace a chance should see what war actually achieves. What was once a rich and vibrant city, full of ambition, hope, discothèques, and grandiose construction projects, was now an ugly, battered Third World slum, with not a single redeeming thing of beauty to be found anywhere throughout all it many miserable square miles. Except the human spirit, which seems to thrive under such circumstances." (
italics added) That was in 1995. Four more years of sanctions and deprivation – of dying children and little hope of relief – have created a palpable sadness of spirit in Iraq. We met courageous and generous Iraqi citizens. And we were challenged to tell the people of our countries that the sanctions policy is not achieving its stated goals but is a weapon of mass destruction.
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R. Haynes |
What can you do? Learn more about the sanctions policy and the effect of sanctions on people who have no political voice. Find out what your tax dollars are doing. Protest. Contact your legislators, again and again, and tell them that the future of all children is threatened by the continuation of the sanctions policy. Write to your newspaper. Thank the PI for what it has done. Demand more honesty in the press. Invite speakers on Iraq to your organizations. Contribute to sending supplies to Iraq. Do not let this genocide continue. Please join the effort to end the sanctions.