Published in the Seattle Times
Editorials & Opinion: January 16, 1998
Let The Children Of Iraq Have Needed Food
By Bert Sacks
Special To The Times
Fifty-five years ago, on June 1, 1942, The Seattle Times headline read "Jews Slain Total 200,000." The Seattle Times was one of the very few papers in the country to carry the breaking story of what was happening to Jews in Europe on its front page. No one today can doubt the importance of this headline, and the credit it reflects on The Times for printing it.
About six weeks ago, four of us from a Northwest delegation returned from bringing medicines to Iraq, where 500,000 Iraqi children have died from sanctions. This story must also be told.
The New York Times in December published an article by Hadani Ditmars, a journalist who was with us in Baghdad. She wrote about Eric Falt, spokesman for United Nations relief operations in Iraq, who said, " 'The status of Iraqi children can now be associated with the most disadvantaged countries in the world.' Mr. Falt said the meager rations given to Iraqis under the U.N. program were simply not enough." This story must be told!
Recently, on Human Rights Day, the Seattle Chapter of the United Nations Association gave out six awards for "Outstanding work toward the enlargement of human rights." One of these, according to the program, was given for "delivering $30,000 worth of donated medicines to (Iraqi) hospitals, again risking arrest for defying sanctions."
It pleased me greatly to receive this award, especially in the name of human-rights work. It also pleased me greatly to thank the many Americans and U.N. supporters for their courage in seeing U.S./U.N. sanctions as the cause of massive human-rights violations.
In receiving the award, I recounted how - in Iraq during an Arab News Network interview - I said that one reason I was doing this work is because I'm Jewish. I'd always heard, "Where were the good Christians, 55 years ago?" Jews are supposed to work for "tikkun olam," fixing the world.
At the ceremony, we all hoped that the good local news coverage of our recent trip to Iraq is a sign that Seattle will once again lead the country to break a deadly silence and to work for "tikkun olam."
The plea to let the children of Iraq have food is an obvious humanitarian one. If we do not intend to use the suffering and death of Iraqi children to pressure the Iraqi government, then we must remove any limit on the oil Iraq sells under the "oil for food" deal.
All purchases are completely controlled by the U.N. The current U.N. "food basket" contains only eight basic food items, such as rice and flour. It includes no fruits, vegetables, eggs, cheese - foods children need to stay healthy. No one can make a weapon of mass destruction out of these, but denying them to people is a weapon of mass destruction, one that has already contributed to a million civilian deaths in Iraq.
Against this humanitarian plea, however, we hear the "practical" argument that we must maintain tight sanctions to prevent Iraq's creation and use of weapons of mass destruction. Why? How? Remember that for five years we were told that keeping sanctions would cause the Iraqi people to overthrow their leader. Many hundreds of thousands of human lives later, we no longer hear this. Those who say that denying life-supporting needs to the Iraqi people is practical must explain why.
The fear this policy rests upon is clear. While we were in Baghdad delivering medicines, Newsweek summarized America's worst fears of the crisis in its cover-story article of Nov. 24: "But consider a more frightening scenario: . . . enraged by the crushing economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, Saddam decides to make Americans share the suffering of his people" and launches a suicidal, terrorist attack against an American target.
If you read the whole article, you will still not know what the "suffering of his people" means. Perhaps only 1 percent of Americans, I believe, know that it means the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. To "make Americans share the suffering" proportionately would mean 6 million American children dying.
If these numbers are horrifying to us, can we imagine how the Iraqi people feel? Can we believe, in reason, that maintaining (or even tightening!) economic sanctions on food and medicines is needed to prevent a terrorist attack on us? Doesn't the opposite seem more likely? What could possibly provoke people into an act of desperation more than having to watch the slow, preventable deaths of their children?
Albert Einstein said, "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." With the immense fear and confusion surrounding our policy toward Iraq, maybe the time has come for us to question our reliance on force as the principal way to maintain peace. To achieve peace, perhaps we must be willing to cultivate understanding.
Are we honestly willing to try to understand the Iraqis? Are we willing to ask how we would feel in their shoes? Besides reading endlessly about our weapons systems and our military siege against Iraq, if we really want peace perhaps we must be willing to do something really brave: understand "our enemy" - and ask our media for the information and perspective to help us do it. On this seventh anniverary of the start of the Gulf War, contact your media to ask for this.
Bert Sacks is a Seattle resident who has been to Iraq twice. He can be reached at 206/548-9566.
----------------- Candlelight vigil -----------------
A candlelight vigil and protest marking the seventh anniversary of the start of the Gulf War will be held at 4 p.m. today at the Federal Building in Seattle, on Second Avenue between Madison and Marion. The protest is sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 206-789-5565.
Copyright (c) 1998 Seattle Times Company.
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