Abstract
The scale of the Western onslaught on Iraq in the Gulf War, totally disproportionate in view of the declared objective of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait, resulted in the virtual destruction of a society. The early post-war reports from journalists, aid agencies, UN officials and others conveyed a consensual picture of a civilian population facing unprecedented catastrophe. The Ahtisaari report (20 March 1991)2 set the scene for what was to follow: a spate of unambiguous portrayals of collapsed communities, of traumatised and confused people struggling desperately to survive in a shattered environment. For example, an early report from the Save the Children Fund (compiled by a team that formed part of a delegation, hosted by the Iraqi Red Crescent, that included members of Oxfam, Care, the Jordanian Red Crescent and the Libyan Red Crescent) noted that the Iraqi health, water and sanitation services had collapsed ‘as a result primarily of the bombing of infrastructure and communications facilities… and the shortages of fuel and parts under the continued application of international sanctions’.3
As a lawyer… I see the blockade clearly as a crime against humanity, in the Nüremburg sense, as a weapon of mass destruction … a weapon for the destruction of the masses… it attacks those segments of the society that are the most vulnerable … infants and children, the chronically ill, the elderly and emergency medical cases.
Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney-General
Perhaps the general western public will agree with the apparent official view that emaciated Iraqi children are either legitimate pawns in a just struggle or a future threat to be extinguished.
Sabah Jawad and Kamil Mahdi1
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Notes
Sabah Jawad and Kamil Mahdi, ‘Responsibility and the Gulf’, letter, The Guardian, London, 14 November 1991.
The Impact of War on Iraq, Report to the Secretary-General on humanitarian needs in Iraq in the immediate post-crisis environment by a mission to the area led by Mr Martti Ahtisaari, Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management, United Nations, New York, 20 March 1991.
Iraq Situation Report for SCF (UK), The Save the Children Fund, London, March 1991.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ed Vulliamy, ‘Doctors find Iraq is slowly dying’, The Guardian, London, 16 April 1991.
John Pienaar and Leonard Doyle, ‘UK maintains tough line on sanctions against Iraq’, The Independent, London, 11 May 1991.
Diane Weathers, ‘Life under sanctions’, WFP Journal, World Food Programme, Rome, Number 18 (June 1991) p. 24.
Ibid.
‘Relief programmes in Iraq’, CFA:35/SCP:10/5, World Food Programme (WFP), Rome, 20 April 1993.
Dr Eric Hoskins, Children, War and Sanctions, Report on the effects of sanctions on Iraqi women and children, commissioned by UNICEF and subsequently shelved as politically inconvenient, April 1993 (see Annika Savill, ‘UN back-pedals on Baghdad sanctions report’, The Independent, London, 24 June 1993).
Iraq, EIU Country Report, 2nd Quarter 1994, Economist Intelligence Unit, London, 1994.
Ibid.
Ross B. Mirkarimi, ‘The environmental and human health impacts of the Gulf region with special reference to Iraq’, The Arms Control Research Centre, San Francisco, now Arc Ecology, May 1992.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Willem C. Smit and Jean Pierre Revel, Report of the Assessment Mission to Iraq, 11 January 1994–11 February 1994, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Amman, February 1994.
Impact of Oppressive Sanctions on Health, Nutrition and Environment in Iraq, Ministry of Culture and Information, Baghdad, June 1994, p. 6.
Kais Al-Kaisy, ‘The sanctions that bring death’, letter, The Guardian, London, 5 July 1994.
Felicity Arbuthnot, ‘Sanctions stop decent burial’, Al-Muhajir Newspaper, London, 1 November 1993.
Seumas Milne, ‘Sanctions snare medical journal’, The Guardian, London, 9 May 1994.
See the comments by Iraqi UN ambassador Abd al-Amir Al-Anbari, in S/24338, United Nations, New York, 22 July 1992, pp. 8–10, 12–14; and, for example, the Bank of England Notice for Iraq, Emergency Laws (Re-Enactments and Repeals) Act 1964, 7 August 1990.
Margit Fakhoury, ‘A German doctor tells how Iraq’s children are being killed’, Committee to Save the Children in Iraq, funded by the Schiller Institute, Washington D.C., 1991, pp. 14–18.
Felicity Arbuthnot, ‘Children condemned to a lingering death’, Asian Times, 16 March 1993.
Miriam Ryle, ‘Child victims of the sanctions syndrome’, letter, The Guardian, London, 15 July 1994.
Yves Bonnet (French deputy), ‘Sanctions that should shame the UN’, The Guardian, London, 8 August 1995, reprinted from Le Monde.
Fakhoury, ‘A German doctor tells how Iraq’s children are being killed’, op. cit., p. 15.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 16–17.
See Magne Raundalen, ‘The long-term impact of the Gulf war on the children of Iraq’, Centre for Crisis Psychology, Bergen, Norway, 1991; Atle Dyregrov and Magne Raundalen, ‘The impact of the Gulf war on the children of Iraq’, Centre for Crisis Psychology, paper delivered at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies World Conference, ‘Trauma and Tragedy’, Amsterdam, 21–6 June 1992; Atle Dyregrov, ‘Traumatized kids, traumatized rescuers’, Emergency Medical Services, Volume 21, Number 6 (June 1992) pp. 21–4.
Felicity Arbuthnot, interviewed by Gillian Harris, ‘Journalist claims sanctions killing children in Iraq’, The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland, 29 June 1992.
Alberto Ascherio, Robert Chase, Tim Coté, Godelieave Dehaes, Eric Hoskins, Jilali Laaouej, Megan Passey, Saleh Zaidi, ‘Effect of the Gulf war on infant and child mortality in Iraq’, The New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 327, Number 13 (24 September 1992).
Ibid.
Ibid.
S/25653, United Nations, New York, 22 April 1993.
Miriam Ryle, ‘Child victims of the sanctions syndrome’, op. cit.
Bonnet, ‘Sanctions that should shame the UN’, op. cit.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Bela Bhatia, Mary Kawar and Miriam Shahin, Unheard Voices: Iraqi Women on War and Sanctions, International Study Team, Change, International Reports: ‘Women and Society’, London, 1992.
Ibid., pp. 39–40.
Ibid., p. 44.
Report to the Secretary-General on Humanitarian Needs in Iraq, mission led by Sadruddin Aga Khan, Executive Delegate of the Secretary-General for a United Nations Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme for Iraq, Kuwait and the Iraq/Turkey and Iraq/Iran border aeas, Geneva, 1991.
Bela Bhatia, et al., Unheard Voices, op. cit., p. 44.
Ibid., pp. 44–5.
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 52.
UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs, UN Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme in Iraq Co-operation Programme, 1 April 1993 to 31 March 1994, Report, May 1993, p. 11.
Andrée Michel, ‘Women and war’, paper given at the international forum, ‘Human Rights and Women’, organised by the General Federation of Iraqi Women, Baghdad, 20–22 April 1994.
John Pilger, Distant Voices (London: Vintage, 1992) p. 142.
E. E. Reynolds, The League Experiment (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1939) p. 102.
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Children and Women in Iraq: A Situation Analysis, March 1993.
‘Sanctions hit poor Iraqis but Saddam’s rule stays secure’, The Guardian, London, 1 August 1991.
Leonard Doyle, ‘Iraq facing famine if UN sanctions stay’, The Independent, London, 3 September 1991.
John Osgood Field and Robert M. Russell, Nutrition Mission to Iraq, Final Report to UNICEF by Tufts University, 14 August 1991.
Ibid.
Helga Graham, ‘Starving Iraqis riot as food crisis deepens’, The Observer, London, 3 November 1991.
Alfred Picardi, Ross Mirkarimi and Mahmoud Al Khoshman, ‘Waterborne diseases and agricultural consequences’, International Study Team — ARC Arms Control Research Centre, in Saul Bloom, John M. Miller, James Warner and Philippa Winkler (eds), Hidden Casualties: Environmental Health and Political Consequences of the Persian Gulf War (San Francisco, ARC/Arms Control Research Centre; London: Earthscan Publications, 1994) pp. 156–7.
Cited in ibid., pp. 160.
Cited ibid., p. 161.
‘Food supply situation and crop outlook in Iraq’, in Food Outlook, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Rome, July 1993, pp. 22–6 (see also note 88).
Ibid.
Ibid.
John Osgood Field, ‘From food security to food insecurity: the case of Iraq, 1990–1991’, GeoJournal, 30.2 (1993) pp. 185–94.
Ibid., p. 189.
Report of the Nutritional Status Assessment Mission to Iraq (November 1993), Project TCP/IRQ/23T6(E), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Rome, December 1993.
Ibid., p. 2.
Ibid., pp. 2–3.
Ibid., p. 20.
Smit and Revel, Report of the Assessment Mission to Iraq, op. cit., p. 4.
Ibid., p. 5.
‘Iraq’, News Summary (12 April–12 May 1995), United Nations Information Centre, London, 16 May 1995.
‘Iraq (14 June)’, Foodcrops and Shortages, Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome, Number 3 (May/June 1995) p. 28.
‘Iraq (11 July)’, Foodcrops and Shortages, Food and Agriculture Organisation, Rome, Number 4 (July 1995) p. 25.
Eric Hoskins, ‘The truth behind economic sanctions: a report on the embargo of food and medicines to Iraq’, in Ramsey Clark et al., War Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq, (Washington D.C.: Maisonneuve Press, 1992) p. 165.
Ibid., p. 166.
Ibid.
Iraq Situation Report for SCF (UK), The Save the Children Fund, London, March 1991, pp. 2–3.
Ibid., p. 5.
Ibid., p. 6.
Louise Cainkar, ‘Desert sin: a post-war journey through Iraq’, in Phyllis Bennis and Michel Moushabeck (eds), Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader, (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1992) p. 346.
Ibid., p. 346.
Diane Weathers, ‘Life under sanctions’, WFP Journal, World Food Programme, Rome, June 1991, p. 27.
Ibid.
Noriko Sato, Omar Obeid and Tierry Brun, ‘Malnutrition in southern Iraq’, letter, The Lancet, London, Volume 338 (9 November 1991) p. 1202.
Health Status in Iraq, report from Medicine for Peace (MFP), New York, February 1993; team led by Dr Michael Viola, Oncology Division, Stony Brook University, New York.
Ibid., p. 4.
Iraq Factsheet Number 1, Focus, British Red Cross, London, February 1994.
Ibid., report by John English, British Red Cross Desk Officer.
Smit and Revel, Report of the Assessment Mission to Iraq, op. cit.
Ibid., p. 8.
Harvey Marcovitch, ‘Saddam’s atrocity — or ours?’, The Times, London, 31 May 1994.
Ibid.
‘A life in the day of Dr Tariq Abbas Hady’, The Sunday Times, colour supplement, London, 12 March 1995, p. 58.
Felicity Arbuthnot, ‘Zoo animals share the suffering’, Irish Times, 15 January 1995.
Edward Pearce, ‘Death and indecency in a time of cholera’, The Guardian, London, 25 October 1991.
Charles Richards, ‘Iraq plagued by wave of violent crime’, The Independent, London, 1 February 1993; Marie Colvin, ‘Iraq’s lost legions become the thieves of Baghdad’, The Sunday Times, London, 31 January 1993.
Patrick Cockburn, ‘The face of Saddam’s new terror’, The Independent, London, 13 January 1995; ‘Savage justice’, Time, 6 February 1995.
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© 1996 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1996). Targeting the Powerless. In: The Scourging of Iraq. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24921-3_3
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