While the December 13th capture of Saddam Hussein has given the corporate media an opportunity to gorge itself and the architects of the occupation an opportunity to crow, and while it may have improved George Bush’s ratings in popularity polls, it has done nothing to improve either the lives of foreign soldiers in Iraq or the lives of Iraqi people. In responding to news of this US military action, we do not presume to speak for anyone but ourselves, US citizens attempting to act responsibly in the face of the misguided and oftentimes criminal actions of our own government. That Iraq has become an even more miserable place to live –both for the civilian population and the occupying forces– is certainly the central reality of the occupation.

That the sanctions were a form of foreign control of Iraq should be equally clear. There can be no doubt that in March of 2003, prior to the US and British invasion, Iraq was under siege and in need of liberation. The crushing economic embargo, which murdered their children and their future, fenced them in like a prison. Teams of UN humanitarian inspectors over the years agreed: they found no diversion, no hoarding, no misappropriation of resources under the “oil-for-food” deal. As brutally as Hussein quashed political opposition, the deprivation, disease, and death under economic sanctions came primarily from the sanctions themselves¹. Throughout the 13 years of economic sanctions and ongoing air strikes, US officials made a mockery of the human suffering imposed by Washington’s policy, blaming it solely on Saddam Hussein and saying it was a price “worth” paying². Iraqi people had come to understand that there was no way out of the labyrinth of sanctions: it was a death sentence, imposed without due process and precluding any appeal. And so, in March of 2003, many Iraqi people, despite their authentic nationalism, clung desperately to the hope that a US invasion would bring an end to the deadly sanctions, allowing their economy to revive. Instead, nine months later, they find themselves under an inept military/corporate occupation that despite its claims ignores their economic well-being as completely — and now considering the hope of the Iraqi people — even more cruelly than did the sanctions regime. Everyday, like a Minotaur, the occupation exacts a terrible human sacrifice. We have to ask: is it worth it?

The effort to capture Saddam Hussein ineradicably linked to months of terrifying military preparations and threats leading up to the March invasion as well as to the terrifying and lethal invasion itself, has been costly indeed. Uncounted thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians have been killed or injured. Over 500 foreign soldiers, diplomats, journalists, and aid workers, including 473 American soldiers, have been killed. Many thousands more soldiers are wounded; hundreds of thousands of families and communities in the US, Britain, Poland, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and the Ukraine have been separated from their loved ones and left to live in fear for their physical, mental, and spiritual health. On the streets of Iraq, where violence has become a local phenomenon, people are far less secure than they were a year ago. The Iraqi people continue to live with pitifully marginalized utilities and with an economy, bludgeoned by over 13 years of economic sanctions, that is moribund and shows no signs of recovery under occupation. Iraqi people must watch as foreign soldiers patrol their streets and make surprise raids of their homes, as a foreign government takes up fortified residence in the very palaces that until recently Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical government occupied, and as foreign corporations, like the worst of looters or grave robbers, capitalize on the occupation while for the Iraqi people the weight of unemployment remains staggering.

There can be no doubt that Iraqi people have longed to be free of the deadly yoke of Saddam Hussein’s military dictatorship, with its costly military adventurism abroad and repression and bloodshed at home. But his capture now, in the context of a bloody invasion and occupation and at the hands of a totally discredited United States, can hardly be expected to inspire authentic hope and goodwill. Were ALL the architects of the last 13 years held to stand trial for their roles in the ongoing Iraq war, the word “justice” might be more appropriate. As we heard from our friend Um Haider, an Iraqi mother of 3 currently in Iraq: “I don’t know how I feel. On the one hand I am happy. But in the end, what difference does it make when our whole country is captured?” Ali Hussein, a 29 year-old stationery shop owner in Baghdad, stated his experience of this captivity plainly to a Reuters journalist: "…Whether he’s in a hole or in jail, it does nothing for me today; it won’t feed me or protect me or send my children to school."³

The coming weeks and months will demonstrate what people outside the Bush administration have said all along: that the Iraqi insurgency is fueled, not by loyalty to or fear of Saddam Hussein, as the Bush administration has claimed, but rather by Iraqi nationalism, the desire of a people for self-determination. While we deplore the violence done in response to the violence of invasion and occupation, who can fail to understand and sympathize with this?

The capture of Saddam Hussein offers the people of Iraq and the people of the United States – for we too need liberating — an important opportunity for understanding and healing. If Saddam Hussein can be tried publicly in Iraq, if the truth of his crimes can be acknowledged and condemned, and if he can be held accountable by a legitimate legal body, perhaps it will help people in Iraq to put his legacy behind them. Likewise, if the truth is told about US support for Saddam Hussein, support which dates back to 1959, if it is discussed openly and honestly, if it enters American homes and is part of our dinner conversations, perhaps it will help us awaken from our torpor and shake off the narcotic and lethal mythology that our government’s foreign policies are by nature wise and its military actions benevolent. Perhaps we will see that our civic and military leaders are implicated in the very crimes they condemn.

As long as our presence is welcome and helpful, Voices in the Wilderness will continue to send delegates to Iraq, and to report on conditions there. We remain convinced that real strength and hope lie in the resistance of humane people everywhere. We call on people in the United States to renew their opposition to this deadly occupation, and we call upon our leaders to export genuine humanitarian assistance and support to the Iraqi people with no political or economic strings attached.

No lasting healing can come to the Iraqi people without real opportunities to exercise self-determination. Thus, at Voices in the Wilderness, as people who have opposed US military actions in Iraq since 1990, and taking our cue from Um Haider and Ali Hussein, we call on the US government to relinquish military, political, and economic control of Iraq. The future of Iraq should be turned over to Iraqi hands. To the extent that international support is needed, it should be at the request of Iraqi people.

David Smith-Ferri
and Voices in the Wilderness

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¹Info on Sanctions

• Sanctions on Iraq War: Myth & Reality
  

• Articles: Hans Von Sponeck, a former UN Assistant Secretary General, headed the UN "oil-for-food" program until he resigned in February 2000 in protest over the continued sanctions on Iraq.
• Articles: Denis Halliday , a former UN Assistant Secretary General, and Von Sponeck’s predesessor, Halliday headed the UN "oil-for-food" program until he resigned in 1998 in protest over what he called the West’s "genocidal" sanctions.
• Documents at CASI, information about the humanitarian situation in Iraq and its context.
• IRAQ WATER TREATMMENT VULNERABILITIES

²Worth it?

• Albright’s “worth it” comment in an exchange that occurred in a “60 Minutes” segment, “Punishing Saddam”

• Articles: Albright “Apologizes”

³Iraqi cheer fades into ire at U.S