Iraq Invades Kuwait - Sanctions Imposed

The economic sanctions on Iraq were imposed by the United Nations on the August 6th, 1990, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Their stated purpose was to “bring the invasion and occupation of Kuwait by Iraq to an end.” In their original form sanctions prohibited all imports to Iraq except medical goods and all exports from Iraq (oil in particular).
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Gulf War

On January 16, 1991 the United States launched a 43-day air and ground war on Iraq to force Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. The war was presented as a strategic war against the military machine of Saddam Hussein, but evidence on the ground, declassified reports, and comments by policymakers and participants in the war suggests a campaign much broader in its intent.

“Amid mounting evidence of Iraq’s ruined infrastructure and the painful consequences for ordinary Iraqis, Pentagon officials more readily acknowledge the severe impact of the 43-day air bombardment on Iraq’s economic future and civilian population. Their explanations these days of the bombing’s goals and methods suggest that the allies, relying on traditional concepts of strategic warfare, sought to achieve some of their military objectives in the Persian Gulf War by disabling Iraqi society at large.

“Though many details remain classified, interviews with those involved in the targeting disclose three main contrasts with the administration’s earlier portrayal of a campaign aimed solely at Iraq’s armed forces and their lines of supply and command. Some targets, especially late in the war, were bombed primarily to create postwar leverage over Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself. Planners now say their intent was to destroy or damage valuable facilities that Baghdad could not repair without foreign assistance.

“Many of the targets in Iraq’s Mesopotamian heartland, the list of which grew from about 400 to more than 700 in the course of the war, were chosen only secondarily to contribute to the military defeat of Baghdad’s occupation army in Kuwait. Military planners hoped the bombing would amplify the economic and psychological impact of international sanctions on Iraqi society, and thereby compel President Saddam Hussein to withdraw Iraqi forces from Kuwait without a ground war. They also hoped to incite Iraqi citizens to rise against the Iraqi leader.

“Because of these goals, damage to civilian structures and interests, invariably described by briefers during the war as “collateral” and unintended, was sometimes neither. The Air Force and Navy “fraggers” who prepared the daily air-tasking orders in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, took great care to avoid dropping explosives directly on civilians — and were almost certainly more successful than in any previous war — but they deliberately did great harm to Iraq’s ability to support itself as an industrial society.” (Washington Post, 6/23/91)
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Post-War Iraq “Near Apocalyptic”

In March 1991 a UN mission to Iraq reported a situation of “near-apocalyptic” destruction in the wake of the Gulf War with “most means of modern life support … destroyed or rendered tenuous.” Despite these circumstances a decision was made to maintain sanctions. This was spelled out on April 3rd, 1991 in UN Security Council Resolution 687. SCR 687 also modified the terms of the import embargo to permit food and “supplies for essential civilian needs.” However, this change was more cosmetic than real (see ‘… and after’ below).

Resolution 687

Resolution 687 created a new set of obligations that Iraq had to meet in order for sanctions to be lifted. These included destruction of its chemical, biological and long-range weapons and an acceptance of liability for all war-related losses and damages. By making the resolution of the public health crisis in Iraq dependent upon the co-operation of the Iraqi Government with 687’s demands, the UN committed a gross violation of the human rights of ordinary men, women and children in Iraq.

As the Center for Economic and Social Rights points out: “… the [Security] Council remains accountable to human rights principles regardless of the conduct of the Iraqi government … Saddam Hussein’s intransigence cannot justify violations by the Council. As a matter of fundamental principle, human rights are based on the inherent dignity and worth of every human person, and are owed directly to individuals. These rights are not forfeited because of a government’s misconduct … Iraq’s failure to comply with Security Council resolutions therefore does not give the Security Council license to disavow its independent obligations to respect the human rights of the Iraqi civilians.”

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Before Sanctions

Prior to the imposition of sanctions the Iraqi welfare state was “among the most comprehensive and generous in the Arab World,” with Iraqis enjoying “one of the highest per capita food availabilities in the region”(Economist Intelligence Unit, Iraq: Country Report 1995 ?96). There were more than 250 hospitals, with an extensive network of primary and health care facilities. By 1990, nearly all urban dwellers and 72 percent of rural residents had access to clean water, while 93 per cent of Iraqis had access to health services (UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 1990).

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And After

While food, medicines and “supplies for essential civilian needs” were technically exempt from sanctions after April 1991, sanctions deprived Iraq of the foreign currency it needed to pay for these vital goods.
Heavily dependent on such imports (e.g. prior to sanctions, 70 percent of Iraq’s food supply was imported) and with its civilian infrastructure devastated by the Coalition’s bombing campaign, the massive public health crisis precipitated by the war was both exacerbated and perpetuated. Loss of electricity (the bombing targeted the generators) resulted in the collapse of the water and sanitation systems. The resulting lack of clean drinking water resulted in widespread illness. To this day, waterborne disease remains one of the biggest child-killers in Iraq.
In June 1991 UNICEF reported “an alarming and rising incidence of severe and moderate malnutrition” amongst Iraqi children. In August 1991, a Harvard-based international study team surveyed more than 9000 households in nearly 300 population centers throughout Iraq. According to their data, there were 47,000 excess deaths among children under five years of age during the first eight months of 1991.

In 1995 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported, “About 70 percent of the population is in a precarious condition.”

Surveys conducted by UNICEF in 1997 showed that “32 per cent of [Iraqi] children under the age of five, some 960,000 children” were “chronically malnourished.” Subsequent surveys in 1999 showed that child mortality rates in south/central Iraq had more than doubled since 1989.

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Oil For Food

Since January 1997, Iraq has been able to purchase a limited amount of humanitarian supplies through the so-called “oil for food” program. Under this (UN) program Iraq is permitted to sell oil, the proceeds from which are paid into a UN bank account in New York. Large deductions (over 35%) are made from Iraq’s oil revenue to feed the northern Kurds, compensate victims of the invasion of Kuwait and cover UN administration costs.

The program runs in six-monthly phases. The ceiling on oil sales for the first three phases was set at $2 bn per phase; it was subsequently raised to $5.2 bn per phase, and later eliminated all together. Even with no ceiling on oil exports, Iraq is limited in its capacity due to badly deteriorated oil infrastructure.

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Denis Halliday Resigns

On the 30th September 1998 the head of the “oil for food” in Iraq, Denis Halliday, resigned from his position in protest stating that “4000 to 5000 children are dying unnecessarily every month due to the impact of sanctions because of the breakdown of water and sanitation, inadequate diet and the bad internal health situation.” (Independent, 10/15/99)

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“A Potentially Emotive Issue”

“Oil for food” has glaringly failed to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Iraq. After almost five years of implementation there has been only a minimal drop in child malnutrition. In November 1997, there were 960,000 chronically malnourished children under the age of five, according to UNICEF. In September 2000, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization found there were at least 800,000. This failure should come as no surprise since the program “was neither designed to, or is sufficient, to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi people.” (UNICEF, August ‘99)

Indeed, the original motivation behind “oil for food” was political not humanitarian. As one US official rather candidly explained, “Oil for food” was “a good way to maintain the bulk of sanctions and not be on the wrong side of a potentially emotive issue.” The fact that it didn’t have a hope of resolving the humanitarian crisis was clearly not considered important.

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Massive Deterioration

In December 1998 the World Food Program reported that “the main reason” for the continuing nutritional crisis in Iraq was “the massive deterioration in basic infrastructure.” The UN has estimated that it would take more than $7 bn to address the electricity sector’s operating problems. This alone exceeds all funds for humanitarian goods available through the program over the course of a whole year. The UN has warned that a collapse of this sector could create “humanitarian circumstances [which] could potentially dwarf all other difficulties endured by the Iraqi people.” Other sectors require billions of dollars of investment.

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Operation Desert Fox

The same month that saw the release of the WFP report also saw “Operation Desert Fox,” 70-hour US bombing campaign in mid-December. The bombing marked the end of UN weapons inspections in Iraq. Inspectors were withdrawn by the UN just prior to the bombing and were not allowed to return to the country.

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No-Fly Zones

After the Desert Fox bombing, the US began more aggressively patrolling the no-fly zones, established over Northern and Southern Iraq purportedly to protect Kurdish people in the north and Shi’ite people in the south.

In fact, Iraqis living under the no-fly zones are anything but protected. Civilians are frequently injured, killed, or rendered homeless by weekly and sometimes daily US-UK bombings. Acknowledging numerous civilian casualties, the US and British forces in 1999 switched to bombs carrying concrete, instead of explosives for use near populated areas in the North. (New York Times, 10/7/99)

Hans von Sponeck, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq from 1998-2000, conducted an independent investigation of civilian damage from several US-British no-fly zone airstrikes in the north and south in 1999, finding 144 people killed and 446 injured that year. (FAIR Action Alert, 2/23/01)

The bombing also complicates the humanitarian efforts of the United Nations. Aid workers have been forced to cancel trips into Kurdish and Shiite regions, and many civilians have been accidentally wounded, further burdening hospitals that are struggling to cope with daunting incidences of illness and preventable disease.

What’s more, the Kurds in northern Iraq have been subjected to occasional invasions by the Turkish army and air force, as a part of their campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Last year, American and British pilots began to express frustration over the double standard: [O]n more than one occasion [American and British pilots have] received a radio message that “there was a TSM inbound”–that is, a “Turkish Special Mission” heading into Iraq. Following standard orders, the Americans turned their planes around and flew back to Turkey.

“You’d see Turkish F-14s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with munitions,” [American pilot Mike Horn] said. “Then they’d come out half an hour later with their munitions expended.”

When the Americans flew back into Iraqi airspace, he recalled, they would see “burning villages, lots of smoke and fire.” (Washington Post, 10/25/00)

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Oil For Food Inadequate

A UN panel commissioned to study the Humanitarian Situation in Iraq concluded in April of 1999 that: “Regardless of improvements that might be brought about in the implementation of the current humanitarian program ? in terms of approval procedures, better performance by the Iraqi government, or funding levels - the magnitude of the humanitarian needs is such that they cannot be met within the context of the parameters [of the “oil for food” program].”

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Hans von Sponeck Resigns

In February of 2000, after 18 months in Iraq, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Hans von Sponeck (Denis Halliday’s successor to the post), resigned, calling the situation there “a true human tragedy” with no end in sight. “The sanctions are taking their toll on the wrong people in every respect,” Von Sponeck said from his office in Baghdad after announcing his resignation, “I consider it ethically unacceptable.”

Immediately following von Sponeck’s resignation, Jutta Burghardt, the head of the World Food Program stepped down, also to protest the effects of economic sanctions on Iraqi society.

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UNICEF Releases Countrywide Study

In July and August 1999, UNICEF launched the first surveys of child and maternal mortality in Iraq since 1991. The findings revealed an ongoing humanitarian emergency in Iraq.

According to their report, released in July 2000, “if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998.

“As a partial explanation, Carol Bellamy, UNICEF Executive Director, pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: ‘Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.’”

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International Support for Sanctions Crumbles

International support for the sanctions has eroded significantly in the past year. A number of countries, notably France and Russia (both members of the UN Security Council), have dispatched over 40 civilian flights to Baghdad since September 2000 in violation of U.N. sanctions. In November, 2000, an international trade fair in Baghdad was attended by 1,500 companies from 45 countries, all trying to compete for contracts worth billions of dollars to be negotiated by Saddam Hussein’s regime, using UN controlled revenue from the approximately 2.3 million barrels that Iraq pumps out every day.

Today, concern over the humanitarian disaster among Iraq’s civilians, an increasing “energy crises” in the United States, and talk of revenue lost by former and prospective trading partners with Iraq has sparked heated debate over the morality and effectiveness of sanctions.

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September 11 and a New War With Iraq

Initially, Washington included Iraq on its list of countries with links to al-Qaeda, but when European governments insisted that there was no intelligence evidence connecting Baghdad to Osama bin Laden’s organization, the US changed tack. “Now the emphasis is on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program and the danger that Saddam might send out his own agents armed with chemical or biological devices,” one [British] official said.’ (Times of London, 2/16/02)

No conclusions can be drawn regarding Iraqi weapons programs without in-country monitoring, but the best way to secure that monitoring, according to former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter, is to move to a less confrontational inspection program, and show willingness to lift, and not merely suspend, sanctions.

US policy is heading in the other direction. The likely trigger for a new US military campaign will be the demand for UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, a demand phrased in order to elicit an Iraqi refusal.

“Key figures in the White House believe that demands on Saddam to re-admit United Nations weapons inspectors should be set so high that he would fail to meet them unless he provided officials with total freedom.” (Times of London, 2/16/02) A US intelligence official said the White House ‘will not take yes for an answer’. (Guardian, 2/14/02)

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Smart Sanctions Pass

On May 14, 2002, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1409, or what is being called, “smart sanctions.” The resolution’s stated aim is to loosen the sanctions on Iraq by lifting restrictions on Iraq’s ability to import civilian goods while still preventing Iraq from aquiring or manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.

The Bush administration is declaring another victory in its “propaganda war” with Iraq, following the unanimous vote of the United Nations Security Council to endorse its plan to impose “smart sanctions” on Iraq.

According to Anthony Arnove, editor of Iraq Under Siege: The resolution represents a symbolic, rather than a substantive change in the sanctions regime. It allows the US government, using the cover of the UN, to continue the sanctions, which are growing more unpopular internationally, and to lay the groundwork for a massive military assault on Iraq.

Smart sanctions are about the United States, Britain, and the UN shifting blame, not about ending the effects of the embargo for ordinary Iraqis. After 11 years of hearing from Clinton, Blair, Bush, and their allies that the sanctions were designed to target the Iraqi regime and not the people, we are supposed to believe that UN sanctions will now (does this sound familiar?) target the regime and not the people.

But under the proposed smart sanctions, the United States will still be able to use its power in the UN to block essential goods by citing “dual use” concerns. And the economy will continue to suffer.

As the State Department emphasized after the vote, the “UN escrow account for Iraqi oil revenue and restrictions on items of potential military and military-related use are maintained.”

After the US pressured Russia, the UN approved a 300-page list of items that fall into the dual-use category and must be reviewed for approval before Iraq can use its oil revenue (held in escrow by the UN) to purchase them. While the “Goods Review List” has not been made public, reporters have said that it includes computers and communication equipment, and it will certainly block items that are badly needed in Iraq but which any modern society could also use in a chemical or biological weapons program.

In the past, the US government, using its veto power on the UN sanctions committee, has blocked contracts for ambulances, chlorinators, vaccines, and even pencils citing “dual use” concerns.

At the moment, $5 billion in contracts are “on hold” because of the United States, completely undermining the claim of John D. Negroponte, the US Permanent Representative to the UN, that “under the Oil for Food Program it has always been possible to get humanitarian and civilian goods into Iraq, and I think the principal obstacle has been the refusal of the Iraqi regime to spend its own resources for the importation of those items.”

Negroponte’s claim is further undermined by the views of UN officials working in Iraq today.

“The [oil-for-food] distribution network is second to none,” Adnan Jarra, a UN spokesperson in Iraq, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “They [the Iraqis] are very efficient. We have not found anything that went anywhere it was not supposed to.”

“I think the Iraqi food-distribution system is probably second to none that you’ll find anywhere in the world,” Tun Myat, the administrator of the UN oil-for-food program, said in an interview with the New York Times. “It gets to everybody whom it’s supposed to get to in the country.” But Myat stressed, “People have become so poor in some cases that they can’t even afford to eat the food that they are given free, because for many of them the food ration represents the major part of their income.”

Smart sanctions will do nothing to help revive the badly damaged Iraqi economy. As the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq (CASI) points out, “There will still be a prohibition on foreign investment into Iraq, necessary to rebuild the shattered infrastructure of the country…. [and] Iraq will not be allowed to export any goods other than oil.” (Znet Commentary, 5/21/02)

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New War?

The Bush Administration wants a new war with Iraq. Without respect to international opinion, planning for a war seems to be taking precedent over strategizing for a peaceful solution to the 12-year war with Iraq that has isolated and destroyed Iraqi society and delivered death and deprivation to the people of Iraq.