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.
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, II May 1991.
Diane Weathers, ‘Life under sanctions’, WFP Journal, World Food Programme, Rome, Number 18 (June 1991) p. 24.
Ibid.
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).
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.
Kais Al-Kaisy, ‘The sanctions that bring death’, letter, The Guardian, London, 5 July 1994.
‘Sanctions against Iraq’, World Chronicle (recorded 20 May 1992), Information Products Division, Department of Public Information, United Nations, New York; Guest: Ambassador Peter Hohenfellner, Chairman of Committee on Sanctions against Iraq; journalists: Bruno Franseschi, Raghida Dergham, Ian Williams; moderator: Michael Littlejohns.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
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.
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, TheGuardian, 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.
Ibid.
Helga Graham, ‘Starving Iraqis riot as food crisis deepens’, The Observer, London, 3 November 1991.
H. A. Ali, ‘The postwar impact on the speciation in Iraq’, The International Scientific Symposium, op. cit., pp. 44–5.
Ibrahim J. Al-Jboory, ‘Effects of military operations, pollution and sanctions on agricultural pests in Iraq’, in The International Scientific Symposium, op. cit., pp. 46–8.
Emad Al-Hafiath and D. Hussein Al-Saadi, ‘The ecological effects of war and sanctions on the status of agricultural pests in Iraq’, in The International Scientific Symposium, op. cit., pp. 53–5.
Rafid Abdul-Kareem, ‘The effects of sanctions on animal resources in Iraq’, in The International Scientific Symposium, op. cit., pp. 56–9.
Situation of Human Rights in Iraq, note by UN Secretary-General following report by Max van der Stoel, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, dealing with food and health situation in Iraq, A/46/647, 13 November 1991.
‘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’, Geofournal, 30.2 (1993) pp. 185–94.
Ibid., p. 189.
Smit and Revel, Report of the Assessment Mission to Iraq, op. cit., p. 4.
Ibid., p. 5.
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.
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.
Hoskins (April 1993), Children, War and Sanctions, op. cit., citing Beth Osborne Daponte, ‘Iraqi casualties from the Persian Gulf War and its aftermath’, unpublished manuscript, 1992.
Report by Medical Aid for Iraq (MAI), London, following medical supplies delivery, January/February 1993.
Harvey Marcovitch, ‘Saddam’s atrocity — or ours?’, The Times, London, 31 May 1994.
Ibid.
Report by Medical Aid for Iraq (MAI), London, following medical supplies delivery (October 1994), December 1994.
Ibid., pp. 2–3.
Report by Medical Aid for Iraq (MAI), London, following medical supplies delivery (7–29 April 1995), May 1995.
Felicity Arbuthnot, ‘Zoo animals share the suffering’, Irish Times, 15 January 1995.
Warren A. J. Hamerman, International Progress Organisation, presentation (denouncing sanctions against Iraq) to UN Organisation Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 43rd Session, 13 August 1991.
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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© 1998 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1998). Targeting the Powerless. In: The Scourging of Iraq. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-50543-8_3
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