More than one million Iraqis have died, 567,000 of them children, as a direct consequence of the sanctions. As many as 12% of the children surveyed in Baghdad are handicapped for life, 28% stunted in growth. By 1996, 4,500 children under the age of five were dying each month in Iraq, primarily from malnutrition. The number is rapidly rising because of the continuation of the U.N. sanctions. There are more than 1.5 million orphans in Iraq. Up to 95% of all pregnant women in Iraq suffer from anemia, and thus will give birth to weak, malnutritioned infants. Most of these infants will either die before reaching the age of 5 due to the lack of food and basic medicines, or will be permanently scarred.
United Nations Resolution 986, the limited oil sale agreement (oil for food), allocates less than 25 cents per day per person for all food and medical expenses. Approximately 35% of revenue is designated to Kuwait and other countries. More than 10% of revenue is designated to pay for U.N. activities in Iraq. The U.N. charges Iraq approximately $900,000 for generating each report about the situation in Iraq.
Environmental Impacts: more than 500 tons of highly toxic and radioactive depleted uranium (DU) were fired into the environment. Upon impact, more than 70% of the uranium oxidizes into a fine aerosol mist which can be readily inhaled into the lungs contaminating the food and water supply and potentially resulting in numerous immune system related diseases, cancers, congenital deformities, leukemia and renal and hepatic dysfunction which are occurring throughout Iraq and among U.S., U.K. and other Allied soldiers.
Sources: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNICEF.
UK PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ON IRAQ BOMBING
It has been suggested that MPs etc should be reminded of the following:
PROTOCOL ADDITIONAL TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS OF 12TH AUGUST 1949, AND RELATING TO THE PROTECTION OF VICTIMS OF INTERNATIONAL ARMED CONFLICTS (PROTOCOL I)
"The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character."
ARTICLE 51 Protection of the civilian population:-
"Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
"Among others, the following types of attack are to be considered as indiscriminate:
The following questions were asked in the House of Commons debate this afternoon on the bombing of Iraq by the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs & Defence spokesperson, Menzies Campbell:
"...the Prime Minister rightly acknowledged the importance of minimising civilian casualties.
Does he accept that it is essential to be stringent in the selection of targets? And will he give instructions that where there is any doubt the presumption will be against attack?..."
Prime Minister Blair's response:
"The targets are, of course, extremely carefully chosen and we make every effort to do that as responsibly we should.
And I hope we act in these circumstances with a responsibility Saddam Hussein would never contemplate.."
From: Media Transcription Service
LONDON, - U.S. B-52s, American Navy jets and British Tornado bombers struck targets in Iraq on Thursday in a second wave of strikes aimed to smash the country's weapons of mass destruction.
A senior British air force officer told a news conference in London all the British planes had returned safely to their base in Kuwait and he was not aware they had come under Iraqi fire.
U.S. defence officials in Washington said B-52 bombers, each capable of firing 20 long-range cruise missiles took off from from the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia while U.S. Navy planes conducted raids from the aircraft carrier Enterprise in the Gulf.
Sirens sounded twice in Baghdad over the space of three hours on Thursday evening but there was no immediate anti-aircraft fire or indications of bombing in the Iraqi capital.
U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen said in Washington that U.S. missiles and bombs severely damaged Iraqi targets in the initial raids on sites including military intelligence headquarters and anti-aircraft weapons.
"I've seen some of the (reconnaissance) photos this morning and some of the targets that we have looked at appear to be severely damaged," Cohen said on television earlier on Thursday.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf said the overnight cruise missile attacks had caused "heavy casualties and collateral damage."
He said missiles had hit the security police and military intelligence headquarters buildings in Baghdad, but gave no details of damage or casualties.
The city had remained calm throughout the day on Thursday as citizens mopped up damage caused by the blitz of more than 200 cruise missiles in the early hours.
Hospital doctors in Baghdad said at least five people had been killed and 30 wounded in the missile strikes but there were no official casualty figures.
Baghdad radio reported that the home of one of Saddam's daughters, Hala, was hit in the missile attacks but she was not there at the time.
British officials said the initial attack, dubbed operation "Desert Fox," was aimed at destroying Iraq's anti-aircraft systems in order to facilitate later bombing runs.
The attacks sent Washington and Britain into a wall of critical flak from friend and foe alike.
And in Washington U.S. Republicans accused President Bill Clinton of ordering the strikes to divert attention from their impending impeachment vote against him over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The office of incoming House of Representatives Speaker Robert Livingston said on Thursday the impeachment debate would start on Friday morning and probably wrap up on Saturday.
China joined Russia in strongly condemning the attacks while France distanced itself from the raids -- putting the United States and Britain at odds with the other three permanent members of the Security Council.
Senior Kremlin officials said the strikes had probably wrecked chances of the Russian parliament agreeing to ratify the 1993 START-2 nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States.
"You can forget about START-2 ratification," said Sergei Prikhodko, President Boris Yeltsin's deputy chief-of-staff.
Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank on Thursday during an angry protest against the strikes on Iraq.
Earlier, angry Palestinians burned the U.S. flag and denounced Clinton just days after waving the Stars and Stripes to greet him on a landmark visit.
"Clinton, the dirty dog, wanted to cover up his filthy, sexual crimes by hitting Iraq," one Palestinian man said at a refugee camp near Bethlehem.
Others shouted "Clinton you coward, go look for women."
Hundreds of students swarmed out of the American University in Cairo campus intending to march on the nearby U.S. embassy.
"By our spirit and blood we will stand by Iraq!" they shouted before police used batons to quell their protest.
The Vatican bluntly condemned the strikes against Iraq as aggression and said it hoped that international order would be re-established soon.
But the European Union presidency said Saddam bore full responsibility for the attacks.
Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel said an EU-U.S. summit scheduled to take place in Washington on Friday would go ahead as planned.
British officials said the assault on Iraq, launched shortly before 2 a.m. Baghdad time, was not designed to kill or topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but to ensure that he was no longer a threat to his neighbours.
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the first objective was "to make sure we do everything possible" to hit Iraq's air defence systems.
The attacks, which followed Wednesday's evacuation of U.N. weapons inspectors from Baghdad after they accused Iraq of halting cooperation with them, drew a defiant response from Saddam.
"Fight the enemies of God, the Arab nation and humanity," he declared in a statement.
"God willing, you will be the victors."
Europe's leading bourses surprised analysts on Thursday by ignoring the Iraq strikes and most of them put on up to one per cent by mid afternoon.
Wall Street stocks rallied on opening open and bonds edged lower as financial markets displayed little if any alarm over the Gulf.
Polls showed most Americans supporting the air strikes and rejecting speculation that they were intended to delay an impeachment vote.
A CNN poll of 543 Americans showed 74% supported the action, with 13% opposed.
U.S. officials said more than 200 aircraft and 20 warships, including 15 B-52 bombers, were deployed in the Gulf region carrying more than 400 cruise missiles and other bombs.
In condemning the latest bombing of Iraq, Dave Knight, CND Chair, said:
"Bombing Iraq solves nothing.
Militarily, bombing chemical and biological manufacturing or storage
installations is deadly dangerous.
Politically, it is counter-productive.
Each time it has been tried, Saddam not only survives but emerges stronger than before.
Bombing kills the innocent.
No bomb is smart enough to distinguish between military and civilian targets.
Anger, both from the helpless Iraqi population and throughout the Middle East, is increasingly directed at the United States and Britain.
Accusations of hypocrisy increase as Israel is seen to ignore UN resolutions with impunity.
International support for bombing is steadily slipping away, particularly in the United Nations Security Council.
Yet any long-term solution will have to depend on international agreement.
Bombing simply makes the problem worse."
NEW YORK- There is no easy way to make this argument as bombs and missiles rain down.
No fashionable way to rebut those intent on vengeance against a nation run by the likes of Saddam Hussein.
So Denis Halliday offers only a quick instruction in the mathematics of death, of the pure and deadly efficiency of the United Nations sanctions he helped oversee in Iraq.
Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under. That is the latest -- and most conservative -- independent estimate of the number of Iraqi children who have died of malnutrition, wasting and dysentery since sanctions were imposed at the behest of the United States and Great Britain in 1990.
Halliday, a tall and proper Irishman, is by temperament uncomfortable with emotion. But the deaths and suffering -- and he'll hate this word -- haunt him.
"We need to talk ugly: We are knowingly killing kids because the United States has an utterly unsophisticated foreign policy," Halliday says.
"No matter how bad this bastard Saddam is, how can we justify that? ... I feel somewhat guilty for abandoning my colleagues in Iraq during this talk of bombing," he said a week ago.
"Now I see the American generals talking about possibly 10,000 more Iraqi deaths.
This is not a strategy, it's simply to the point of madness.
One day, we'll all be called to account and clobbered in the history books."
MOSCOW, Dec 17 (Reuters) - U.S. air strikes against Iraq may have wrecked chances of the Russian parliament agreeing to ratify the 1993 START-2 nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, a senior Kremlin official said on Thursday.
"You can forget about START-2 ratification," Sergei Prikhodko, President Boris Yeltsin's deputy chief-of-staff for foreign affairs, was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass and RIA news agencies.
He said he was basing his forecast on statements by members of the State Duma lower house on Thursday.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, whose party is the biggest in parliament and has long been reluctant to ratify the START-2 treaty, said there was now "no point" in discussing it.
He called for an increase in arms spending to counter what he called "state terrorism" on the part of the United States.
But First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov, a moderate Communist who joined the government in September, was quoted as telling fellow party members they should ratify START-2 as soon as possible.
The Kremlin has been urging ratification but the Duma has complained Russia simply cannot afford the costly process of taking missiles out of service without more financial help from the United States.
Some Communists also argue Russia should not be reducing its defences.
Prikhodko was also quoted as confirming that Russia had not been officially informed of the strikes before the attack on Iraq began, although he had been told of the plans by French President Jacques Chirac during a telephone conversation.
MOSCOW, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Russia's leaders angrily denounced U.S. and British missile strikes against Iraq on Thursday, and a wave of anti-American wrath erupted in the nation's parliament.
President Boris Yeltsin said the strikes, aimed at punishing Baghdad for failing to cooperate with U.N. arms inspections, "crudely violated" the United Nations charter and he called for them to be halted immediately.
"It is outrageous that the strike was launched at the very moment when the (U.N.) Security Council was still discussing this issue," Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov told his cabinet.
Yeltsin met Primakov and political and military aides in the Kremlin to discuss the attacks, which marked a major setback for Moscow's attempts to solve the crisis diplomatically.
He also recalled his foreign and defence ministers from foreign tours.
The State Duma lower house of parliament cancelled other business to discuss Iraq and opposition Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, whose party is the biggest in the chamber, said the 1999 budget should now be revised to increase defence spending.
Some officials called into question the chances of the Duma ratifying the U.S.-Russian START-2 strategic arms accord.
Yeltsin, in a statement issued by his office, said the military action was "fraught with the most dramatic consequences" for the Gulf region and that a diplomatic approach was the only way to resolve the Iraq problem.
"By taking unprovoked military action, the United States and Britain have crudely violated the U.N. charter and generally accepted principles of international law and the norms and rules of responsible behaviour of states," he said.
Primakov, an Arabist who has mediated in the past with Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein, said the U.N. Security Council would meet again on Moscow's
initiative to discuss the crisis.
"This action lies fully on the conscience of the Americans," Primakov told his cabinet at the start of a regular meeting.
U.S. forces in the Gulf pounded Iraq on Thursday after U.N. inspectors charged with destroying Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes reported that Baghdad was not cooperating with their efforts.
Yeltsin, who has been laid low with illness for much of the past two months, met Primakov, the chief of the general staff, General Anatoly Kvashnin, and Kremlin security adviser Nikolai Bordyuzha to discuss the Iraq crisis.
Yeltsin also spoke by telephone to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and the Kremlin said the two men "noted with satisfaction that their positions coincided" on the Iraq crisis.
Yeltsin, who went on television to call the strikes "unacceptable," said Russia demanded that Washington and London put an immediate end to military action, show restraint and not allow a further escalation of the conflict.
There was a much stronger statement from Zyuganov, who accused the United States of "terrorism" that could lead to world war and called for more military spending.
"Budget spending on national defence should be significantly strengthened and increased," he told the Duma, which is due to begin debate on the much delayed 1999 budget next week.
Both Yeltsin and Primakov said the strikes had come just as the Security Council was getting to grips with the Iraq problem, an implicit accusation that the United States and Britain were trying to prevent the Iraq crisis being resolved peacefully.
Russia, long sympathetic to Iraq, wants to stage a Security Council "comprehensive review" of Iraq's progress in scrapping its weapons of mass destruction, in the hope this will lead to an easing of U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad in 1990.
Iraq says, however, the United States and Britain are determined not to lift the sanctions, no matter what Iraq does.
A major focus of Russian anger in the Iraq crisis has been chief U.N. arms inspector Richard Butler, who was accused by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Wednesday of "grossly exceeding his authority" by recalling his team from Iraq.
"Butler has not played the best role in this story," Primakov said on Thursday.
"He was in Moscow and said three or four files would be closed, that the work was going fine, and then, without consultation, he withdrew his personnel and a strike was launched."
From David Morgan, Vancouver
The pages of the New York Times declared November seventeen nineteen-ninety-eight that any time the U.S. may decide that further bombing of Iraq is now inevitable.
In nineteen eighty-nine Iraq refused to open up and sell its huge oil fields to corporations from the U.S.A., so anger of the oil executives, became inevitable.
Then corporate support for Desert Storm to bomb this rogue state back to the stone age and dominate this corner of the world with U.S. ships and warplanes based nearby, was inevitable.
Combat demonstrations by cruise missiles tom-cats, f-16s, F-18s, Warthogs and all of their enormous fire power made very profitable sales in arms inevitable.
U.S. enforced, the sanctions now exclude food, clothing, hospital and school supplies, and chemicals to make the water pure.
This make five thousand children's deaths each month inevitable.
To end the sanctions would allow Iraq to sell its oil when prices now are low, reducing profits in New York, and so continued deaths of children in Iraq, are inevitable.
The careful management of news that shows the target of the strikes will be Saddam (ignoring thousands of civilian deaths) makes U.S. public lust for bombs and war inevitable.
Bombs that destroy a city are now small and can be brought to U.S.A. by hand.
To show no mercy in Iraq may mean the bombing of new York may someday be inevitable.
David Morgan,
ArabicNews.Com
Western diplomatic sources in Amman have disclosed a British-US plan of
three military campaigns against Iraq. Each campaign lasts for four days,
in case Iraq does not give up its decision in suspending cooperation with
the UN weapons inspection team, UNSCOM.
The sources told the London-based al-Hayat daily that the US defense
Minister William Cohen told several countries in the region details of the
plan which is similar to the military plan which was not carried out last
February, during the last crisis with Iraq.
The plans speak of the start of intensive air bombardment of the
"Presidential guards positions" for a period of four days to be followed by
a list of requests to be submitted to the Iraqi leadership. If Baghdad does
not respond to the requests, the US and British air forces will carry out a
second campaign in bombarding the Presidential palaces and the
infrastructure in Iraq including bridges rebuilt after the Gulf war. Then a
list of "tougher inquiries" will be demanded from the Iraqis.
The sources continued that the US and British troops will within its third
campaign, if Iraq persists on its stand, expand the air embargo area to
cover the whole of Iraq.
From: IRAQ ACTION DIGEST - A Project of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation
Please share this covenant with your congregation or local group. It
expresses both sentiments of peace with the people of Iraq, and calls for an
end to the sanctions which oppress them. We hope that you will discuss this
covenant, and mail a signed copy, or amended version, to the FOR (care of
Nicholas Arons), so that the FOR 1999 delegation to Iraq, featuring Nobel
Peace Prize Laureates, may bring the signed covenants when it leaves in
early March.
As U.S. citizens and people of faith, we are deeply troubled by the
antagonistic relationship which our government fosters with Iraq. We are
especially discouraged by the effects of the sanctions, which the U.S.
government supports. We continuously struggle to convince our government to
change its position. We have tried to provide a voice for the people in
Iraq who are being harmed and killed by the sanctions. Since our government
will not reach a helping hand to the starving and sick children of Iraq, we
sign this covenant to affirm our strong belief and conviction that the
people of Iraq are our brothers and sisters.
Our religious and moral beliefs teach us that every human being on this
earth, conceived in the image of God, is equal, and connected to each other
by indelible and sacred bonds. Our God is a God of peace, justice, and
non-violence, and the only way we know to bridge the cultural and political
divides erected between our nations is through peaceful reconciliation.
The people of Iraq are suffering from the US/UN sanctions; they are
starving from the ban on imported goods, dying from the prohibition of
imported medication, and virtually forgotten by the mainstream American
media, which seems more concerned about rumors of chemical weapons than the
plight of an oppressed people. The bombs that fell upon this sacred ground
were not right, and the sanctions that now starve the people of this nation
are not just. We oppose any action of violence, either overtly manifested
in war, or covertly effected through sanctions.
As we extend a symbolic hand of friendship and peace to the people of Iraq,
and all people who suffer from war and violence, we pledge to:
We hope that fairness, openness, and peace soon come to characterize the
interaction between the U.S. and Iraq. We ask the people of Iraq to forgive
the harsh and callous treatment which they have received from our
government. They must know that a cadre of deeply concerned and caring
individuals feels remorse for their past inactivity, and continues to insist
that the sanctions be lifted. In the name of the God of Peace, we promise to
seek peace with our sisters and brothers in Iraq, to do what we can to end
the suffering and dying, and to help create a more just, peaceful world.
From: IRAQ ACTION DIGEST - A Project of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation
Chicago -- Eight years of U.S. supported U.N. economic sanctions against
Iraq have prompted five members of the Voices in the Wilderness campaign to
travel to Iraq in deliberate and public violation of U.S. law. Chicagoans
Mike Bremer and Henry Williamson along with Jeffrey Guntzel (Minneapolis)
will depart Chicago on Monday, October 19, carrying several thousand dollars
worth of medical supplies and medical journals, which will be delivered
directly to Iraqi hospitals. In Amman they will join Jim Douglass
(Birmingham, AL) and Christian Henderson (UK) for a 14 hour overland drive
to Iraq where they plan to spend ten days visiting hospitals, schools,
community centers and families in Baghdad and Mosul.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on October 17 that he
believes Iraq will never be fully disarmed and that U.N. weapons teams may
have to avoid confrontational inspections in order to regain Baghdad's
cooperation in determining the scope of Iraq's current arsenal. The
delegation believes that the sanctions themselves are a weapon of mass
destruction. Delegation leader Mike Bremer, a longtime Chicago peace
activist, says that reports about civilian suffering in Iraq should be
heeded as much as the reports issued regarding weapon inspection progress in
Iraq. Denis Halliday, who recently resigned from his post as director of
the UN Humanitarian Mission to Iraq, in protest of the economic sanctions,
said "The death of one Iraqi child attributable to economic sanctions is one
death too many. Unfortunately, we are faced with thousands" (AP 10/6/98).
Speaking to a bi-partisan ad hoc US congressional hearing, Halliday
confirmed that "Five to six thousand Iraqi children are dying unnecessarily
every month due to the impact of the sanctions, and that figure is probably
modest" (Reuters 10/6/98). The seventeenth delegation of Voices in the
Wilderness will travel in defiance of a U.S. State Department travel ban and
Treasury Office regulations which prohibits Americans from engaging in any
transactions related to travel to and within Iraq. They risk penalties of
12 years in prison and over $1 million in fines. However, deeply concerned
for the human rights of the Iraqi people, the members feel it necessary to
challenge the sanctions, to witness the terrible results of U.S. policies,
and to raise awareness about the enormous suffering endured by innocent
civilians in Iraq.
Members of the campaign advocate nonviolence as a means for social change
and oppose the development, storage and use - in any country - of weapons of
mass destruction, be they nuclear, chemical, biological or economic.
GENEVA,(Reuters) - A preliminary report by the World Health Organisation
recommends that Iraq accept a WHO mission to verify radiation levels in the south and find the
cause of reportedly higher cancer rates, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
Iraqi officials have said that a rising incidence of cancer-up to 20% of leukaemia and other
diseases in some areas-was linked to the use of depleted uranium contained in ammunition used
by U.S. and British forces in the 1991 Gulf War.
The WHO regional office in Alexandria is reviewing the preliminary report by experts who went to
Iraq in August and will make its recommendations to the government soon, WHO spokeswoman
Vaiju Naravane told a news briefing in Geneva.
"WHO's further activity now will depend on the response of the Iraqi government. The options
would include an on-the-ground verification of radiation levels and whether these uranium-
depleted shells are in fact giving out dangerous levels of radiation," she said.
Last August, WHO officials who travelled to Iraq at the request of the health ministry concentrated
on improving the country's cancer registry, according to WHO spokeswoman.
Iraqi officials expressed concern about cancer rates in the south, but the mission did not go there,
she added.
"The Iraqi officials of course suggested that there might be a possible causal relationship
between the uranium-depleted shells dropped by the British and U.S. armed forces during Desert
Storm," Naravane said.
"What we are saying is that the Iraqi government has brought to our notice that they find that
there is an increase of 20% or so, they feel, in the number of cancers that they are reporting from
the south.
We are suggesting that that there should be another mission whihch would then try to verify the
radiation levels, where these come from, where the populations have been exposed and to really
find out if there is an actual increase in radiation or whether there is an increase in the reporting of
cancers."
The spokeswoman said that the Geneva-based agency would be "absolutely neutral" in the
issue and not "jump to conclusions."
WHO officials would also evaluate what chemical or other substances may have been
"dumped" in the affected regions.
PART IV: CIVILIAN POPULATION
ARTICLE 50
(a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction."
(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and
(b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."
(Partners: Susan & David Stott)
"The Briars" 12 Crescent Road,
Birkdale, Southport. PR8 4SR
Phone/fax: 01704 563092
E-mail: mts@gn.apc.org
SECOND ATTACK ON IRAQ BY US AND BRITISH PLANES
WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN ...?
CND statement on the bombing of Iraq
EX-UN WORKER DETAILS HARM TO IRAQI CHILDREN
By Michael Powell, Washington Post Staff Writer - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-12/17/226l-121798-idx.html
KREMLIN SAYS IRAQ RAID MAY WRECK START-2
RUSSIA SLAMS "OUTRAGEOUS" STRIKE ON IRAQ
By Patrick Worsnip
THE BOMBING OF IRAQ IS INEVITABLE
240 Holyrood Road,
North Vancouver,
BC, V7N 2R5 CANADA
Tel: 604-985-7147
Fax: 604-985-7147
Email :dmorgan@web.net
UK-US ATTACK PLANS AGAINST IRAQ
COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ
VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS DEPART FOR
IRAQ
UN AGENCY MAY URGE STUDY OF IRAQI CANCER
CASES
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