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Why Iraq?

Traveling to Iraq: Dec. 2001 Delegation

What about a humanitarian crisis?

Why should we care? The role of the US.

What can I do? What can we do?

The people of Iraq have suffered from a combination of US-led coalition bombing that targeted Iraqi civilian infrastructure in 1991 and from total economic sanctions. The UN sanctions prohibited rehabilitation by cutting off Iraq's cash-producing oil flow and by barring imports of spare parts. In the long term, the sanctions destroyed Iraq's economy by constricting its cash flow, sending professionals - engineers, teachers, doctors and others necessary to the society's well-being - fleeing the country for economic opportunity.

In 1997, the UN "oil for food" program began importing limited humanitarian goods into Iraq in exchange for its exported oil. With the US taking a leading role in the new program, the UN Security Council administered Iraq's oil funds in a New York-based escrow account and decided which goods were allowed into the country. It was essentially a goods exchange program without cash, not true economic activity. According to UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 986, this program was a "temporary measure." In March 2001, the UN Secretary General issued a report reminding, "the program was never meant to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people and cannot be a substitute for normal economic activity in Iraq." Nevertheless, the "temporary measure" continued with the revision of UNSC 1409 which streamlined the bureaucratic procedures through which Iraq was required to order the goods.

Photo by David Radcliff

Unfortunately, the new sanctions have not fundamentally changed the stranglehold exerted by the UN since 1990. They continue to constrict cash flow, forbid foreign investment and outlaw non-oil exports from Iraq, measures that would put precious cash into the hands of small business entrepreneurs, middle class professionals and other non-government officials vital to rebuilding Iraq's debilitated infrastructure and economy. As a result of this crippling and the magnitude of investment required for recovery, debilitated water, sanitation and electricity systems continue to be the primary source of the public health crisis. In other words, many ordinary Iraqis don't have clean water. And especially children are extremely vulnerable to these hazardously unsanitary conditions.

One member of the Church of the Brethren delegation experienced this firsthand. After a tasty salad in a nice Baghdad restaurant (washed no doubt with tap water), Christmas Eve soon became dominated by vomiting and a few too many hours "worshipping the porcelain god." Luckily, we were adults with full-strength immune systems, and we had ample medication available. The children of Iraq are often not so lucky.

A child leukemia victim. Noora Ibrahim's father said simply, "Please take her picture." Rates for childhood leukemia are three times higher than before the war. Many attribute this to the lingering effects of the depleted uranium the United States used to coat—and harden—munitions during the Gulf War. Photo by David Radcliff

The delegation was able to visit several hospitals in Baghdad and Karbala including the pediatric and leukemia wards that have been seen the most exacerbated suffering since 1991. We met numerous children, mothers and fathers who were part of these horrendous statistics, deemed "unacceptably high" by UNICEF staff in Baghdad.

With child leukemia on the rise over 300% in some areas, concern has gathered about the toxic and radioactive impact of the thousands of tons of explosives dropped on the country. Of special concern is the 350 tons of uranium-238 shells littering the Iraqi landscape. In a controversial November 2001 vote, the United States led a UN vote to reject a proposal that the UN World Health Organization study the impact of depleted uranium used by US-led forces in the Gulf War. As a result, we still do not know the effects of this highly toxic and radioactive substance. And once again, those most at risk of the increasingly prevalent birth defects and fatal cancers are the children and childbearing women in Iraq's society.

While the Church of the Brethren delegation saw just a slice of this public health crisis, reports of the extent and breadth of this crisis are easy to find. For example, Save the Children UK (April 2002) reports extremely shaky dependence on the "oil-for-food" rations system in Northern Iraq, considered to be the prosperous area of the country, calling for a "de-linking" of economic and military sanctions. In a more comprehensive study, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "found that since the implementation of the oil-for-food programme in 1997, "child malnutrition rates in the centre/south of the country do not appear to have improved and nutritional problems remain serious and widespread." Further detailed up-to-the-minute reports are available online at the British-based organization Campaign to End the Sanctions Against Iraq (CASI).