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Iraq: What has the US achieved?

Shenali Waduge

Has the world ever learnt from history’s conflicts?

Counting the conflicts existing globally & the immoral reasons that fathom their existence would suffice to tell the sordid truth.

Human rights & the dignity of life are some of the colorful words that make up western rhetoric. It was the US’s desire to liberate the Iraqi’s from the Stalin of modern times – Saddam Hussein & his weapons of mass destruction that urged 2 US Governments to enter Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction but Saddam was captured & later executed but for the “freed” Iraqi’s their “freedom” was far from over. This was not just any country – most of us seem to forget the historic significance of Babylon, ancient Mesopotamia to imagine the effects of bullets & gunships but then how would those whose historical significance become questionable understand the need to preserve ancient history.

When the US administration revealed to the world of the Iraqi’s weapons of mass destruction – the world was horrified. It was good enough reason for the savior of the world to take action & UN backing was assured.

But was Saddam not a US agent? Did not the Western powers previously provide Saddam the technology & know-how to develop weapons of mass destruction to be used against Iran? Saddam was a friend so long as he did what the Western interests wanted. If he committed genocide or crimes against humanity while a friend of the US, it was the done thing but no sooner Saddam opposed US domination in the Middle East oil things began to change. This double standard approach is prevalent throughout the globe : the Indonesian invasion of East Timor was greatly supported by US, Britain, Australia among other western powers & Indonesia had deployed chemical weapon napalm & anti personnel cluster bombs killing many villagers.

The West remained silent in view of their investments in Indonesia & to exploit East Timor oil. The same applies to Turkey, also a NATO member & an ally of the US. Turkey too used weapons of mass destruction in its war against the Kurds in 1989 & once again the international community remained silent. In 1989 weapons of mass destruction did not matter to the US or UN but it was so important for US to invade Iraq a few years later. Does this not constitute selective justice? Then we can also recall the UN refugee camp at Qana (Lebanon) where the US’s best ally in the Middle East, Israel deliberately bombed it killing thousands of women & children. Israel’s 30 year long illegal occupation of Palestine continues despite hundreds of UN resolutions.

Moving on to the effects of war & the weapons that serves only to destroy humanity we came to know in May 1991 of the US Defense department confessing to the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) which is a low level radioactive metal & its solubility allows them to contaminate soil, groundwater & surface water. We can imagine its effect on humans which varied from tumors, irreversible damage to kidneys & high risks of cancer. Prof Asaf Durakovic of the University of Georgetown, USA revealed that tens of thousands of British & American solders were dying from radiation from DU shells fired by the coalition forces during the Gulf War. The US, UK & their allies were in fact poisoning their own soldiers just because a handful of decision makers to this supposed act of “benevolence” wanted to “save” the Iraqi people?

Before the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was tasked with determining whether Iraq in fact possessed weapons of mass destruction, US & UK governments decried Saddam’s refusal to cooperate to justify renewed bombing & the economic sanctions. Subsequent reports filed by Scott Ritter, the Chief UN weapons inspector stated that UNSCOM had successfully destroyed over 90% of Iraq’s weapons & weapons making facilities & were corroborated by Raymond Zalinskas. Ritter in March 1999 said “today, Iraq no longer possesses arms of mass destruction……………The biological weapons programme was gone, all the major facilities eliminated. The nuclear weapons programme was completely eliminated. The long range ballistic missile programme was completely eliminated. If I had to quantify Iraq’s threat, I would say zero.”

Was there any need for the US & allies to feel threatened by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or even perhaps possessing a military threat to the West?.... unfortunately not & Scott Rittler went on to debunk such a notion …“The Iraqi army is in total disarray, capable of little more than manning security pickets along the Iran-Iraq border, in northern Iraq (Kurdistan), and in southern Iraq. I have visited numerous Iraqi military barracks and have seen soldiers in tattered uniforms and bare feet.

Military training is without substance, barely sufficient to convert recruits into simple soldiers, let alone provide skills in the intricacies of modern combined arms combat - the integration of infantry, armor, artillery, and air power in a single military action... I have seen the Republican Guard, too... enough to put down internal unrest, but not enough to match the armed forces of any of its neighbors... Even at its best, the Republican Guard was decimated in a matter of hours once it engaged the U.S. Army in 1991. Any international threat from today’s Republican Guard is imaginary... Saddam’s air force in action could be shot out of the sky by any of the modern air forces of its neighbors... Iraq simply lacks the stocks of chemical and biological agent needed to have any militarily significant effect.”

The US was desperate for evidence & the UN inspections were undertaken by covert US intelligence operators & UNSCOM was turned into an America-Israeli operation to gather strategic information on Iraq. Scott Rittler himself said “the US has perverted the UN weapons process by using it as a tool to justify military actions, falsely so….the US was using the inspection process as a trigger for war”. A question looming largely on the minds of right thinking people would be how the UN could be party to an operation to overthrow one of its member states?

Why would then the US & British governments have us believe that Iraq would pose a threat to the entire world?

It remains to ask if the UNSCOM & Scott Rittler confirmed that there were no weapons of mass destruction how Richard Butler the UNSCOM Executive Chairman was able to report an opposite version of facts in a report to the Security Council? It was hard to imagine the Iraqi government’s lack of cooperation when out of more than 300 inspections there were hardly a handful of reported violations (Butler cited only 5 alleged “obstructions”) & this report apparently had “obligated” the Clinton administration to “act against Iraq”. The stage was set following the US administration’s manipulation of the Butler report. Iraq was invaded not once but twice.

For the most sophisticated army in the world the Iraqi invasion & liberation of the Iraqi people should have been a piece of cake – if that was the intent with which the forces were sent. However, as sordid details & rumors surfaces as to why the US administration committed its troops to Iraq we can begin to understand why the allied forces cannot win the war in Iraq & realize the gulf between rhetoric & reality.

All those international human rights activists that made a devil out of the Saddam Hussein must be blushing when statistics today reveal that more civilians have perished during the 5 years of US occupation. Was US not committing crimes against humanity & genocide themselves & was not the UN officially assisting? Several international reports reveal that 100,000 civilians have died since March 2003, the US troop death has also reached a staggering 4000. The figures of the deaths following sanctions reveal a startling figure in excess of 600,000 mostly children below 5 years. The Iraq Body Count places the figures based on morgue statistics (www.iraqbodycount.org) records as of early March 2008 reveals a death toll of 88,867.

Iraq Body Count – from 2003 to 2007

The US led Coalition members include countries of Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Thailand, Tonga, Ukraine, United Kingdom (8000 troops) & the USA with 130,000 troops.

The atrocities carried out by these troops on Iraqi women & children in particular not to mention the degrading & perverted manner in which the prisoners of war were treated can be highlighted in hundreds of cases that are presently being heard & in some cases UK & US troops have also been courtmashalled. The cases of rape by coalition forces are too large to mention. Suzanne Goldenberg, U.S. correspondent for the British Guardian newspaper, on International Women’s Day broke the story about how soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Brigade accused of rape were able to escape the charges.

The Marine who accepted guilt of killing 24 civilians in Haditha too has escaped justice. Is there justice for the Iraqi people by those who proclaim to be upholders of truth & integrity? Looking at some other countries calls to mind the cases of rape of teenage girls by US Marines in Okinawa, Japan. A marine recently found guilty this year was released & tension is mounting amongst the Japanese as a result. There are likely to further cases of US troops linked to rape globally as well & given this scenario we can but question the moral right of the US State Dept to pass judgment on other countries with regard to the same matters that the troops under the US State Dept are guilty of. Therefore, it reminds the US that so long as they may point a finger at smaller nations it must always remember that at least three fingers are pointing towards the USA!

As the statistics rise daily there seems no end in sight. Women & children make up almost 20% of all civilian deaths. Airstrikes accounted for 64% of civilian deaths which will explain why the US-led forces account for 37% of civilian victims while the insurgents claim 9% of civilian victims. This will also explain why children have become the disproportionately affected by such aerial explosions. 53% of civilian deaths involved explosive devices. Where are the human rights organizations & the UN Special Rappateur demanding justice & human rights for these innocent children? Has the US not broken or violated any International laws or even the Geneva Convention in handling of prisoners?

Let us also not forget the injured & by injured we should mean not just those with physical injuries, how about the thousands suffering psychological injury with no hope of salvation.

Do we sense a stark contrast in accepting civilian deaths or injuries by the international community & the UN? There have been many cases of US air raids killing innocent women & children & the US military has not expressed anything beyond the words “regret”. America does not have to worry about sanctions, curtailing of aid etc…that the international community would exercise upon other countries grappling to handle & control conflicts within their territory from terrorists aided & abetted by foreign forces that wish to keep a sovereign nation in eternal impasse.

Here are a few examples that is worthy of sharing:

· Al Matasan Street, Samarra, Iraq

Claim on behalf of Iraqi: son who was deaf, was shot and killed by US forces near the Samarra museum. Two eyewitnesses corroborated the story. Finding: denied for lack of evidence and combat exception. Condolence payment granted: $500 US.

· “A fisherman was fishing in the Tigris river in the early morning, when a Coalition Forces (CF)

helicopter flew over and shone a spotlight on him. The fisherman began to shout in English, ‘Fish! Fish!’ while pointing to his catch. A patrol of Humvees arrived, and as the deceased bent down to turn off the boat’s motor, CF shot and killed him. CF did not secure the boat, which drifted off and was never retrieved.” Compensation for death denied due to combat exemption; compensation for boat granted: $3,500 US.

· The US Army paid $7,500 to two children whose mother they killed inside a taxi that ran a checkpoint — both children were also in the taxi, and were shot and injured; they also paid $6,000 for killing a child looking out of the window, while a raid was on-going in the house across the street. They refused, as they do in the majority of cases, to compensate the child whose father they killed as he drove home, but agreed to make a ‘condolence payment’ of $1,500.5 More recently, the US military is reported to have paid $2,500 to each family of the three men they killed near Abu Lukah, as they guarded their village.

You can imagine the monetary compensation of a life that has unfairly been nullified due to a senseless invasion that had nothing to do with liberating the Iraqi people or even Saddam Hussein for that matter unless of course we include the factor to appease the Israeli’s.

The US led coalition invasion did not undermine the graveness during the sanctions that was prevailed upon the Iraqi people. Sanctions that the UN need to apologize to the Iraqi people for the deaths that a UN endorsed resolution created on 2nd August 1990 after the UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions against Iraq following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. All imports & exports into & out of Iraq ceased unless approved by the UN Security Council. Would a country with a dictator a Government known for mismanagement & corruption care about the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people? It seemed as if the UN, US & allies cohorted with the Iraqi regime against the human rights of the Iraqi people.

While untreated water in Iraq is generally of poor quality since Iraqi rivers contain biological materials, pollutants & laden with bacteria it requires purification with chlorine to avoid diarrhea & epidemics like cholera, hepatitis & typhoid. However, despite the awareness of the importance of chlorine it was listed in the UN embargo list. The US government also used its power to put “holds” on more than $500 million in humanitarian goods to Iraq while the British government not to be undone prevented a shipment of vaccines to Iraqi children in 1999 justifying that they could be used to create weapons of mass destruction.

It was the realization of the futility of sanctions & the gravity of the situation that made Dennis Halliday the then UN Assistant Secretary-General & Chief UN Relief Coordinator for Iraq to resign from his post stating that the sanctions “breached the Charter of the United Nations, the Conventions of Human Rights & the Rights of the Child”.

Moving on to the genocide as a result of sanctions & exactly how many have died over the years as a result of the US backed UN administered sanctions imposed on Iraq? The Internal US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reveals that the US was aware & anticipated the dire civilian health consequences of destroying Iraq’s drinking water & sanitation systems during the Gulf War.

The figures are staggering & shocking & if we are to accept the findings of FAO, UK’s reputed medical journal The Lancet as well as research done by John Hopkins University we can conclude that the sanctions have killed 650,000 Iraqi children especially those below the age of 5 years. Appearing on the program 60 Minutes, Madeleine Albright the then US Ambassador to the UN (Subsequently US Secretary of State) was asked about the price of the sanctions vis a vis the deaths of innocent children & her remark surprisingly was “the price is worth it”. We can then understand the coldness with which supposed upholders of human rights function in global politics.

Thus, the ultimate effect of the UN sanctions regime led to a humanitarian disaster in Iraq – the US & the UN could not have been ignorant of what would eschew as a result of their sanctions. Need we have to ask whose actions have affected the Iraqi people more – Saddam’s or the US & UN regimes?

Here are a few reports by UN agencies:

· The World Health Organization (WHO) observed in March 1996 that: “Since the onset of sanctions, there has been a six-fold increase in the mortality rate for children under five and the majority of the country’s population has been on a semi-starvation diet.

· The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported in the same year that: “4,500 children under the age of 5 are dying each month from hunger and disease... The situation is disastrous for children. Many are living on the margin of survival.”

· April 1997, UNICEF in association with the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), reported that: “One out of every 4 Iraqi infants is malnourished... Chronic malnutrition among children under five has reached 27.5 per cent. After a child reaches two or three years of age, chronic malnutrition is difficult to reverse and damage on the child’s development is likely to be permanent.”

· Towards the end of 2000, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that it “believes that the current sanctions regime is having a disproportionately negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights by the Iraqi population. OHCHR considers that the time has come for the extent and nature of the sanctions regime on Iraq to be reexamined.”

In view of the astounding facts gathered vis a vis the UN sanctions & later the “Oil for Food’ program a charge sheet against the Western powers (US, British & UN officials with “causing the deaths of more than 1,500,000 people including 750,000 children under five & injury to the entire population of Iraq by genocidal sanctions”) were drawn up by the President of the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions – international law expert Ramsey Clark (former US Attorney General under both Kennedy & Johnson administrations). The charges were issued at the International Court on Crimes Against Humanity committed by the UN Security Council on Iraq & held in Madrid, Spain in November 1996.

Looming large is the frequent emphasis on Iraq’s oil & news of a new Federal Oil and Gas Council that would control all of Iraq's reserves as a raison d’etre for the US occupation of Iraq….of course denied by the US & its allies…. It does then make us wonder if Iraq would have been considered worthy of occupation if it was the world’s largest supplier of bananas ….???

Your guess is as good as mine. Those who danced the streets following Saddam’s execution must surely be thinking today that the devil was far better than the angel.

As we look around scrutinizing the conflicts prevalent globally it begins to emerge that all of these conflicts have nothing to do with liberation of people, freeing people from genocide or clearing nuclear zones….every conflict that has surfaced following the 2 major world wars have been ingenuously created by evil men & women who have fed the myopic & egoistical minds of a few willing to create a de facto regime & engage Governments to carryout their own sinister machinations – the people of the countries engaged in conflicts as well as the people of the countries that create the conflict are really the sorry losers in this modern battle of cowboys & Indians.

Why would such powerful nations create mayhem in nations & then come forward as peace doves to protect its people? The answer lies in what these countries possess – if it is not oil (as in the case of Iraq, East Timor & Kosovo) it could even be the strategic placement of one’s country – Afghanistan & Sri Lanka are perfect examples.

We then question the moral & ethics of the UN itself a body that was created to protect the rights of humanity & nurture a peaceful world but past & present UN actions & its bias & placid “yes” to the whims & wishes of the Western interests makes us wonder whether UN is really doing what it is meant to do – peaceful co-existence amongst all member states?

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