Documents Show US Intended to Degrade Iraqi Water Supply

Pentagon documents show that the US used sanctions to degrade Iraq’s water supply following the 1991 Gulf War, knowing the consequences would be increased illness and disease, particularly among children, according to an article in the September issue of The Progressive.

In "The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the US Intentionally Destroyed Iraq’s Water Supply," author Thomas J. Nagy says the documents, reaching back to 1991, show that the US knew it had the capacity to devastate the water treatment system. "It knew what the consequences would be increased outbreaks of disease and high rates of child mortality. And it was more concerned about the public relations nightmare for Washington than the actual nightmare that the sanctions created for innocent Iraqis. "

Nagy writes that the documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency he discovered during the past two years show that the US violated provisions of the Geneva Convention. One of the documents cited by Nagy, titled "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," Jan. 22, 1991, acknowledged that Iraq "depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals" to keep its water supply pure. "Failing to secure supplies," the documentsaid, "will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease."

Another Jan. 22, 1991 document, titled "Disease Information," analyzed the "effects of bombing on disease occurrence" in Baghdad. "Increased incidence of diseases will be attributable to degradation of normal preventive medicine, waste disposal, water purification/distribution, electricity and decreased ability to control disease outbreaks." Among the diseases it predicts were acute diarrhea brought on by bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and others affecting "particularly children."

"The Geneva Convention is absolutely clear, " writes Nagy in The Progressive. "In a 1979 protocol relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts, Article 54, it states: It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive. "

—National Catholic Reporter, 8/24/01

Your children will have to live with ours"

From a letter from Rick McDowell, Voices in the Wilderness,who last visited Baghdad in March.

Sanctions against Iraq remain the most comprehensive in modern civilization. Revenue from the sale of oil cannot be used for local procurement, contributing to the collapse of 70% of civilian industrial enterprises, and unemployment rates of 60 to 75%. The collapsing education system has led to a de-skilled population. The middle class, once committed to moving Iraq towards a more open society, have been reduced to destitution.

Over twelve trips to Iraq, I’ve watched hope fade. Leaders of the Christian community have lamented that even God has forsaken them. To our government they say: "Have mercy on us."

Iraq’s people—many born since the war—shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their government. It’s time to end the war on Iraq’s people and allow families to put their lives back together and children to have hope in themselves, their future, and their country. The children, stunted, hungry, isolated, uneducated, and angry, are Iraq’s future leaders and will share the world’s stage with our children. Asked what’s the legacy of sanctions, an Iraqi teacher responded, "Your children will have to live with ours."

Protesting Sanctions on Iraq at the US Mission to UN

Frida Berrigan works with the World Policy Institute in New York.

Forty days is a long time to go without food. It is a long time to stand out in the sun and rain (it has been raining a lot recently in New York). It is a long time to be away from home and family. It is a long time to sleep on church basement floor. But the folks I visited across the street from the US Mission to the United Nations were energetic, happy, and resolute. They are vigiling and fasting for forty days to bring attention to the United States’ responsibility for the suffering endured by the Iraqi people under eleven years of economic sanctions.

"The suffering of the Iraqi people under the sanctions has been silenced and made invisible. But the fasters are there to give voice to the suffering and with their bodies present the hunger of the Iraqis to the United Nations," explains Father Simon Harak, who works with Voices in the Wilderness.

Their signs and banners communicate a simple message that the sanctions are wrong. Sanctions target the weakest and most vulnerable members of Iraqi society—the poor, elderly, newborn, sick, and young. Many independent authorities estimate that at least 500,000 Iraqi children under five have died since 1990, as a result of the sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War.

The fast began on August 6, 2001, the 56th anniversary of the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima—a crime against humanity. Iraqi sanctions also begain, ironically, on August 6. And the sanctions against Iraq are another crime against humanity. Voices in the Wilderness founder Kathy Kelly, who was nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, explains the reason for the fast: "We are trying to encourage the member states of the UN to ‘break ranks’ with the US in its insistence on endless sanctions for Iraq. We also ask for the US to seek reconciliation with the peoples of Iraq, to stop the continued bombing and terror, and to embrace peaceful means to solve any conflict between the two nations."

Spread out on a cloth on the sidewalk is the daily ration of food for an Iraqi family. It is not much. The water for the meal is from the East River, representing the dirty water that the Iraqi people are forced to drink. Their water treatment facilities were bombed during the war and the economic sanctions have not allowed them to import the equipment needed to fix them.

Wednesday, August 22nd, ten people climbed the steps of the US Mission, carrying a meal of lentils and rice. They invited members of the staff and the Ambassador’s office to share the meal. They carried with them a letter that said, "We are again inviting you to partake with us in a simple meal of cooked lentils, rice, and bread, along with unpurified water from the East River (we don’t want to drink it and neither do Iraqi people). The meal symbolizes our concern because many Iraqis have subsisted on this food for eleven years. It also represents our earnest interest in breaking bread with you."

They were arrested. Earlier in August, twelve people were arrested for the same action. They face trial on September 20 for "obstruction" and "criminal trespass." The fasters continue to offer such meals each Wednesday.

Those who are fasting in front of the US Mission and those who were arrested on the steps are not alone. Just a few days ago, I got a letter from a woman in Florida who is also fasting for the forty days. She maybe far away, but she is there in spirit, as are so many others.

• Learn more about Voices in the Wilderness by visiting their website www.vitw.org

• Pax Christi is circulating a petition: "Worldwide Call To Conscience: End Economic Sanctions Against Iraq" that will be delivered to the UN on October 24, 2001, United Nations Day. The petition, which should be signed during the month of September, is online at www.paxchristiusa.org

UN Sniffer Dogs Better Fed than Iraqi People

Felicity Arbuthnot is a British journalist who writes frequently on Iraq.

UN sniffer dogs used for de-mining in Iraqi Kurdistan have received over six times more per head, per year, for food since the inception of Oil for Food in December 1996, than the Iraqi population.

A spat between Iraq’s Deputy Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Qaysi and the UN and the Sanctions Committee has led to the usually secretive Sanctions Committee making the costings public. al-Qaysi stated that food expenditure on each of the 140 dogs was $1248 annually, whilst Iraqis under Oil for Food received less than a twelfth of that. Benon Sevan, Head of the Iraq programme presented figures proving the Iraqi claim inaccurate. His statement makes salutary reading.

"The average cost of feeding one dog was $34 a month or $408 per year," said Sevan. Each dog was fed "0.8 kilos of imported dog food .... enhanced by local food such as chicken ..." To most Iraqis the taste of chicken is barely a memory. And could it be afforded, it is a virtual certainty that a request for imported dog food if deemed necessary, would be vetoed as either ‘dual use’ or ‘non-essential.’

Dr. Eric Herring, at Bristol University, UK, has made a minute analysis of Oil for Food: "Sevan costed food for (the dogs) at $408 per year each. Deliveries under Oil for Food since the Programme’s inception, to March 2001 are a total of $305 [per capita], though the figure for the northern governorates will be a little higher, due to some extra purchasing power. Per year, the figure per person is $65. So the Iraqis may have exaggerated, but they weren’t wrong."

"Western guestimates of how much Iraqi GDP has fallen (from being in the global top sixty, roughly on par with Malaysia) since the imposition of sanctions generally vary between 70% and 90% reduction and cluster round 70%-75%," says Herring. By dividing the Oil for Food figures among basic infrastructure categories over 10 years and eight months of the embargo, Dr. Herring has provided graphic insight into the reason for its virtual total collapse. For example, per annum, per head: Health - $5; Oil spares - $3; Electricity - $3; Water and sanitation - $3; Education - 75 cents; Telecommunications and transport - 28 cents; Housing - 94 cents.

"If we treated our domestic animals as the international community, in the guise of the UN, has treated the people of Iraq, we would be in Court on charges of cruelty," wrote Professor Tom Nagy of George Washington University.

"I’d rather be a dog in America, than a child in Iraq," a ten-year-old in Baghdad remarked some years into the embargo. Perhaps an alternative is to become a UN sniffer dog, for whose food Iraq is forced to pay—out of oil for food.

   Previous Article    Next Article