BY ROHAN PEARCE
When he addressed US troops at Fort Hood on January 3, US President George Bush told them: "We're not going to forget the fact that they kill without regard for the rules of war. They don't value innocent life like we do... They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers, and that's the way we're going to treat them." Evidently, Iraqi civilians don't count as "innocent life" at the White House. Humanitarian organisations are predicting that the coming war on Iraq will kill and main hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
"Iraq is not only on the brink of war" but is "teetering on the edge of a humanitarian disaster", wrote Barbara Stocking, director of the aid agency Oxfam, in the December 27 International Herald Tribune.
Agencies predict that the carnage caused by the "secondary" effects of the war — deaths not caused directly by the inevitable savage bombing and ground assaults on Iraqi cities but through the destruction of water, sewerage and electricity infrastructure and the disruption of access to basic necessities — will be much greater than in the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq hasn't even begun to recover from the impact of the last war; it has gone backwards. This is due to the "silent war" waged against Iraq by the imperialist countries, particularly the US, under the auspices of the United Nations sanctions regime. Sanctions (implemented with gusto by the Australian Navy) have denied Iraq the ability to import basic necessities.
As the deputy project manager of CARE, Majeed Waleed, told the January 5 Washington Post: "In '91, people had a cushion to fall back on. Don't forget, this was a rich country. If they got married, they gave gold. They had three or four TV sets... Now, of course, after 12 years [of UN sanctions] anyone who ever got gold has sold it. People sold parts of their houses or sold the whole thing and moved to a cheaper area."
In 1990, Iraq rated 50th out of 130 in the UN Human Development Index. In 1995, it was 106th out of 174; and by 2000, it was 126th out of 174. UNICEF noted in 1999 that "if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under five in the country as a whole during the eight-year period [of] 1991 to 1998".
In an interview with Chicago magazine In These Times in November 1999, the former administrator of the UN's oil-for-food program, Denis Halliday, stated: "Malnutrition [in Iraq] is running at about 30 per cent for children under 5 years old. In terms of mortality, probably 5 or 6 thousand children are dying per month. This is directly attributable to the impact of sanctions, which have caused the breakdown of the clean water system, health facilities and all the things that young children require... Sanctions are being sustained by member states, knowing of this calamity."
Halliday resigned from his position as UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq in October 1998, after working for the UN for more than three decades, in protest at the "process of destroying an entire society". A "fact sheet" issued by the US Department of State on January 14 lauds the passing of UN Security Council resolution 1454 on December 30, adding more goods to the list of items banned from being import into Iraq. The resolution added several dozen types of drugs, vehicles, chemicals and electronic items.
Water and sanitation
In February 2002, a UNICEF investigation found that infant mortality in Iraq had increased to 107 per 1000 live births — from 47 per 1000 at the end of the 1980s. The report found that under-five mortality had reached 131 deaths per 1000 live births, two-and-a-half times greater than 1992. UNICEF also found that "15.9 per cent of children suffer from being moderately to severely underweight or from general malnutrition; 22.1 per cent suffer from moderate to severe stunting or chronic malnutrition; and 5.9 per cent suffer from moderate-severe".
"The immediate causes for this situation", UNICEF noted, "include disease and malnutrition, with preventable illnesses such as diarrhea and respiratory infections accounting for 70 per cent of the mortality".
According to the UNICEF report, the underlying reason for the increase in child mortality was a lack of resources to rebuild the country's infrastructure. "Between 1990 and 2000, the daily per capita share of potable water went from 330 litres to 150 litres in Baghdad, 270 to 110 in other urban areas and 180 to 65 in rural areas. Some 500,000 tons of raw sewage are dumped into fresh water bodies each day. At the household level ... many Iraqis [are] living on as little as US$3 to $6 a month," UNICEF found.
The January 5 Washington Post reported that humanitarian groups are most concerned about the impact that a US attack will have on Iraq's debilitated water and sanitation systems. As Oxfam's Barbara Stocking noted in her December 27 IHT article, "Any military action that damages power supplies will inevitably destroy the already fragile water and sanitation system. Inevitably, disease will sweep through the population. Any attack that affects roads, ports or railways will lead to the collapse of the system of food distribution upon which the bulk of Iraq's population depends."
Oxfam's assessment of the likely impact of war closely matches that of a confidential draft UN report, Likely Humanitarian Scenarios, dated December 10. The report was leaked to Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq at Cambridge University (visit ).
"There is a temptation in some quarters to equate the situation following any future military intervention in Iraq, with the population's ability to cope at the time of the 1991 conflict", states the report. "Such comparisons are not valid, as the substantive majority of the population, immediately prior to the events of 1991, were in full employment and had cash and material assets available to them to cope with the crisis. Aside from now not having been gainfully employed for some time, during the intervening period, all except the most privileged have completely exhausted their cash assets and have also in most cases disposed of their material assets. Accordingly, the bulk of the population is now totally dependent on the government of Iraq for a majority, if not all, of their basic needs and, unlike the situation in 1991, they have no way of coping if they cannot access them: the sanctions regime, if anything, has served to increase dependence on the government as almost the sole provider."
The report predicts that up to 500,000 people will require treatment for injuries following the war. The necessary quantities of medical supplies are unlikely to be available: "The expected increase in the instances of diarrhoeal disease and respiratory infections resulting from the conditions experienced in a post-conflict scenario ... as well as over-crowding, traumatic injured, and a lack of refrigeration, would translate into an increased demand and consumption of medical supplies and drugs, rendering the existing stocks inadequate."
Starvation
The leaked UN report predicts that a US attack will result in 900,000 Iraqi refugees, of which "100,000 will be in need of immediate assistance". Neighbouring countries are preparing for a massive influx of refugees.
The January 12 Washington Post reported that Iran has set up 19 refugee camps "just yards" within its borders. Turkey has mobilised its military to prevent Iraqi Kurds fleeing into its territory.
Iraq's dilapidated infrastructure and moribund economy has reduced most Iraqis to the point of total reliance on Saddam Hussein's regime to supply basic goods and services. The disruption of already inadequate government supplies of food and medicine will almost certainly result in starvation.
According to the UN leaked report: "It is estimated that the nutritional status of some 3.03 million persons countrywide will be dire and that they will require therapeutic feeding. This consists of 2.03 million severely and moderately malnourished children under five and 1 million pregnant and lactating women."
The Iraqi regime has increased its allotment of rations to families to try and prevent mass starvation when the war breaks out, however up to 40% of families must sell part of their rations to boost their incomes. When the war breaks out, these families are likely to be left without any stored food.
The January 5 Washington Post claimed that "UN officials are preparing for possible evacuations of their foreign staff, and many if not most of the local workers could be drafted to fight in the [Iraqi] army". This will result in an almost instant severing of this, already tenuous, life line for Iraqi families.
Medact, the British affiliate of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, issued a report titled Collateral Damage: the health and environmental costs of war on Iraq in November 2002. It predicts that deaths during the war itself, on all sides, could range from 48,000 to 261,000. If a civil war erupts and nuclear weapons are involved, the casualties are projected to increase to between 375,000 and 3.9 million. Medact estimates that the longer-term impact of the war could kill another 200,000 people.
Collateral Damage also notes that the projected US$100 billion cost of the war "could fund four years of health expenditure to address the health needs of the world's poorest people".
As Stocking noted in the December 27 IHT : "Article 54 of Additional Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention prohibits attacks upon 'objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population'. In Iraq, this must be taken to include ports, roads, railways and power lines. The convention states that 'in no event shall actions against these objects be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement.
"Given this, how can an attack on Iraq fail to violate international humanitarian law?"
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, January 22, 2003.
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