Life in Iraq is being destroyed by US Government

This is why we were attacked in 1993, and on September 11, 2001

http://www.redcross.org/news/archives/2000/2-7-00.html

Life in Iraq Deteriorates With U.N. Sanctions

Stephanie Kriner, Staff Writer, DisasterRelief.org
Life in Iraq has continued to deteriorate despite efforts by relief
agencies to ease the humanitarian costs of U.N. sanctions. After nine
years of a U.N. trade embargo, clean water, food, and medical
treatment are scarce and the country's innocent civilians are
struggling to survive. The U.N. agreed in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell
oil for food, but despite the concession, the situation has only grown
worse, humanitarian workers claim.

The U.N. imposed the sanctions in 1990 in response to Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait and plans to keep the sanctions in place until it is
convinced that Iraq's long-range missiles and chemical, nuclear, and
biological weapons have been dismantled or destroyed. Since the
sanctions began, the country, already ravaged by a war with Iran in
the 1980s and the 1991 Gulf War, has sunk deeper into economic
turmoil. Basic infrastructures such as hospitals and water systems
have all but disintegrated and there is not enough food or medicine to
care for the nation's poor and vulnerable citizens.

"After nine years of trade sanctions . . . the situation of the
civilian population is increasingly desperate. Deteriorating living
conditions, inflation, and low salaries make people's everyday lives a
continuing struggle," the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) said in a report. "The weakest and most vulnerable who suffer
from sanctions are young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and
people with chronic diseases."

Iraq's Health Ministry claims that the sanctions have caused more than
1.26 million deaths of babies, and children since 1990. Last month
alone, 14,000 Iraqis died because of U.N. sanctions, Iraq says. Nearly
6,500 of those who died were children under age five. Most children
die of chronic diarrhea, malnutrition, and respiratory problems, the
ministry reported.

Malnutrition has become a severe problem, the Iraqi government and
humanitarian workers in the area claim. "Malnutrition in Iraq is not
just epidemic, it is endemic," Hans von Sponeck, the United Nations
Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, told the Seattle Post. Drought has
exasperated the problem, forcing the country to dip into its wheat
reserves in December, as quantities imported under the oil-for-food
program were not meeting demand. Iraq claims that the program meets
only 66 percent of the country's food needs.

The sanctions also prevent the country from making detrimental
upgrades to its drinking water network, Iraq claims. Trade Minister
Mehdi Saleh has accused the United States of refusing, through U.N.
sanctions, to approve imports needed to fix water systems that are
polluted.

Since 1996, the U.N. has allowed Iraq to buy some humanitarian aid by
selling a limited amount of oil. But the program has failed to halt
the collapse of the health system or the deterioration of water
supplies, the ICRC reported. A new U.N. resolution approved December
17 could erase the ceiling on oil sales temporarily if Baghdad
cooperates with a new U.N. arms inspection body. The Iraqi government
has so far failed to give in to the most recent demands.

Relief agencies have attempted to bring aid to the ailing country, but
a lack of infrastructure has hampered their progress. "Humanitarian
action alone cannot solve all the problems that people are facing as a
result of the embargo," said Michel Minnig, former ICRC head of
delegation in Baghdad.

Although the oil-for-food program has allowed Iraq to import some
medicines and medical supplies, the country's hospitals are struggling
to survive. "We have noticed that particularly in the hospitals, the
situation in Iraq is such that these hospitals will take only a short
time and these hospitals will not be functional anymore," Minnig told
Agence France-Presse. "Under these circumstances of course you cannot
provide medical care even if you have imported the equipment from
abroad."

On a rare media trip to report on the country's conditions, Seattle
Post reporter Larry Johnson described the hospitals as lacking in the
most basic of supplies. They are infested with flies and smell of
urine and feces. The electricity is turned off periodically each day
to conserve. Due to a lack of supplies and medicines, patients succumb
everyday to illnesses that normally are easily treated. Doctors and
nurses lack necessary medical skills and instruments are old, broken,
and can't be replaced under the sanctions.

Without access to basic medical care, civilians are dying
unnecessarily, the Iraqi government claims. Infant mortality has
tripled and the death rate among children under age five has grown at
least six times since the sanctions were imposed, according to the
ICRC. Heart conditions, hypertension, diabetes, diarrhea,
malnutrition, and other illnesses that could be easily treated have
become incurable, according to Iraq's health ministry.

A team of Spanish doctors who visited Iraq's hospitals also blamed a
sharp rise in leukemia cases among children on depleted uranium shells
used by U.S.-led allies in the 1991 Gulf War. They also point to water
pollution resulting from the conflict as well as malnutrition.
Leukemia can be fatal, but it is often a curable type of cancer.

"U.N. Resolution 986 covers the population's basic needs in food and
medicine but this has no effect on the country's deteriorating
infrastructure. In hospitals, for example, most of the bulbs in
operating theatre lamps are broken and basic tools such as sterilizers
are out of order. These are the specific kinds of problems the ICRC
wants to address," Minnig said.

The ICRC has begun rehabilitating Iraq's crumbling hospitals and has
launched an appeal for 7.7 million Swiss francs to finance the
project. But the humanitarian organization warns that it will be
impossible under the sanctions to address all the hospitals' needs.

Some critics claim that the sanctions are unjust and hurt innocent
civilians more than they do the Iraqi government. But the United
States and other advocates maintain that sanctions sometimes are the
only way to oppose undesirable rulers--even if the sanctions endanger
the lives of the vulnerable population caught in the middle of the
conflict



Applebees allows White Nationalists to terrorize African Americans,
their friends and families, and they refuse to pay damages to make
amends for the physical and psychological destruction that this home
grown terrorism causes in their restaurants.



From A wise non-biased Ultra Conservative Black Republican who hasn't
lost his mind and
his ability to reason and think clearly about what is right for
America, and what is wrong.

White Supremacy is a Polar Bear from Hell
That eats away at African Americans intestines
Every waking moment of their lives
To remind them that the big lie about their being inferior to "whites"
Is accepted as Gospel truth by MOST of the Hellhound
white society that is destroying them.


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