The Impact of Sanctions-
Genocide Through Economic Warfare

1- For the first time, people round the world could watch on TV a "high tech war" as missiles flew across the night skies, a view of warfare which obscured the horror on the ground, as Ramsey Clark put it.

"Without setting foot on Iraqi soil, or engaging Iraqi troops, US aircraft and missiles systematically destroyed life and life-support systems in Iraq over a period of six weeks. There were two thousand air strikes in the first twenty-four hours. More than 90 per cent of Iraq's electrical capacity was bombed out of service in the first few hours. Within several days, "not an electron was flowing." multimillion-dollar missiles targeted powerplants up to the last days of the war; to leave the country without power as economic sanctions sapped life from the survivors. In less than three weeks the US press reported military calculations that the tonnage of high-explosive bombs already released had exceeded the combined allied air offensive of WWII. By the end of the assault, 110,000 aircraft sorties had dropped 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq, the equivalent of seven and a half atomic bombs of the size that incinerated Hiroshima."


2- In 1996, CBS News' 60 Minutes broadcast a chilling exchange.

Correpondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Madeleine Albright, then US Ambassador to the United Nations. Albright maintained that the sanctions had proved their worth because Saddam had made more admissions about his weapons programs and because he had recognized the independence of Kuwait (Which he did in 1991, right after the war).

"We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima," said Stahl "and, you know, is the price worth it?"

"I think this is a very hard choice," replied Albright, "but the price-we think the price is worth it."

3- On August 2nd 2000, French Foreign Minister. Hubert Vedrine, called for an end to what he called "cruel, ineffective and dangerous" sanctions against Baghdad:

"They are cruel because they punish exclusively the Iraqi people and the weakest among them. They are ineffective because they do not touch the regime, which is not encouraged to cooperate, and they are dangerous because they accentuate the disintegration of society."

4- Richard Butler, head of UNSCOM (the UN weapons inspection team), speaking on the BBC's world service programme, "talking point" on June 4 2000, he said the following:

"Let's get to the point of substance, and I'll say it now on air. I deeply believe that sanctions as now applied to Iraq and this has been the case for a number of years, have been utterly counter productive to the disarmament process; and I think that the damage to the Iraqi people must stop. Now ironically I also think that they have probably helped keep Saddam Hussein in power. So in that sense...I think that the sanctions issue is something that the United nations must address with utmost urgency."

5- "The embargo by its perverse and uncontrollable effects is destroying the soul of the Iraqi people who desperately see their cultural and moral patrimony being squandered and their social fabric unraveling." (Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, following his visit to Iraq in 1988 as special envoy to his holiness, Pope John Paul II)

6- "Not far from Bethlehem and Nazareth, an entire people is the victim of a constraint which puts it in hazardous conditions of survival. I refer to our brothers and sisters in Iraq, living under a pitiless embargo. In response to the appeals for help which unceasingly come to the holy see, I must call upon the consciences of those who, in Iraq and elsewhere, put political, economic or strategic considerations before the fundamental good of the people, and I ask them to show compassion. The weak and the innocent cannot pay for mistakes for which they are not responsible." (Pope John Paul II address to the Diplomatic Corps, 1998).

Source:
http://cafod.org.uk/archive/policy/iraqreportjanuary2001.shtml

7- "War of collective punishment, a war of mass destruction directed at the civilian population of Iraq. The UN, at the insistence of the US, and contrary to international conventions and treaties, has created, in Iraq, a zone of misery and death-with no end in sight... The toll of these sanctions on an entire generation of Iraqi children is incalculable.
What are the implications of Iraqi children growing up traumatised by hunger and disease, if they survive at all?"

"How can the deeds of one leader or even an entire government be used to justify this unprecedented, internationally sanctioned violation of human rights?...The devastating effects continue to harm the environment, agricultural production and health of the Iraqi people significantly." (Catholic worker magazine, January/February 1998)

Source:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq17.html