US report reiterates US views vis-a-vis Iraq
Iraq-USA, Politics, 9/14/1999

The US State Department yesterday released a report entitled "Saddam Hussein's Iraq," which pointed a finger of blame at the Iraqi government for the effects of the UN economic sanctions on the people of Iraq.

The report also called for Hussein and members of the Iraqi government to be brought to trial, calling for "all efforts [to] be made to hold those individuals accountable for their crimes. We believe that Saddam Hussein and key members of his regime should be brought to justice for their past and current crimes."

The reports' release also comes shortly before a meeting scheduled for Wednesday in London between the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the UN approach toward Iraq. It also comes on the heels of a visit by a seven-member US delegation which included five congressional staffers to Iraq to assess the impact of sanctions, as well as amid frequent military confrontations in both the northern and southern no-fly zones.

"The international community, not the regime of Saddam Hussein, is working to relieve the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis," the report said, adding, "The sanctions regime has always specifically exempted food and medicine. The Iraqi regime has always been free to import as much of these goods as possible. It refuses to do so, even though it claims it wants to relieve the suffering of the people of Iraq."

The report further alleged that Iraq has been exporting food, including supplies bought through the oil-for-food program. "There is ample proof that lifting sanctions would offer the Iraqi people no relief from neglect at the hands of their government," it said.

"Iraqi oil exports are now at near pre-war levels and revenues are above what Iraq was receiving during the Iran-Iraq war," it said, disputing Iraqi claims that it could not pump sufficient quantities of oil to reach the production ceiling permitted by the oil-for-food program without spare parts.

The report goes on to redicule what and why Iraqis spent their money on saying, "While the average Iraqi needs basic medicines and medical care, the government of Iraq spent $6 million on a gamma knife, an instrument used for complicated neurosurgery that requires extremely advanced training to use. Another several million was spent on a MRI machine, used for high-resolution imaging. Such exotic treatment is reserved for regime bodyguards and other members of the elite. This total of $10 million could instead have benefited thousands of Iraqi children if it had been spent on vaccines, antibiotics, and the chemotherapeutics necessary to treat the large numbers of children that are allegedly dying due to lack of medicine."

The US State Department report also criticized the Iraqi government's human rights practices, saying the government "routinely practice extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions," among other accusations. It asserted that the Iraqi government is still campaigning against the Kurds, saying, "The destruction of Kurdish and Turkomen homes is still going on in Iraqi-controlled areas of northern Iraq," and, "The government is continuing its campaign of forcibly deporting [northern] Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern governorates." It also said that Iraq is persecuting Shiites in the south.

The US report reasserted the US position that Iraq has not complied to UN resolutions, which the US demands before sanctions are lifted, characterizing Iraq as a regional threat, "dangerous, unreconstructed, and defiant."

Previous Stories:
  No-fly zone clashes   (9/13/1999)
  Iraqi newspaper mocks US congressional aides visiting Baghdad   (9/10/1999)
  AL stresses opposition to Iraq sanctions   (9/3/1999)
  US spells out policy on northern Iraq   (8/17/1999)

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