Former senior UN officials denounce Iraq sanctions at congressional briefing

Three former senior UN officials denounced economic sanctions against Iraq and called for their lifting at a congressional briefing on Wednesday, May 3, said the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Former UN Humanitarian Coordinators in Iraq, Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday, and former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, called on the US government to abandon its policy of economic sanctions against Iraq.

Despite their diverse backgrounds, all three agreed that economic sanctions are the major cause for the humanitarian disaster in Iraq, and dismissed claims that American policy is not to blame. US Representatives Dennis Kucinich, John Conyers and Cynthia McKinney also called for the lifting of sanctions.

Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter debunked what he called "the myth" of a threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were typically cited as a reason for maintaining sanctions. Calling himself "an unlikely ally in this matter," Ritter said that, "A lot of the blame for this perception can be laid at my doorstep." But, Ritter said, "The reality is that when you judge Iraq's current weapons of mass destruction capabilities today, they have none."

Hans von Sponeck, who resigned in March in protest of the effects of sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq, said that the "oil-for-food" program which he was administering was not meeting the most basic needs of the Iraqi population. He said that because of sanctions, Iraqis simply do not have enough to eat. "The conditions in hospitals are atrocious," he added. "Diseases that had disappeared from a country with one of the best infrastructures in the Middle East have reappeared and have become a major killer of children under five," he said.

The UN estimates that about 5,000 Iraqis die every month as a result of economic sanctions.

Denis Halliday was von Sponeck's predecessor as UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq and who resigned in September 1998 in protest of the effects of what he called "the human calamity going on in Iraq today on account of widespread deprivation caused by US-driven economic sanctions."

Halliday presented a plan calling for the lifting of economic sanctions, an end to US bombing of Iraq, renewed weapons inspections, a dialogue between the Iraqi and US governments, releasing the oil production equipment on hold in the UN sanctions committee, private investment in Iraq and postponement of reparations payments, MAP reported.