Question 1: Are sanctions against Iraq justified?

                While the question "Are sanctions against Iraq justified?" does not generally
                elicit an outrageous response (it is in fact the title of many learned debates), a
                rewording of this question to 'Is it justified to starve the Iraqi population in order
                to bring pressure on the Iraqi Government?' would certainly elicit a different
                reaction. And if this question would furthermore be reworded to 'Is it justified to
                cause 600,000 children to die in order to force Iraq to disarm?' — outrageous
                fabrications; it reflects the tragic reality. A U.N. FAO 1995 report stated that
                one million Iraqi civilians have died as result of the UN sanctions, half of whom
                are children under the age of five.

                In addition, the common formulation "Sanctions against Iraq" is a semantic
                obfuscation. Sanctions cannot be imposed on a "country," only on people.
                More appropriate would have been the wording "Sanctions against the Iraqi
                population." But this formulation is not used as it would reveal too much
                against whom the sanctions are directed.

                Question 2: Are the sanctions effective in forcing the Iraqi government
                to abide by U.N. demands? Is the human price paid by the sanctions
                too high?

                To put effectiveness in the centre of the debate necessarily puts the ethical
                dimension on the side. An example of this approach in its purest
                implementation can illustrate this principle. It would be most effective for a
                society to exterminate all those who do not contribute to active production,
                such as delinquents, chronically ill and lazy people. But no civilised society
                uses only effectiveness as criteria to determine policies. The first question, by
                ignoring the human cost of the sanctions, reflects a criminal approach.

                The second question appears to include an ethical dimension. By rewording
                it, the existence of a cynical calculus reveals itself: "How many lives is it
                worth to sacrifice for the sake of a particular aim?" Those who employ such a
                calculus hardly include their own lives or those of their kin, but intend to
                sacrifice lives of other people, either soldiers under their command or aliens,
                defined as enemies, the lives of whom they believe they can expend with
                impunity.

                Question 3: Under what conditions can the Security Council impose
                collective coercive measures against a member state?

                In order to do so, the Security Council must first formally determine the
                existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. It
                is evident, with regards to the immense power conferred upon the Security
                Council, that the Council cannot casually make such determinations. The
                threat to the peace must, in order to justify coercive action under Article 41 of
                the Charter, be of such a degree as to place the continuation of world peace
                in jeopardy, so that action is immediately necessary in order to maintain
                peace and security.

                After the sovereignty of Kuwait was restored in 1991, the Iraqi army defeated
                and the economic infrastructure of Iraq reduced to rubble, no case was made
                nor could one be made, that an imminent threat to world peace emanates
                from Iraq, necessitating the most draconian enforcing measures against any
                nation in the history of the United Nations. Articles 41 and 42 of the Charter,
                permitting collective coercive measures against member states, cannot be
                justified by invoking a hypothetical future threat.

                Question 4: It is claimed that the Security Council fulfils its obligations
                under international humanitarian law by excepting food and
                medicines from the trade sanctions. Is this claim correct?

                Under the terms of the Geneva Conventions of Aug. 12, 1949, and their
                Additional Protocol of 1977, it is prohibited to indiscriminately attack civilian
                populations. Moreover, it is prohibited to starve civilian populations as an act
                of war.

                In theory, the humanitarian exception clauses, would fulfil the minimal
                requirements of international humanitarian law. But in practice the Security
                Council made the enjoyment of these peremptory rights conditional upon the
                fulfilment of a set of measures by the Government of Iraq.

                In order to strictly fulfil requirements of international humanitarian law with
                regards to the civilian population of Iraq, there are only two alternatives: Either
                to lift the blanket trade sanctions against the Iraqi people or to ensure by
                other means the physical integrity and well-being of the civilian population in
                Iraq.

                More to the point is the fact that any significant restriction of civil trade in
                today's technology-dependent world, including spare parts for
                water-purification facilities, parts for electric generators, computers, technical
                manuals, etc. can gravely affect the operations of the infrastructure necessary
                for maintaining a civilian society alive. Thus, by exempting food and medicines
                from the trade sanctions the Iraqi people are treated as animals, for whom it is
                sufficient to ensure mere survival.

                Question 5: It is claimed that the United Nations Resolution 986
                (food-for-oil deal) provides a solution to the crisis within Iraq. Is this
                claim correct?

                United Nations Resolution 986 (UNR 986) has never provided a solution to the
                drastic crisis now occurring within Iraq. Its passage has given the impression
                to the world community that the situation is now improving; this impression is
                completely false. The resolution, which has been delayed at each step of
                implementation, provides for only a small fraction of the needs of the Iraqi
                people.

                UNR 986 technically allows Iraq to buy $1.3 billion of humanitarian food and
                medicine from the $2 billion of Iraqi oil sales. However, out of the 500
                humanitarian contracts put forth for approval by the UN, only 28 contracts
                worth $27 million have been accepted by the UN. Clearly, the implementation
                of food and medicine contracts is being deliberately blocked.

                Even though Iraq's health system is near complete collapse, not a single
                tablet or injection had reached Iraq from the UN "oil-for-food deal" by May
                1997. In addition, medical donations, which provided for around eight to 10 per
                cent of Iraqi's medical needs, have stopped arriving after the signing of the
                Memorandum of Understanding in May 1996 between the UN and Iraq on the
                technicalities of the UNR 986 deal.

                UNR 986 provides for meagre amounts of food and medicine, and says
                nothing of the infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt in order for human health
                to be restored.

                Iraq's electrical production and telecommunications systems have been badly
                damaged. The transportation system has been critically damaged by massive
                bombing of bridges and lack of fuel due to sanctions and bombing of Iraq's oil
                refining centres. The lack of fuel seriously impairs Iraq's ability to use
                generators as alternative sources of electrical power. The destruction of
                bridges, traditionally used by civilians, has hampered the transport of medical
                supplies.

                These factors have severely affected health care. Health care facilities
                throughout Iraq have limited access to electrical power. Many health centres
                lack intra-facility telephone service. Without electricity, most of the
                technology of modern health care cannot be used: laboratory services, blood
                banking, culturing of media, sterilisation of equipment, storing of medicines,
                radiography equipment . . .

                The primary health care threat is that of gastro-intestinal disease caused by
                water-born infectious illnesses resulting from consumption of contaminated or
                inadequately treated water. The water supply in Baghdad has been drastically
                reduced — primarily as a result of lack of power needed to move water
                through pipe systems and purification systems. Plants producing aluminium
                phosphate and chlorine gas have been destroyed by bombing and sewage
                treatment plants severely damaged. In Baghdad, barely half of the water
                treatment plants are functioning. Approximately 95 per cent of Iraq's
                population had access to clean drinking water before the Gulf war, compared
                to 21 per cent currently.

                Seventy percent of the seeds used for Iraq's agriculture were imported. The
                machines utilised in agriculture need spare parts for maintenance. Neither the
                spare parts, nor even agricultural seeds, pesticides, and fertilisers, are
                allowed to be imported into Iraq.

                Major United Nations agencies, including the WHO, UNICEF, WFP and the
                FAO, have all documented beyond question the effects that the UN sanctions
                are having on the Iraqi people. By imposing an indiscriminate trade ban
                against the entire Iraqi population, the Permanent Members of the Security
                Council, led by the United States of America, display a criminal callousness
                for human lives. A removal of all UN sanctions against Iraq must occur
                immediately.

                By Elia Davidson