IRAQ UNDER SIEGE. THE DEADLY IMPACT OF SANCTIONS AND WAR. Ed. by A. Amove. Cambridge (Mass.): South End Press, 2000. 218 p. ^*

On March 28, 1999, the New York Times, under the headline "Sanctions-Weapons of mass destruction", published an appeal by prominent publicists, political scientists, and public figures to the United States Government to end sanctions directed against the people of Iraq. The appeal was signed by over one and a half thousand citizens of the United States, as well as a number of other countries, including, for example, member of the British Parliament T. Benn, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, and others.

^* Iraq under siege. The deadly impact of sanctions and war / Edited by A. Arnove. Cambridge (MA): South End Press, 2000. 218 p.

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Activists of the movement for the lifting of anti-Iraqi sanctions and well-known scientists, publicists, public figures of the United States, Great Britain and Iraq, wanting to draw the attention of the world community to the tragic fate of the Iraqi people, published a book dedicated to this burning problem, which, as E. Galeano rightly noted in the preface, " gives us the key to understanding the New World Order and serves a warning that the tragedy of Iraq could become a model of terror and impunity on a global scale in the near future."

The book, which is a collection of articles, consists of several parts that examine: the policy of the United States and Great Britain towards Iraq; myths that have developed around sanctions and their refutation; the plight of ordinary Iraqis; the food situation; and the country's health condition under sanctions.

The first part ("The Roots of US and British Policy") identifies three goals that the United States pursues as it continues to fight Iraq: restoring hegemony in the Middle East; asserting its responsibility for maintaining regional security; and striving to use force abroad simultaneously in two or three directions if necessary to eliminate any challenge (real or probable).) their self-proclaimed rules of conduct, set out in the form of the principles of the "New World Order". These goals are aimed not only at reducing the influence of Saddam Hussein, but also at suppressing the potential of Iraq in any attempt to develop it.

One of the authors of the book, Nasir Aruri, a professor of political science at Dartmouth University (Massachusetts) and a specialist in the Middle East, came to an interesting conclusion, in my opinion: it is the development of Iraq's economic (and, I will add, military) potential, and not any steps in its foreign policy (including, apparently, and the deployment of troops to Kuwait) or its place in the region provoked Washington's indignation in 1990. For the US government, whose strategic goals have not changed since 1991, nothing short of removing Saddam Hussein can guarantee its undisputed hegemony here. President Clinton frankly stated that"sanctions will remain in place as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." Air and missile attacks by Allied forces during the Gulf War on Iraq's sewage treatment plants, water treatment plants and irrigation systems are described as acts of biological warfare. As a result of the population's forced consumption of dirty, contaminated water, the incidence of difficult-to-treat diseases, as well as child mortality, increased. In almost every case, the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee in New York reviews the content and cost of humanitarian supplies that are sent to Iraq with the approval of international organizations (WHO, the World Food Program, UNICEF, FAO). Many Iraqis believe that the UN is no longer in control of the situation in the country, and Iraq, in fact, is dealing not with the UN, but with the United States.

According to Phil Bennis, a researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, in the 1970s and 1980s, the United States supplied Iraq with material for the production of biological weapons. These shipments continued even after the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons against its own people in the Kurdish city of Halabja and against Iranian troops, which was in violation of international conventions. After August 1990, for the US leadership, S. Hussein was no longer an "unpleasant but necessary ally"; they began to compare him almost with Hitler. During the Iran - Iraq war of 1980-1988, the United States pursued a policy of "double deterrence" against the two countries involved in the military conflict, since both of these states were considered as the main potential enemies that challenged US interests in the region. Washington wanted to control its own oil production and exports here and remain a guarantor of access to it for its allies. In Iran's war with Iraq, he supported Iraq because Iran seemed to him more dangerous and potentially more powerful.

Speaking about human rights in Iraq, Phyllis Bennis notes that during the 1970s and 1980s, "the Government of the country consistently deprived the population of civil and political rights." At the same time, "economic and social rights were fully respected. Iraq was a country with a high standard of living, an excellent education system, and the best health care system in the region. Many citizens had the opportunity to continue their education abroad. However, it is not just civil and political rights that are being violated under sanctions

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many Iraqis, but also economically and socially. Thus, the United States responded to the deprivation of one type of human rights for Iraqis by depriving them of all other rights" (pp. 42, 43).

Noam Chomsky, a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows the inconsistency of the thesis put forward by the US leadership that sanctions against Iraq and the bombing of this country are a necessary measure: it is directed against its leader, who poses a huge threat to the whole world. Although less than four months before the start of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, in April 1990, a delegation of US senators who visited Iraq conveyed to Saddam Hussein a greeting from the US President and a statement stating that there were no complaints against him. As for the threat from Iraq, according to Chomsky, it is incomparably smaller than the one he presented in the late 1980s, when the United States did everything possible to strengthen the Iraqi military potential and increase this threat. Only the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait transformed Saddam Hussein from Washington's favorite friend to the " beast of Baghdad." What shocked US leaders was not so much the invasion itself, but the likelihood that Iraq would leave a puppet regime in Kuwait that would be supported by all Arab States. The Americans called this option a "nightmare scenario".

After the end of the Gulf War, the United States refused to help the popular uprisings in Iraq, fearing that they might win, i.e. actually supported S. Hussein, although in those days the Iraqi army, as noted in the book, carried out mass killings of people in the south and north of the country. The only country in the region that openly supported its ally, the United States, which "allowed" Saddam Hussein to defeat "his" Kurds in 1991, was Israel: the existence of an independent Kurdish state would create a land corridor connecting its enemies, Syria and Iran. Thus, according to N. Chomsky, "it is not the desire to put an end to the actions of S. Hussein that drives US policy in Iraq" (p. 52).: "During the Clinton presidency, US contempt for international law became overt. Madeleine Albright, when she was the US Ambassador to the UN, bluntly stated:: "We will behave multilaterally (i.e., taking into account the interests of other countries. - G. Sh.), when we can, and one-sidedly.- when it is in our best interests" (p. 54).

The second part of the book ("Myths and reality") sets out the myths spread in the West related to sanctions against Iraq, and gives them an assessment. To save space, I will focus on, from my point of view, the most important of them.

Myth 1: "Sanctions have created temporary difficulties for the Iraqi people, but they are an effective nonviolent method of containing Iraq" (p.67). Debunking this claim, the authors write that the sanctions target the weakest and most vulnerable members of Iraqi society - the poor, the elderly, newborns, the sick, and children. In addition to the damage caused to Iraq by the war in 1991 and subsequent military strikes by the United States and Britain, the country's infrastructure was reduced to a minimum as a result of sanctions. During the period 1990-1998, more than 1 million people died in the country mainly due to sanctions. The World Food Programme estimates that drinking water supply in urban areas was 50% higher in 1998 than in 1990, and 33% higher in rural areas.

Myth 2: "The Government of Iraq deliberately withholds and stores food and medicine in warehouses in order to increase the suffering of the population; thus, it arouses the sympathy of the world community for its people and draws attention to the need to lift sanctions" (p.70). The book also refutes this myth. The accumulation of medicines and food is often forced for two reasons: lack of transport due to the destruction of infrastructure and incomplete supply of goods (for example, syringes arrived earlier than needles, dental chairs and compressors were delivered to them from different companies at different times).

The third part ("Life under the sanctions regime") examines the socio-psychological aspects of the blockade of Iraq. According to the American anthropologist and journalist Barbara Nimri Aziz, Washington was not satisfied with the defeat of Iraq achieved in 1991, claiming that the country was still not fully controlled by it. He has set himself the task of destroying Iraqi society to the ground, humiliating the people who have turned it into a modern and progressive society that can choose a different path of political development. The country had opportunities in technology and education that could help it

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become the main regional leader. Since this would threaten the global economic interests of the United States, they decided to neutralize the military, technological and economic potential of Iraq (p. 135,136). B. N. Aziz writes that sanctions create social chaos, corrupt young people, lead to the elimination of the education system, and deprive people of human dignity. Intellectually, the Iraqis relied heavily on cooperation with the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, but as a result of sanctions, they found themselves isolated. Iraq cannot import books or purchase paper to produce its own literature, and Iraqis are not invited to attend professional conferences abroad. All this greatly reduces the cultural level of the country (p. 131).

Denis Halliday, a career official at the United Nations, comes to similar conclusions about the consequences of sanctions against Iraq. Appointed in 1997 as the coordinator of humanitarian programs in Iraq, he resigned a year later in protest at the continuation of anti-Iraqi sanctions. D. Halliday writes that the policy of sanctions is a war aimed not at eliminating Saddam Hussein, but at destroying society itself. The embargo against Iraq is rightly called by him a "weapon of mass destruction", because it has a destructive effect on the culture and modern way of life of the country.

The fourth part is entitled "Documentary materials on the impact of sanctions". It examines the most important problems of Iraqi life under sanctions: nutrition, health, and environmental pollution caused by the 1991 war. Before 1990, the average per capita income of Iraqis exceeded $ 3,000, but as of 1999 it was estimated to be below $ 500, which puts the country in the group of the poorest countries in the world. The disaster with the food supply of the population was avoided due to the introduction of food rations by the Iraqi government in the center and south of the country, as well as due to the activities of foreign non - governmental organizations and foreign aid in the north. Despite this, children were particularly affected by malnutrition (to a much lesser extent in the north). Foreign doctors who visited Iraq noted such acute forms of starvation among children as kvashi-orkor (hungry dropsy) and marasmus, which are a severe manifestation of caloric and protein deficiency. The weight of some children was about half the weight required at their age. Typical diseases of starving children are diarrhea, typhoid and infectious diseases. Children aged from one to three years were the most at risk for malnutrition. The book contains a table that shows that in the south and in the center of the country, the mortality rate of children under 5 years of age increased from 56 (per 1000 children) in 1989 to 131 in 1999; in the age of 1 year-from 40 in 1990 to 103 in 1998. According to UNICEF, in 1991-1998, about 500,000 children under the age of 5 died due to the deterioration of their living conditions (p. 161, 175). And all this is happening in a country whose health care system was at a very high level before the sanctions were imposed.

The main result of the sanctions was the impoverishment of the Iraqi population, which in turn led to massive malnutrition; if you add to this the destroyed infrastructure of the electric power industry, water supply and sewerage systems, then the increase in morbidity and mortality of the population is inevitable. Since oil is the backbone of Iraq's economy, the purpose of the embargo, says Peter L. Pellet, a professor in the Department of Nutrition at Amherst, Massachusetts, and a participant in three FAO missions to Iraq since 1991, was to damage the country.

The book also highlights this important point: sanctions violate the rights of Iraqis. These violations include increased levels of malnutrition, increased mortality, and social destruction of society as a whole. The rights of the population should not be paid for the wrong policies of the Government, especially when citizens cannot participate in making decisions concerning this country. International law recognizes special rights for children because of their particular vulnerability. (It is interesting to note that only two countries in the world have not yet ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child - Somalia and the United States.) Under the oil-for-food program, Iraq is turning into a huge refugee camp. The country's development is being slowed down in every possible way, or even simply blocked. In 1986, when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right of Countries to Development, only a few delegations abstained from voting, and only the United States voted against.

Sanctions failed, the book says, to bring about the overthrow of the Iraqi regime. In fact, they even strengthened Saddam Hussein's position not only in Iraq, but also in the region.

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In conclusion, I would like to note that the main task of the book under review - to ruthlessly expose the policy of genocide conducted under the cover of UN Security Council resolutions on the economic blockade of Iraq-has been fulfilled, in my opinion. Without any doubt, it will serve the cause of the struggle for the abolition of the inhumane decisions of the UN Security Council, which condemn the people of one of the largest countries in the Middle East - the Republic of Iraq-to slow extinction.

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