The world turned a deaf ear to the Iraqis suffering

The people of Iraq are the real victims who paid a dear price for years of UN trade embargo and U.S.-enforced sanctions. Saddam Hussein and his aides didn’t suffer at all. The international community knew this. The U.S. knew this. But they didn’t do anything to ease the Iraqis’ sufferings. 

An editorial on Iraq’s Azzaman.com questions the compatibility of the sanctions with the UN charter as well as the UN Conventions on human rights and the rights of children. It also describes how millions of Iraqis suffered due to the crippling UN trade embargo which was imposed on pre-war Iraq after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Of course these sanctions didn’t achieve their goals. The international community wanted the Iraqis to pressure Saddam to listen to its demands and get rid of his alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (Which were never found in Iraq). But they knew that was impossible. Still they felt that it was morally justified to maintain the sanctions despite cries that only innocent children, women and elderly were the victims.

The world tightened the noose on the Iraqis and so did Saddam's regime. American and UN officials have repeatedly dismissed complaints about the humanitarian impact of the sanctions. Instead, they blamed Iraq for spending a tiny fraction of its UN-approved oil proceeds on improving nutrition for children, although there was never free and unrestricted purchase of any goods under the Oil-For- Food Program. Moreover, the sanctions committee has at times denied or delayed delivery on some foods and medicines sought by Iraq.

In all those years, children were denied milk formula and basic antibiotics. According to recent figures by the UN’s Children’s Fund “UNESCO”, more than 500,000 Iraqi children below the age of five died due to the impacts of sanctions because of the breakdown of water and sanitation, inadequate diet and the bad internal health situation.

The Iraqis were punished for their leaders’ policies. Instead of pressuring Saddam and his regime, the world turned against the Iraqi people, who suffered deeply while their president and his aides lived in luxury. Such sanctions “don’t impact on governance effectively and instead it damages the innocent people of the country… they probably strengthen the leadership and further weakens the people of the country,” the former coordinator of the UN’s Oil-For- Food Program in Iraq, Denis Halliday, said.

Even after the end of the embargo, many Iraqis still can’t afford to buy necessary commodities, such as fuel. Years of sanctions and occupation have placed many Iraqis under poverty line, increased unemployment and created a black market to exploit the citizens’ basic needs.

The sanctions, moreover, bit into the fabric of the Iraqi society in many other, less visible ways. Family life was disrupted due to the departure overseas of two to three million Iraqi professionals. They also increased divorces and reduced the number of marriages because young couples could not afford to wed.

And when Saddam was toppled, the Iraqis thought those days were gone and better future was ahead. But as they entered the so-called “democracy” era, they saw the same faces that previously exploited their sufferings. The Iraqis are besieged by the ones who imposed sanctions and insisted to have them in place for so many years.

Those people are living in luxurious palaces, some of them built by Saddam, and are protected by trigger-happy guards and armored vehicles. And the ordinary Iraqis and their innocent children are still suffering.

The international community and the Iraqi government are apparently turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the Iraqis’ suffering and are repeating the same mistakes that have turned the once -prosperous nation into one of the world’s worst tragedies.