[2236] in peace2
FW: iraq as it stands
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen C Paschall II)
Sat Feb 15 18:52:45 2003
From: "Stephen C Paschall II" <stevep@MIT.EDU>
To: <peace-announce@mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 18:52:26 -0500
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10 February, Monday
Dear friends:
Excuse the impersonal nature of this note. I have recently returned from
Iraq and I am greatly alarmed by our nation's march toward war. Appended
below is something I wrote and encourage you to think about and share with
friends.
You may not think about yourselves as activists, but I encourage you to join
many people around the world on February 15th in making a statement that
there are alternatives to a war.
Thank you,
Charlie
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I am a public health physician and a human rights advocate. I have just
returned from a 10-day emergency mission to Iraq with other public health
experts to assess the vulnerability of the civilian population to another
war.
I'm also a distinguished graduate of the USAF Academy and a Vietnam veteran,
so I have some sense of the potential consequences of the air war we are
about to unleash on Iraq as a prelude to the introduction of American
troops.
The population of Iraq has been reduced to the status of refugees. Nearly
60 percent of Iraqis, or almost 14 million people, depend entirely on a
government-provided food ration that, by international standards, represents
the minimum for human sustenance. Unemployment is greater than 50 percent,
and the majority of those who are employed make between $4 and $8 a month.
(The latter figure is the salary of a physician that works in a primary
health center.) Most families are without economic resources, having sold
off their possessions over the last decade to get by.
Hospital wards are filled with severely malnourished children, and much of
the population has a marginal nutritional status. While visiting a
children's hospital, we were told about newly emerging diseases that had
previously been controlled when pesticides were available. (Current
sanctions prohibit their importation.) Later I saw a mother who had
traveled 200 km with her young daughter, who suffered from leschmaniais, or
"kala azar" as it is known there. She came to the hospital because she
heard it had a supply of Pentostam, the medicine needed to treat the
disease. The pediatrician told her there was none. Then he turned to me
and, in English, said, "It would be kinder to shoot her here rather than let
her go home and die the lingering death that awaits her." Our interpreter,
by instinct, translated the doctor' s comments into Arabic for the mother,
whose eyes instantly overflowed with tears.
The food distribution program funded by the U.N., Oil-for-Food, is the
world's largest and is heavily dependent upon the transportation system,
which will be one of the first targets of the war, as the U.S. will attempt
to sever transport routes to prevent Iraqi troop movements and interrupt
military supplies. Yet even before the transportation system is hit, U.S.
aircraft will spread millions of graphite filaments in wind-dispersed
munitions that will cause a complete paralysis of the nation's electrical
grids. Already literally held together with bailing wire because the
country has been unable to obtain spare parts due to sanctions, the poorly
functioning electrical system is essential to the public health
infrastructure.
The water treatment system, too, has been a victim of sanctions. Unable to
import chlorine and aluminum sulfate (alum) to purify water, Iraq has
already seen a 1000% increase in the incidence of some waterborne diseases.
Typhoid cases, for instance, have increased from 2,200 in 1990 to more than
27,000 in 1999. In the aftermath of an air assault, Iraqis will not have
potable water in their homes, and they will not have water to flush their
toilets.
The sanitation system, which frequently backs up sewage ankle deep in
Baghdad neighborhoods when the ailing pumps fail, will stop working entirely
in the aftermath of the air attack. There will be epidemics as water
treatment and water pumping will come to a halt. Even though it is against
the Geneva Conventions to target infrastructure elements that primarily
serve civilians, this prohibition did not give us pause in Gulf War I and,
based on current Bush administration threats, will not this time. Pregnant
women, malnourished children, and the elderly will be the first to succumb.
UNICEF estimates that 500,000 more children died in Iraq in the decade
following the Gulf War than died in the previous decade. These children are
part of the "collateral damage" from the last war.
How many civilians will die in the next war? That is hard to say. One
estimate for the last Gulf War was that 10,000 perished, mostly during the
bombing campaign that led up to the invasion. That figure will surely climb
because our government has promised that a cruise missile will strike Iraq
every five minutes for the first 48 hours the war. These missiles will seek
out military, intelligence, and security-force targets around highly
populated areas like Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul, Iraq's largest cities, where
"collateral damage" is unavoidable. Unable to meet the acute medical needs
of the country's population now, the health care system of Iraq will be
overwhelmed by such an assault.
This scenario is conservative. I have not taken into account any use of
weapons of mass destruction, or the possibility that the war will set loose
massive civil disorder and bloodshed, as various groups within the country
battle for power or revenge. I have also ignored what would happen if we
became bogged down in house-to-house fighting in Baghdad, which could easily
become another Mogidishu or Jenin.
There was a lot that made me angry on that trip. I have worked in war zones
before and I have been with civilians as they were bombed by U.S.-supplied
aircraft, but I don't think I've experienced anything on the magnitude of
the catastrophe that awaits our attack in Iraq. Still, as deeply troubling
as this looming human disaster is, another issue troubles me far more. If
the U.S. pursues this war without the backing of the U.N. Security Council,
it will undermine a half-century of efforts by the world community to
establish a foundation of humanitarian and human rights law. Such an act on
our part would also violate the U.N. Charter and make a mockery of the very
institution we have helped to fashion in the hopes it would help prevent
crimes against humanity. Many might define the consequences of such an
attack on the population of Iraq as just that.
Saddam is a monster, there is no doubt about that. He needs to be contained.
Yet many former U.N. weapons inspectors feel he has been "defanged." His
neighbors do not fear him any longer. There are many Iraqis who want him
removed but not by a war. Against the short-term gain of removing Saddam,
we must take into account that idea that we may well unleash forces of
hatred and resentment that will haunt us for decades to come in every corner
of the world. I can just hear Osama Bin Laden saying now, "Please President
Bush, attack Iraq. There's nothing better you could do to help the cause of
Al Qaida!"
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Charlie Clements is a co-founder of the International Medical Relief Fund
and was its president for fifteen years. He is a former President of
Physicians for Human Rights and served on their board for fifteen years. He
is currently CEO and President of WaterWorks, a not-for-profit organization
that assists U.S. communities that are without running water and sewer. He
is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and a
Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Washington School of Public
Health. H also teaches at the Bartos Institute for the Constructive
Engagement of Conflict at the United World College in Montezuma, NM. He has
recently returned from an emergency mission to Iraq sponsored by the Center
for Economic and Social rights.
<clclements@aol.com>
