Madeleine K. Albright (WP): Squandering Capital

[Dudley_DUright]

Now would not be a bad time to start worrying. Tens of thousands of American troops will be in Iraq, perhaps for years, surrounded by Iraqis with guns. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says this is not a quagmire; I pray he is right. But the practical problems faced by the talented American administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and by U.S. soldiers trying to maintain order without a clear way of separating enemies from friends are daunting.

It would help greatly if we had more assistance from the international community, but in fairness, the war was an Anglo-American production; it's unlikely we will get substantial help without yielding significant authority, something the administration is loath to do. Meanwhile, U.S. credibility has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and by the inclusion of dubious information in the president's State of the Union address.

Among other things, the war in Iraq was supposed to reduce the dangers posed by al Qaeda terrorists and prompt resumed progress toward peace in the Middle East.

Time will tell whether the former was achieved, but reports of a rush of new al Qaeda recruits are not encouraging. As for the latter, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has indeed made progress in negotiations -- with Chairman Yasser Arafat. Despite a welcome cooling in rhetoric and upcoming visits to Washington by Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the Middle East road map has yet to be unfolded.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14021-2003Jul18.html

[searchingforlight]

1. Now she would make a great VP

I have always liked her. I'd vote for her in a minute!!

[KellyW]

2. She not born a citizen.

Can't be VP or pres

[searchingforlight]

3. I'd forgotten that. Oh, well - all the best ones are taken

:)

[bemildred]

4. Try hundreds of thousands of troops.

But no doubt it will be "worth it".
:puke:

[Tinoire]

5. Albright should be hauled in front of the ICC as a war criminal

I used to admire many things about her but no more. A woman, a human being who could endorse what she endorsed should be executed as an international war criminal! She has just as much blood on her hands as Bush. The more I dig and read, the more disillusioned I get with not just Bush but our entire government. Read this with an open mind, research it yourselves and then picture Madeleine Albright saying "the price is worth it". What price? The price of Oil? The price of America's imperial and economic domination which has since totally crumbled thanks to the mad course the CFR engaged us on? I am so ashamed for my country- more ashamed than I ever thought I could ever be for something I hadn't done. Very sorry to piss on people's enthusiasm for Albright but she must be exposed as must everyone who led us to this world catastrophe. Peace

(Excerpt)

Turning now to the actual use of the phrase "the price is worth it," we come to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's reply to Lesley Stahl's question on "60 Minutes" on May 12, 1996:

Stahl: "We have heard that a half a million children have died . I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

In this case, however, although the numbers dead are mind- boggling--the ratio of dead Iraqi children to deaths in the WTC/Pentagon bombings was better than 80 to 1, using the now obsolete early 1996 number for Iraqi children--the mainstream media and intellectuals have not found Albright's rationalization of this mass killing of any interest whatsoever. The phrase has been only rarely cited in the mainstream, and there has been no indignation or suggestion that the mass killing of children in order to satisfy some policy end was immoral and outrageous.

http://www.refuseandresist.org/normalcy/111601edherman.html

***

November 1, 1999
Albright's Tiny Coffins
Back in 1996, when the number of Iraqi children killed off by sanctions stood at around half a million, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made her infamous declaration to Lesley Stahl on CBS that "we think the price is worth it". Given such pride in mass murder at the top, it comes as little surprise to learn that the State Department views the truth about the vicious sanctions policy with the same insouciance as their boss regards the lives of Iraqi children, now dying at the rate of four thousand a month.

"Saddam Hussein's Iraq", released by the State Department on September 13, is an effort to persuade an increasingly disgusted world that any and all human misery in Iraq is the sole fault and responsibility of the Beast of Baghdad. The brazen tone of this sorry piece of propaganda can be assessed from the opening summary: "The international community, not the regime of Saddam Hussein, is working to relieve the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis." An examination of how the sanctions system actually works tells a very different story.

<snip>

There appears little prospect of change in this miserable situation. Last year, Denis Halliday, the UN coordinator for humanitarian relief in Iraq, quit in protest over a policy that causes "four to five thousand children to die unnecessarily every month due to the impact of sanctions". White House officials expressed their delight that this irksome voice of moral outrage had been removed from the scene, but Hans von Sponek, Halliday's successor, is showing signs of treading the same path, publicly appealing for the end of sanctions.

Friends say he is on the verge of quitting. For Albright that will be no less acceptable a price than the thousands of little coffins that will serve as her memorial.
http://www.counterpunch.org/tinycoffins.html
***

And the depleted uranium! Look at these pictures! Look what we did to the children! I can't post the pictures here because they are too gruesome!


******

I have recently received large numbers of photographs of horrendous birth deformities that are being experienced in Iraq. I have not, quite frankly, ever seen anything like them. I urge you to copy this page / these pictures and circulate them as widely as possible.

In an act of stark cruelty, the US dominated Sanctions Committee refuses to permit Iraq to import the clean-up equipment that they desperately need to decontaminate their country of the Depleted Uranium ammunition that the US fired at them. Approximately 315 tons of DU dust was left by the use of this ammunition.The Sanctions Committee also refuses to allow the mass importation of anti-cancer treatments, which contain trace amounts of radio-isotopes, on the grounds that these constitute '...nuclear materials..'

http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

Not to put too fine a point on it, since it distracts from the primary struggle, which is with the "fascisti" in the WH; but a week ago every single Dem in the Senate, and most of those in the House, voted to support Bush "as commander-in-chief" and the troops ("Sorry, but the chick got in the way") as they maraud through the cradle of civilization. And it was Richard Holbrooke, the architect along with Mad "a hard choice, but yes, it's worth it" Albright of the destruction of Yugoslavia and the ethnic cleansing of the Serb population in Kosovo, who boasted a few weeks ago that he and Clinton and Sandy Berger didn't let such niceties as the UN get in the way of their assaults, and that Bush was a weak-kneed pantywaist for seeking a second resolution in the Security Council. "We don' need no stinkin' badges!" I may have missed something, but I don't remember Honest Al resigning over differences with Clinton on that score, or over the terrorist bombing and destruction of the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan that supplied most of the medications and aspirins to east and north Africa. As a matter of fact, it was Al who was dispatched to South Africa to warn them to stop making generic anti-AIDS drugs available to their HIV-positive population, as it interfered with drug company prerogatives (you know, the copyright they were given free of charge by the government, which used public funds to research the rugs) - the right to profit off people's misery, a sacred right under every president of either party in America. And isn't it Al whose investments in Occidental Petroleum are being protected, in the true spirit of bipartisanship, by the troops we fielded in Colombia?

So, sorry for the rant, but I agree with Roy - the details may differ, and certainly Dubya is far more reckless than anyone outside of John McCain, but the real reason the fascist right carried off their coup was for the loot: the tax cuts, the gigantic contracts, the unlimited fraud, the opportunity to steal on an unimaginable scale, the vast and unprecedented concentration of power and terror. The global imperium, one may safely assume (as the corporate crime lords in the CFR undoubtedly did), would be in good hands whoever won. That's why they fund the Republican wing of *both* parties, the wing which, in the case of the Democrats, nestled within the DLC, chaired for a time by Al Gore.

(Even with regard to Iraq, Clinton never wavered from his position that, contra UN 687, only the exit, graceful or otherwise, of Saddam and his associates would suffice to lift the sanctions, which killed over a million Iraqi civilians, around half of them small children, while he held office. Further, it was during his term that Saddam's son-in-law, the highest-ranking defector ever, revealed to the UN, the CIA and MI6 that he himself had been in charge of the Iraqi weapons program, and had personally overseen the destruction of the bulk of their chemical and biological and all of their nuclear weapons capacity after the first Gulf slaughter. His testimony on the size of the program, which was larger than the west had known, was considered credible enough to trot it out on innumerable occasions for the next eight years under both Clinton and Bush; his testimony that he had overseen the destruction (so that no commander would be tempted to use the weapons, which he and Saddam knew would result in the nuking of Iraq, under Clinton as well as Bush I and II) was fit only for the ears of his interlocutors, and effectively covered up by both presidents. (He was executed when he returned to Iraq the following year.) Finally, it was Clinton who ordered the inspectors out in 1998, after using them as spies to develop target locations for his planned bombing, which commenced immediately afterward. And it was Clinton whose sanctions were described by the head of the UN relief organization, when he resigned in protest, as "genocidal," a judgment concurred in by his successor, who also resigned for the same reason.)

So yeah, Gore or anyone else could hardly be as slimy as Bush, who is truly sui generis, but on the other hand, "good, honest and intelligent" though he may be, the US would most probably still be looking for weak, unprotected and helpless states to make an example of, because... well, because we can. "All for ourselves, and nothing for anybody else," was the way Adam Smith described the "vile maxim of the Masters of Mankind " in his day. Has anything really changed?

http://www.kansasgreens.org/pipermail/kansas-list/2003-April/002013.html

[tlb]

6. Tinoire you beat me to it.

Albright was one of the least effective least competent spokespersons this nation ever had.

[Tinoire]

13. :) Cool Are your reasons those or do you have others? n/t

[Merlin]

7. I don't like Albright either but for different reasons.

She sucks up way too readily to the power elite. Saw her in person a couple of months ago and aside from some jokes she had little to criticize bushco for.

However, I do seriously object to the off-the-cuff repetition of the allegation that "US sanctions killed thousands of Iraqi babies."

Where the hell is that coming from? Sounds like pure propaganda to me.

There was an explicit, clear, precise, unequivocal provision in the sanctions--backed by nearly every nation in the world--that Hussein could at anytime sell additional oil beyond the sanction's quotas provided the funds realized therefrom were used for food and medical treatment for his civilian populace.

Are people doubting the existence of this provision? Because I'm sure I can find evidence of it somewhere on the web.

And if it is not doubted, then why are these ranters blaming Clinton for the deaths of civilians and babies supposedly from sanctions?

As for DU, the problem is that no governing body in the world recognizes it yet as a serious environmental hazard. I agree it's a problem. But there has been no focus on it in the UN, there is not really any substantive, objective data available, no studies on it have been done that I know of. Until these things take place, the argument that DU is a hazard is simply that--an argument. If we want to make a difference, we should figure out a way to get some research done on it, and--after we have facts in hand--to get somebody with a megaphone to start focusing on it. Although I believe it's a serious problem, still, at this stage, the notion that depleted uranium is in fact a serious health hazard remains an unproven allegation.

[Tinoire]

10. Hi Merlin - About the sanctions

The information came from Unicef and was pretty much well known except in the US where our media refused to talk about it. It was one of my causes before the world turned upside down. Denis Halliday, UN Coordinator for Iraq quit in protest over the obscenity of the sanctions and went on tour exposing its horrors. I pasted that info for you towards the end of the post.

-----
Unicef Press Report:

Iraq surveys show 'humanitarian emergency'
Visit UNICEF's Iraq Press Room

Wednesday, 12 August 1999: The first surveys since 1991 of child and maternal mortality in Iraq reveal that in the heavily-populated southern and central parts of the country, children under five are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said the findings reveal an ongoing humanitarian emergency.

<snip>

Technical support for both surveys was provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). As a consequence of the findings, UNICEF recommended an immediate implementation of specific proposals made in United Nations Secretary-General's reports and by the Security Council's Humanitarian Review Panel. Among the specific proposals are the following:


The international community should provide additional funding for humanitarian efforts in Iraq.
The Government of Iraq should urgently expedite implementation of targeted nutrition programmes.
Both the Government of Iraq and the U.N. Sanctions Committee should give priority to contracts for supplies that will have a direct impact on the well-being of children.

<snip>
The surveys reveal that in the south and center of Iraq -- home to 85 per cent of the country's population -- under-5 mortality more than doubled from 56 deaths per 1000 live births (1984-1989) to 131 deaths per 1000 live births (1994-1999). Likewise infant mortality -- defined as the death of children in their first year -- increased from 47 per 1000 live births to 108 per 1000 live births within the same time frame. The surveys indicate a maternal mortality ratio in the south and center of 294 deaths per 100,000 live births over the ten-year period 1989 to 1999.

Ms. Bellamy noted that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998. As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: "Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."

<snip>

UNICEF also said that a dramatic increase in bottle-feeding of infants has occurred in Iraq. Given the contribution of bottle-feeding to higher levels of malnutrition and child mortality, UNICEF is urging the Government to remove breastmilk substitutes from the rations and replace them with additional food for pregnant and lactating women.

<snip>

Among the report's additional findings in the south and central areas of Iraq:

Current levels of under-5 mortality -- as between girls and boys -- reveal that girls have a slightly lower rate, 125 deaths per 1000 live births as opposed to 136 deaths per 1000 live births among boys.
Children who live in rural areas have a higher mortality rate than children living in an urban area: 145 deaths per 1000 live births as opposed to 121 deaths per 1000 live births.

In the autonomous northern region, under-5 mortality rose from 80 deaths per 1000 live births in the period 1984-1989 to 90 deaths per 1000 live births during the years 1989-1994. The under-5 rate fell to 72 deaths per 1000 live births between 1994 and 1999. Infant mortality rates followed a similar pattern. Today's under-5 mortality rate of 131 per 1000 in south and central Iraq is comparable to current rates in Haiti (132) and Pakistan (136).


http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm

You can read the reports and surveys here: http://www.unicef.org/reseval/iraqr.html

------

The Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq organised a UK speaking tour for Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq who recently resigned in protest of the sanctions. The tour ran from 23rd to 28th January 1999.

"We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral." Denis Halliday, after resigning as first UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq; he resigned after 34 years of service in protest of the sanctions. The Independent, 15 October 1998
-----
In March 2000, Hans von Sponeck renounced his post as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator, explaining that he “cannot any longer be associated with a programme that prolongs sufferings of the people and which has no chance to meet even the basic needs of the civilian population”. Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Programme in Iraq, quit shortly afterwards, citing concerns about the humanitarian programme in Iraq.

<snip>
Several governments outside the Middle East are also urging the UN to lift the sanctions, including India, Malaysia, Venezuela, Indonesia and Vietnam. In February 2000 a letter signed by 70 members of the US House of Representatives was submitted to President Clinton asking that he “de-link economic sanctions from the military sanctions currently in place in Iraq”, though it was quickly counteracted by a response from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). In April 2000 the European Parliament passed a resolution on Iraq in which it noted that “the Iraqi people are in a tragic situation as a result of the imposition of sanctions” and called upon the Security Council for “the lifting of Sanctions as a matter of urgency” while still “exercis vigilance with regard to the Iraqi regime”. Anti-sanctions lobbying has also sprouted in the parliaments of (among others) Canada, Britain, Italy, and Holland.

Since the UN Humanitarian Panel report was made public, the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have become more resolute in their support to the anti-sanctions movement. They have presented motions for an overhaul of the sanctions regime to UN bodies and the governments involved, that ensures the well-being of Iraqi society while targeting imports of military nature.

Since the UN Humanitarian Panel report was made public, the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have become more resolute in their support to the anti-sanctions movement. They have presented motions for an overhaul of the sanctions regime to UN bodies and the governments involved, that ensures the well-being of Iraqi society while targeting imports of military nature.

http://www.casi.org.uk/guide/quotes.html

French Foreign Minister Hubert Verne told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat that sanctions against Iraq have become "cruel, inefficient and dangerous." In April 2000, the European parliament passed a resolution on Iraq in which it noted that "the Iraqi people are in a tragic situation as a result of the imposition of sanctions" and called upon the Security Council for "the lifting of Sanctions as a matter of urgency."



----

In July of 1995, average shop prices of essential commodities stood at 850 times the July 1990 levels.

"Alarming food shortages are causing irreparable damage to an entire generation of Iraqi children."

One-fourth of Iraqi children under the age of five are malnourished.

The dietary energy supply fell from 3.120 to 1.093 kilocalories per capita/per day by 1994-95. As many as 70% of Iraqi women are suffering from anemia.

Government drug warehouses and pharmacies have few stocks of medicines and medical supplies. The consequences of this situation are causing a near-breakdown of the health care system.


"Infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world."
The sanctions have contributed to the death of over one million Iraqis, half of them children. More than 200 people die each day in Iraq. More than 4,500 children under the age of 5 die each month.

Access to potable water, relative to 1990 levels, is only 50% in urban areas and 33% in rural areas. The overall deterioration in the quality and quantity of drinking water has contributed to the rapid spread of infectious disease. Raw sewage often flows into streets and homes.

http://www.geocities.com/are_americans_stupid/sources.html

---
Ramsey Clark wrote a paper, The devastation of Iraq by war and sanctions about it as did the Global Policy Forum


There is that enough? :)

[Tinoire]

11. Part II (about the Provision)

You're correct that there was a provision but it was a US imposed provision.
Do you not recall the fighting we had at the UN over the Iraq sanctions? Other countries were begging they be lifted or eased but you know what the SC works- what with the vetos, the back-room deals, the bribes of financial aid. The US and the UK imposed the sanctions program on the UN. When finally the UN had enough they blocked any easing of the sanctions. There were campaigns/protests world-wide over this and even in the US.

I would also like to add that my personal belief is that it is unfair to blame Clinton for this. Even the President of the United States has his hands tied (and Clinton I think had his hands tied more than most, from day 1). Whether he agreed or not, these things happened under his watch and it was his administration that put the pressure on the UN. In my estimate, the CFR was determined to weaken Iraq and appropriate its resources long ago. Clinton was CFR and many members of his administration were CFR members. ((http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=68486&mesg_id=68486&page= http://www.cfr.org/pdf/Energy_TaskForce.pdf))

I am sure this had a lot to do with it. Also, what better way to get a people to revolt than to starve them in the hopes they'll support your opposition and topple their leader. That was our plan for a long time but it didn't work and Chimp Bush being a little impatient, salivating at the thought of all that lovely oil and egged on by the neo-cons and AIPAC- well the rest is living history. Additionally, I have mentioned in several threads that Clinton was under immense pressure to go to war with Iraq. He adamantly refused knowing that there was no internationally legal reason to do so especially after sending Madeleine Albright & Sany Berger on tours to see how much support we would get for this in the US but they were protested and jeered by the crowds- OSU being a prime example.

************************************

(Excerpt)
Clinton Administration officials attempting to make the case for military action against Iraq were shouted down at two Midwestern campuses in late February. Evoking memories of the 1960s, protestors jeered cabinet members with profanity and derisive chants.

At Ohio State University, a media-staged international "town-meeting" went sour when activists pelted government officials with obscenity-laced interruptions. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger were at times barely audible and incapable of completing sentences due to yells of "racist," "murderer," and "liar."

http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/1998/march_1998_3.html

******************

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger were interrupted repeatedly with loud heckling, boos, catcalls and occasional obscenities from audience members in the rafters. One person was arrested. Shouts of protest occasionally were met with louder chants of support, and at times the situation got so out of hand that CNN was forced to cut to a commercial.

Some of the wildest exchanges occurred off-camera and during commercial breaks. Rick Theis, who got into a heated face-to-face shouting match with CNN anchor Bernard Shaw during a break, was hauled off the arena floor by security. Theis -- who said the United States has failed to make a case for attacking Iraq -- accused CNN of trying to shut him up and called the event a sham.. "The president has said this action won't get rid of Saddam nor his weapons of mass destruction," he said. "All we're doing is sending a message. And I don't want to send a message with the blood of Iraqi children."

<snip>

"Tell them about the oil," someone shouted. "World War I, World War II, we don't need World War III," yelled another.

<snip>

Those questioning the officials wanted to know how the United States would handle retaliation by Iraq or why there are different standards of justice for countries around the world. Often, their questions went unanswered. "How many will die?" someone shouted from the rafters. Estimates have put the number of Iraqi civilians likely to die in an attack by the United States at close to 100,000. Albright said: "I'll make a bet that we care more about the Iraqi people than Saddam Hussein does."

<snip>

http://members.aol.com/mwpress/report5.html (no copyright- request to distribute)

--------------
02-19-98

<snip>

Albright said the goal of the meeting was to "explain the policy ramifications" of the Iraqi situation.

<snip>

The discussion was interrupted early and often. Protesters began chanting anti-war slogans during Albright's opening comments and continued through much of the debate.

<snip>

Berger said the aim of a possible airstrike would be twofold: to diminish Saddam Hussein's weapons and reduce the threat to Iraq's neighbors.

"We will send a clear message to would-be tyrants and terrorists that we will do what is necessary to protect our freedom," Berger said.

Albright said Iraq will not easily recover from airstrikes if they occur.

<snip>

http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1998/feb/02-19-98/news/news1.html

------------------

Some lawmakers insist Clinton set war date

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain said it's time for President Clinton to set a deadline for Saddam Hussein to back down or face U.S. military might. Other lawmakers insisted Sunday the president not act without a vote of support from Congress, which is on vacation next week.

<snip>

He said on ''Fox News Sunday'' that the current standoff - threats by the United States to use force unless Hussein gives unconditional access to U.N. weapons inspectors - gives Iraqi President Hussein an ''equal place in the world forum'' and ''continues to erode our credibility.''
<snip>
http://thepost.baker.ohiou.edu/archives/021698/briefly.html




**************************************





Here are a few interesting articles I found when I googled (my good, google is now a verb!)

Clinton administration blocks easing of sanctions against Iraq

After two weeks of intensive negotiations within the United Nations Security Council, the United States has blocked efforts by France, Russia and China to lift sanctions against Iraq. Washington has thereby ensured the continuation of a policy which must rank as one of the great crimes against humanity of the twentieth century.

Only last month the UN children's agency, UNICEF, released a study showing that nine years of economic embargo, compounded by the devastation from two air wars, have produced a “humanitarian emergency.” UNICEF reported that mortality rates among infants and children under five in the central and southern parts of the country which are controlled by Baghdad, where 85 percent of Iraqis live, have more than doubled since 1989. The study further concluded that 20 percent of Iraqi children under five suffer from stunted growth caused by malnutrition.

UNICEF estimated that 500,000 child deaths are attributable to the sanctions.

A number of other reports and eyewitness accounts have documented the existence of a social catastrophe in Iraq, resulting from the relentless economic, political and military assault by the most powerful nation in the world. In recent years Bill Clinton and his counterparts in Europe have employed the term “genocide” with near abandon to demonize leaders and regimes targeted for attack. But if anything in the past decade approaches the level of genocide, it is the systematic destruction of an entire nation carried out by the United States against Iraq.

<snip>

The American response to growing criticism of the sanctions is to claim that responsibility for the humanitarian disaster in Iraq lies entirely with the regime of Saddam Hussein. In anticipation of the Security Council debate and this month's opening session of the General Assembly, the US State Department released a report charging that Baghdad has refused to distribute food and medical supplies provided under a limited oil-for-food program overseen by the UN. The State Department showed satellite photos of what it claims is a luxurious retreat recently built for Saddam Hussein's inner circle, as if this fact, if true, absolved the US from responsibility for the suffering of the Iraqi masses.

<snip>

When the British proposed a small measure to break the impasse in the Security Council over Iraqi sanctions, calling for the delegates to agree on a chairman for a new weapons inspections body before the structure of the agency had been determined, the Clinton administration refused to go along.

<snip>

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep1999/iraq-s28_prn.shtml

--------

It was hard to miss. First there was a month of activism opposing the US/UN sanctions on Iraq, including 86 arrests at the US Mission to the United Nations. Then 70 Members of Congress signed a letter to President Clinton urging an end to the economic sanctions. Representative David Bonior even called the sanctions "infanticide masquerading as policy." And then came the protest resignations. Assistant Secretary-General Hans Von Sponeck, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, announced he is leaving his job in protest after 15 months. The next day, Jutta Burghardt, chief of the UN's World Food Program in Iraq, resigned too, also in protest of the economic sanctions destroying Iraq.

These events should have sent a powerful message to the White House. Denis Halliday, Mr. Van Sponeck's predecessor, quit the same position after 13 months—ending a 25-year career with the UN—also in protest of the economic sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Like Mr. Halliday, Mr. Von Sponeck also came to realize the devastation of the sanctions supposedly aimed at Saddam Hussein's regime. The fact that two high-ranking UN officials felt compelled to leave their jobs in protest of a US and UN policy should make all Americans sit up and ask themselves if that policy is sound. The resignation of a competent and respected WFP director should give added emphasis to the point.

Sadly, judging by the State Department's response to Mr. Von Sponeck's resignation, no such soul-searching is on the agenda. The most recent Security Council resolution—Resolution 1284—which Clinton administration officials like to claim would lift the sanctions, actually does no such thing.

It creates a new arms monitoring agency, and allows that, more than a year down the line, some restrictions might be temporarily suspended. But the default position remains that the sanctions stay, unchanged, unless the Security Council—including the US with its veto—agrees to keep them suspended after each four-month interval. Under such restrictions, no viable oil company is likely to risk large-scale investment in Iraq, however much they may want Iraq's oil wealth. But without such investment, reconstruction and repair of Iraq's oil industry itself will remain impossible, and Iraq's problems will only worsen.

The US-led sanctions, in place now for 10 years, have caused not only the deaths of about one million Iraqi people—half of them children, according to UNICEF—but also the destruction of the cultural, economic, political, and educational institutions of Iraqi society. As a result of the sanctions, food shortages and malnourishment remain a critical problem in Iraq. It was the World Food Program's director, the same Jutta Burghardt who just resigned, who told the Congressional aides that 70% of Iraq household income goes for food. By UN standards, she said, that is considered an indicator of imminent famine. Many people know that the UN created a provision—the "Oil-for-Food" program—under which Iraq can sell limited amounts of oil to purchase needed items. But this deal, created by UN Resolution 986, has failed to provide the food and medicine necessary to sustain life in Iraq.

Many who are aware of the Oil-for-Food program believe the Iraqi government is deliberately withholding and stockpiling food and medicine and that therefore Saddam Hussein is to blame for the deaths. But this is simply untrue. The proceeds from the sales of oil through the Oil-for-Food program go to a Bank of Paris escrow account in New York which is managed by the UN For Iraq to use any of this money to buy items for import, each item they need must be bid for to the UN sanctions committee. Theoretically any member of the UN Security Council may reject a bid for an import, but as reported by the Washington Post February 25, it is the US and Great Britain who do the vast majority of the rejecting—and they reject almost everything. This is a tendency that has been increasingly criticized by the other members of the Security Council and by UN Secretary-General Koffi Anan. According to Mr. Von Sponeck's predecessor, Denis Halliday, after allocations are taken out of the oil revenues to finance Gulf War reparations and UN administrative expenses, the amount of money which trickles down to the average person in Iraq is 25 cents per day.

<snip>

The US is the biggest contributor to the World Food Program, and played a primary role in stopping her new programs. It was Ms. Burghardt's team of WFP inspectors who monitored food distribution in Iraq. It was her people who checked that food got from port to warehouses to mills to neighborhood distribution agents. And it was her staff who tracked the inability of the food basket—nearly devoid of protein, fruits, vegetables, or vitamins—to feed Iraqi families. It is understandable that humanitarian workers, trained to end, not help maintain, humanitarian disasters, would find these sanctions-imposed conditions unacceptable.

What is incomprehensible to an increasing number of Americans—such as those of us at The Dallas Peace Center—is why our own government will not hear or take seriously these officials' legitimate concerns for the Iraqi people. Why will they not heed the concerns of the 70 Members of Congress who asked President Clinton to lift the sanctions? When will the White House get the message and wake-up? The sanctions must end now.

http://www.greens.org/s-r/23/23-07.html (no limiting copyright/request to repost)


--------

Some members of Congress put pressure on Clinton for the US to be even harsher with Iraq and support the oppostition even more. This was these guys only concern! Look at this letter:

Congress of the United States
Washington, DC 20515

August 11, 1999

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As the principal proponents of last year's Iraq Liberation Art, we are writing to express our dismay over the continued drift in U.S. Policy toward Iraq.

We were greatly encouraged by your decision last October to sign the Iraq Liberation Act, which established as an objective of U.S . foreign policy the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime, and we welcomed your pledge last November 15th to work with Congress to implement the Act. We were also pleased with the execution of Operation Desert Fox last December, and the continued commitment of your Administration following the conclusion of that Operation to fully enforce the no- fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.

Since the beginning of this year, however, we have noted signs of a reduced priority in U.S. policy toward Iraq. The last six months have been notable more for what has not happened rather than for what has been achieved. In particular, we are dismayed by the following:

International inspections no longer constrain Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programs. Up to and during Operation Desert Fox, Administration officials expended considerable energy explaining to the international community, Congress, and the American people why it was necessary to use force to compel Saddam to submit to comprehensive international inspections. Without inspections, we were told, Saddam could begin to reconstitute his WMD capability within a matter of weeks. Operation Desert Fox was necessary to compel him to stop obstructing inspections. Since Operation Desert Fox, however, there have been no inspections at all. Now, rather than emphasize the danger that Iraq's WMD programs may be reconstituted, Administration officials apparently claim that they have "no evidence" that Saddam is reconstituting his capabilities. (((OMG SO GLAD I FOUND THIS LETTER!))) In fact, there is considerable evidence that Iraq continues to seek to develop and acquire weapons of mass destruction. The whole point of Operation Desert Fox was that we could not afford to wait until Saddam reconstituted his WMD capabilities. If international security could be assured by waiting until we find evidence that Saddam- has developed weapons of mass destruction and responding to the threat at that time, there would have been no need for Operation Desert Fox.
The President
August 11, 1999
Page Two

The Administration is not giving the Iraqi opposition the political support it needs to seriously challenge Saddam. While Administration spokesmen sometimes have expressed support for the Iraq Liberation Act, all too often they distanced themselves from, if not ridiculed, the policy you endorsed last November 15th. In this regard, the views of General Zinni, Commander-in-Chief of the Central Command, are well-known. More recently, a senior State Department official was quoted in the Washington Post saying of the opposition "these are the day-after guys. These are not the guys who are going to put a bullet in the head of Saddam Hussein." In fact, the members of the democratic opposition need to be supported as the "today" guys -- unless it is the intention of the Clinton Administration to send U.S. ground troops in to achieve the U.S. policy objective of removing the Saddam Hussein regime from power. Instead of permitting senior officials to denigrate the opposition, the Administration should be seeking to enhance the opposition's political legitimacy by receiving its officials at the highest level and supporting its efforts to convene meetings inside Iraq, in the United States and elsewhere. The Administration is not giving the Iraqi opposition the material support it needs to seriously challenge Saddam. To achieve the objective of removing Saddam, the opposition will require not only more political support from the United States than it has received so far, but also more material support. To date, of the $8 million appropriated in last year's omnibus appropriations act to assist the opposition, less than $500,000 has been used to support activities carried out by the opposition. Most of the rest of this money is being spent on such things as academic conferences, community outreach projects, and conflict management programs that will do little or nothing to expedite the demise of Saddam's regime. Notwithstanding these expenditures, we understand that as much as $1 million of this aid may be returned to the Treasury at the end of this fiscal year. Further, the opposition has received no assistance whatsoever from the $97 million in military assistance made available under the Iraq Liberation Act. The Administration has begun to plan an initial drawdown under the Iraq Liberation Act, but has signaled Saddam that he has nothing to fear by emphasizing that the drawdown will be "nonlethal" in nature. Reportedly it will include photocopiers, computers, and fax machines, as well as training in such areas as accounting and flood management. In providing authority for military drawdown, it was our intention to train and equip a force dedicated to bringing democracy to Iraq.
The Administration is not willing to deliver assistance to the opposition inside Iraq. In addition to withholding from the Opposition the most useful forms of assistance, the Administration has ruled out delivering assistance to the opposition inside Iraq. Delivering such assistance inside Iraq might violate U.N. sanctions, we are told. U.N. sanctions cannot present a legal problem under U.S. law, inasmuch as the Iraq Liberation Act authorizes the provision of assistance under the act "notwithstanding any other
The President
August 11, 1999
Page Three

provision of law." To find a legal problem under international law, it is necessary to overlook the fact that the purpose of U.N. sanctions is to weaken Saddam. It is further necessary to ignore the U.N. Security Council resolutions, including 688 and 949, that authorize action to protect the Kurdish and other minorities in Iraq and provide the foundation under international law for our continued enforcement of no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. If it does not violate U.N. sanctions for coalition aircraft to bomb targets inside Iraq, it should not violate UN. sanctions to deliver munitions and other assistance to the opposition for use against targets inside Iraq. And certainly the delivery of non-lethal forms of assistance inside Iraq, especially humanitarian assistance, should not violate U.N. sanctions.

The Administration is, not willing to give appropriate security assurances to anti-Saddam Iraqis, including the Kurds and Shi'a. The Kurdish and Shi'a population of Iraq has paid a horrible price for resisting Saddam's rule. To provide a measure of protection to these groups, the northern and southern no-fly zones were established in 1991 and 1992. More recently, Secretary Albright extended U.S. security assurances to the Kurds last September in order to facilitate the reconciliation agreement between Kurdish groups. On July 7th of this year, the Executive Council of the Iraqi National Congress asked the Administration for additional security assurances in order to make possible an Iraqi National Assembly meeting in northern Iraq. The opposition did not ask for a commitment of U.S. ground forces or other specific guarantees. Nevertheless, in a letter dated July 29th, Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott rejected this request. We believe this decision should be reconsidered. The United States already is committed to providing security for the Kurds and Shi'a of Iraq. To specifically deny a request from the opposition for assurances that would, in their words, "show that the United States is committed to a change of government in Iraq, " sends a dangerous signal. This sign of irresolution can only tempt Saddam to once again move against the Kurds and Shia.
We are dismayed by these developments. We do not believe, however, that it is too late to reverse the drift in U.S. policy and regain the momentum that our nation had last year. We respectfully propose an action plan consisting of the following four key elements:

1. Set a deadline for the reinstitution of meaningful international inspections of Saddam's WMD programs in the near future, while ensuring that Saddam is not rewarded for complying with his international obligations. Make clear that serious consequences will ensue if the deadline is not met. This could mean, among other things, further military action against WMD-related facilities and other targets central to Saddam's hold on power, or expansion of the existing no-fly zones into no-drive zones.

The President
August 11, 1999
Page Four

2. Provide enhanced security assurances to anti-Saddam Iraqis along the lines proposed in the letter of July 7, 1999, from the Executive Council of the Iraqi National Congress. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it will reverse the dangerous signal that was sent by the Administration's initial response to the July 7th letter from the opposition.

3. Support the effort of the Iraqi National Congress to hold a National Assembly meeting in the near future at the location of their choice, including northern Iraq or Washington, D.C. Urge other countries to send observers as a sign of support, and facilitate their attendance.

4. Immediately begin a program of meaningful assistance to the designated opposition groups. This must include both material assistance and training under the Iraq Liberation Act. The opposition has an immediate need for such items as communications equipment, uniforms, boots, and bivouac gear. In addition, the necessary equipment should be provided for direct broadcasting into Baghdad of FM radio and television signals from opposition-controlled sites in northern Iraq. Training may best be provided outside Iraq, but there is no reason not to deliver material assistance inside Iraq. Over time, we must be prepared to deliver both lethal military training and lethal material assistance.

With these steps, we believe that our nation can begin to recover the ground that has been lost since last year. We stand prepared to offer whatever legislative support you require in order to achieve our shared objective of promoting the emergence of a peaceful, democratic government in Iraq.

Sincerely,

Trent Lott

Joseph I. Lieberman

Jesse Helms

J. Robert Kerrey

Richard C. Shelby

Sam Brownback

Benjamin A. Gilman

Howard L. Berman

http://www.nci.org/c/c81199.htm

****************
In August 2000, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted a resolution with title “Humanitarian situation of the Iraqi population”. This was the fourth year in a row that the sub-commission had dealt with the issue of sanctions in Iraq, but their document this year makes, with strong language, a direct link between sanctions and the suffering of Iraqi civilians, “considering any embargo that condemned an innocent people to hunger, disease, ignorance and even death to be a flagrant violation of the economic social and cultural rights and the right to life of the people concerned and of international law”. Based on a working paper by the Belgian representative Marc Bossuyt, the resolution invokes the 1949 Geneva Conventions which, in the words of the Sub-Commission, “prohibit the starving of civilian populations and the destruction of what is indispensable for their survival”. The Sub-Commission calls “for the embargo provisions affecting the humanitarian situation of the population of Iraq to be lifted”.

[KG]

8. thanks, Tin, for exposing another stealth RWer.

[teryang]

9. Help me out here

Read every word. Love your perspective. Can you give a source for this? I'm very interested in this:

<Further, it was during his term that Saddam's son-in-law, the highest-ranking defector ever, revealed to the UN, the CIA and MI6 that he himself had been in charge of the Iraqi weapons program, and had personally overseen the destruction of the bulk of their chemical and biological and all of their nuclear weapons capacity after the first Gulf slaughter. His testimony on the size of the program, which was larger than the west had known, was considered credible enough to trot it out on innumerable occasions for the next eight years under both Clinton and Bush; his testimony that he had overseen the destruction (so that no commander would be tempted to use the weapons, which he and Saddam knew would result in the nuking of Iraq, under Clinton as well as Bush I and II) was fit only for the ears of his interlocutors, and effectively covered up by both presidents. (He was executed when he returned to Iraq the following year.)>

[Tinoire]

12. I'll try :)

Let me know if you need more or something else :) I'm like you, I'm learning so much with every passing day. I guess I was asleep at the wheel, so thoroughly focused on Palestine was I! But there's so much out there and only so many hours in the day...
--------------
Blix said he is now lending greater credence to assertions by senior Iraqi officials and a prominent defector, Gen. Hussein Kamel, that Iraq had destroyed its weapons -- and the bulk agents from which to manufacture them -- in the early 1990s but had preserved the program, hoping to restart production once sanctions were lifted and inspectors left the country.

"The destruction of weapons was largely finished in 1994," Blix said. "Thereafter, destroyed a number of facilities and installations because they had concluded that these had been active in the production of weapons . . . but weapons, no."

Kamel, the former head of Iraq's weapons program who defected in 1994, told U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence officials in Amman, Jordan, in August 1995 that he had ordered the destruction of all Iraq's biological and chemical weapons and components of its nuclear weapons program in the early 1990s. But Kamel, a brother-in-law of Hussein who was assassinated when he returned from exile to Iraq in 1996, said Baghdad sought to conceal documents, computer disks, equipment and blueprints that could be used to restart a weapons program.

<snip>

Blix said it would not be "prudent" to reach a judgment on the basis of one defector's account. But he added that Kamel's claims have been echoed by several Iraqi scientists -- including Hussein's former science adviser, Amir Saadi -- who have surrendered to U.S. authorities and, Blix said, have no reason to lie.

<snip>

From the Washington Post
Blix Downgrades Prewar Assessment of Iraqi Weapons
By Colum Lynch

Sunday 22 June 2003 reprinted at
http://www.refuseandresist.org/war/art.php?aid=911
-----
Here's another article: ((You should read this one in its entirety))

Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed
Bombshell revelation from a defector cited by White House and press
February 27, 2003


On February 24, Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that "raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist," the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims.

Until now, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who was killed shortly after returning to Iraq in 1996, was best known for his role in exposing Iraq's deceptions about how far its pre-Gulf War biological weapons programs had advanced. But Newsweek's John Barry-- who has covered Iraqi weapons inspections for more than a decade-- obtained the transcript of Kamel's 1995 debriefing by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. inspections team known as UNSCOM.

Inspectors were told "that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them," Barry wrote. All that remained ere "hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches" and production molds. The weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Barry reported, and "a military aide who defected with Kamel... backed Kamel's assertions about the destruction of WMD stocks."


<snip>
But on Wednesday (2/26/03), a complete copy of the Kamel transcript-- an internal UNSCOM/IAEA document stamped "sensitive"-- was obtained by Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who in early February revealed that Tony Blair's "intelligence dossier" was plagiarized from a student thesis. This transcript can be seen at http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.pdf.

In the transcript (p. 13), Kamel says bluntly: "All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."

<snip>

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.html

[teryang]

14. Thanks!

Somehow I missed that part of the story. All the media reported was that he was killed. The deception of the * regime is beyond belief.