Sir, - In reply to the very touching letter from Mohammed Al-Sadr (November 7th), I feel it is important that I outline the key reasons why I undertook a direct flight from Dublin to Baghdad last week.
This was the first such flight from our country since the Gulf War and the imposition of economic sanctions by the United Nations in 1990. It was purely symbolic in nature, in that I wanted to send out a very strong message of solidarity with the 22 million citizens of Iraq who have suffered so much in recent years.
This was a humanitarian mission, but the underlying political message was that new structures and a new accommodation must be put in place before the suffering of the Iraqi people reaches even more calamitous heights.
I would like to assure Mr Al-Sadr that the foods and medicines on board this flight were distributed by myself to NGO organisations in Baghdad. The Iraqi authorities did not distribute them. On a broader front, the UN Food for Oil Programme in Iraq is simply not working. I visited the Al-Mansur training hospital in Baghdad which specialises in paediatric care. It has not received any factor 8 or factor 9 blood plasma products, which are used for bone marrow operations, for the past three months. The fact that the blood which is also being used in this hospital is not viral-free means that Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B can easily be transmitted.
Officials from the International Red Cross Committee in Baghdad told me how they are overseeing a the purification of water-treatment plants in Baghdad and elsewhere. However, the underground sewerage systems have completely broken down because of the lack of spare parts. As a result, the vast majority of Iraqi citizens are now drinking unsafe water.
The UN Sanctions Committee on Iraq in New York are holding up hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of contracts which could be spent in Iraq at this time. The reason given for delaying approval of such contracts is that some technological products, including computer equipment, could be adapted for military purposes.
All NGO groups in Iraq which I have talked believe that the suffering of the Iraqi people can be better alleviated if the UN Food for Oil Programme is abolished. I support their political contention in this regard. The economic sanctions against Iraq have failed in their intended purpose, which is to remove Saddam Hussein from power. A trade fair held in Baghdad last week included the participation of 45 countries and 1,200 companies. The only people suffering from sanctions are the disadvantaged and marginalised in Iraqi society, namely the elderly and the sick. Even the President of France, Jacques Chirac, has described the economic sanctions regime as both "immoral and inhuman".
I visited many of the children's wards at the Al-Mansur Baghdad hospital. I read a note beside one of the drawings on a wall written by a 15-year-old child, Salam Skhudar: "Disease does not stop at boundaries, nor does it discriminate between one religion and another." - Yours, etc.,
Niall Andrews MEP, European Parliament Office, Dublin 2.