"Iraq is a rich country dying of sanctions". This observation by a long-standing resident of Baghdad is amply and cruelly borne out by the latest report from the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). It finds that the rate of child mortality there has doubled in the last ten years. This is despite the UN approved programme intended to allow Saddam Hussein's regime to sell sufficient oil to provide food and medicine for the Iraqi people.
In fact, the severe economic sanctions have inflicted far-reaching damage on the civilian population preventing reconstruction of the country's infrastructure destroyed during the 1990-1991 Gulf War and contributing centrally to the child deaths and shortages of the most basic materials, foodstuffs and technology that is dragging the country back decades in development terms. They are supported most vehemently by the United States and Britain on the basis of Security Council resolutions adopted after the war, intended to force the regime to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and protect repressed sections of its populations, such as the Kurds.
In fact the sanctions have long outlived their original purposes. The UN weapons inspection operation, Unscom, has collapsed following grave allegations that it was penetrated by US intelligence. These came after the unilateral US and British air attacks last December designed to reinforce Unscom's mandate, carried out without express UN approval. Since then, both of these states have continued their policy of aggressive containment with frequent but underreported air attacks on Iraqi targets.
The Saddam Hussein regime remains intact after all this time, despite the sanctions. It is insulated from them and well able to turn containment to political, security and psychological advantage. A broken people lacks the confidence and courage to confront the regime and efforts to bolster opposition groups have been a pathetic failure. This is most unlikely to change until pressure on the population is relaxed and they have time to recover from this dreadful period in their history.
It is time to rethink the whole policy of containment built into existing UN policy by US and British intransigence, as has been urged by France, Russia and China among the permanent members of the Security Council and as is supported by most European Union member-states, Ireland included. There remains outstanding Iraq's commitment to disarmament and inspection - obligations which must be met. They are best addressed as part of a plan floated early this year by the French government, in which oil sanctions would be relaxed in return for fresh commitments to arms control and inspections.
Within such a context, basic conditions for the civilian population would be put in place. It would be essential to ensure new resources were not diverted and hoarded by the regime as they have undoubtedly been under the existing scheme. But contrary to the assertions of British and US government representatives, it has been the severity of the sanctions, not the fact of their diversion, that is most to blame for the premature deaths of so many Iraqi children.