Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War

by Anthony Arnove

Book Overview

This updated study of the sanctions'impact on Iraq now includes Bush's latest plans for invasion. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0896086194
• ISBN13: 9780896086197
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: South End Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Read this for comfort in these viscious times

People going out of their minds from the pathological jingoism and pentagon produced santizied media coverage should read this book. Reading the essays by people like Kathy Kelly , a real hero, of Voices in the Wilderness, an utterly wonderful organization, is somewhat soothing. And to read about the depleted uranium that our troops are being exposed to....Anthony arnove quotes a Washington post article from June 2000 that the little notice "No-fly zone" bombings were regularly killing civilians.. During the Gulf war, our "smart bombs" hit water treatment facilities, electrical plants, and other such vital civilian infrastructure leading to the indirect murder of tens of thousand of Iraqis. Under "dual use" bans imposed by the U.S. Iraq has not been able to import vital medicines, spare parts and chemicals like chlorine for water treatment, fertilizers to fight agricultural plagues. So Iraqis drink water filled with sewage and die hideous deaths in hospitals which don't have equipment or medicine. And it is noted that John Negroponte our ambassador to the UN did not mention that at the time of the passage of resolution 1409 in May 2002, the U.S. was blocking on the UN sanctions committee over 5 billion in Iraqi requests for vital civilian supplies. They have not been able to repair transportation systems to transport food or repair warehouses or get air-conditioned trucks to transport goods in the heat.Noam Chomsky points out how the Republicans in the 80's were authorising the shipments to Saddam of materials to build his WMD arsenal. And plenty of credits to buy agricultural produce: in december 1989 Bush Sr. announced a major increase. Iraq needed to import food because Saddam had ruined Iraq's northern breadbasket in the 80's. Bob Dole and other senators came to soothe him in the Kurdish city of Mosul in April 1990 about a few scattered negative reports in the American press about him. He points out that the U.S. helped Saddam crush the post-gulf war rebellions; Schwartzkopf allowed Iraqi aircraft to fly over U.S. lines to crush it. The U.S. preferred Saddam Hussein to stay in power and then maybe some pro-U.S. "iron fisted junta" as Chomsky quotes the New York Time's Thomas Friedman, could take his place and hold Iraq together as well as Saddam did back in the 80's to the approval Turkey, the Saudis and the U.S. Dr. Peter Pellet points out that the Kurdish North benefited during the sanctions era because it is the breadbasket of Iraq and it received more than 50 percent per capita oil for food aid than the Saddam controlled part of the country. NGO's also gave a lot more aid to it. Sharon Smith points out that this is a prime time for anti-war organizing. What with the obvious links of the Bush administration to the corporate knavery of the 90's and their accelleration of the attack on worker's rights. With regard to the latter she notes the Longshoreman were threatened and finally forced back to work by the invocation of Taft-Hartley in Oct

The war never ended

The war against Iraq didn't end in 1991. Since then, US and UK forces have dropped almost 2000 bombs and hit almost 500 targets enforcing "no fly zones" in the north and the south. One US official boasts that "We're down to the last outhouse" when it comes to targets. The Los Angeles Times refers to the war on Iraq as "the longest sustained US air operation since the Vietnam War." In addition to the continued air strikes, economic sanctions have severely crippled Iraq's economy. The "collateral damage" caused by the sanctions are first and foremost children. UNICEF estimages that 5000 Iraqi kids under the age of 5 die each month because of "the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council." When asked on "60 Minutes" in 1996 if the death of half a million children was worth the sanctions, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright responded: "We think the price is worth it." Clearly the present administration concurs.*Iraq Under Siege* is a masterful collection of essays that speaks to the ongoing "hidden" war against Iraq and spells out in graphic detail, and with a wealth of statistical back-up, the costs of that war. This is stuff you won't get in the mainstream media. CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and CNN won't tell you, for example, that the US used nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf War--weapons made from radioactive depleted uranium, which vaporized on impact and contaminated both civilians and US military personnel; that mortality from otherwise treatable illnesses have skyrocketed in Iraq because the sanctions reduce the availability of simple medications; or that 6000 Iraqi infants die of starvation each month (this from the UN coordinator for humanitarian aid to Iraq, Denis Halliday).Reading this book goes a long way toward explaining why the US is distrusted by the Middle East. It also goes a long way toward persuading any open-minded reader that this nation's foreign policy simply must change. How can any American with conscience sleep comfortably?

An Organized, Articulate, Well-Referenced Book

The book is written in 16 easy-to-read chapters organized under 5 Parts (or themes) and an Introduction which provides some background information as to the "roots of the crisis". With this type of organization the reader will never get lost in the sea of facts. All facts are referenced at the end of each corresponding chapter in order of appearance. This book is an excellent compilation of essays written by 18 different respected authors including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and John Pilger to name a few. Though the book is a compilation of essays, these essays read congruently, flowing from one to the other so that this book reads like...well, a book! Part I covers the roots of US/UK Policy in Iraq, Part II separates some of the commonly heard myths from the realities in regard to Iraq and Saddam (two words that are not synonymous with each other), Part III gives the reader some heart wrenching real-life stories (documentaries) of life under the sanctions, Part IV provides documentation recording the human, agricultural and some of other impacts of the sanctions as well as some shocking information on Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons, and Part V essentially provides the reader with pertinent information and guidelines for activist response, including how to research and where to go for information. There is a map of Iraq in the beginning of the book listing all the main Shiite towns, centers of Kurdish populations, oil fields, refineries, pipelines and more. There are also 12 quality black and white pictures of people and places which really tie everything together nicely. There is an alphabetical index in the back of the book as well as brief synopses of the authors. I guarantee you will know far more about what is going on in Iraq (and have better insight into why Washington is taking so long in removing Saddam) than most members of the media ever have.

The Price of Sanctions

The US imposed sanctions on Iraq have been in force for a decade. The consequences of US Iraq sanctions policy have been quite deadly. Yet the possibility of an end to sanctions is remote unless there is a popular movement to end it. This book, edited by Anthony Arnove, makes an analytical, yet impassioned, case for lifting the sanctions against Iraq. The price that the people of Iraq are paying for the sanctions is colossal. At least half a million children have died as a result of the increase in child mortality due to sanctions. Child mortality in Iraq has risen from a level that was comparable to standards in advanced industrialized world to that of least developed countries with chronic shortages of food or devastated by civil war, such as Sudan or Somalia. Approximately one million people have died due to the sanctions. Iraq's water supply facilities and waste disposal systems are in ruins because the sanctions prevent Iraq from importing spare parts required to operate them. The country's environment and agriculture are in shambles. Sanctions have strengthened the Iraqi ruling elite. Iraqi regime had long denied civil and political rights to its population, but economic and social quality of life for the majority was high before the Gulf War. With the imposition of the sanctions, the economic opportunities and social capabilities of Iraqis are being systematically downgraded and destroyed. This book is an informed indictment of the sanctions policy. It exposes the brutality of sanctions against Iraq and therefore deserves to be widely read. It should be of value to concerned citizens, activists, academics, journalists, students of actual international regions, and Middle East scholars.

An important book about an ongoing atrocity

This edited volume is perhaps one of the most important books to emerge on the US political scene in the last few years. In a series of short essays, several leading lights of the anti-sanctions movement highlight the tremendous toll on civilian society in Iraq that a decade of US-led sanctions has taken. What emerges is a horrific tale of US machinations and a ruthless policy making that has resulted in the deaths of over a million Iraqi civilians and has done very little to displace the current regime.This book is laden with facts, eyewitness accounts, and reports of fact-finding missions from people from a whole range of ideological, professional, and political backgrounds. It must be read.