IRAQ'S YEARS OF TORMENT
I visited Iraq in July/August of last year. I wanted to see for myself the effects of eight years of sanctions. I also wanted to collect information on the depleted uranium (DU) used in the Gulf War, now seen as the cause of a sixfold increase in childhood leukemia and increases in other forms of cancer in Iraq. Only UN personnel are able to fly into Iraq. So, for me, it was a 26 hour bus trip from Amman to Baghdad. I arrived during a time of record heat. The temperature was 50°C [120°F] most of the time I was there. There was no relief from the heat which must be endured by everybody. The electricity supply cuts out 3 or 4 times each day so neither air conditioning nor fans can be used for most of the day.
During the 1991 war the electrical power sources, the water and sewage plants and the transport systems were bombed again and again to make them inoperable. The spare parts needed to repair them are prohibited under the embargo as is the importation of chlorine for water purification. On a day when the temperature reached 55°C [130F], I sat in the office of the doctor heading Iraq's Family Planning Association. The electricity was off and as we talked he said, "I'm glad you're here and experiencing what we have to go through every day."
This is only part of what the Iraqis must go through. There is no safe tap water in Iraq. I crossed the Tigris River many times and noted its dirty brown color. Iraq gets most of its drinking water from the Tigris. Barely functioning sewage treatment plants dump raw sewage into the river, polluting the water and creating the source of diseases which have taken thousands of Iraqi lives. Children and animals bathe and swim in the polluted water.
I visited 4 hospitals. Before the war Iraq's medical system was second to none with medical care free to all its citizens. Most of Iraq's doctors were sent overseas to advance their medical training and to upgrade their skills. The UN promoted Iraq's medical system as a model for the region. Today, even medical journals are embargoed and doctors have trouble getting visas to study overseas.
The medical system is in dire straits. X-rays and mammograms cannot be taken as film is embargoed. There are no facilities for Pap smears and there is a lack of equipment such as incubators and sterilizers. Incubators and sterilizers dating from before the war are in disrepair with spare parts disallowed by the sanctions. Even syringes and sutures are on the embargoed list.
Hospital wards are overcrowded. The children's wards often have more than one child to a bed. Children's mothers sit with them, fanning them. Parents are required to monitor their children as there is almost no nursing staff. A doctor told me that they depend on parents for much of the daily care and for the plastic sheeting the children lie on. All the children I saw were dying. As each child dies, the body is removed, wrapped in the plastic sheet.
Nearly all the young children had emaciated bodies, pencil thin arms and legs and large heads, all signs of severe malnutrition. At the Al Mansour hospital in Baghdad, a young doctor said a vicious cycle is being perpetuated when malnourished mothers, with no milk, give birth to gravely underweight babies with no immunity, babies who die from malnutrition and preventable diseases. He pointed to what he called "sugar babies," children whose mothers, unable to obtain infant formula, feed their babies sugar dissolved in water. An entire generation of children are suffering severe malnutrition. The effects, retardation and retarded mental capacity, ensure these children will be disadvantaged for the rest of their lives.
Surgery is often carried out without anesthetic and there are no pain killers to ease the pain of desperately ill children. Children die for lack of antibiotics and the simple basic medicines to treat diarrhea and gastroenteritis. All the doctors expressed frustration at the lack of medicines for their ailing patients. I confess I was shocked and angered by what I saw. I was also ashamed to be part of a human race that has allowed children to be so cruelly sacrificed.
Cancer rates have risen alarmingly since the Gulf War. Many medical persons link this to depleted uranium (DU) incorporated into weapons used by the US and Britain. I talked at length with Dr. Ahmad Hardan, Director of the Health Department and Head of Research, who has carried out a comprehensive study of the huge increase in cancer, especially among young children, since 1991. He gave me details of his report and showed me photographs of horribly deformed babies.
Doctors are overwhelmed by the increasing cancer rates and the ever rising numbers of babies born malformed. Families have sold all their belongings, even their homes, to buy food or medicines to try to save the lives of their children. Everywhere, people's possessions are being sold on the streets or in markets. Children have dropped out of school to beg on the streets or to sell items such as one or two cigarettes or some small household possession.
The much vaunted "food for oil" deal has not improved the situation. The bulk of the money from the sale of oil goes to pay reparations to Kuwait and all the UN costs in Iraq. The amount left over breaks down to 25 cents per day for each man, woman, and child and must cover costs of all food and medicines. It provides flour, lentils, tea, oil, and sugar for 15 to 20 days of a month. Families must provide for the rest of the time as best they can. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization have given Iraq an 'A' rating for its distribution of food and medicine. But there is far too little of either to distribute.
While I was there, Dennis Haliday, Director of the UN Humanitarian Mission to Iraq, announced his resignation. His remarks, strongly critical of the UN sanctions policy for Iraq, were widely reported in the Middle East. He said the sanctions undermine the moral credibility of the United Nations and contravene the human rights provisions of the UN's own Charter. Mr. Haliday confirmed the figure of 5 to 6 thousand children dying each month and said that the figure is probably "modest."
In Iraq itself, the sanctions are destroying the social fabric of the civilian population; the sanctions have forced Iraqi professionals to leave the country, thereby denying the country and its people their much needed expertise and services. On inquiring, I found that an Iraqi doctor's monthly salary was the equivalent of $US4. Yet many dedicated doctors remain, doing what they can to ease a dreadful situation. All expressed their frustration and anger at so many children dying needlessly. All were courteous, kind, and gave unstintingly of their time to answer my questions. All asked me to return, hopefully at a time "when things are better." And I can only hope that this will be soon.
- Jane Howarth, Save the Children of Iraq, P.O. Box 146, Petersham New South Wales, SW 2049, AUSTRALIA