Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2000, Pages 105-106

Book Review

Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War

By Anthony Arnove (ed.), South End Press, 2000, 216 pp. List: $16; AET: $12.

Reviewed by Char Simons

The most “effective” economic sanctions in recent history—imposed on Iraq by the U.N. Security Council following the 1990-91 Gulf war—have killed more civilians than any political action since the Holocaust. The U.S.-led sanctions have taken a country that, a little over a decade ago, approached First World status in terms of health care and education and turned it into a virtual refugee camp, larger in area than Montana and with a population greater than that of New York state.

Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, edited by Anthony Arnove, is a page-turner, regardless of the reader’s degree of familiarity with Middle East peace issues, the aftermath of the Gulf war or the decade-old sanctions. The authors of the book’s 16 essays include media analyst Ali Abunimah, social critic Noam Chomsky,reporter Robert Fisk, former U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday, Voices in the Wilderness co-founder Kathy Kelly and activist Rania Masri.

The book’s short chapters are organized into sections on the roots of U.S./U.K. policy on Iraq; myths and realities about, and media coverage of, the sanctions; life under sanctions; environmental and health effects; and activist responses. Writing styles run the gamut from academic to journalistic to gripping narrative and storytelling. Also included is a useful resource list of organizations working to end sanctions on Iraq.

One of the most telling essays is “The Media’s Deadly Spin on Iraq,” which explains why the American public is largely silent on the suffering of Iraqis living under sanctions. Using the comprehensive Lexis-Nexis database, authors Abunimah and Masri found more than 1,000 articles with the key word “Iraq” in major newspapers during the December 1998 bombing. Only 78 articles using the key words “civilian” or “civilians” turned up during the same period. Broadcasters paid even less attention to the impact of sanctions. Of 53 reports by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and NPR during a one-month period, only three focused on the effects of sanctions.

With the media purveying the U.S. government message, it is not surprising that the vast majority of Americans are unaware of the suffering their tax dollars are supporting in Iraq. In addition to the grim statistics, Abunimah and Masri also discuss what they term the seven deadly media sins:

• Ignoring or downplaying the effects of the U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people

• Ignoring or discrediting reports of civilian victims from bombing

• Personifying Iraq as Saddam Hussain

• Creating an artificial “balance” in coverage

• Speaking with the voice of the U.S. government

• Exaggerating the threat of Iraqi weapons

• Using a narrow selection of “experts”

The effects of sanctions are in the numbers, which are quoted frequently and by a variety of sources, including much U.N. data: A drop in the gross national product from $3,000 per capita to $500; doctors’ wages plummeting to as little as $3 a month; piles of human waste five to six feet high left to dry on the streets; a doubling of the heart attack rate and a tripling of the mortality rate among heart patients since 1991 due to the collapse of the health care system; leukemia and other cancer remission rates dropping from 70 percent to about 6 percent during the 1990s; a doubling of child mortality rates since 1990, with more than 5,000 children under age five dying every month.

In addition to sanctions, American and British bombing raids continue. U.S. aircraft alone have dropped 88,000 tons of explosives on Iraq—the equivalent of nearly five Hiroshimas. Seventy percent of the so-called smart bombs missed their targets, falling instead on houses, schools, mosques or empty fields. The 30 percent that did hit their targets wiped out Iraq’s electrical generating plants and sewage treatment networks.

The inhumanity of the sanctions is beginning to be noticed, thanks in part to Denis Halliday, who sacrificed his U.N. career to speak out on the issue. The former head of the oil-for-food program in Baghdad resigned after realizing that thousands of Iraqis were dying because of sanctions, declaring that “we are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is illegal and immoral.”

While President Clinton has stated that Iraq is the only nation that has used weapons of mass destruction, the evidence points to a different conclusion. Citing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, essayist Howard Zinn points out: “He could say this only to a population deprived of history. No nation in the world possesses greater weapons of mass destruction than we do, and none has used them more often, or with greater loss of civilian life.” The embargo itself, adds Voices in the Wildnerness organizer Kathy Kelly, is “a weapon of mass destruction.”

Iraq Under Siege raises the issue of the American people’s moral responsibility for the fate of 22 million Iraqis. Even as we look back at Nazi Germany, amazed at how so many ordinary Germans could, either out of ignorance or misinformation, aid and abet Nazi atrocities, we must ask ourselves the same questions: what is our responsibility to inform ourselves and others about the U.S.-led suffering in Iraq, and what responsibility do we have to end it?

The answers are not easy. In the words of playwright Arthur Miller, “Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.” It’s a strategy the U.S. government is counting on.

As essayist Barbara Nimri Aziz points out, Iraqi compliance with the sanctions will not end its suffering. “The terms of compliance keep shifting, so that no progress seems to be made toward an end.” Nor will Iraq be able to rebuild with oil-for-food money. Those funds are kept in a New York-based escrow account that Iraq has no access to and are used for war reparations as well as to pay for all U.N. operations in Iraq.

Instead, a change in U.S. foreign policy must come about through organized activism based on compassion. Middle East peace and social justice activists need to engage such constituencies as Gulf war veterans, many of whom are affected by the same chemical plague from depleted uranium dust that is crippling thousands of Iraqis and their unborn children. Classrooms, community centers, small-town newspapers and radio stations must be utilized to spread the word through lectures, demonstrations and teach-ins.

The momentum is rising, as students on more than a dozen campuses have passed resolutions against sanctions. Not to be taken lightly, however, is the cost of such activism. Already, Voices in the Wilderness members have been threatened with 12 years in prison, a $1 million fine and a $250,000 administrative penalty for taking medicine, relief supplies and toys to Iraq.

While Iraq Under Siege is a compelling compilation of the little-known effects of sanctions, the book is not without shortfalls. A timeline and definitions of U.N. resolutions would have been helpful. Moreover, the crucially important section on activism could have been more expansive. And there was considerable repetition of material, such as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s response, when asked on “60 Minutes” if the death of more than half a million Iraqi children was a price worth paying, that “We think the price is worth it,”

Despite these minor drawbacks, Iraq Under Siege is a vitally important wake-up call to action to end the sanctions while providing activists with plenty of documentation to back up their claims of U.S. injustice. Americans have made a difference before, such as during the anti-war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. “We think the sanctions wouldn’t withstand the light of day if people really knew the terrible impact they have on innocent people,” writes Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness.

Char Simons is a free-lance journalist residing in Washington state, where she is adjunct professor at Evergreen State College. She teaches literary journalism, writing, multicultural literature, women’s studies and Pacific Northwest, European and Middle Eastern history in the part-time studies program.