Visit to Iraq Provides More Complete View of Sanctions

Many Americans have formed an impression about the sanctions on Iraq that is likewise just an illusion. They have come to believe the nation is a threat to its neighbors and that economic pressure from the United States has been instrumental in deterring this menace. But a closer look reveals these perceptions are only so much hot air emerging from factually arid grounds.

I returned from a six-day trip to Iraq about a week and a half ago. I traveled there with a delegation of about two dozen other Americans, delivering medicines, school supplies, and other aid into the country. We also brought back firsthand observations of the conditions that sanctions created.

Nearly a decade ago, the UN Security Council imposed this economic embargo following Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War. The justification -- Iraq was brewing a secret program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

When I visited the country, the only apparent destruction was the widespread poverty left in the wake of the blockade.

The people most affected by the economic crisis are those who can least afford it -- the poor, the sick, the young.

Supposedly the target of sanctions, the ruling elite suffer little from the embargo. Even as the nation, as a whole, crumbles under a poor economy, cranes and construction scaffolds are going up in wealthier neighborhoods to put the finishing touches on sprawling private homes.

But according to Scott Ritter, former head of the UN weapons inspection team, the widening gap between rich and poor hasn't encouraged resistance from below.

"Practically speaking," he reasoned, "there is virtually no chance that opposition groups could overthrow Saddam."

Ritter has also dropped a few bombs about the reality of the weapons program allegedly alive and well in Iraq.

"Today," he said flatly, "Iraq no longer possesses arms of mass destruction."

Of course, people familiar with Middle Eastern politics will remember seemingly damning reports of weapons inspectors being denied access to some of the sites they wanted to investigate.

In 1998, Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf, Iraq's minister of foreign affairs, explained the real reasons his government limited access to these locations.

The Western media has not publicized these explanations. Nor have they given much air to the effects of sanctions on the general population of Iraq.

I didn't fully understand the embargo's impact until I actually visited the nation.

During my stay in Iraq, I traveled to Basra, a city in southern Iraq, and one of the areas hit hardest by sanctions.

Fashionable homes in Basra are in disrepair, with chipping paint and eroding masonry. People who once lived comfortable lives are now reduced to selling their personal belongings to make ends meet.

Schools are littered with garbage -- trash collection being only one of the services scrapped when hard times began.

Sewage and drainage systems are also going to rot. Rainwater has begun to pool in the slums, stagnating without proper runoff. Children absently play in these disease-ridden ponds, contracting illnesses that clinics and hospitals can't always treat.

I toured hospitals in both Baghdad and Basra and saw the impact sanctions have had on a health care system that was once the envy of the whole Middle East. Doctors at Basra's Birthing and Maternity Hospital have made do without IV bags or blood for transfusions, and sterilization exists only in surgery because of a dearth of proper equipment. Power outages intermittently black out the hospital.

The poor health of Iraq's infrastructure does not, however, imply that the government has been remiss in its duties. The state has provided a great deal of support to its institutions. It has rebuilt nearly all of the structures destroyed in Gulf War bombings. It supersaturated the economy with currency that, once inflated, brought down the price of labor and allowed it to rebuild.

Iraq also has one of the best food distribution systems in the world. Khalil Amir, the representative of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization in Baghdad, commended this rationing program, known as "the food basket," when I met him in person.

"The rationing system in Iraq is a perfect system," he insisted. "Everyone is getting his ration on time and in a systematic, computerized way." Even so, problems persist, owing partly to the constipated machinations of the UN bureaucracy charged with operating the "Oil for Food" program.

Millions of dollars in contracts are currently on hold at UN headquarters in New York. Orders for ambulances are being withheld in the unlikely event the Iraqi government uses the vacuum tubes standard on the vehicles to drop viruses from warplanes.

The unavailability of these items have also brought related services to a standstill because, as Kahil noted, the production and delivery of even one item depends on the integrity of the entire infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the cultural and political isolation resulting from the embargo has made a bad situation worse. This problem is especially severe, according to a Franciscan nun working with Iraqi refugees in Jordan, because it starves the nation of hope. "I wouldn't say it's worse than the people with no medicine," she said, "but its on par, because it is the future of the country."

Iraq's isolation from the rest of the world has also stemmed the flow of information into the nation. Its people are exposed to only the "truth" the regime wants them to know; television stations run a mind-numbing programming schedule that features all Saddam, all the time.

As long as sanctions deprive Iraq of outside contact, Hussein will continue to exert a stranglehold on the country. And its people will continue to suffer, while the world sees a mirage of defiance and danger where only misery exists.

Tomas Murawski is a journalism and mass communication and linguistics major from Hickory. Reach him at ashcan_rantings@yahoo.com.