Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War [Paperback]

First of all, this book comes from South End Press. South End is supposedly a "liberal," "one-sided" publisher. I was told this by a respected professor of mine. He brushed off this book without ever reading it...claiming to know its contents simply by virture of the company that published it. I believe this to be an intellectual cop-out.

I do not think that a conservative person could ignore this book and its authors based on a liberal bias. This book is very critical of America's policy towards Iraq, and it makes me realized that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. I don't think ideology has anything to do with this book. It is well written and serves as an interesting source of information now that we are in a post-Saddam era. Listening to people like Bush now, you'd swear that we were very concerned with the Iraqi people. That is a lie. Bush '43 continued the same sanctions policy that Clinton did that devastated the Iraqi population.

However, this book is somewhat repetitive. There were many contributors and some material is mentioned more than once, but I do not think that this should keep people from reading the book. It's short and written in easy to read language. It is a valuable book now more than ever for those interested in what happens in Iraq.

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. 2002. She points out that much of the promised food aid to starving Afghans has not materialized and the Northern Alliance judges have ruled that women running away from their husbands will only be jailed, not killed as under the Taliban. She points to some success in organizing: I like her reference to the disruption of the staged "town meeting" conducted by Clinton officials in February 1998 where that ruthless killer Miss Albright was flustered by a question about U.S. funding of Indonesia's occupation and genocide in East Timor.

Barbara Nimri Aziz has an really moving and profound essay about this intellectual couple in Baghdad who were full of life in spite of being deprived of books and periodicals by the sanctions. The husband dropped dead of a heart attack, part of the enormous rise in heart problems caused by the deprivation of the sanctions. Iraqis before 1990, in spite of the Ba'ath regime had produced a vigorous society that was in many ways close to the first world. The U.S. dosen't like third world people who do well. The bombing and sanctions have crushed ordinary Iraqis as many people have suddenly discovered(while their leaders whom Americans were suddenly told to hate after 8/02/90 have prospered quite well).

Dennis Halliday argues that the part of UN resolution 687 should be implented which calls for removing all WMD from the Middle East. He callslifting the sanctions from Iraq, once it fully complies with inspections and dropping the threat to overthrow the regime even if it does comply. It involves lifting the sanctions to empower the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam. Not realistic anymore obviously but a good plan. It is noted in the endnotes to Halliday's and Phyllis Bennis's interview with David Barsamian that the U.S. is the biggest arms trader in the Middle east, selling at least a billion dollars worth to governments like Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey.

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.