Ten years after the United States and its allies imposed sanctions following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War, the embargo remains largely in place.

It continues to exact a heavy toll, even after the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 986 ("Oil for Food") that allows Iraq to export oil to pay for food and medicine (and reparations to Kuwait).

U.S. and British obstructionism on the committee that approves imports sharply limits Iraq's ability to repair its war-damaged electrical, sanitation or health-care infrastructure, also critical to health.

The draconian character of the sanctions guarantees a devastating impact on civilians; the highly centralized and anti-democratic character of the regime exacerbates the impact. Ironically, deprivation caused by sanctions makes Iraqis more dependent on government rations for survival.

During the early 1990s, average incomes in Iraq fell more than 80 percent. This in itself indicates a catastrophic economic collapse, greater even than the 50 percent economic contraction suffered by Russia as a result of International Monetary Fund/World Bank "shock therapy" in the early 1990s, greater than the 30 percent contraction suffered by Cuba in the early 1990s due to the loss of its Eastern European trading partners and the tightening of the U.S. embargo.

A demographic survey conducted by UNICEF in 1999 indicated that the rate of death of children under 5 years of age in central and southern Iraq more than doubled in the second half of the 1990s from its level a decade earlier. Comparing these mortality rates with pre-1990 trends of declining child mortality, UNICEF estimated that half a million Iraqi children died between 1991 and 1998 who would have lived if pre-sanctions trends of declining mortality had continued.

In the 1990s, primary-school enrollment in central and southern Iraq fell from 98 percent of all children to 88 percent of boys and 80 percent of girls. In two years, primary school drop-outs rose from 17 percent to 40 percent. As a result of these shifts, literacy fell from 80 percent to 58 percent of the adult population.

Three United Nations officials charged with overseeing humanitarian efforts have resigned in protest of the continued brutality of the sanctions; former U. N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday referred to their "genocidal impact."

Last spring, a U.S. congressional letter demanding the lifting of the sanctions had 71 signatures; House Democratic Whip David Bonior called the sanctions "infanticide masquerading as policy."

Meanwhile, the periodic bombing of Iraq by the United States and Britain continues, having killed more than 140 Iraqi civilians in 1999 alone. Iraqis (and veterans of U.S. and allied military units) continue to suspect continuing health problems from the use of depleted uranium shells during the Gulf War. More than 340 tons of such shells were fired. (Recently, European governments, investigating complaints from veterans, confirmed widespread radiation contamination in Kosovo from depleted uranium shells used by U.S. forces there.)

Officials of the incoming Bush administration have pledged to tighten the pressure on Iraq. Nonetheless, since many Democrats in Congress may be more willing to question the wisdom (and morality) of U.S. policy toward Iraq when this doesn't require challenging a Democratic president, increased public pressure could yet bring about a change in U.S. policy.

Robert Naiman is senior policy analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

©2001 San Francisco Chronicle

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