Over A Quarter Of A Million Dead In Iraq!

The latest estimates of American and Iraqi public health experts place the figure of people dead as a result of the war in Iraq at around 655,000. Of course these can't all be placed directly at the door of the American military, but the situation that developed is entirely of their engineering.

I would doubt that you could lay the schism between Sunni and Shia branchs of the Islamic faith at bush's feet. Same for the blood feued between Arab and Kurd.

Seems that human life is just valued diferently there.

 

he attacked kuwait and isreal would you have liked to see him attack kuwait or isreal again .

and if your going to judge someone you should see why they made a choice
the west had three options none of them very good

 

No that would be an incorrect inference. Saddam was brutal, but the consequences of invading and sparking off a civil war were always obviously going to be far, far worse than those of leaving him in power. A policy of containment, while very far from ideal, was obviously the least bad option.

 

is this containment with sanctions killing millions of people and piising off muslims

 

This is a false dichotomy. The deaths caused by sanctions were as a result of a very unfair and inefficient (and indeed corrupt) sanctions regime. There was no need for stopping food and medicines from reaching Iraq, but that's what happened in many cases. You could stop weapons materials from being imported without causing the level of deaths that resulted from improperly imposed sanctions.

 

I agree, that's what this thread is about really. But always you will get those hawks who enjoy defending the killing of hundreds of thousands of humans. The facts on the ground have proved the arguments for war totally mistaken and wrong but still they try to defend it.

 

lithium the people who just blame america are the ones defending the killing of hundreds of thousands, as was pointed out earlier 600,000 people have been killed by jihadis and 50,000 many of them jihadis by the americans .

and Its a pity that you couldnt have shown them how to run these sanctions that wouldnt kill anyone, but those were the sanctions they had.

it could be that saddam was happy to have them working badly to get support from other countrys and have more power in his country in which case we wouldnt have been able to do anything about it.

I didnt support the war but it was a differcult choice, because whatever you would do lots of people would die

 

This claim is just a nonsense: it doesn't make any sense. Who is defending any of the killings, on either side? This entire thread is a vocal condemnation of the killings committed both by the various factions in the civil war and those who ultimately caused the entire situation by starting the war.

There were many very vocal critics, throughout the period, of the US-led policy of punitive sanctions which did far more harm to the Iraqi people than they did to Saddam's regime.

True, though it was quite clear to many from the outset that the route that was chosen was probably going to cause the largest number of deaths and the most amount of suffering compared to the other options. This has now been shown to be the case beyond all doubt.

 

This is the same though with a large portion of American military. They sign up to protect and serve their country and are dropped into our modern day vietnam. The only difference this time, is that the soliders aren't being killed to the same extent as civilians. I don't know what the rules are for British armed forces, but I know if you are in the American armed forces you are not allowed to speak ill if the commands you are given even if you disagree. This is why many speak through letters or anonymous posts on the Internet, etc.

I knew from the start when the U.S. went into Iraq that there would be A LOT of blood shed. I knew that most of it would be civilian and though maybe not at the direct hands of U.S. orders, the actions by the U.S. government would have put into motion circumstances that create a lot of death and destruction.

It saddens me that this war was started as supposed retaliation for the deaths of 4,500+ civilians in the WTC and has caused nearly 122x as many civilians in another country to be killed.

It makes me hate the fact that I was born an American, born into a country that wields its power around in ways to allow it to gain more money/control/and oil. A country that hides behind its real reasons for doing things, creates double standards everywhere it goes, and blatantly lies in order to get its way.

George W. Bush should never have been re-elected ... and in fact, he should be impeached. He lied to become president of one of the world's most powerful countries and he has further destroyed the world's perception of America to the point that I can't stand that I have an accent that doesn't allow me to blend seamlessly into the culture here, as I don't want to be associated with the negative, vile aspects of the country I was born in.

 

Precisely. Yet people are arguing over them as if they are fact.

Regarding the Iraq situation, all I will say is this:

When we had good relations with Saddam, we were "propping up an evil regime".
When we had sanctions against him, we were "causing innocent children to starve".
Now we've toppled him we've "caused a civil war".

Seem to me we had no way to avoid being the bad guy in some people's eyes.

 

Which we were, so should not of been trading with him.

Not if the sanctions excluded food and medicines.

Yep we started a war in someone elses land.

I think we could and should of been a whole lot better than we were.

Just because we got rid of two dictators during the second world war (at the same time replacing them with another in large parts of europe) does not give us the right to go trampling over others however much they dress it up.

 

Medicines were never embargoed. Food was embargoed briefly during the occupation of Kuwait, but this ended in April 1991. Right through the period when the anti-sanctions "dying children" hysteria was being widely propagated through the media, there were no restrictions on the import of food or medicines into Iraq. They even lifted the embargo on oil sales in 1996 to allow purchase of food and medicine (though UN corruption appears to have limited the effect.)

The real problem of sanctions in Iraq was that much of the equipment they need to rebuild public infrastructure (power generation, water treatment, etc.) was blocked because it could also have had military applications. For instance, it's impossible to treat water effectively without using chemicals that could also be used to make mustard gas. It's essentially impossble to ensure that such equipment is put to it's intended use with a dictator like Saddam in charge.

It's easy to criticise the course of US/UK policy on Iraq, but the people who condemn it rarely offer alternative solutions.

 

The alternative solution was... shock and horror... do nothing. Aside, of course, from the obvious military sanctions. Is it the West's role to act as Policeman of the World? If it is, then why not take out every tin pot dictator? America has propped up its fair share in the past, from General Pinochet to the Shah in Iran and the Saudi Royal Family. Why Saddam, and why then? The answer to that question is obvious, and I don't think anyone will deny now the economic motivation behind war. But that aside, even if you agree that there should be no dictatorships in the world, and I would agree there shouldn't, Western military intervention and occupation in a foreign country, lacking an understanding of social, cultural and religious sensitivities, is never a safe option. It's an oldie, but a goodie. Democracy cannot be spread through the barrell of a gun. Democracy is a movement of the people and it must be realised by the people. It took us in the West centuries to achieve that. But imposition of democracy invariably fails, because that is not a movement of the people. Change from within might be slow, but it's the only way to achieve genuine democracy....

 

I think you missed my point. It's impossible to implement effective "military" sanctions. Many essential infrastructure items have military use.

 

Well said, I am not as fully aware as one could be over all such matters.

Do you believe sanctions was the correct way to deal with this conflict ?

 

japan and germany both taken over at the barrel of a gun now democracys .

slavery in the last century was got rid of at the barrel of a gun the royal navy went up and down the coast of africa killing slavers blowing up slaver towns .
if it wasnt for that much of the world would still have slavery , was that the right thing to

 

This isn't true. Many medecines were embargoed. Vaccines, painkillers like morphine, and chemotherapy drugs etc were forbidden by the sanctions regime. Food was not embargoed but the economic sanctions meant that not enough food could be brought in to sustain the population, even after the badly administered (and indeed corrupt) oil-for-food programme was introduced. A large proportion of the population was dependent upon government issued rations and food aid and many died from malnutrition related illnesses.

Yes, chlorine was forbidden as "dual use" so lack of clean water and sanitation also killed many.

Interesting article by David Halliday who quit the oil-for-food programme, criticising its implementation and stating what many of us knew - that it was punishing the people of Iraq, and if anything strengthening Saddam's regime: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm

"When we had good relations with Saddam, we were "propping up an evil regime".
Yes, we were trading arms with a repressive dictator.

"When we had sanctions against him, we were "causing innocent children to starve".
Yes, we were punishing the population and strengthening the regime of a repressive dictator.

Now we've toppled him we've "caused a civil war".
Yes, we've got rid of a repressive dictator and in doing so put in place the one thing that would be worse than a repressive dictator: an escalating civil war.

At every point consideration of the welfare of the innocent population of Iraq seems to have been quite low on the agenda. Each policy shift has tended to worsen the situation. I don't believe any of these decisions and policies were undertaken for humanitarian reasons.

Of course there were alternatives. Critics of the west's policy towards Iraq have been screaming them from the rooftops for decades. Don't sell arms to a tyrant! Don't starve innocent people and deprive them of medecines! Don't invade, kill tens or hundreds of thousands, and trigger a civil war!

Economic sanctions need not have been designed to be so punitive towards the population of Iraq - a regime of inspections was doing a pretty good job of keeping Iraq disarmed and this would still have been the case if Iraq had been allowed to buy enough food to feed its people and to provide them with healthcare and water. A policy of controlled containment was the least worst option in 2003 in humanitarian terms.

 

I'll stand corrected if you can show me a reliable source on this. All the sources I could find were clear that no medications were forbidden. To embargo things like Vaccines and Morphine would be absolutely ludicrous, indefensible foreign policy. Are you sure you don't mean that they weren't getting through? That happened with a lot of essential stuff, but it's very different from a purposeful ban.

Indeed. It's unfortunate that the most essential chemical for water treatment was also the main ingredient of Saddam's favourite Chemical Weapon (Mustard Gas). How exactly could we deal with that?

Sorry but you're revising history here. Saddam stopped cooperating with the inspections very early on. It's true that Iraq didn't substantially re-arm, but without effective inspections, in the absence of sanctions he may have been able to. Mustard gas is trivial to manufacture and easy to hide.

 

I can honestly say I don't know. In principle, sanctions were a sensible middle road between supporting the regime and war, but they're such a quagmire of unintended consequences. It was really a no-win situation. I don't pretend to have all the answers myself, I just dislike the black-and-white thinking that puts US/UK in the wrong no matter what we did.

 

Medical supplies were not banned outright but orders for them were routinely delayed or denied by the UK and US members of the UN Security Council on the grounds that these medecines could be used in weapons of mass destruction. You often see the figure of several hundred million dollars' worth of medical supplies put "on hold" for this reason. This included vaccines, chemotherapy drugs, painkillers.

This resulted in the total unavailability or very severely restricted supplies of some vital lifesaving medecines in Iraq as a direct result of sanctions. As an indirect result of sanctions, the economy of Iraq was crippled so that it could not afford to import adequate quantities of food and medical supplies it was allowed.


Some articles which detail this situation:

From: http://www.scn.org/ccpi/HarpersJoyGordonNov02.html
Quote:
In early 2001, the United States had placed holds on $280 million in medical supplies, including vaccines to treat infant hepatitis, tetanus, and diphtheria, as well as incubators and cardiac equipment. The rationale was that the vaccines contained live cultures, albeit highly weakened ones. The Iraqi government, it was argued, could conceivably extract these, and eventually grow a virulent fatal strain, then develop a missile or other delivery system that could effectively disseminate it. UNICEF and U.N. health agencies, along with other Security Council members, objected strenuously. European biological-weapons experts maintained that such a feat was in fact flatly impossible. At the same time, with massive epidemics ravaging the country, and skyrocketing child mortality, it was quite certain that preventing child vaccines from entering Iraq would result in large numbers of child and infant deaths.


http://www.commondreams.org/views/102300-103.htm
Quote:
Under the embargo, Iraqi hospitals now are limited to the equipment, medicine and supplies that may be purchased through a U.N.-monitored oil-for-food exchange. The Security Council blocks orders that could also have military uses. In 1989, the last full year before Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Ministry of Health spent $500 million on medicines and medical supplies for the nation's public hospitals.

In the four years since the oil-for-food program began, the committee has allowed Iraq to import $980.4 million in health-related goods and is holding requests for $189 million more. The committee has held up orders for heart and lung machines, syringes and thermometers, ambulances and refrigerated trucks.


From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,232986,00.html
Quote:
Just before Christmas [1999], the department of trade and industry in London blocked a shipment of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Dr Kim Howells told parliament why. .... The children's vaccines were banned, he said, "because they are capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction". That his finger was on the trigger of a proven weapon of mass destruction - sanctions - seemed not to occur to him. A courtly, eloquent Irishman, Denis Halliday resigned as co-ordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq in 1998, after 34 years with the UN; he was then Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, one of the elite of senior officials. He had made his career in development, "attempting to help people, not harm them". His was the first public expression of an unprecedented rebellion within the UN bureaucracy. "I am resigning," he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that . . . Five thousand children are dying every month . . . I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures like these."


http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views01/1102-08.htm
Quote:
Case in point is Iraqis who survive regular U.S.-British bombings—there is no morphine to take for their pain. Under the sanctions, morphine is a “dual use” item that can be used by the military, so it is barred from entering Iraq, according to von Sponek. “I used to visit hospitals in Baghdad after these bombings and see burn victims without pain-killing medications,” he said. ...

Thomas J. Nagy wrote in the Sept. 2001 issue of the Progressive, "I've discovered documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway."

Since water purification is an essential humanitarian service it was criminal that the water infrastructure of Iraq was crippled for the 12 years or so of sanctions. Weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq for most of that time. The import and use of chlorine in water purification could have been strictly controlled, regulated and monitored by the UN to ensure it was not used for military purposes. It should never have been banned outright.

History has shown that the weapons inspectors did an incredibly effective job of destroying, monitoring, and preventing the redevelopment of Iraq's military. The idea of the inspections as failures, with Saddam running rings around them is largely a media invention propagated by those whose interest this idea serves - the UK and US goverments. The inspectors did an amazing job in the circumstances as history has proved. They demonstrated the absence of WMD programmes and kept tight controls on banned military activity.

Of course the west should have tried to make sure Saddam did not import material which could obviously be used for military purposes. They should have continued to monitor and inspect and try to keep him in check while helping the people of Iraq. Instead they strenghtened Saddam's regime and harmed the people of Iraq. Why was our concern not in protecting the people of Iraq? We added insult to injury. We massacred hundreds of thousands of an already repressed and brutalised people. To starve a population and prevent them from accessing water and medicine on the basis that Saddam might, one day, perhaps, become a threat is unforgivable.


http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s207626.htm
Quote:
The major requirement was that Iraq get rid of all its weapons of mass destruction and the capacity to produce them. An admirable and essential goal, and one which was achieved, for all practical purposes, by the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams. Scott Ritter, one of the UNSCOM inspectors, has stated that Iraq has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons capacity left. However it is impossible to absolutely prove disarmament down to the last document, plan or test-tube, and Iraq is now in the impossible position of having to prove a negative, that they have no capacity for producing weapons of mass destruction. Halliday states that to maintain the sanctions on the pretext of looking for more weapons is a political decision which has some other agenda. ...

Denis Halliday, like Ramsey Clark, refers to the sanctions as genocide. He says that they do nothing but target civilians and that they strengthen the position of Saddam Hussein. He was in Australia in April this year to attempt to persuade the Australian government to rethink its strong support for the sanctions. Unfortunately, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer did not budge from support for US policy.