What is the official basis for economic sanctions against Iraq?
The United Nations Security Council first imposed economic (as well as arms-related) sanctions two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 as a means of pressuring the government in Baghdad to withdraw its troops and end its occupation.
After the 1991 Desert Storm war, sanctions were continued under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 687, the Iraq ceasefire resolution. The sanctions were linked to Iraq’s programs to create weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), referring to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Under Article 22 of 687, Baghdad was required to implement eight specific actions that involved identifying and eliminating its WMD programs.
Because the Council maintains that Iraq has not yet completely complied with every point of the WMD requirements, those sanctions have now been in effect for almost 10 years.
What else is going on internationally to maintain the sanctions?
The U.S. government has, from 1990 until today, been the primary backer of maintaining economic sanctions. But it has not been content with the UN-mandated requirements for ending economic sanctions. It has consistently "moved the goalposts" of the sanctions policy. U.S. officials, from President Bush to President Clinton, from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to her predecessor James Baker, and other top-level White House and State Department officials, have stated explicitly that they have no intention of allowing sanctions to be lifted regardless of Iraq’s compliance with the requirements of 687.
For example, on November 14, 1997, President Clinton said that "the sanctions will be there until the end of time or as long as he [Saddam Hussein] lasts." A couple of months earlier, on August 20, 1997, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson had announced that "Sanctions may stay on in perpetuity."
The effect has been to remove any incentive for Iraq to comply with 687, since the U.S. appears committed to maintaining sanctions regardless of Baghdad’s compliance.
What are the effects of economic sanctions on Iraqi civilians?
UN agencies’ reports indicate that 4,000-5,000 children under five are dying each month as a result of sanctions-driven deprivation: primarily from ordinarily treatable diseases resulting from impure water, for which adequate medicine is unavailable. UNICEF’s August 1999 report indicates that if pre-sanctions conditions had continued, Iraq would have seen 500,000 fewer deaths of children under five years old in the last decade.
Even the Security Council’s own panel of experts examining the humanitarian situation in Iraq reported in March 1999 that Iraq has undergone "a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty." They admit that "infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world."
The effects of sanctions go further than immediate physical hardship. As former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Hans von Sponeck has described it, "Iraq’s social fabric is under serious attack." Education, economic life, culture, health care -- all face serious erosion.
What are the effects of economic sanctions on the regime?
On the political level, the sanctions have actually strengthened the Iraqi regime. First, because people once accustomed to cars, movies, wealth and the "good life," now forced to focus on the barest requirements of survival, are unlikely to concentrate on issues like democratization or overthrowing their government. Second, Iraqis know that however insufficient its rations, their "food basket" is provided by the Iraqi government. That is hardly a recipe for anti-government mobilization; rather, it breeds dependency.
On the military level, it is clear that the Iraqi military has not recovered from its devastating defeat during Desert Storm. Former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter has made clear that it can never be possible to prove the 100% level of compliance, essentially proving the negative presence of WMD materials, as the U.S. and its allies define "compliance." But, he says, there is no question that Iraq has been qualitatively disarmed of WMDs. The persistence of economic sanctions now insures that international weapons inspections remain unacceptable to the Iraqi government. The regime has, however, made clear its willingness to accept a new monitoring agency IF it was tied to steps towards lifting (not temporarily suspending) economic sanctions.
Isn’t the Oil for Food program, especially in its latest December 1999 version, designed to minimize the sanctions’ impact on ordinary Iraqis?
The oil for food program is now, and has been since its origins, insufficient to provide for the needs of the Iraqi population. The "food basket" provided through the program was intended to be a supplemental, not total, food allowance; but the overwhelming majority of Iraqis have access to no other food. Food is available in the markets, but most families have no money. As a result, the once-a-month food ration lasts only 20-21 days, leaving families unable to feed their children one week out of four.
Under the new resolution, can’t Iraq export as much oil as it wants? Why doesn’t it just buy more food and medicine?
Even with the "cap" lifted from the amount of oil Iraq is allowed to export and the current high price of oil, Iraq cannot produce sufficient oil to meet its needs. The Iraqi oil infrastructure is simply too devastated since the bombings of 1991 and 1998, and the inability to buy needed repair equipment.
Further, the restrictions imposed by the oil for food program further undermine Iraq’s access to money for humanitarian purposes. For example, 30% of oil for food funds is taken off the top for the Compensation Fund to pay reparations to Western oil companies, the Kuwaiti royal family and other claimants from injuries and losses arising from Iraq’s invasion. (Most of the impoverished individual claimants, largely Arab and South Asian, have already been paid off.) Many critics have proposed suspending that 30% diversion until such time as Iraqi children are no longer dying from the consequences of sanctions.
The newest Security Council oil for food resolution, 1284, was passed in December 1999 under Dutch and British sponsorship. It has been called the "lift the sanctions resolution" but it does not do so. Rather, it adjusts certain aspects of the sanctions regime, creates a new arms monitoring agency, encourages some investment, and forecasts the possibility of a temporary suspension of economic sanctions more than a year down the road. However, the "default" position remains unchanged: economic sanctions are in place. Each temporary four-month suspension must be affirmatively renewed by a new Security Council vote, paving the way for politically-motivated decisionmaking later.
Most important, the kind of large-scale investment Iraq requires to rebuild its oil infrastructure (a necessary precondition to financing the repair of its water, sewage, agricultural, and social infrastructures) remains inaccessible even under 1284. No oil company, accountable to its shareholders, will commit the kind of massive investment needed if it cannot be certain it will be able to repatriate its profits in the future. With the constant threat of eternal sanctions returning, those multi-billion dollar investments remain out of reach.
And even if oil for food some day in the future could provide for basic survival needs, Iraqis, like any other people, need and have a right to more than simply survival. Even people living under a dictatorship have the right to education, culture, a social fabric not shredded by the collapse of their country’s economy caused by the international community’s policies.
