December 16, 2000
US Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell said on Saturday he would work with American allies to re-enhance sanctions against Iraq despite the ravage effect on the Iraqi people.
The UN Sanctions, which were imposed on Iraq in 1990 after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, are of a continuous devastating effect reducing the Iraqi people to poverty and causing a severe humanitarian crisis. One in five Iraqi children under the age of five is undernourished, the Iraqi education system that was once the envy of the Arab world is crumbling and Iraq's GDP per capita has fallen from 3,100 dollars in 1989 to less than 250 dollars, according to UN figures. In April this year, increased calls from several UN humanitarian officials to lift the embargo led to the UN Security Council recommendation of a conditional suspension of sanctions.
Powell, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff oversaw the US military during the Gulf War, claimed Iraq had not lived up to the obligations of the 1991 truce, which called for Baghdad to account for any weapons of mass destruction it possessed and arms technologies programs. "They have not yet fulfilled those agreements and my judgment is that sanctions in some form must be kept in place until they do so," Powell said. "We will work with our allies to re-energize the sanctions regime." Powell was responding to a reporter's question during the ceremony at which President-elect George W. Bush named him to the top US foreign policy post.
Regarding Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Powell said he was sitting on a failed regime. "Saddam Hussein is sitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years' time," Powell said. "The world is going to leave him behind, and that regime behind, as the world marches to new drummers, drummers of democracy and the free enterprise system," Powell added. "We are in the strong position," Powell said. "He is in the weak position. And I think it's possible to re-energize those sanctions and continue to contain him and then confront him should that become necessary."
Misery
In the US-led Gulf War that ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait, Powell served under Bush's father, then-President George Bush. Even though he lost reelection to Bill Clinton in 1992, former President Bush is still the man Iraqis blame for their misery, after a war that devastated their country and 10 years of sanctions that led to the death of at least one million Iraqis as it crippled the once-strong Iraqi economy.
"Sanctions have gone wide of their mark," claimed Hans von Sponeck, the former UN aid chief to Iraq who resigned in March in protest at the devastating effect the embargo was having on the Iraqi population.
This year, sanctions against Iraq have been eroded, with many countries, including Russia, France and Arab countries resuming flights to Baghdad and moving to revive trade with the oil-rich state.
Iraq stated that it expects nothing different from the United States under President-elect George W. Bush, as Washington is ruled by moneyed interests, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said Saturday. "Be the American government Republican or Democrat, there will be no change in American policy" toward Iraq, Aziz said in the highest-level Iraqi reaction since Bush was confirmed the victor of the November 7 election. "In America, there's an institution that governs. That's money, which confers power," he told reporters after visiting a Spanish delegation that flew into Iraq in defiance of sanctions.
Aziz said the current situation in Iraq was in the interest of the US military-industrial complex, so it can "sell arms to countries that don't need them and don't even have any use for them." "If this military-industrial complex makes a profit, little matters if children die or if the Iraqi people are deprived of their vital needs," he said.
