Global Policy Forum

A.K. Gupta

From Star Wars to Stuart Little, this is the summer of sequels. But for many, the most anticipated sequel of all hasn't even begun shooting — the invasion of Iraq. Bush and Co. are itching to finish off Saddam Hussein, seeing the Sept. 11 attacks as the perfect pretext to launch Desert Storm II. But another long-playing Mideast show, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, has cooled the White House's war fever, at least for this year.

Feeling rebuffed by Arab audiences who have panned previews of an all-out U.S. invasion, Bush has had to console himself with a Tom Clancyesque plot to bring down Hussein's house.

According to the Washington Post, Bush signed an intelligence order earlier this year directing the CIA to topple Hussein, "including authority to use lethal force." Apparently, this decision presented a dilemma. Not wanting to legitimize attempts on his own head by countermanding a decades-old U.S. policy against assassinating world leaders, Bush instead only authorized CIA and Special Forces teams "to kill Hussein if they were acting in self-defense."

So U.S. policy toward Iraq is apparently now based on hit squads knocking on Hussein's palace doors and asking if he can come out and fight so they can kill him in "self-defense."

Until that happens, the only show playing is the tragedy of sanctions. The Washington Post report came shortly after the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1409 on May 14, imposing "smart sanctions" on Iraq.

Resolution 1409 lifts controls on civilian goods, but a "goods review list" has been retained that can be used to block "dual-use goods." This will likely do little to alleviate the situation of ordinary Iraqis. Foreign investment is still blocked, along with the export of any goods other than oil. And Iraq is not allowed to spend any revenue it legally produces from oil sales domestically.

The imposition of sanctions on August 6, 1990 was originally intended to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, which it had invaded days earlier. Since then, a slew of other conditions have been tacked on — ending Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, a "regime change," ending mistreatment of all Iraqis or persecuted Kurds in the North and Shi'a in the South, accounting for an estimated 200 Kuwaitis still missing from the invasion, letting weapons inspectors back in, etc.

The international consensus has been crumbling after nearly 12 years of sanctions had reduced Iraqis to penury, taking a particularly heavy toll on children. A UNICEF study published in 1999 estimated that the mortality rate for children under five had more than doubled since 1990 from 56 to 131 deaths per 1,000. Some 32 percent of Iraqi children are chronically malnourished, and, according to one estimate, more than 1.5 million Iraqis have died because of the scarcity of medicine and food caused by the sanctions.

The change to smart sanctions is seen as a tacit admission that the previous measures were a failure. A New York Times report noted, "The resolution was intended to blunt any drive to end the sanctions altogether and to deflate criticism that the measures are hurting ordinary Iraqis more than their leader."

Opponents of smart sanctions call them the "same, old stupid sanctions." Voices in the Wilderness (VITW) says smart sanctions mean, "There will be no economic, educational and infrastructure recovery," though it may "make it easier for Iraq to import humanitarian goods."

Previously, any one of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council could place an indefinite "hold" on goods Iraq wished to import. The justification was that this would prevent Iraq from acquiring dual-use goods that could be used in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction — biological, chemical or nuclear. At one point, more than $5 billion worth of goods were held up, almost all by the U.S. and U.K. This included such basic items as ambulances, baking soda, forklifts, chemicals for purifying water, irrigation pipes and even pencils.

Because it can only legally import goods under the "oil-for-food" program established in 1996, Iraq is unable to meet the needs of its 22 million people. In theory, the program allows for unlimited oil exports. But because of Iraq's decaying infrastructure, which has been further hobbled by the blocking of spare parts, it can produce at best 75 percent of its pre-sanctions output of 3.5 million barrels of oil a day.

Iraq never sees a penny of this money; it's controlled by the U.N. Of that, only 70 percent is allocated for goods. The rest goes toward administrative costs and reparations. So, according to VITW, while Iraq sold more than $37 billion worth of oil from 1997 through 2000, "only $9 billion of goods actually arrived in Iraq." For the average Iraqi, this means less than 40 cents a day is allocated to meet all her humanitarian needs.

Despite all this, Iraq accepted Resolution 1409. According to Middle East International, Baghdad's acceptance "was strongly indicative of its current strategy — to get back in the good graces of the international community while limiting its defiance of the U.S. Analysts said Iraqi approval was ‘another clever move to leave no excuses for Washington to launch a war against it.'"

For the foreseeable future, stalemate appears to be the order of the day. There's no international consensus to lift sanctions, but neither is there one to invade Iraq. Bush, Cheney and Powell vow that "they'll be back" to finish the job of terminating Hussein's regime, but no one's lining up to buy tickets to this show.

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