A day in infamy

Mennonite Central Committee
Thursday, 31 August 2000

WASHINGTON -- After visiting Iraq last year, 1976 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Mairead Maguire declared, "Sanctions are the economic nuclear bomb." Maquire's analogy is eerily appropriate.

August 6 marked the 55th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima that killed some 125,000 Japanese civilians. August 6 also marked 10 years since economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq. The sanctions have killed more than 1 million Iraqi civilians.

One Iraqi child dies every 10 minutes from sanctions-related causes, according to U.N reports. Dennis Haliday, former U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, states bluntly, "We are destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that."

The U.N.-operated Oil-for-Food Program has modestly increased the availability of food and medicines, but it is woefully insufficient to repair Iraq's crumbling infrastructure. To make matters worse, scores of Iraqi civilians have been killed by continuous U.S. and British bombing in southern and northern Iraq.

A peace activist who visited Iraq 10 times in the last five years told the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Washington Office in July that the discernable difference in his last visit was a profound loss of hope among the Iraqi people.

Congressional voices opposing U.S. policy in Iraq are questioning the morality and effectiveness of sanctions. One member forthrightly calls the sanctions "infanticide masquerading as policy." A congressional staff delegation visited Iraq last August with support from MCC to see for themselves the affect of the sanctions. Rep. Tony Hall (D-Ohio) visited Iraq in April.

In spite of these encouraging signs, there is still massive resistance in Congress to lifting the sanctions. No one wants to "appear soft on Saddam Hussein."

While Green Party candidate Ralph Nader and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan support lifting the economic sanctions against Iraq, both vice-president Al Gore and governor George W. Bush -- the major party presidential candidates -- support keeping the sanctions in place.

MCC opposes broad economic sanctions on Iraq. It began work in Iraq in 1998, building relationships with Iraqi families and delivering food and other relief shipments.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org