Iraq

[BeardofPants]

FAIR Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting 112 W. 27th Street New York, NY
10001
ACTION ALERT:
Common Myths in Iraq Coverage

November 27, 2002

An issue as serious as the Iraq crisis deserves the highest possible degree
of accuracy from the press. U.S. media coverage, however, is marked by
frequent misstatements and distortions of reality-- some of which have been
made repeatedly, even after being pointed out by critics.

Here are a few examples of commonly repeated errors:

1. "But as U.N. weapons inspectors prepare to return to Iraq for the first
time since Saddam kicked them out in 1998, the U.S. faces a delicate
balancing act: transforming the international consensus for disarmament into
a consensus for war." --Randall Pinkston, CBS Evening News (11/9/02).

One of the most common media errors on Iraq is the claim that the U.N.
weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998 because they were "kicked out" or
"expelled" (Extra! Update, 10/02). The inspectors, led by Richard Butler,
actually left voluntarily, knowing that a U.S. bombing campaign was
imminent. This was reported accurately throughout the U.S. press at the
time: "Butler ordered his inspectors to evacuate Baghdad, in anticipation of
a military attack, on Tuesday night" (Washington Post, 12/18/98).

2. "The last weapons inspectors were pulled out of Iraq nearly four years
ago. Baghdad charged that there were spies on the team, and the United
States complained that Iraq was using the accusation as an excuse to
obstruct the inspectors. After the team withdrew, the U.S. and Britain waged
a four-day bombing campaign."
--L.A. Times (11/19/02)

Treating the use of the U.N. weapons inspection team for espionage as a mere
Iraqi allegation might be referred to as "Saddam Says" reporting. In fact,
reports of the misuse of the inspectors for spying were made in early 1999
by some of the leading U.S. newspapers, sourced to U.S. and U.N. officials
(FAIR Action Alert, 9/24/02). These papers reported as fact that "American
spies had worked undercover on teams of United Nations arms inspectors" (New
York Times, 1/7/99) in order to "eavesdrop on the Iraqi military without the
knowledge of the U.N. agency" (Washington Post, 3/2/99) as part of "an
ambitious spying operation designed to penetrate Iraq's intelligence
apparatus and track the movement of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein" (Boston
Globe, 1/6/99).

3. "Many [in Iraq], of course, are bitter over the 12-year-long
U.S.-supported embargo, which Baghdad claims has led to thousands of infants
and elderly people dying from preventable diseases."
--Time (11/25/02)

The topic of sanctions is also often covered in a "Saddam Says" fashion. In
fact, there are detailed reports on the deadly effects of sanctions that
come from respected international health organizations and public health
experts, not from the Iraqi government. For example, UNICEF published a
report in August 1999 that found that sanctions against Iraq had contributed
to the deaths of 500,000 children under five. Richard Garfield, a public
health specialist at Columbia University, estimates that 350,000 children
have died as a result of sanctions and the lingering effects of the 1991
Gulf War (The Nation, 12/6/01; 12/6/01). To describe a death toll in this
range as "thousands" is like saying that "dozens" of people died in the
World Trade Center attacks.

4. "The Pentagon also points out, the Bush administration also points out
very, very strongly, that the Iraqi regime itself is to blame for all of
these problems. If they simply complied with U.N. Security Council
resolutions and disarm, there would be no sanctions, there would be no
problem getting medical supplies, doctor, pediatricians, to all parts of
Iraq."
--Wolf Blitzer, CNN (11/7/02)

It's not at all clear that sanctions against Iraq would automatically be
lifted if the country disarmed; President George Bush the elder declared in
1991, shortly after the sanctions were imposed, "My view is we don't want to
lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." His secretary
of state James Baker concurred: "We are not interested in seeing a
relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power."

President Clinton made a point of saying that his policy toward Iraq was
exactly the same as his predecessor's. His secretary of state Madeleine
Albright stated in her first major foreign policy address in 1997: "We do
not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its
obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be
lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful
intentions.... And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's
intentions will never be peaceful." (See Institute for Public Accuracy,
11/13/98. )


From here.

[Dunadan]

Originally posted by Finmandos12
Time to refute Dunadan's points.

Prepare to have your refutations refuted (is that a metarefutation?)

Originally posted by Finmandos12

When was the last time we used nuclear weapons? Almost fifty years ago. Also, we do not use biological or chemical weapons.

Well, you are the only country ever to have used them at all. However, that's not the point, since it probably saved more lives than it took. No, the point is that you sell them to your cronies, like Saddam, who then use them. Now you're working on "business friendly" mini-nukes which will take out punters but leave the pipelines intact. Nice. And what do you call cruise missiles and carpet bombing? Napalm? Are these Weapons of Not Very Much Destruction or something??

Originally posted by Finmandos12

We have never undermined a democratic government. We have supported bad dictators in the past. But in these countries, the alternative (Communism) was even worse than the dictators we supported. You have to understand that there is not always a choice between good gov'ts and bad gov'ts: the choice is often between a bad gov't and an even worse gov't.

Right, that would be why the deomcratically elected Allende government in Chile was overthrown by a US-back coup and led to 20+ years of military dictatorship, state-sponsored torture and mass murder of its own citizens.

Originally posted by Finmandos12

Whose fault do you think it is that Iraq stays as a third world country? Perhaps Saddam?

Sure, though 12 years of sanctions haven't helped. In fact, they've probably killed half a million people.

Originally posted by Finmandos12

The countries where people are starving are countries where the gov't is our enemy. None of our allied countries are starving to death.

So presumably that's why the US development aid budget is less than half that of the UK (as a proportion of GDP) and one-eighth that of the Netherlands.

Originally posted by Finmandos12

If our government only cared about money, we wouldn't even bother standing up to these countries. We would just let them do whatever they wanted to, without taking the risk of war messing up the economy. If we only cared about Iraq for oil, we wouldn't have imposed sanctions. We would have lobbied the UN to drop sanctions on Iraq so we could trade with them.

Well, you clearly understand nothing about the globalised market. To take one example, the US depends on the cheap labour of third world countries to keep them in Nike trainers and SUVs. On the oil issue, as JD has pointed out in the past, the US doesn't need Iraq's oil, but it's a long game: if they can't find enough reserves by digging up the Alaskan wilderness, they're gonna need it sooner or later. They also, as I've said before, are painfully aware that OPEC holds the world economy (and therefore the US economy) in its hands. Here's a chance to re-draw the map and undermine the Saudis.

It's also good for the ratings, of course; it's a way of diverting huge amounts of government cash into business; and you can get people to swallow all sorts of propaganda in the name of patriotism. I recommend you read Orwell's 1984: War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength.

Originally posted by Finmandos12

Where have you been for the last three months? We've been trying to work through the UN to get it to enforce its own regulations. We have not invaded yet, we have tried to come to an agreement with our "allies."

Except when they don't agree with you, in which case you call them ungrateful cowards. Oh, and except that you've made clear that you're going in whatever the UN says.

Originally posted by Finmandos12

You wanna know who's motives are 100% business? France and Russia. Saddam owes them big debts and they don't want to see those debts erased.

I agree. I think all of these governments are entirely self-interested. It's utterly naive to think otherwise.

Originally posted by Finmandos12

"Extreme right-wing?" Compared to Clinton, maybe. If Bush is so extreme, why does he have high approval ratings?

See above.

cheers

d.

[Dunadan]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Common Myths in Iraq Coverage

Nice one, BoP.

Classic doublethink on the part of US/UK govts.

If truth is the first casualty in war, then the last Gulf War is still going on.

cheers

d.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Dunadan
Nice one, BoP.

Classic doublethink on the part of US/UK govts.

If truth is the first casualty in war, then the last Gulf War is still going on.

Well actually the Gulf War IS still going on. The terms of the cease fire was that Hussein would disarm. He has not. The UN has just repeatedly issued resolutions which he has used as doormats.

Also = BoP's information isn't all correct either. For one thing - the US has repeatedly been fighting for "smart sanctions" which would ALLEVIATE the suffering of the Iraqi citizens. France and Russia have repeatedly blocked this. It would cut into their billions of illegal deals they currently have with Iraq.

Saddam Hussein refused to cooperate with the inspectors anymore in 1998 - that is why we bombed them. Actually - invation WAS supposed to be the outcome of Iraq not cooperating - except the world just wanted to turn it's back.

Dunadan - I might want to remind you that GERMANY was supplying a lot to Iraq and still does, Britain did, France did and does, as well as Russia and other countries. Just because we might have supplied him during the cold war to prevent Iran from taking control of the region - DOES NOT mean that we should just sit back and let him keep his weapons and develop far more when the situation has changed. This is a far different time than the cold war. If we based our foreign policy on who was our enemies and friends in the passed - The US and England shoud be arch enemies. We had to fight for our freedom, you invaded us and attempted to burn down Washington in 1812, during the Civil War you supported the South trying to get America to destroy itself so you could pick up the pieces. About 50 years later we were fighting side by side with Britain to help defeat Germany during WWI.

Concerning the ignorant statement - too bad it represents the peace marchers more than anyone else. It's see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Then when something does happen - everyone stands up and says "Why wasn;t something done before". It happened with Osama Bin Ladin, with Hitler, with North Korea, etc. History is strewn with dictators where the world just let them go about their business as they continued to build up their weaponry and plans - but no one wanted to make the tough decision to put an end to it before it blew up into something even larger.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Dunadan
Clinton achieved diddly squat in office because his relatively "left-wing" (I use that term very loosely ) executive was hamstrung by Congress and was nearly hounded out of office by right-wing federal prosecutors.

My mistake - fro some reason I THOUGHT that Clinton enojoyed a majority of democrats in the House and the Sentate his first term. Oh yeah - I am right.

Concerning the impeachment trials - maybe you should read the Constitution. It's the WRITTEN document that our government stands on. Impeachment procedings according the Constitution had to take place. He was obstructing justice. The president swears to uphold the Constitution.

JD, the collapse of communism had nothing at all to do with Reagan. He, like Bush Jr, was little more than a block of wood with some strings coming out the back. The lasting legacy of his era is a Supreme Court packed with right wingers.

yeah sure. If you think so. Without Gorbachev, Reagan and Margaret Thatcher the Soviet Union would still be there, Germany would still be split, along with Berlin, Eastern Europe would still be living under a totalitarian government.

[Dunadan]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
My mistake - fro some reason I THOUGHT that Clinton enojoyed a majority of democrats in the House and the Sentate his first term. Oh yeah - I am right.

No, you're wrong, as usual. The Democrats controlled Congress for or all of two years during the Clinton presidency. He was reduced to vetoing Republican tax cuts to try to preserve what was left of welfare.

But that's the whole point about the US system: it's supposed to be impossible for the President to do any meaningful political intervention which gets in the way of business. But now we've got business controlling the three arms of your government, who knows what we're in for? Oh wait, I do: a war, more weapons, tax cuts for the rich, reneging whatever treaties might disrupt profits and crap all over anyone or anything that gets in the way.

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Concerning the impeachment trials - maybe you should read the Constitution. It's the WRITTEN document that our government stands on. Impeachment procedings according the Constitution had to take place. He was obstructing justice. The president swears to uphold the Constitution. [/B]

Yes, and when they found out that he didn't do anything wrong, they kept digging until they caught him lying about porking some intern.

Originally posted by jerseydevil

yeah sure. If you think so. Without Gorbachev, Reagan and Margaret Thatcher the Soviet Union would still be there, Germany would still be split, along with Berlin, Eastern Europe would still be living under a totalitarian government.

Oh, right, so it was Reagan standing on that tank outside the Russian parliament. I wondered where he'd got to.

[BeardofPants]

Edit: See below.

[BeardofPants]

"We Think the Price Is Worth It"
Media uncurious about Iraq policy's effects- there or here

By Rahul Mahajan

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Ambassador to the U.N. Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It's also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks (e.g., Alexander Cockburn, New York Press, 9/26/01).

But a Dow Jones search of mainstream news sources since September 11 turns up only one reference to the quote--in an op-ed in the Orange Country Register (9/16/01). This omission is striking, given the major role that Iraq sanctions play in the ideology of archenemy Osama bin Laden; his recruitment video features pictures of Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine (New York Daily News, 9/28/01). The inference that Albright and the terrorists may have shared a common rationale--a belief that the deaths of thousands of innocents are a price worth paying to achieve one's political ends--does not seem to be one that can be made in U.S. mass media.

It's worth noting that on 60 Minutes, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl--a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. In general, the response from government officials about the sanctions’ toll has been rather different: a barrage of equivocations, denigration of U.N. sources and implications that questioners have some ideological axe to grind (Extra!, 3-4/00).

There has also been an attempt to seize on the lowest possible numbers. In early 1998, Columbia University's Richard Garfield published a dramatically lower estimate of 106,000 to 227,000 children under five dead due to sanctions, which was reported in many papers (e.g. New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2/15/98). Later, UNICEF came out with the first authoritative report (8/99), based on a survey of 24,000 households, suggesting that the total “excess” deaths of children under 5 was about 500,000.

A Dow Jones search shows that, although some papers covered the UNICEF report, none mentioned that the previous figure had been contradicted. In fact, papers continue to cite the obsolete Garfield numbers (Baltimore Sun, 9/24/01).

Who's to blame

The summer of 2001 saw a revival of long-discredited claims that sanctions are not to blame for Iraq's suffering, but that Saddam Hussein bears sole responsibility--an argument put forward in a State Department report (8/99) issued shortly after the UNICEF report on the deaths of children. Seizing on the fact that infant mortality had decreased in northern Iraq, which is under U.N. administration, while more than doubling in the rest of the country, where the government of Iraq is in charge, the State Department accused Baghdad of wide-scale misappropriation of funds from Iraqi oil sales earmarked for humanitarian purposes.

Michael Rubin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who spent nine months as a private citizen in northern Iraq, has pushed this argument in at least eight op-eds in papers ranging from the Wall Street Journal (8/9/01) to the Los Angeles Times (8/12/01). These op-eds follow the same basic theme: Since conditions in the north of Iraq are much better than the rest of the country, Saddam must be taking oil-for-food money and using it to buy weapons; Iraqis don't want sanctions lifted, they want Saddam out; the U.S. should support the overthrow of Saddam.

In fact, oil-for-food money is administered by the U.N., and disbursed directly from a U.S. bank account to foreign suppliers, so direct misappropriation of funds is impossible. Allegations about misappropriation of goods on the other end have repeatedly been denied by U.N. officials administering the program in Iraq (e.g. Denis Halliday, press release, 9/20/99), a fact that has garnered virtually no media coverage (Extra!, 3-4/00).

The disparity between north and south in Iraq has to do primarily with structural factors not considered in mainstream media coverage, including the fact that the north, Iraq's breadbasket, is far less dependent on imported food. Per capita, citizens of the north receive 50 percent more oil-for-food relief, and much more humanitarian aid.

[BeardofPants]

While Rubin was given space for his misrepresentation of the effects of sanctions, critics of the sanctions were virtually shut out of the debate. When the Bush administration put forward a proposal for a new, supposedly less deadly embargo known as "smart sanctions," only one major newspaper (Seattle Times, 5/14/01) carried an op-ed that criticized the plan for not doing enough to help the Iraqi people. Among those who could not get published were Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, both former coordinators of the U.N. oil-for-food program who resigned because the program failed to prevent the humanitarian disaster caused by sanctions.

Biological warfare?

With renewed concern about biological warfare in the U.S., it's worth noting an instance of the use of disease for military purposes that has gone almost uncovered. Last year, Thomas Nagy of Georgetown University unearthed a Defense Intelligence Agency document entitled "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," which was circulated to all major allied commands one day after the Gulf War started. It analyzed the weaknesses of the Iraqi water treatment system, the effects of sanctions on a damaged system and the health effects of untreated water on the Iraqi populace. Mentioning that chlorine is embargoed under the sanctions, it speculates that "Iraq could try convincing the United Nations or individual countries to exempt water treatment supplies from sanctions for humanitarian reasons," something that the United States disallowed for many years.

Combined with the fact that nearly every large water treatment plant in the country was attacked during the Gulf War, and seven out of eight dams destroyed, this suggests a deliberate targeting of the Iraqi water supply for "postwar leverage," a concept U.S. government officials admitted was part of military planning in the Gulf War (Washington Post, 6/23/91).

A Dow Jones search for 2000 finds only one mention of this evidence in an American paper--and that in a letter to the editor (Austin American-Statesman, 10/01/00). Subsequent documents unearthed by Nagy (The Progressive, 8/10/01) suggest that the plan to destroy water treatment, then to restrict chlorine and other necessary water treatment supplies, was done with full knowledge of the explosion of water-borne disease that would result. "There are no operational water and sewage treatment plants and the reported incidence of diarrhea is four times above normal levels," one post-war assessment reported; "further infectious diseases will spread due to inadequate water treatment and poor sanitation," another predicted.

Combine this with harsh and arbitrary restrictions on medicines, the destruction of Iraq's vaccine facilities, and the fact that, until this summer, vaccines for common infectious diseases were on the so-called "1051 list" of substances in practice banned from entering Iraq. Deliberately creating the conditions for disease and then withholding the treatment is little different morally from deliberately introducing a disease-causing organism like anthrax, but no major U.S. paper seems to have editorialized against the U.S. engaging in biological warfare--or even run a news article reporting Nagy's evidence that it had done so. (The Madison Capitol Times--8/14/01--and the Idaho Statesman--10/2/01--ran op-eds that cited Nagy’s work.)

[BeardofPants]

Decreased safety?

While there has never been much sustained attention in U.S. media to the costs of sanctions inside Iraq, one might expect the renewed concern for safety to occasion critical re-appraisal of whether U.S. policy towards Iraq contributes to or undermines American security. But there has been no such re-examination of, for example, the December 1998 bombing campaign known as "Desert Fox."

Contrary to much subsequent reporting, Iraq did not expel U.N. weapons inspectors in December 1998; rather, the U.S. withdrew them in preparation for conducting the unprovoked, unauthorized military strike. Many critics at the time suggested that this would make it impossible to conduct future inspections--especially after it was revealed that the CIA had been using weapons inspection as a cover for military espionage (Washington Post, 1/6/99; Extra!, 3-4/99)--rendering verification that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction impossible. This analysis got little play in the media at that time.

The de-stabilizing effect of the airstrikes was evaluated at the time by analysts like the Merchant International Group (London Times, 1/1/99) as likely to increase the threat of terrorism. Yet more recent U.S. policies have followed a similar approach. In July 2001, the U.S. decided to dump a proposed protocol for inspections and other mechanisms designed to give teeth to the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, preferring instead to rely on surveillance and espionage coupled with unilateral enforcement (New York Times, 7/25/01)--presumably through more strikes like Desert Fox, and like the August 1998 bombing of the El Shifa plant in Sudan, which turned out to produce pharmaceuticals, not chemical weapons. Since then, it has been reported that U.S. bioweapons research "pushes" the limits of the 1972 treaty, and that the Pentagon is even planning to produce a new strain of anthrax, ostensibly to test anti-anthrax procedures (New York Times, 9/4/01). Even before the September 11 attacks, bombing of Iraq had dramatically increased. In February 2001, two dozen U.S. and British planes attacked Iraqi radar installations, some of them out of the "no-fly" zones. In August and early September, there were at least six more pre-planned attacks to degrade Iraqi air defense. This was part of a comprehensive plan for multiple strikes, with a U.S. government official quoted (on MSNBC, 9/14/01) as saying "Hitting targets one by one doesn't draw the same kind of attention or reaction. It takes longer, but it should eventually get the job done." It's certainly true that the bombing campaign didn't receive much notice from a Gary Condit-fixated media.

Independent military analysts like George Friedman of Stratfor (a private intelligence company) had concluded that this sustained attack on Iraqi air defense was a prelude to another major bombing like 1998's Desert Fox. This is particularly relevant once again, with frenzied attempts by commentators to link Iraq and bin Laden, or to assert that such a connection wasn't necessary to justify a renewed bombing of Baghdad (William F. Buckley, National Review, 10/9/01). Laurie Mylroie, an analyst noted for a 1987 New Republic article urging the U.S. to support Saddam Hussein ("Back Iraq," 4/27/87), has been making her rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows and op-ed pages (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 9/13/01; CNN Crossfire, 9/27/01) peddling her book, Study of Revenge, claiming that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, based on the questionable analysis of the identity of one man.

TV's drive to convict Iraq may have something to do with the fact that Iraq has real targets for bombing campaigns, unlike Afghanistan, which is already in ruins after more than 20 years of U.S., Soviet and other foreign meddling. Although no immediate plans to bomb Iraq have been revealed, if the Bush administration follows the advice of hawkish pundits like William Kristol and Fred Barnes, don't expect U.S. journalists to do a better job than they have so far in explaining the bombing's impact on the people of Iraq--and on U.S. security.


From http://www.fair.org

And I notice that they're called US sanctions.

There is a bit about smart sanctions, above. This is what you're talking about?

[BeardofPants]

Chapter 6 “Smart” Sanctions, Price Disputes and Military Threats

6.1. Background

Sanctions results in the 1990s suggest that comprehensive economic sanctions are ineffective and do not reliably persuade the leadership of an offending country to make required policy changes. (124) Secretary Generals Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan have made this point repeatedly in public statements. The Security Council itself no longer uses such broad sanctions in other international security crises and seeks instead to develop more “targeted” sanctions.

UN officials, academic experts and national policy makers have recently held a number of conferences to consider how sanctions could be better targeted on the arms trade and on the personal finances and travel of responsible leaders and elites. The most important such efforts are known as the Interlaken Process (sponsored by the Swiss government) which began in March 1998, the Bonn-Berlin Processes (sponsored by the German government) which began in November 1999, and the Stockholm Process (sponsored by the Swedish government) which began in February, 2002. (125)

The Security Council briefly imposed targeted sanctions on the Iraqi leadership through Resolution 1137 of November 12, 1997, prohibiting international travel of listed leaders until full compliance with UNSCOM inspectors had been restored. That resolution brought swift Iraqi compliance, and seemed a great success, but curiously the Council did not further use this effective and well-targeted measure.

As international and domestic opposition to Iraq sanctions mounted in the late 1990’s, and as pressure rose for targeted sanctions against the Iraqi leadership, United States and UK policy makers sought means to deflect criticisms while holding the comprehensive sanctions system in place. During the US presidential election campaign in 2000, candidate George W. Bush often spoke of the need for a new approach to Iraq sanctions. Secretary of State Powell, in his congressional confirmation hearings in early 2001, repeatedly stressed the need to shore up public opinion against Iraq through what he referred to as “smart” sanctions:
So this wasn't an effort to ease the sanctions; this was an effort to rescue the sanctions policy that was collapsing. We discovered that we were in an airplane that was heading to a crash, and what we have done and what we are trying to do is to pull it out of that dive and put it on an altitude that's sustainable, bring the coalition back together.” (126) Early in 2001, after a tour of the region by Secretary Powell, the UK government (with US support) proposed to modify Iraq sanctions. The UK did not propose targeting the Iraqi leadership, however, ignoring several years of discussions about more effective sanctions. Rather, the UK proposed a further streamlining of imports, combined with more rigorous controls at Iraq’s borders to prevent smuggling. Eventually, after much discussion, this proposal bogged down in the summer of 2001 in the face of doubts by many Council members and a threatened Russian veto.

The events of September 11, 2001 changed the political equation on the Council and created greater unity among the permanent members through shared concern about terrorism and related issues. As a result, opposition by Russia, China and France to Iraq sanctions softened, opening the way for a modified version of the original UK resolution centering on a Goods Review List (GRL) to streamline imports. Resolution 1382 (November 2001) provided for a GRL to be adopted by the Council by May 29, 2002. The GRL theoretically offered a means to speed contract approval by compiling in advance a list of potentially dual-use items, with all remaining items exempted from automatic Sanctions Committee review. Committee members would retain the option, though, to block future contracts.

The United States and Russia negotiated the GRL list over the course of several months, with the Russians favoring a short list and the US favoring a long one. The United States lifted holds on $200 million in Russian contracts and it promised to lift holds on $550 more as a means to secure Russian agreement. (127) France and China allegedly asked for holds on their contracts to be lifted also, as a condition of their agreement. (128) Since the policies of the US and the UK are widely believed to be driven by commercial interests in the oil sector, this bargaining fed the perception that the Security Council sanctions are dominated by commercial dealing among the permanent members, not by concerns about “peace and security” or arms control.(129) The elected members of the Council were kept, as usual, entirely in the dark until the resolution was finally submitted to the Council on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

[BeardofPants]

6.2. Smart Sanctions vs. Targeted Sanctions

Reconstruction and economic revival, not the relief-based approach of the Oil-for-Food program and its “smart” variant, are essential to human development and the human rights of Iraq’s people.

US-inspired smart sanctions, mainly in the form of a Goods Review List, completely fail to address the major problems of the current sanctions against Iraq. Four pillars of the present sanctions effectively prevent the rebuilding of Iraq’s economy:

• Targeting the entire population, not just leaders
• Controlling Iraq’s oil export income through a cumbersome UN-administered “escrow account”
• Controlling Iraqi imports in ways that limit access to key goods, especially items for Iraq’s infrastructure and for its oil sector, and that drastically slow the delivery of most contracts
• Prohibiting foreign investment and freezing all foreign assets

The four pillars have remained the basic operating method of the (new) sanctions. No government could restore a healthy domestic economy within the confines of such sanctions. As the Security Council itself concluded in 1999, Oil-for-Food cannot provide a framework for rebuilding Iraq and restoring its vital infrastructure. (130)

The “smart” sanctions initially envisaged by the Security Council in Resolution 1382 and finally adopted in Resolution 1409 are not smart. They do not follow the recommendations of the Interlaken or Bonn-Berlin process. (131) They do not reflect a focus on the culprit regime or a better targeting of military equipment. While theoretically speeding up delivery of certain goods, these proposals also allow the blocking of vital imports. Iraq needs foreign investment projects and contact with the outside world to train a new generation of Iraqi managers, scientists and technicians. An open Iraq would almost certainly lead to positive political changes. Instead, “smart” sanctions shore up the old, failed system.

Judging by the experience of “fast-track” lists drawn up in 2000, the new “smart” sanctions could increase the volume of humanitarian goods arriving in Iraq, but this is by no means sure. Some well-informed observers think that the new system will be no better than the old and possibly worse, depending on how UNMOVIC, IAEA and OIP are able to handle the new process of contract compliance scrutiny. Even if the new arrangements result in some marginal improvement, they offer far too little to address the pressing humanitarian crisis. So much effort for such small gain suggests that the US and the UK are more interested in “public relations” (New York Times) or “cosmetic surgery” (The Economist) than in speeding up goods shipments to Iraq. (132)

From here.

[BeardofPants]

Nevermind.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Dunadan
No, you're wrong, as usual. The Democrats controlled Congress for or all of two years during the Clinton presidency. He was reduced to vetoing Republican tax cuts to try to preserve what was left of welfare.

But that's the whole point about the US system: it's supposed to be impossible for the President to do any meaningful political intervention which gets in the way of business. But now we've got business controlling the three arms of your government, who knows what we're in for? Oh wait, I do: a war, more weapons, tax cuts for the rich, reneging whatever treaties might disrupt profits and crap all over anyone or anything that gets in the way.

Sorry - but the house is still very split. The president can't just railroad things through. You are obviously ignorant of our system or of how the Congress is currently split. Of course this has been made abundandly clear from the past threads.

And let me see - how do YOU have business controlling three arms of the government? You are English. Unless you become an AMERICAN citizen - you have NOTHING to do with our government. The midterm elections were in November - the Democrats could have regained the house and even possibly the Senate - instead they actually lost seats. If you want a say in US politics and our government - then move to the US.

Also - the authorization from Congress to go to war against Iraq - was HEAVILY supported by the Democrats.

Yes, and when they found out that he didn't do anything wrong, they kept digging until they caught him lying about porking some intern.

I find it OFFENSIVE thatr the president would have sex in the oval office. He was also NOT taking phone calls from congressman during the time that the government was shutdown because of the budget - he was too busy with his intern. If it was any other person in a business - they would have been out of there. He also lied under oath and tried to get others to lie - which in this country IS a crime.

Article II
Section 2
The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Oh, right, so it was Reagan standing on that tank outside the Russian parliament. I wondered where he'd got to.

At that time the Soviet Union was already failing. That was after Reagan was out of office. I DO remember the storming of the Russian Parliament I guess your feeling is that nothing in the past has any bearing on the future or present. Yeah that all happened in a vacuum I guess.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Nevermind.

Why should your information be anymore valid?

Sanctions would be lifted if Hussein complied. They may BE called US sancations - but they instituted by the United NATIONS. They can lift them - but the US would veto it. It's Husseins fault that his people suffer - NOT the US. He lives in splender while his people live with nothing.

It's like the hypocrits from Hollywood screaming about homeless people and poverty - as they strut onto the awards stage wearing enough diamonds to supply food to an entire third world country.

Sorry - you say you're not anti-American - but most things you talk about - are AGAINST America. I don't think there is a single thing that you think America does right in this world. And let me see if I care.... Nope don't.

[BeardofPants]

I critique the govt, not the people, JD.

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Sanctions would be lifted if Hussein complied.

It's not at all clear that sanctions against Iraq would automatically be
lifted if the country disarmed; President George Bush the elder declared in
1991, shortly after the sanctions were imposed, "My view is we don't want to
lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." His secretary
of state James Baker concurred: "We are not interested in seeing a
relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power."

President Clinton made a point of saying that his policy toward Iraq was
exactly the same as his predecessor's. His secretary of state Madeleine
Albright stated in her first major foreign policy address in 1997: "We do
not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its
obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be
lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful
intentions.... And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's
intentions will never be peaceful."

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by BeardofPants


I critique the govt, not the people, JD.

So then our government (by the people) has never done anything right?

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
So then our government (by the people) has never done anything right?

Did I say that?

Although Jimmy Carter DID get the nobel peace prize. You do get some things right.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Did I say that?

Although Jimmy Carter DID get the nobel peace prize. You do get some things right.

Jimmy Carter is an idiot - look at how the country was during the 70's. He handled the Iranian hostage crisis really well too. I guess to win the Nobel Peace Prize all you have to do is be pacifist no matter what the circumstances. The only thing he really did was the "Camp David Peace Accord"

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Jimmy Carter is an idiot

Jersey come on. If Jimmy Carter is an idiot then George Bush has the intelligence of a bicycle tire with a hole in it. I mean the man has like a 180 IQ and a list of accomplishments so long its stunning. And are you sure you want to take pot shots at other americans when you are so valiently trying to defend american global policy? I dont think that works. And Carter is a decent man.