DISENGAGING RESPONSIBLY FROM IRAQ
Most Americans and Iraqis will agree that US policy toward Iraq needs to move in a new direction and soon. Like many Americans we are searching for the right course for ourselves and for the Iraqi people, specifically how to responsibly disengage. Below, we offer our ideas for essential elements of a responsible US withdrawal plan.
US involvement with Iraq preceded the first Gulf War, but that war began 13 years of exceedingly destructive actions against Iraqis and their society. Leveling of Iraq's civilian infrastructure by coalition attack during the first Gulf War was deliberate and systematic, in violation of international treaties on the conduct of war. The record shows that these illegal actions were taken "to accelerate the effect" of economic sanctions that were to follow[1]. For twelve years, 1991-2003, the US and UK insisted, through the UN, on maintaining strict economic sanctions on Iraq. To the ensuing havoc, the US and UK added nearly daily over-flights and aerial bombing. UN reports and the words of the UN's own in-country representatives recount the tragic effects of these sanctions[2,3]. By 1999, UNICEF reported that the sanctions had contributed to half a million Iraqi children's deaths[4]. The allotment of $15 per month per person provided by the UN's oil-for-food program[3] helped only marginally. Reports of infant mortality[5], malnutrition[6], a savaged health care system[7], and loss of a generation of children to educational opportunities in Iraq are readily available, though not yet widely read or publicly acknowledged in the US. To the societal insult of sanctions have been added the injuries and deaths of Gulf War II, the hazards of unexploded US and UK cluster bombs[8] and radiological weapons debris, and now enduring chaos.
What are American responsibilities to the Iraqi people? First and foremost, it is to let Iraqis decide how they govern themselves and let them be stewards of their own natural resources and economy. True sovereignty cannot coexist with occupation, military or economic. An American exit from Iraq is inevitable, and cost considerations alone suggest that it should come soon. An American exit with dignity will require an acknowledgment of, and compensation for, the disastrous effects of the last decade and a half of US policy on ordinary Iraqis and their society.
We consequently believe that the US should:
During the period of withdrawal of US and UK military forces, UN peacekeeping forces, independent of US/UK control, must be made available to the Iraqi people. The US should fund the subsequent reconstruction but not otherwise be engaged directly in it. The rebuilding effort should employ and benefit Iraqis, not foreign nationals or multinational corporations. Societal stability in Iraq cannot be achieved without a viable Iraqi economy, and for that, vastly reduced Iraqi unemployment is essential[9].
- withdraw all US and other coalition armed forces and foreign private security forces from Iraq beginning immediately, and renounce all plans for permanent US bases in Iraq;
- rescind US imposed privatization acts and agreements that permit foreign business entities to control Iraqi resources and assets;
- fund the rebuilding of civilian infrastructure destroyed by the US/UK in two wars and twelve years of economic sanctions;
- fund the reconstruction of the health care and educational system to pre-1991 condition;
- fund the clean up of toxic and radioactive contamination by depleted uranium (DU) and destroy unexploded cluster bombs and other ordinance of US/UK military origin;
- fund epidemiological and clinical research on the health and genetic effects of DU contamination on Iraqis and coalition soldiers;
- fund efforts to restore cultural treasures lost during the first days of US occupation in 2003.
This position paper is offered by the Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq (INOC), a task force of the Church Council of Greater Seattle. A longer discussion of these issues and references to source materials underlying statements made in the second paragraph may be found on the INOC website: www.concernforiraq.org
9 September 2004
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[1] Gellman, Barton, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly in Iraq --- Officials Acknowledge Strategy Went Beyond Purely Military Targets", Washington Post, June 23, 1991, p.A1. <http://www.concernforiraq.org/WashPostWarDamage23Jun91.html>
[2] UNICEF, Iraq's Children: A Lost Generation, May, 2001 <http://www.concernforiraq.org/UnicefMay2001.html>
[3] Sponeck, Hans, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, "The Crisis of Sanctions on Iraq", transcript of a meeting with members of an international WPSR/IPPNW delegation of doctors and activists in Baghdad on April 5, 1999. <http://concernforiraq.org/vonsponeck.html>
[4] UNICEF, Iraq surveys show 'humanitarian emergency', 12 August 1999 <http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm>; UNICEF -- Results of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Surveys.<http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/08/990812-unicef.htm>;
[5] Ascherio A., Chase R., Cote T., et al. "Special Article: Effect of the Gulf War on Infant and Child Mortality in Iraq" New England Journal of Medicine, September, 1992, vol. 327, pp. 931-936. <http://www.concernforiraq.org/NEJM-24sep92.html>
[6] FAO, Evaluation of Food and Nutrition Situation in Iraq , September, 1995 <http://www.iacenter.org/fao.htm#faotoc>; FAO/WFP food supply and nutrition assessment mission to Iraq, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Special Report, 3 October 1997. <http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/alertes/srirq997. htm>; FAO, New report looks at food and nutrition in Iraq , 13 September, 2000 <http://www.fao.org/News/2000/000904-e.htm>
[7] WHO, The Health Conditions of the Population in Iraq Since theGulf Crisis , March , 1996. <http://www.who.int/disasters/resource/pubs/000396.html>; Kreisel, W., Kreisel, W., (Executive Director WHO Office of the European Union), Rapport comparatif de l'OMS sur la situation du pays avant et après 1990 (février 2001), presented at the hearing "Iraq and the International Community" of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Brussels, 26 February 2001 <http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cahier/irak/who-pr200102>
[8] UNICEF, In Iraq, unexploded munitions become child's play, 17 July 2003 <http://www.unicef.org/media/media_12056.html>
[9] Howley, J., The Iraq jobs crisis: workers seek their own voice, Foreign Policy in Focus, 8 September 2004. <http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0409iraqlabor.html>