A Call to Action to End Economic Sanctions Against Iraq, Campaign of Conscience, June 8, 2001

Call to Action Letter

Dear Friends:

The Campaign of Conscience-which is supported by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and Pax Christi USA, and is endorsed by more than 2,000 individuals and 100 organizations-continues to call for an end to all economic sanctions against Iraq.

Neither "Smart Sanctions," which the United Kingdom introduced in the United Nations on Tuesday, May 22, nor alternative proposals offered by Russia and France, solve the Iraqi humanitarian crisis. Though a discussion of the current sanctions in the UN represents a move in the right direction, these initiatives do not address the root causes of the Iraqi crisis.

The sale of oil is Iraq's major source of income. However, under "Smart Sanctions," oil revenues continue to be deposited in an escrow account managed by the UN. Without control of its income, Iraq remains unable to decide when, where and whether it can purchase goods to meet its people's needs.

In addition, the Gulf War and sanctions savaged Iraq's infrastructure. Today, water treatment and sewage treatment plants lie in ruins, leaving water unsafe to drink and deadly to children, and an unreliable electric power grid means that food and medicine cannot be safely refrigerated.

"Smart Sanctions" do nothing to stop children from dying of bad water nor do they address the needs of an oil-based economy, whose infrastructure and economy are in ruins. In the end, these initiatives may serve only as a cynical foil to justify a continuation of these destructive sanctions. Non-military sanctions against Iraq must be lifted, so that Iraq can begin to meet the needs of its people and rejoin the community of nations.

Until we respond to Iraq's devastated economy and infrastructure, Iraqis will continue to die and suffer. The coming weeks are critical, as the UN discusses Iraqi sanctions. Please voice your outrage over this continuing war on the Iraqi people.

Yours in faith,

Janet Chisholm, Interim Co-Executive Director, FOR

Lewis Green, FOR National Organizing Coordinator

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As United Methodists we request the president of the United States and the State Department to support the lifting of economic sanctions on Iraq by the Security Council of the United Nations and assist in restoring Iraq to its previous status as a respected and prosperous member of the international community. ~Excerpted from a statement by the United Methodist Church.

Given the effects of the embargo, the inadequacy of the oil-for-food program and related humanitarian exemptions to mitigate adequately the suffering of the Iraqi people, and the repeated resistance of political authorities to reshape the sanctions in morally necessary ways, the current comprehensive sanctions are morally unacceptable and must be replaced by more humane arrangements. ~Most Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza, Bishop of Galveston-Houston, President, U.S. Catholic Conference.

We, the North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), are united in the spirit of peace and justice. Therefore, we oppose the devastating economic sanctions against Iraq and the unrelenting bombing of that nation, which have been led by the U.S. government. Our call to end the sanctions and bombing grows out of our Friends' testimony that there is that of God in every person. ~Excerpted from a statement by the North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

When you see the faces of Iraqi children, you realize (the sanctions are) not in anybody's best interest. How has a rise in child poverty and illiteracy made the world safer from Saddam Hussein? ~ Rabbi Douglas E. Krantz.

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The Opinion Sections of local newspapers attract the most readers of any section. When your letter is published, you reach many people. Your elected officials pay particular attention to your letters and to OpEd pieces.

An effective letter to the editor sticks to the guidelines that the newspaper provides.

Editors prefer letters that are personal and contain a local angle.

Avoid clichés and activist jargon.

Remember, your published letter leaves an impression and you want readers to find your information compelling.

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An effective letter contains these three essential ingredients (sample copy follows each heading):

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Date

Dear Senator _________ or Rep. __________,

I believe that we must put an end to the senseless suffering of the Iraqi people. To do that, we must end all economic sanctions against Iraq.

I urge you to tell the Bush Administration and Secretary of State Powell that economic sanctions represent a failed policy and result only in needless suffering of innocent Iraqis.

Currently, Iraqis suffer 65 percent unemployment, and those with jobs live on inadequate incomes that do not provide for their basic needs. Without money, increasing the availability of goods will not help Iraqis meet their needs.

According to UNICEF, the deaths of 500,000 children under five are attributable to Sanctions, and there has been a 160 percent rise in Iraq's infant mortality rate since 1991. It is scandalous that the United States, the most powerful country in the world, fails to act to end this humanitarian crisis.

Sincerely, 

Your name

Your complete address

Your telephone number and/or e-mail address

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The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Switchboard: 202-456-1414

FAX: 202-456-1414

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell

U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
Fax: 202-261-8577

Switchboard: 202-647-4000

FAX: 202-261-8577

Office of Representative (Name)

United States House of Representatives
Washington D.C. 20515

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Office of Senator (Name)
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

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By Cheryl Wittenauer
Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 1, 2001; 10:20 p.m. EDT

NEW YORK -- A group of American religious leaders called this week for an end to U.N. sanctions against Iraq and said a U.S.-British plan to amend them would do little to alleviate the Iraqi people's suffering.

A letter to President Bush signed by 10 religious groups and 30 leaders, including nine Roman Catholic bishops, said the plan falls painfully short. What's needed, and what the plan forbids, the group said, is foreign investment to address Iraq's massive unemployment, hyperinflation, widespread poverty and failing infrastructure.

The U.S.-British proposal aims to permit a greater flow of civilian goods into Iraq, while tightening an arms embargo imposed by the United Nations after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The U.N. Security Council agreed Friday to extend a humanitarian program in Iraq for 30 days, giving Washington and London more time to sell their plan to other council members.

Iraq also has criticized the proposal saying it wouldn't help the Iraqi people.

In a report to the Security Council last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq in recent months has not used all the money available to it under the oil-for-food program - established in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell oil for humanitarian goods.

The religious leaders, who include Christians, Jews and Muslims, urged Bush to consider instead a policy of encouraging large-scale capital investment to "rehabilitate Iraq's shattered economy."

The U.S.-British plan "doesn't do anything to allow Iraq to rebuild its infrastructure," said Thomas Gumbleton, a Catholic bishop who signed the letter. "If you can imagine, what would Germany have been like without the Marshall Plan?"

The coalition further recommends an embargo on weapon sales to Iraq and to its neighbors to meet a U.N. goal of "establishing in the Middle East a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction."

Another signer, Rabbi Douglas E. Krantz, said the sanctions are "immoral, impractical and ineffective." The more difficult, but moral path is constructive engagement, he said.

"When you see the faces of Iraqi children, you realize (the sanctions are) not in anybody's best interest," said Krantz, who has traveled to Iraq. "How has a rise in child poverty and illiteracy made the world safer from (Iraqi leader) Saddam Hussein?"

Among the signers to the letter are the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Baptist Peace Fellowship, the American Muslim Council, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

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Wednesday May 30, 2001, The Guardian

The decade-long sanctions siege of Iraq, effectively sustained by the US and Britain alone, has cut a horrific swath through a country devastated by two cataclysmic wars and a legacy of chemical and depleted uranium weapons contamination. Unicef estimates that 500,000 Iraqi children have died from the effects of the blockade, they are still dying in their thousands every month, and the living standards of a once-developed country have been reduced to the level of Ethiopia.

Aware that they have lost the battle for international opinion over responsibility for this national calvary, Britain and the US have now come up with a plan for "smart sanctions", which they claim will ease the embargo on civilian imports and decisively shift the blame for Iraqi suffering on to Saddam. That is the spin, at least. The reality is that the British scheme currently before the UN Security Council would actually make sanctions more effective and prolong indefinitely Iraq's status as a form of international trusteeship.

One reason why the allies, as the Blair and Bush governments like to call themselves, are so keen to act is that the existing sanctions are, mercifully, eroding fast. Smuggling, cash surcharges on contracts, unsanctioned preferential oil supplies to Iraq's neighbours and flights in and out of Baghdad have all helped to ease conditions for ordinary Iraqis. Anglo-American smart sanctions would put a stop to most of that by forcing neighbouring states to police the unlicensed trade across Iraq's borders. In return for this tightening of the vice, the British are proposing to restrict controls to military and "dual use" goods - those with civilian and military applications.

But the obstruction of dual-use products is at the heart of the problem with the current sanctions. The secretive New York-based sanctions committee already rubber stamps Iraqi imports of flour and rice. But more than $12bn-worth of alleged dual-use contracts have been blocked or vetoed. Everything from chlorine and ambulances, vaccines and electrical goods to hoses, morphine and anaesthetics have been stopped, in every case by the British or US representative, on the grounds that they might have military uses.

The same will apply under smart sanctions, as will the arrangement by which Iraq's oil income is controlled from outside, with a third of it used to pay reparations to cash-rich Kuwait and the cost of administering sanctions. The pretext for maintaining and tightening the embargo is supposedly to prevent Iraq developing new weapons of mass destruction and force it to readmit the arms inspectors kicked out two years ago. One of those inspectors, Scott Ritter, insists Iraq has long since been disarmed and no longer has the means to develop significant chemical and biological, let alone nuclear, weapons.