Frequently Asked Questions ON CASI

Answers to those much-repeated lies (Workers world)

Frequently Asked Questions ON CASI (www.casi.org.uk)

1. What's the problem with Iraq?

On 6 August 1990, the United Nations Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq in response to its invasion of Kuwait four days earlier. Under these sanctions, all imports into Iraq (except medical supplies) and all exports from Iraq were prohibited, unless the Security Council permitted exceptions. A spokesman from the US State Department later referred to these sanctions as "the toughest, most comprehensive sanctions in history". Similarly, a Select Committee of the UK House of Commons said that the Iraqi sanctions regime "is unprecedented in terms of longevity and its comprehensive nature" (§28).

Since 1990, there has been a severe deterioration in the standards of living of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Iraq. These problems have been detailed most clearly in two reports of the highest integrity, written in 1999.

Firstly, the Security Council itself set up a "Humanitarian Panel" to investigate the effects of sanctions. This Panel produced a report on 30 March 1999. It found that:

"In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-91, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23% of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under five years of age, only 41% of the population have regular access to clean water, 83% of all schools need substantial repairs. The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] states that the Iraqi health-care system is today in a decrepit state. UNDP calculates that it would take 7 billion US dollars to rehabilitate the power sector country-wide to its 1990 capacity." (§43).

Some of the panel's more specific findings were:

Infant And Maternal Health: "Low birth weight babies (less than 2.5 kg) rose from 4% in 1990 to around a quarter of registered births in 1997, due mainly to maternal malnutrition. UNFPA and other sources such as the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies believe that as many as 70% of Iraqi women are suffering from anaemia." (§18)

Malnutrition: "The dietary energy supply had fallen from 3,120 to 1,093 kilo calories per capita/per day by 1994 - 95. The prevalence of malnutrition in Iraqi children under five almost doubled from 1991 to 1996 (from 12% to 23%). Acute malnutrition in Center/South rose from 3% to 11% for the same age bracket. Results of a nutritional status survey conducted on 15,000 children under 5 years of age in April 1997 indicated that almost the whole young child population was affected by a shift in their nutritional status towards malnutrition (Nutritional Status Survey of Infants in Iraq, UNICEF November 7 1998)." (§19)

Prices: The UN World Food Programme "indicates that according to estimates for July 1995, average shop prices of essential commodities stood at 850 times the July 1990 level." (§19)

Infrastructure: "In addition to the scarcity of resources, malnutrition problems also seem to stem from the massive deterioration in basic infrastructure, in particular in the water-supply and waste disposal systems. The most vulnerable groups have been the hardest hit, especially children under five years of age who are being exposed to unhygienic conditions, particularly in urban centers. The WFP estimates that access to potable water is currently 50% of the 1990 level in urban areas and only 33% in rural areas." (§20)

Health facilities: "Since 1991, hospitals and health centers have remained without repair and maintenance. The functional capacity of the health care system has degraded further by shortages of water and power supply, lack of transportation and the collapse of the telecommunications system. Communicable diseases, such as water borne diseases and malaria, which had been under control, came back as an epidemic in 1993 and have now become part of the endemic pattern of the precarious health situation, according to WHO." (§21)

Education: "School enrollment for all ages (6-23) has declined to 53%. According to a field survey conducted in 1993, as quoted by UNESCO, in Central and Southern governorates 83% of school buildings needed rehabilitation, with 8,613 out of 10,334 schools having suffered serious damages. The same source indicated that some schools with a planned capacity of 700 pupils actually have 4500 enrolled in them. Substantive progress in reducing adult and female illiteracy has ceased and regressed to mid-1980 levels, according to UNICEF. The rising number of street children and children who work can be explained, in part, as a result of increasing rates of school drop-outs and repetition, as more families are forced to rely on children to secure household incomes." (§22)

Society: On "the cumulative effects of sustained deprivation on the psycho-social cohesion of the Iraqi population [...] the following aspects were frequently mentioned: increase in juvenile delinquency, begging and prostitution, anxiety about the future and lack of motivation, a rising sense of isolation bred by absence of contact with the outside world, the development of a parallel economy replete with profiteering and criminality, cultural and scientific impoverishment, disruption of family life. [...] UNICEF spoke of a whole generation of Iraqis who are growing up disconnected from the rest of the world." (§25-26)

Mental health: The World Health Organization "points out that the number of mental health patients attending health facilities rose by 157% from 1990 to 1998 (from 197,000 to 507,000 persons)." (§25)

Economy: "The data provided to the panel point to a continuing degradation of the Iraqi economy with an acute deterioration in the living conditions of the Iraqi population and severe strains on its social fabric. As summarized by the UNDP field office, "the country has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty"." (§43)

The second report was produced by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) in August 1999. This was the summary produced by Unicef of their findings:

"The first surveys since 1991 of child and maternal mortality in Iraq reveal that in the heavily-populated southern and central parts of the country, children under five are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said the findings reveal an ongoing humanitarian emergency...

The surveys reveal that in the south and center of Iraq -- home to 85 per cent of the country's population -- under-5 mortality more than doubled from 56 deaths per 1000 live births (1984-1989) to 131 deaths per 1000 live births (1994-1999). Likewise infant mortality -- defined as the death of children in their first year -- increased from 47 per 1000 live births to 108 per 1000 live births within the same time frame. The surveys indicate a maternal mortality ratio in the south and center of 294 deaths per 100,000 live births over the ten-year period 1989 to 1999.

Ms. Bellamy noted that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998."

No comprehensive review of the humanitarian situation in Iraq has been conducted since 1999. A February 2002 Unicef survey of the nutritional status of under-fives in South/Centre Iraq found:

"The deteriorating trend of malnutrition among under-five children seen throughout the 1990s has changed ... acute and general malnutrition are now less than half the levels of 1996, while chronic malnutrition has fallen by nearly 30% during the same period ... Despite gains, the present level of child malnutrition remains high compared to 1991 levels, which were already elevated after one year of sanctions."

The report went on to explain that:

"Many factors interact to affect the nutritional status of children ... For this reason, malnutrition is one of the most comprehensive indicators of the wellbeing of children, because it relies on the functioning of many sectors of society."

The information available on the current humanitarian situation in Iraq tends to support the conclusion of a Unicef report on The Situation of Children in Iraq, also from February 2002, that:

"the various arrangements put in place since 1996 to mitigate the impact of sanctions ... Overall, these efforts appear to have arrested the deterioration of the situation, but not to have greatly improved conditions for the majority of the population".

2. Are sanctions to blame?

British and American government officials often argue that sanctions have not contributed to the suffering in Iraq. However, their claims do not withstand serious analysis: sanctions are coercive instruments and they seek to coerce by causing hardship.

Whilst war, and inefficiency and neglect by the Iraqi government, have undoubtedly played a significant role in causing the present hardships endured by the vast majority of inhabitants of Iraq, it is also clear that sanctions have significantly deepened the human suffering and have been one of its primary sources. Humanitarian and human rights agencies working with and in Iraq unanimously agree that sanctions have had a considerable impact on the welfare on the Iraqi population. This view has been put forward strongly by these organisations, as well as by campaigning groups such as CASI, for the past few years.

In 1997, the United Nations Human Rights Committee noted that:

"the effect of sanctions and blockades has been to cause suffering and death in Iraq, especially to children" (§4).

In 1998, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognized that:

"the embargo imposed by the Security Council has adversely affected the economy and many aspects of daily life, thereby impeding the full enjoyment by the States party's population, particularly children, of their rights to survival, health and education" (§5).

The Humanitarian Panel of the Security Council wrote in March 1999:

"Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of the war" (§45).

Even the International Development Select Committee of the UK House of Commons concluded that, although "not all this humanitarian distress is the direct result of the sanctions regime", sanctions cannot be overlooked:

"This does not, however, entirely excuse the international community from a part in the suffering of Iraqis. The reasons sanctions were imposed in the first place were precisely the untrustworthiness of Saddam Hussein, his well documented willingness to oppress his own people and neighbours, his contempt for humanitarian law. The international community cannot condemn Saddam Hussein for such behaviour and then complain that he is not allowing humanitarian exemptions to relieve suffering. What else could be expected? A sanctions regime which relies on the good faith of Saddam Hussein is fundamentally flawed" (§40).

When explaining proposed changes to the sanctions, British and American officials have often argued that the changes will improve the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people. Proposing a draft resolution in June 2001 Jeremy Greenstock, the UK's Permanent Representative to the UN, told the Security Council that the proposals were intended "to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people and take whatever steps we can from outside to ensure that their needs are met." Implicit in this argument is the acknowledgement that sanctions do cause suffering to the people of Iraq.

On 12 May 1996 Madeleine Albright demonstrated the difficulties involved in admitting the consequences of these sanctions in an appearance on the US television show, 60 Minutes. At the time she was the US ambassador to the United Nations; six months later she became Secretary of State. Host Lesley Stahl, referring to a 1995 figure, asked:

Stahl: "We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?"

Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it."

3. What is 'oil for food' and isn't it enough?

The 'oil for food' programme, which commenced in December 1996, allows Iraq to export oil and use part of the money raised, which is kept in a UN bank account, to buy basic goods from other countries. Iraq is using its own money to buy these goods: the 'oil for food' programme is not "humanitarian aid" as some US and UK politicians have claimed on occasion. The nature of the programme was established in an agreement between the UN Secretariat and the Government of Iraq from May 1996. This agreement was in turn based upon Security Council Resolution (SCR) 986 of 14 April 1995. The UN initially determined that 53% of the oil revenue would be allocated to the humanitarian programme in the areas under the control of the Iraqi government, 30% would go to pay for compensation claims arising out of the Gulf War, 13% would go to the UN programme in the Kurdish regions of Northern Iraq, and the remainder would be spent on further administrative costs of the UN. The programme is organised in 6 month "phases", with phase XIII beginning on 5 December 2002: every six months the Iraqi government presents a proposal of import contracts to be examined and, if judged adequate, it is approved by the UN Sanctions Committee.

'Oil for food' was never meant to act as a substitute for the independent functioning of the Iraqi economy. Security Council Resolution 986 itself refers to the programme as a "temporary measure". The UN Secretary-General has repeatedly made the same point: for example, in his report of 2 March 2001, he writes that "the programme was never meant to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people and cannot be a substitute for normal economic activity in Iraq." (§154)

The programme has largely prevented the worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, especially as it has helped to provide for an improved food ration for ordinary Iraqis. The food rations delivered by the Iraqi government under 'oil for food' have reduced malnutrition amongst under-fives in Iraq, but under-nourishment persists due to a wrecked economy. According to a Unicef report from 2002:

"[P]reliminary figures ... show that acute and general malnutrition are now less than half the levels of 1996 ... Despite gains, the present level of child malnutrition remains high compared to 1991 levels, which were already elevated after one year of sanctions. Therefore, more needs to be done by all stakeholders to further reduce malnutrition in Iraq. "

Nevertheless, the programme does not have the capacity to solve the severe humanitarian problems of Iraq. As the Security Council's humanitarian panel reported in March 1999, for Iraq to recover, "the 'oil for food' system alone would not suffice and massive investment would be required in a number of key sectors, including oil, energy, agriculture and sanitation" (§42); furthermore, oil for food "can admittedly only meet but a small fraction of the priority needs of the Iraqi people" (§46).

When Tun Myat, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, returned to New York in October 2000, after six months in Iraq, he emphasised the problem of poverty in a Press Briefing:

"The food distribution system ... now ensures that under the new Distribution Plan over 2,470 kcal of energy of food is being made available to every man, woman and child in the country ... but the fact is, of course, people have become so poor, in some cases, that they can't even afford to eat the food that they've been given free because for many of them, the food ration represents the major part of their income ... they have to sell it in order to buy clothes and shoes or hats or whatever other things that they would require. So the sort of upturn in nutrition that we would all want to be seeing is not happening".

In his June 2000 report, the UN Secretary-General wrote that "clean water and reliable electrical supply are of paramount importance to the welfare of the Iraqi people" (§98). Such basic needs have not been provided by the imports allowed to Iraq under oil for food. In November 2002 the Secretary-General noted that: "Access to potable water is insufficient in both quantity and quality, and in many cases the water and sanitation networks remain in a poor state of repair. On top of this an estimated 500,000 metric tons of solid raw or partially raw sewage is discharged daily into the two rivers, which are the main source of water."

The 'oil for food' procedure has been modified in subsequent Security Council resolutions. In December 1999, Security Council Resolution 1284 endorsed three potential extensions of the programme: the removal of a cap on oil sales permitted by Iraq, the creation of 'green lists' of items which can be imported without individual contract approval of the Sanctions Committee, and the possibility of a 'cash component' to pay for local costs of implementing the programme. After the passing of SCR 1284, 'green lists' were drawn up for sectors such as food, educational supplies, and agricultural and medical materials, but the 'cash component' of 1284 has yet to materialise, even though the UN recognises its crucial importance for reconstructing Iraq's economy and infrastructure, and as a requirement for a sustainable improvement of the humanitarian situation in the country. In the UN Secretary-General's report of 29 November 2000, the statements about the need of a cash component are explicit: "The absence of an appropriate cash component has increasingly hampered the implementation of the programme. A cash component is essential for all sectors of the programme. With the increased funding level and volume of supplies and equipment being delivered to Iraq, the effective implementation cannot be achieved unless there is an early positive resolution to the present impasse" (§133).

In December 2000, Security Council Resolution 1330 reduced to 25% the amount of Iraq's oil revenues to be transferred for compensation claims and increased to 59% the amount to be allocated to the humanitarian programme in the areas under the control of the Iraqi government. Then, in May 2002, Security Council Resolution 1409 allowed all contracts containing neither military goods nor items on a Goods Review List of goods considered to have both civilian and military uses to be processed without the approval of the Sanctions Committee. The measures introduced in this resolution were labelled as 'smart sanctions' by the UK and US.

Benon Sevan, the Executive Director of the UN Office of the Iraq Programme, has repeatedly lamented the "growing tendency to politicize" 'oil for food' and appealed to Security Council members to avoid such tendencies within the relief effort in Iraq, to allow the programme to "maintain its distinct humanitarian identity".

However, in the past year political disagreements between the governments of the US and UK and the government of Iraq have contributed to a growing revenue shortfall in the 'oil for food' programme. In November 2002 the Office of the Iraq Programme reported that there were $3.3 billion of contracts which had been approved, but for which no funds were available.

The report attributed the revenue shortfall to three factors that had caused a reduction in the volume of Iraqi oil exported. First, Iraq's periodic unilateral suspension of its oil exports. Second, concerns by traders over the reliability of uninterrupted Iraqi oil supplies following previous suspensions "and/or possible disruptions as a consequence of current political developments." Third, the absence of an agreement between Iraq and the Sanctions Committee on the way in which the price of Iraqi crude oil is set.

This underfunding of the 'oil for food' programme prompted Benon Sevan to tell the Security Council in September 2002 that:

"Irrespective of improvements in procedures, including those recently adopted by the Council in resolution 1409 (2002), without the necessary funds available in the escrow account it will be impossible to implement the humanitarian programme effectively."

4. Didn't the Security Council offer an 'oil for food' arrangement in 1991?

In 1991, the UN Security Council passed resolutions 706 (15 August) and 712 (19 September). These resolutions constituted an early 'oil for food' arrangement, permitting Iraq to sell limited quantities of oil in order to purchase humanitarian supplies. After negotiations with the Government of Iraq failed, plans for 'oil for food' were abandoned until April 1995. The UK and US governments have repeatedly claimed that Iraq's rejection of the 706/712 arrangement allowed the humanitarian crisis to deepen; and that therefore the Iraqi government, not sanctions, are to blame for the suffering of the civilian population.

Did SCRs 706 and 712 offer a viable 'oil for food' programme based on humanitarian principles, and would this arrangement have alleviated the suffering of the people of Iraq? To answer these questions, it is necessary to look at what the alternatives were, and what SCRs 706 and 712 offered.

The origins of the 706/712 proposal came from the report of a UN mission headed by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan to investigate the impact of sanctions. The report dated 17 July 1991 stated:

"it is evident that for large numbers of the people of Iraq, every passing month brings them closer to the brink of calamity. As usual, it is the poor, the children, the widowed and the elderly, the most vulnerable amongst the population, who are the first to suffer."
[Foreword by the Executive Delegate]

The report concentrated on the requirements for alleviating the immediate humanitarian crisis, and particularly "averting a crisis in the next 6 to 12 months". It estimated the cost of restoring a "reduced level of service", including making arrangements for the functioning of health services, "two fifths of the pre-war per capita levels of clean drinking water", 40% of "sewage-treatment capacity back in operation", food amounting to "the ration level that [the UN World Food Programme] provides to sustain disaster-stricken populations", power generation to "one half of the pre-war capacity of the country", and limited repairs to northern oil infrastructure. To accomplish this, Aga Khan calculated that "the total for an initial four month period would be US $2.63 billion" [§29]. This was not a proposal for a full and sustainable recovery; for the electricity sector alone, that required an estimated sum of $12 billion [§26]. Instead, this calculation was for a minimum emergency measure.

The Security Council responded with SCRs 706 and 712, which permitted Iraq to make emergency oil sales of only $1.6 billion over a six-month period. Furthermore, this was not only to pay for humanitarian supplies, but also to fund compensation claims (at a rate of 30%), weapons inspections, demarcating the boundary with Kuwait and UN administrative expenses. In total, the amount made available for humanitarian needs would have been an estimated $930 million over six months. The UN Secretary General suggested on 4 September 1991 that Iraq should be permitted to sell $2.4 billion of oil over a six-month period, but the Security Council rejected this suggestion. Due to the Security Council's intransigence, Iraq could not have purchased even a quarter of the supplies that Aga Khan's report said it needed to avert a humanitarian crisis.

The SCR 706/712 arrangement was nothing near an adequate humanitarian solution. It was a programme which, according to the estimates and reports upon which SCRs 706 and 712 were based, would leave the Iraqi people in serious deprivation, including widespread famine and disease. It is true that "inadequate amounts of relief" would have been better than "no relief". But this does not disguise the deliberate choice by the Security Council to prevent Iraqis from helping themselves to cover their own basic humanitarian needs.

In addition, under the resolutions, there were a number of unnecessary features that seem to have created disincentives for the Iraqi government in accepting the arrangement; their purpose seems to be more to humiliate the Iraqi government than to create a legitimate programme of humanitarian assistance. These include:

All revenue from Iraq's oil sales was to be deposited into an escrow account under the auspices of the UN. That is, Iraqi revenues would be transferred to an external body. Aga Khan's report indicates that this provision may have been unnecessary: "the [Iraqi] Government ... noted that all revenues accruing from oil sales were normally held in United States banks and that a suitable device for monitoring such credit balances could be established" [§34].
Humanitarian purchases were to be screened and approved by the Sanctions Committee and subject to UN "monitoring and supervision" inside Iraq. Again, these words of SCR706 indicate a much more intrusive system than that proposed by Aga Khan's report for "periodic assessments" [§34], and eventually accepted Iraq in SCR986 (1995) for "observation" [§11].
As all money was to be under UN control and all goods monitored, it is hard to understand the ceiling on oil exports as anything but politically motivated. Within the context of coercion by economic sanctions, this makes sense: if coercion is to have any effect, sanctions need to sting. In the case of Iraq, this sort of reasoning has led to eleven years of widespread starvation and suffering.
By linking revenues for humanitarian purposes and those intended for compensation payments and weapons inspections, the humanitarian crisis was politicised. Despite their acknowledged deprivation, the Iraqi people would not receive the assistance it needed without its government agreeing to the precise methods and amounts for paying for weapon inspections and compensation to Kuwait. The association of these entirely separate issues is an example of the logic of economic sanctions as used in Iraq: suffering was deliberately and knowingly inflicted, and then used as a bargaining counter.

In the end, this programme did not get off the ground. After almost a year of negotiations, the Iraqi government finally said on 12 July 1992 that it could not accept the resolutions as they constituted a level of intrusion that was not compatible with Iraq's national sovereignty. Whilst no legitimate government should use such an excuse for preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching its people, the stance of the UK and US provided ample reasons for the Iraqi government to justify its rejection of the proposed programme. Had the 706/712 arrangement been adequate in scope, had it dealt with humanitarian concerns separately from political ones, and had it been willing to meet some of the concerns regarding Iraqi national sovereignty, the Iraqi rejection might more credibly be construed as a clear indication of the government's indifference to civilian suffering. As it stands, the comments by one aid agency staff observer do not seem improbable:

"UN officials were convinced... that the US intention was to present Saddam Hussein with so unattractive a package that Iraq would reject it and thus take on the blame, at least in Western eyes, for continued civilian suffering".
[quoted in Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam - The politics of intervention in Iraq (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999), p. 75]

5. Isn't Security Council Resolution 1284 the solution?

On 17 December 1999, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1284 ("SCR 1284"). This resolution was the product of a year-long tussle between the Permanent Five members of the Council (Britain, the US, France, Russia and China) over the direction of future policy towards Iraq. Russia, France, China and Malaysia abstained from voting in the Security Council on this resolution. As had been anticipated, Iraq immediately rejected the resolution: it had already announced that it would not implement any Security Council Resolution that did not immediately lift the sanctions.

The British government has often pointed to SCR 1284 as an example of its "commitment to helping the Iraqi people". SCR 1284's humanitarian measures fall into two categories: improvements to the existing sanctions regime and the possibility of the suspension of sanctions.

The first set of measures are a partial response to the recommendations of the Security Council's 1999 Humanitarian Panel report, which estimated that adoption of its recommendations "may lead to incremental improvements". Thus, SCR 1284 removed the "cap" on Iraqi oil sales, and established a "green list" of humanitarian items that could be imported into Iraq without prior Security Council approval. SCR 1284 also gave an indication that the UN would seek to establish mechanisms to allow spare parts for the oil industry to be more easily purchased by Iraq. A list of "spare parts" was prepared in July 2000, but the approval of the list was held up by one of the members of the Sanctions Committee, widely presumed to be the US, until it was finally approved on 1 December. The importance of investment in the Iraqi oil industry was stressed in a June 2001 report prepared for the Secretary-General:

"The team of experts reiterated the views expressed in previous reports by expert missions that the oil industry in Iraq continues to face significant technical and infrastructural problems, which unless addressed will inevitably result in the reduction of crude oil production from the current levels."

SCR 1284 also provides for revenue from oil sales to be received in part as currency: the Humanitarian Panel had noted that the absence of such a "cash component" in parts of Iraq controlled by the Iraqi Government was "seriously impeding the distribution of some humanitarian supplies", as cash was required to pay for labour and local materials. However, three years on Iraq and the Security Council have not agreed on mutually acceptable terms and the 'cash component' has still not been implemented.

The second set of measures in SCR 1284 holds out the prospect of a "suspension" of sanctions and possible foreign investment in Iraq's oil sector. The resolution says that the "fundamental objective" of the suspension is "improving the humanitarian situation in Iraq"; it therefore admits that there is a causal link between the sanctions and Iraq's humanitarian crisis. A suspension will occur, according to the resolution, if and when the Iraqi Government is found to have "co-operated in all respects" for a continuous period of 120 days with a new arms inspection body (Unmovic) and with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The meaning of this requirement was kept deliberately vague by Britain. The sanctions will be suspended "subject to the elaboration of effective financial and other operational measures", also left undefined. However, sanctions can be re-imposed upon the word of Unmovic's Executive Chairman or the IAEA's Director-General. This will occur within five working days unless the Security Council objects.

The Government of Iraq is therefore being asked to subscribe to a two-fold uncertainty: to co-operate, in a poorly defined sense, in order to achieve an undefined suspension of sanctions. As the Government of Iraq has good cause to suspect the intentions of the US and the UK (the former has repeatedly announced that the sanctions are linked to the present regime, not to weapons; both are currently bombing it) it is obvious why it may be reluctant to implement SCR 1284.

These suspicions can only have been confirmed by the new administration in the US, whose Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on 8 March 2001:

"If the inspectors get in, do their job, we're satisfied with their first look at things, maybe we can suspend the sanctions. And then at some point way in the future, when we're absolutely satisfied there are no such weapons around, then maybe we can consider lifting." (emphasis added)

Not only may the resolution's uncertainty decrease Iraq's perceived payoffs for implementing SCR 1284, but it may also actually send a signal that SCR 1284 cannot be trusted. The Government of Iraq may wonder, for example, why the form of sanctions' suspension has been left unclear, given that the French government presented detailed proposals for these measures in August; Russia and China had also called for more clarity in determining what exactly Iraq needed to do for the suspension of sanctions.

Given the Security Council's ability to re-impose rapidly the sanctions, the motive behind the 120 day co-operation period is unclear. The waiting period imposes further humanitarian costs on the Iraqi people and does not clearly enhance security, as the proposed suspensions would not apply to military or 'dual-use' equipment. Diplomatic sources tell us that Washington's concerns did not relate to security, but to its reputation. In return, the Security Council has lost an instrument whereby it could have signalled trustworthiness to the Government of Iraq.

No progress was made in implementing SCR 1284 until September 2002 when, amidst US led threats of military action, Iraq offered to allow the return of weapons inspectors. This offer was not initially taken up, but following the passing of SCR 1441 in November 2002, which revised Unmovic's mandate and afforded Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations", weapons inspectors returned to Iraq.

From a humanitarian point of view, SCR 1284 continues in the direction set out by SCR 661 (1990) and SCR 687 (1991): the well-being of ordinary Iraqis is to continue to depend on the struggle between their government and those of the US and the UK. This is a perverse strategy if one claims that the Government of Iraq does not care about popular well-being. Finally, it is a strategy that can be expected to continue to have traumatic consequences for the Iraqi people: in August 1999, Unicef estimated that an additional half million Iraqi children under five years of age have died during the sanctions period. While SCR 1284 does offer some improvements (e.g. the lifting of the sales cap) it seems more designed to appear "tough on Saddam" (in the words of a Downing Street spokesperson the day after SCR 1284 was passed). If one sought signs of improvement in British policy, it is not reassuring that official statements continue to fail to address these concerns.

In CASI's view, a good Security Council Resolution on Iraq would have de-coupled humanitarian and political issues, removing Iraqi citizens from the cross-fire between the governments of Iraq, the US and the UK. SCR 1284, while making some concessions to ordinary Iraqis, does not do this: the suspension of non-military sanctions still requires extensive, undefined and unprecedented co-operation between the Iraqi government and a re-flagged inspection team. Even the humanitarian concessions are meagre, less generous than those proposed in an earlier Anglo-Dutch draft resolution and much less generous than those sought by France, China and Russia. The refusal to adopt low risk measures such as the loans from the Compensation Fund suggest that the US and the UK will only grudgingly cease to use Iraqi citizens as pawns.

A good SCR would also have taken steps to build trust and reduce the interest of the governments in fighting. SCR 1284 does not offer olive branches. There is no explicit acknowledgement that the old weapons inspectors, in whose image the new are created, seriously compromised their mandate, and only outlines of steps to prevent this happening again. By making Iraq's requirements explicitly vague the resolution fails to assuage what must be a central concern in their government's mind: do we have any reason to trust the US, whose announced policy is not weapons inspection but our overthrow?

The road to trust could have been embarked upon by suspending the non-military sanctions once the new weapons inspectors started work, as France, China and Russia wanted. The Iraqi people would have had substantial evidence of our concern and the Iraqi regime would have had a signal of co-operation and an incentive to prevent the sanctions' re-imposition. Instead, we have given the Iraqi people further evidence that we are as willing as their leader to use them as political bargaining chips.

6. Isn't the problem that the Iraqi regime doesn't distribute the supplies it receives?

The UK government has persistently claimed that the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is caused in large part because the Government of Iraq diverts resources that it imports under the 'oil for food' scheme, either for supplementing the wealth of a small elite, or to sustain poverty for propagandistic reasons. This is an explanation that has been consistently challenged by UN agencies and personnel working within Iraq.

In a September 2000 report the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) characterised the Government of Iraq's food rationing system as "effective". It notes that the availability of "cereal imports since 1997/98 under the oil-for-food deal has led to significant improvements in the food supply situation" (p. 31). Nevertheless, a major problem is that "food rations do not provide a nutritionally adequate and varied diet" (p. 33). In addition, poverty compounds this problem: "with the decline in household income, a significant number of Iraqis are not in a position to adequately complement the ration" (p. 14).

Tun Myat, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, made similar comments in his first press conference on 19 October 2000. He said that the food distribution system in Iraq under the 'oil for food' programme was "second to none", but that "in order to affect the overall livelihood and nutrition state of the people, of the children, you need more than food, of course". Unless the basics -- housing, electricity, water, and sanitation -- were restored, the overall well-being of the people would not improve. In addition to the collapse of such infrastructure, he said, the major problem was poverty.

Most recently in February 2002 Unicef described the distribution of food rations by the Iraqi government as "a massive logistic operation that appears to work flawlessly". It went on to note that "households' dependency on food rations has evolved over the past decade to almost total dependency" and consequently "the capability of households to cope with food shortages has reduced".

The Security Council's Humanitarian Panel report of 30 March 1999 commented directly on the question of Iraqi cooperation with 'oil for food' (§37):

"While there is agreement that the Government could do more to make the "oil for food" programme work in a better and more timely fashion, it was not clear to what extent the problems encountered could be attributed to deliberate action or inaction on the part of the Iraqi Government. It is generally recognized that certain sectors such as electricity work smoothly while drug supplies suffer from delays in distribution. But mismanagement, funding shortages (absence of the so called "cash component") and a general lack of motivation might also explain such delays. While food and medicine had been explicitly exempted by Security Council resolution 661, controls imposed by resolution 986 had, at times, created obstacles to their timely supply."

The "cash component" bears explanation. In the areas of Iraq under governmental control, the government is not given cash in return for oil sales under the "oil for food" scheme, but only receives delivery of goods. As a result it is constrained in its ability to, for example, hire a lorry to make a delivery if it does not have one available at the time.

In summary there is no evidence of systematic attempts by the government of Iraq to divert resources imported under the 'oil for food' programme. In fact it is the success of the government of Iraq's food rationing system which keeps many Iraqis from starvation.

7. Why is Northern Iraq in a better shape than the areas under the control of the Iraqi Government?

Humanitarian agencies have consistently reported that, whilst the situation in central and southern Iraq -- administered by the Government of Iraq -- remains one of humanitarian crisis, there has actually been a decline in mortality rates in Iraqi Kurdistan, administered by the UN since 1991. US and UK government statements have claimed this is evidence that the Iraqi regime is intentionally sustaining high mortality rates outside of Iraqi Kurdistan to win sympathy. In the words of one UK Foreign Office Minister, the difference "is because in northern Iraq the UN is implementing the 'oil for food' programme, not the Iraqi authorities. And it is doing so in a manner designed to bring maximum benefit to the Iraqi people."

Responses to this are two-fold. On one level, the direct cause of the suffering is much less relevant than ascertaining what can be done to prevent it. Under sanctions, at least hundreds of thousands more Iraqis have died. Whether or not the sanctions that the UK and US have imposed are intrinsically lethal or have only been so when manipulated by Baghdad, these governments have an ability to reduce the suffering if they choose.

On the second level, if one is concerned about the causes, various analyses make clear that the difference between Iraqi Kurdistan and South/Central Iraq is due to a wide variety of factors, and cannot simply be explained by pointing to the malevolence of the Iraqi leadership. As Anupama Singh, Unicef representative in Baghdad, explained in 1999, "the UN's direct role in the north did not account for the widely different results in infant mortality, especially since the oil-for-food deal went into effect only in 1997." Instead, Ms Singh suggested that the differences could be explained by a number of factors, including "the heavy presence of humanitarian agencies helping the Kurdish population". In addition, according to Ms Singh, in Northern Iraq "the oil-for-food money includes a cash component, allowing the UN, for example, to train local authorities and more effectively implement and monitor programmes. In the centre and south under Iraqi regime control, no funds are allocated to ministries for fear they would be used for more sinister purposes. The government may receive sanitation equipment, for example, but not have the resources to pay for contractors to install it."

Ms Singh's statements are expanded upon by a Unicef document from August 1999 which seeks to explain the differences in the current levels of child mortality between the autonomous northern governorates and the rest of Iraq:

"... the difference in the current rate cannot be attributed to the differing ways the Oil-for-Food Program is implemented in the two parts of Iraq. The Oil-for-Food Program is two and a half years old. Therefore it is too soon to measure any significant impact of the Oil-for-Food Program on child mortality over the five year period of 1994-1999 as is reported in these surveys. We need to look at longer-term trends and factors including the fact that since 1991 the north has received far more support per capita from the international community than the south and center of Iraq. Another factor maybe that the sanctions themselves have not been able to be so rigorously enforced in the north as the border is more "porous" than in the south and center of Iraq."

The March 1999 report of the Security Council's Humanitarian Panel also provides reasons for the differences between the two regions of Iraq (§44):

"The North of Iraq is clearly doing better than the Center/South for a variety of reasons. The per capita allocation of funds under the 986 programme is higher, distribution of food and medicine through UN agencies is comparatively more efficient than distribution by the Government, and the Northern border is more permeable to embargoed commodities than the rest of the country. ... Although the historic vulnerability of the North, as recognized in paragraph 8 (b) of resolution 986 (1995) would seem to justify the special attention it receives, it is a matter of concern that the situation in the Center/South is, in general terms, comparatively worse - a circumstance which most UN agencies felt should not be overlooked. It was also noted, in this context, that the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq has been consistently upheld by Security Council resolutions."

Similarly, a leading epidemiologist at Columbia University, Professor Richard Garfield, wrote to the New York Times on 13 September 1999, saying that:

"... the embargo in the North is not the "same embargo".... The North enjoys porous borders with Turkey, Syria, and Iran, and thus is effectively less embargoed than the rest of the country. It benefits from the aid of 34 Non-Government Organizations, while in the whole rest of the country there are only 11. It receives 22% more per capita from the Oil for Food program, and gets about 10% of all UN-controlled assistance in currency, while the rest of the country receives only commodities. Food, medicine, and water pumps are now helping reduce mortality throughout Iraq, but the pumps do less for sanitation where authorities cannot buy sand, hire day laborers, or find many other minor inputs to make filtration plants work. Goods have been approved by the UN and distributed to the North far faster than in the Center or South. The UN Security Council treats people in that part of the country like innocents. Close to 20 million civilians in the Center and South of the country deserve the same treatment. Spokesman James P. Rubin said that 'We can't solve a problem that is the result of tyrannical behavior.' He probably was referring to Saddam Hussein. As one involved in providing assistance throughout Iraq, I must admit that the arbitrary, ineffective, or destructive control sometimes exercised by the Security Council over Iraqi funds for food and medicine seem no less tyrannical. A good faith effort to meet basic needs in Iraq would create a better basis to negotiate an end to the Iraq conflict. Instead, every problem is blamed on Saddam. This politicization of the Oil for Food program only delays and weakens our ability to address the urgent humanitarian needs created by this most comprehensive embargo of the 20th century."

Finally, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its report of September 2000 also points to the differences in health and nutritional status between the two areas of Iraq. The report notes that "in contrast to the situation in the centre/south, improvements in the nutritional situation in the north had started in 1994, prior to SCR 986". In other words, the start of the discrepant development preceded the arrival of goods under the "oil for food" programme by almost three years. According to the FAO, the difference between the north and the South/Centre is "due to greater resources in the north, the north has 9% of the land area of Iraq but nearly 50% of the productive arable land, and receives higher levels of assistance per person. The north also benefits from the greater flexibility the use of cash gives" (p. 28). In addition, there may be some truth in the claim that the UN administration is more efficient than the corresponding Iraqi authorities; for example, UN staff are paid while Iraqi officials do not receive salaries from 'oil for food' money.

8. What is the UN Compensation Commission?

After the Gulf War, the Security Council determined that Iraq was liable for any economic loss and damage resulting from its invasion of Kuwait. Consequently, the UN Compensation Commission (UNCC) was set up to oversee compensation claims, and the Security Council decided that 30% of Iraq's oil revenue should be paid into a Compensation Fund for this purpose. Eleven years on, both the amount paid in compensation and the procedure whereby claims are processed have become increasingly questioned, and compensation has become a bone of contention within the Security Council.

The magnitude of the sums that Iraq must pay in compensation is a cause of considerable concern. According to a November 2002 report by the Office of the Iraq Programme, by 31 October 2002, $16.3 billion of Iraq's revenues generated under oil for food had been diverted to the UNCC. Out of this sum, $278 million went to pay for the "operating expenses" of the UNCC, such as lawyers' fees (see Annex I, §2c). By contrast, the UN has stated that the total value of the humanitarian goods that have arrived in all of Iraq under the oil for food scheme by 30 September 2002 was $24.5 billion. There is perhaps some ambiguity over whether the programme should be called oil for food or 'oil for compensation'.

The international controversy over these payments started in June 2000 when the UNCC ruled that Iraq must pay $15.9bn in damages to the Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation. France and Russia, backed by China, Tunisia and Ukraine, refused to ratify this decision. Eventually, a compromise was reached whereby the claim was awarded, while in exchange a reduction of the percentage allocated for compensation to 25% was formalised in Security Council Resolution 1330 of 4 December 2000. This reduction is not a new idea. As early as March 1999, the Security Council's Humanitarian Panel report recommended that "the Security Council could authorize -- possibly as a temporary measure -- reducing by an agreed percentage the revenue allocated to the United Nations Compensation Commission" (§54). More significantly, this was in fact included in §24 of an Anglo-Dutch draft resolution which preceded SCR 1284 (17 December 1999), and which proposed a reduction to 20% on a loanable basis.

The extra revenue generated by the reduction to 25% -- an estimated $275 million in phase XII of oil for food -- is, according to the Security Council, "to be used for strictly humanitarian projects to address the needs of the most vulnerable groups in Iraq" (§12). It is noteworthy that this is an implicit admission that reparations and humanitarian needs compete for scarce resources. This conflict was in fact foreseen already by SCR 687 (April 1991), which stated that the level of payment by Iraq should take "into account the requirements of the people of Iraq, Iraq's payment capacity ... and the needs of the Iraqi economy" (§19).

Such issues are bound to become even more contentious in the future, as the nature of claims being processed changes from the small individual claims, which have now all been dealt with, to large individual claims and claims by corporations, governments and international organisations.

By October 2002 the UNCC had made $43.6 billion of compensation awards and there were $172.6 billion of claims still to be resolved. If the level of awards for outstanding claims in each of the thirteen categories is the same as the level of awards made in each of the categories up until October 2002 Iraq will end up owing $117.7 billion in compensation. The newspaper 'Le Monde' concludes that if the present rate of payment continues, Iraq would not have paid off its debt (including interest) even by 2070.

In addition to awards made by the UNCC, Iraq has debt incurred prior to 1990, which was estimated to stand at $120 billion in 2001. While calculations differ, most observers agree with the words of Khaldun al-Naqeeb, a political science professor at Kuwait University, that the present arrangements ensure that "Iraq's economic future has been mortgaged for most of the coming century because of the hundreds of billions of dollars in claims for war reparations".

9. Will 'smart sanctions' alleviate the humanitarian problem in Iraq?

The term "smart sanctions" is used to refer to targeted instead of comprehensive sanctions, designed to put pressure directly on those who are deemed to pose a threat to international peace or to human rights. Because they are formulated in such a way as to minimise their impact upon the well-being of the civilian population, the concept of "smart sanctions" has in the past won favour with development organisations and international agencies.

In May 2002 the Security Council passed resolution 1409 (SCR 1409) introducing new procedures by which Iraq could import goods under the 'oil for food' programme. This marked the culmination of efforts made from May 2001 onwards by the UK and US to introduce a package of proposals for revising the current sanctions regime on Iraq; a package they sought to label as "smart sanctions".

The desire to revise the sanctions regime stemmed from the erosion of support for sanctions that occurred throughout 2000 and early 2001 amid increasing criticism of US and UK policies towards Iraq and increasing concern for the humanitarian welfare of the people of Iraq. In August 2000 French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine called sanctions "cruel because the punishment falls solely on the Iraqi people and the weakest among them" and "ineffective since they don't hit the regime".

The UK submitted a number of draft resolutions proposing alterations to the sanctions regime to the Security Council in mid-2001. At that time no agreement was reached, but in November 2001 the Security Council passed resolution 1382 wherein it pledges to make the changes which were finally implemented in SCR 1409. Introducing a UK draft resolution of 20 June 2001 Jeremy Greenstock, the UK's Permanent Representative to the UN, told the Security Council that these proposals were intended "to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people and take whatever steps we can from outside to ensure that their needs are met ... the status quo is not acceptable."

Initially the UK and US proposed to change the sanctions in two main ways. Firstly, they would change the procedures by which Iraq could import commodities. These were the changes implemented in SCR 1409.

Secondly, they would create further mechanisms to prevent the Iraqi government from obtaining direct access to funds, primarily through stopping the smuggling of products into Iraq outside the framework of the 'oil for food' programme. These proposals were later dropped, partly due to the opposition of states bordering Iraq which currently benefit from unofficial trade with Iraq outside of the 'oil for food' programme. Many of these countries - primarily Turkey and Jordan - have suffered a considerable loss of trade due to sanctions, and smuggling has been tolerated as a way of preventing these countries from becoming more explicit in their opposition to the whole sanctions regime.

At no stage was it proposed to alter the structures within which the sanctions regime exists or the conditions required for their lifting or suspension. Imports and the Goods Review List

Prior to the adoption of SCR 1409 any contract which contained goods not on one of the "green lists" set up under resolution 1284 and in subsequent resolutions had to be submitted to the Sanctions Committee (the "661 Committee") for approval. This committee consists of representatives from all the members of the Security Council. Any member of the committee could put a contract on hold indefinitely, and the US in particular had attracted much criticism for its extensive use of such holds.

SCR 1409 alters this system by creating different procedures for three categories of goods. The UN Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP), in consultation with Unmovic and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), determines into which category a contract falls and decides whether or not to approve the contract as follows:

(a) Contracts containing arms and munitions - including all material and facilities related to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and ballistic missiles of range greater than 150km -- will be automatically refused.

(b) Contracts containing potential 'dual-use' items, as set out in the Goods Review List (GRL), will be reviewed by the 661 Committee. Non-GRL items in the contract will be approved and the Committee has 10 working days to decide whether to permit the sale of GRL items. No holds are allowed under this system so the Committee may either: (i) approve the sale; (ii) approve the sale with conditions; (iii) deny the sale; (iv) request further information from the suppliers.The GRL includes the goods specified as 'dual-use' under the earlier resolution 1051, but also incorporates other items, many of which are related to communications and technology.

(c) If Unmovic and the IAEA are satisfied that the contract does not contain any items in either of the preceding two categories, then the contract is automatically approved. What 'smart sanctions' do not change

The UK told the Security Council that the aim of changing the procedures for the import of goods in its draft resolution was "to allow Iraq to import the full range of civilian goods without restriction." However there is no reason to believe that any of these proposals will result in a significant improvement in the humanitarian situation in Iraq or allow the Iraqi economy to re-inflate, as they do not address the underlying problems with sanctions.

SCR 1409 maintains the framework of the 'oil for food' programme, with the proceeds of oil sales continuing to be paid into a UN-administered escrow account. Many of the limitations of the 'oil for food' programme are also retained:

There is still a prohibition on foreign investment into Iraq, necessary to rebuild the shattered infrastructure of the country. The Security Council's humanitarian panel reported in March 1999 that, for Iraq to recover, "the oil for food system alone would not suffice and massive investment would be required in a number of key sectors, including oil, energy, agriculture and sanitation".
"Smart sanctions" contain no new provision for a cash component to the 'oil for food' programme. Because Iraq's oil revenue can at present only be spent on the purchasing of goods, Iraq's major source of earnings cannot be used to pay public sector wages. A cash component to the 'oil for food' programme was allowed by resolution 1284, but it has never been implemented due to a failure to agree terms with the Iraqi government. The Secretary General reported in September 2001 that "the absence of an agreement on the implementation of a cash component as envisaged in resolution 1284 (1999) continues to hamper severely the implementation of the programme."
25% of oil revenue continues to be paid in compensation for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The central purchasing and distribution of goods by the Iraqi government remains, with the population receiving primary commodities through a rationing system. This system leaves the population in a highly vulnerable position if the distribution of the ration is interrupted, through war or other national emergencies. It is also highly inefficient, creates high levels of dependency on the central authorities and destroys normal economic life for the vast majority of the Iraqi people.
Iraq is not allowed to export any goods other than oil.

Whilst 'oil for food' may have reduced the widespread nature of severe malnutrition in Iraq, it cannot be a long-term solution. As the UN Secretary-General said in his report of 2 March 2001, the 'oil for food' programme "was never meant to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people and cannot be a substitute for normal economic activity in Iraq."

The adoption of SCR 1409 reduces the number of items that are subject to the approval of the 661 Committee. Placing decision-making power in the hands of UN experts instead of politically motivated members of the Sanctions Committee may have a beneficial effect. However, since the UK and US claim that the GRL is an exhaustive list of all 'dual-use' goods, they would have had no reason to place holds on other goods under the previous system: therefore, the activation of the GRL should not allow more goods into Iraq than should have been the case if the US and UK had used their own criteria for evaluating contracts prior to the passing of SCR 1409. The smart sanctions proposals offer no more in this regard than a more honest application of the restriction on dual-use imports that was decided upon in 1991.

In summary, smart sanctions fail to address those fundamental problems of the Iraqi economy that are a major cause for the impoverishment of the Iraqi people; the degradation of Iraq's infrastructure. They tinker with procedures, but fail to deal with the underlying problems inherent in the sanctions. As the UK representative said at the Security Council in June 2001, "the status quo is not acceptable". Smart sanctions reinforce that status quo.

10. Why is 'oil for food' suffering a funding crisis?

In the year 2000 Iraqi oil exports averaged more than 1.9 million barrels per day. Between January 2001 and November 2002 Iraqi oil exports have averaged less than 1.5 million barrels per day. This sustained fall in oil exports has plunged the 'oil for food' programme into a funding crisis.

In its November 2002 note on the implementation of the humanitarian programme in Iraq the Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP) reported that there were $3.3 billion of contracts which had been approved, but for which no funds were available. It says that if all contracts currently being processed were approved there would be a funding shortfall in excess of $10 billion. In Phase XII alone between $3.5 billion and $4 billion in revenue has been lost as a result of the reduced level of exports. This underfunding of the 'oil for food' programme prompted Benon Sevan the Executive Director of OIP to tell the Security Council in September 2002 that:

Compare this to the situation in November 2000 when the UN Secretary-General was able to report that after the first eight phases the 'oil for food' programme had over $2.5 billion in unspent funds.

Why has there been such a fall in Iraqi oil exports during 2001 and 2002 and what can be done to increase oil sales?

The table below shows the rate of Iraqi oil exports during Phases VI -- XII of the 'oil for food' programme (the cap on the value of Iraqi oil sales was removed 6 days after the start of Phase VII).

Average rate of oil lifted (millions of barrels per day)

Phase VI

1.93

Phase VII

1.88

Phase VIII

2.14

Phase IX

1.40

Phase X

1.94

Phase XI

1.36

Phase XII (as of 15 November 2002)

1.14

OIP estimates Iraq has a sustainable rate of export of 2.1 million barrels per day.

Source: OIP weekly oil export tables

In its November 2002 report the OIP identifies three reasons for the fall in exports:

The periodic suspension of oil exports by Iraq. For instance in April and May 2002 Iraq suspended all oil exports for 30 days in protest at the continuing violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The OIP estimates that this resulted in $1.2 billion of lost revenue.

Concerns by traders over the reliability of Iraqi oil supplies in the light of previous suspensions of exports and the possibility of an invasion of Iraq in the near future. These concerns have resulted in traders being less willing to buy oil from Iraq.

The absence of an agreement between the 661 Committee and the Government of Iraq regarding the pricing of Iraqi oil. The reasons for this and its effects on oil exports are analysed below.

'Retroactive pricing'

Starting in December 2000 Iraq had been charging below market price for oil bought under the 'oil for food' programme, but then demanding a surcharge of 25-30 cents a barrel from traders. This money was paid directly to the Iraqi government, giving it a source of revenue forbidden by sanctions. In an attempt to end this practice the 661 Committee has sought to ensure the price of Iraqi oil is sufficiently high that traders cannot afford to make additional payments to the Government of Iraq. Since October 2001 they have taken to setting the price 'retroactively' based on average market prices during the previous month.

In an attempt to protect its revenue source the Iraqi government has at times refused to sell oil under this pricing system and losses to the humanitarian programme have been compounded by the reluctance of traders to buy Iraqi oil when faced with reduced profit margins and uncertainty over the price they will pay for the oil. The existence of the surcharge also led to many large oil companies which did not want to be involved in illegal trading refusing to purchase Iraqi oil.

In September 2002 Iraq removed the surcharge, but this has not led to an end to the retroactive pricing system. The Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported in October 2002 that Britain and the US had told the 661 Committee that "the strict retroactive pricing system for Iraqi crude exports should continue". According to MEES, "In essence Washington and London want to eliminate name-plate and small trading firms from buying Iraqi oil and re-selling it to third parties and oblige Baghdad to sell to US and UK firms directly, something that Iraq has refused to do".

Attempts by Britain and the US to ensure that only 'credible' oil companies can purchase oil under the 'oil for food' programme can be traced back to the initial 'smart sanctions' discussions of summer 2001. Then a UK draft resolution asked the Secretary-General to draw up: "criteria for the selection of companies and trading organisations to be authorised to handle the sale or supply of Iraqi petroleum ... those criteria to include a proven record of legitimate trading by the company or organisation concerned in Iraqi and non-Iraqi petroleum."

Britain and the US argued that by allowing only reputable companies to purchase Iraqi oil they would prevent Iraq from levying the surcharge. In March 2002 the UN oil overseers concurred that "a more stringent selection of contract-holders" could help to end the surcharge and maximise revenues. No changes to which companies are permitted to trade in Iraqi oil have been made however.

It is not yet clear whether the end of the surcharge will result in a sustained increase in Iraqi oil exports. October 2002 exports averaged 1.61 million barrels per day up from 1.25 million in September and 0.84 million in August, an increase that OIP said was possibly due to the elimination of the surcharge. Whether this trend will continue whilst prices are set retroactively remains to be seen.

Regardless of future developments the 'oil for food' programme now faces a funding crisis, the existence of which provides another example of how sanctions allow the welfare of the Iraqi population to be held hostage to disputes between the Iraqi government and the US and UK. As the Secretary-General warned in his November 2002 report to the Security Council:

"unless the present situation is redressed it is likely that many of the programme achievements to date will be compromised, leading to a worsening of the humanitarian situation."

11. What do other people say about sanctions?

In the last couple of years we have heard increasingly hard-hitting statements against sanctions on Iraq from very diverse sources. More UN officials have resigned on the grounds of their opposition to sanctions. In March 2000, Hans von Sponeck renounced his post as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator, explaining that he “cannot any longer be associated with a programme that prolongs sufferings of the people and which has no chance to meet even the basic needs of the civilian population”. Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Programme in Iraq, quit shortly afterwards, citing concerns about the humanitarian programme in Iraq.

In August 2000, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted a resolution with title “Humanitarian situation of the Iraqi population”. This was the fourth year in a row that the sub-commission had dealt with the issue of sanctions in Iraq, but their document this year makes, with strong language, a direct link between sanctions and the suffering of Iraqi civilians, “considering any embargo that condemned an innocent people to hunger, disease, ignorance and even death to be a flagrant violation of the economic social and cultural rights and the right to life of the people concerned and of international law”. Based on a working paper by the Belgian representative Marc Bossuyt, the resolution invokes the 1949 Geneva Conventions which, in the words of the Sub-Commission, “prohibit the starving of civilian populations and the destruction of what is indispensable for their survival”. The Sub-Commission calls “for the embargo provisions affecting the humanitarian situation of the population of Iraq to be lifted”.

Anti-sanctions voices have also become louder in the Middle East, where there is a sense that the UN leads a policy of double standards: it applies rigour to Iraq, but refuses to protect the Palestinians from Israeli onslaughts, a view rekindled by the recent killings of Palestinians since confrontations started last September. Countries which used to trade actively with Iraq have also suffered for ten years of the embargo; and the Arab public, in solidarity with ordinary Iraqis, puts pressure on their governments to help Iraq out of the crisis. All this pushes the leaders of neighbouring countries to overcome their fear of the Iraqi regime and soften their position on sanctions. In May 2000, Jordan's Prime Minister, 'Abd al-Ra'uf al-Rawabdeh, said that "the sanctions imposed on Iraq have lead to great human catastrophe of unpredictable destructive impact in the short and long terms. We call for lifting the embargo on Iraq". Similarly, in July 2000 the Egypt's Foreign Minister, Amr Musa, called the sanctions "unacceptable" and "void of logic". The governments of Syria Oman and Morocco have also been vocal in calling for an end to sanctions. Even Iran and Kuwait, both victims of Iraqi aggression, are now contesting the embargo. This undermines the regional security arguments in favour of sanctions.

Several governments outside the Middle East are also urging the UN to lift the sanctions, including India, Malaysia, Venezuela, Indonesia and Vietnam. In February 2000 a letter signed by 70 members of the US House of Representatives was submitted to President Clinton asking that he “de-link economic sanctions from the military sanctions currently in place in Iraq”, though it was quickly counteracted by a response from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In April 2000 the European Parliament passed a resolution on Iraq in which it noted that “the Iraqi people are in a tragic situation as a result of the imposition of sanctions” and called upon the Security Council for “the lifting of Sanctions as a matter of urgency” while still “exercis[ing] vigilance with regard to the Iraqi regime”. Anti-sanctions lobbying has also sprouted in the parliaments of (among others) Canada, Britain, Italy, and Holland.

Since the UN Humanitarian Panel report was made public, the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have become more resolute in their support to the anti-sanctions movement. They have presented motions for an overhaul of the sanctions regime to UN bodies and the governments involved, that ensures the well-being of Iraqi society while targeting imports of military nature.

Save the Children Fund UK has been active in Iraq since 1991; its work is currently restricted to Iraqi Kurdistan, since the Iraqi government forbids NGOs active there to operate in South/Central Iraq as well. It has called the sanctions regime "a silent war against Iraq's children", and has said that "the maintenance of a comprehensive embargo on Iraq is a disproportionate act in international law when the deleterious effect on the civilian population and children is so clear". Similarly, the Catholic aid agency CAFOD, released a report in February 2001 that called for an immediate suspension of sanctions; the Director of CAFOD called sanctions "humanly catastrophic, morally indefensible and politically ineffective".

One of the central goals of sanctions is to put pressure on the government of Iraq to abandon its non-conventional weapons. Although it may be objectionable to harm a civilian population in order to pressurise their government, the human costs of sanctions are defended by some on the grounds that sanctions are succeeding in achieving the disarmament of Iraq. However, this is not the case: UN weapons inspectors themselves believe that sanctions in fact impede disarmament. Former Unscom executive chairman, Richard Butler, told the BBC that “sanctions as now applied to Iraq have been utterly counterproductive for this disarmament purpose”. Scott Ritter, formerly in charge of Unscom concealment programme is now actively campaigning for the lifting of the non-military sanctions, whose effects he claims are “felt by 22 million innocent Iraqi people, not by the leadership, not by Saddam Hussein, not by his cronies”.

Finally, you'll probably want to look at the reports compiled by the Security Section of the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq about air strikes in the no fly zones. You'll find links to two such reports on our website at http://www.casi.org.uk/info/un.html#unohci . These only cover a limited time frame, but contain the most detail, and are based on eyewitness accounts by UN staff.

[Answer last updated: 16-Oct-2002]

16. Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction (WMD)?

On the allegations about Iraq's non-conventional weapons, there are strong proponents both ways. On the one hand, there is the former United Nations leading weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who argues forcefully that United Nations inspectors had disarmed Iraq of 90-95% of its non-conventional weapons, and left it without the capacity over the next few years to re-develop those weapons. For this reason, Ritter claims that Iraq is "qualitatively disarmed":

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_06/iraqjun.asp

On the other hand are many other former weapons inspectors who argue that Iraq has retained a non-conventional weapons capacity, and continues to develop it. A number of the invited speakers to the Senate foreign relations committee made this argument in the hearings at the end of July and early August: http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/sfrc020801.html

If you are interested, CASI has a good listing of the major sources on information and allegations about Iraq's weapons at: http://www.casi.org.uk/info/themes.html#mil

You may also be interested to read a 'counter dossier' by Glen Rangwala published in advance of the UK government's dossier of 'evidence' on Iraq's weapons. You'll find it at http://www.labouragainstthewar.org.uk/link5.html and some futher notes in response to the government dossier at http://middleeast.reference.users.btopenworld.com/iraqncbfurther.html.

A briefing on the activities of the weapons inspectors from 1991 to 1998 is at: http://www.arabmediawatch.com/iraq/020404briefing.pdf

A valuable newspaper overview is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,667669,00.html

[Last updated October 2002]

17. What is Phase V?

Phase V is jargon in the UN for the security situation in which all UN personnel are withdrawn, except for local staff. An overview of the phases is at: http://www.reliefweb.int/undac/documents/insarag/guidelines/Safety1.html

The UN has occasional general discussions about how to maintain emergency humanitarian operations in such situations, eg through international aid organisations that do keep a presence.

Phase V has previously been declared in Somalia, West Timor and Sierra Leone, among others, generally following the deaths of UN humanitarian personnel.

18. Isn't it all Saddam's fault?

Sanctions are meant to force governments to change their behaviour by hurting the sanctioned country. Economic sanctions hurt by reducing the availability of goods; this drives up prices and attacks the economy. If there is an export embargo in addition to the banning of imports, they also make themselves felt by banning foreign investment and access to capital and export markets. For these reasons economic sanctions were originally known as economic warfare. If the economy is hurt, the poor and the vulnerable are those with least capability to withstand the pressure, and broad economic sanctions, such as those on Iraq, tend therefore to target the weakest among the population.

If their government cares about their well-being, it may comply with the sanctioners' demands and act to see the sanctions lifted. Unfortunately, the Iraqi government has primarily showed itself interested in its own survival. It has therefore insulated itself from the effects of the sanctions. The Iraqi government has even taken advantage of the smuggling opportunities created by the scarcity: US and British politicians know this, regularly describing the palaces, amusement parks and cases of whiskey to which the Iraqi government has access. It is vital to bear in mind the chain of causation here. The Iraqi government has not caused the hardship; it has failed to act to see it removed. But it is still the policy that is flawed. I find it useful to compare economic coercion with military coercion. The Economist magazine put this succinctly in May 2000: "If, year in, year out, the UN were systematically killing Iraqi children by air strikes, western governments would declare it intolerable, no matter how noble the intention. They should find their existing policy just as unacceptable. In democracies, the end does not justify the means." While the Iraqi population, which is not responsible for the decisions of its government, has been the sanctions' chief victim, the Iraqi government seems stronger than it was in 1991 when it nearly fell in a civil war. Poverty has created reliance on a government-distributed food ration, bringing an unprecedented level of government control over people' daily life; and the middle class which previously formed the core of political dissent has seen their savings destroyed and been thrust into unemployment. Punishing ordinary Iraqis for the actions of their dictator, whom they have not elected, is unjust.

Furthermore, over a decade of sanctions have shown that this is an ineffective way of trying to sway the Iraqi government. CASI therefore believes that the non-military sanctions on Iraq must be lifted (this can be done while still maintaining controls on Iraq's military capabilities). Any steps short of this continue to hold the Iraqi population hostage to the political struggle between their government and ours and continue to harm the Iraqi people. CASI has no sympathy for the Iraqi government: it is one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. Rather, our argument is that precisely because this regime cannot be expected to prioritise the well-being of its population, we cannot continue to use a means of coercion (economic sanctions) which works primarily by hurting the Iraqi people, and hope that it will eventually arouse compassion in the Iraqi rulers. It is not only cruel, it is also ineffective. And it is a fundamentally flawed incentive structure. Our failure to refer more to the Iraqi government therefore reflects this and nothing else: sanctions on civilians must be lifted regardless of the actions and agenda of politicians. The well-being of the Iraqi people must be 'delinked' from progress in the political field, and at the very least we must stop using ordinary Iraqis' well-being as a political bargaining chip. In brief, the Iraqi people does not forfeit its social and economic rights because of the actions of their dictator.

19. What does UNICEF say about sanctions? How many children have died because of sanctions?

In August 1999, a survey by UNICEF [the United Nations Children’s Fund] found that the mortality rate for children under 5 in Iraq had doubled since 1989. It concluded that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under five in the country during the eight year period 1991-8.

This estimate is based on a comparison between the Iraqi child mortality rate, as measured by Unicef, and what it would have been had the average decline of the 1980s continued. UNICEF does not claim that sanctions alone caused this change. There were many other causes, such as the impact of the Gulf War and 1991 civil war, and a decline in breast-feeding.

Sanctions did play a part, but it is hard to determine exactly how many deaths were caused by sanctions and how many by other factors. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy has said that:

"Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."

The 1999 UNICEF study is the most reliable source of information on excess mortality in Iraq under sanctions. It is an independent study; it uses internationally recognised methodology; and it took elaborate measures to avoid data manipulation. A fuller analysis is available here

The Unicef study does not exist in an informational vacuum. Its findings are corroborated by a large number of other independent (mostly UN) studies of Iraq. Some of the most illuminating are:

* The UN Food and Agriculture Oganisation and World Food Programme (see www.casi.org.uk/info/un.html#fao) has published biannual studies of nutrition since 1996. The 2000 study explicitly states that its findings 'corroborate' the Unicef finding.

* The UN Secretary General's reports on the implementation of the 'Oil for Food' programme (26 in total), give detailed accounts of the various constraints on Iraqi wellbeing. They often chastise the failure of the Iraqi government to act effectively - whether because of incompetence, institutional constraints, or malicious intent is moot - but likewise make very clear, from 1996 until the present, that the sanctions regime itself is a major constraint on recovery.

* A recent (February 2002) Unicef report. While there is little qualitatively new information in this, it indicates the failure to affect a humanitarian recovery under the 'oil for food' programme; the impression is more of an arrest of the deterioration at standards well below those in pre-sanctions Iraq. Given the consistency of such independently verified information, sanctions must be a cause for concern.

The only other in-depth study into the scale of infant mortality in Iraq is by Prof. Richard Garfield of Columbia University, a leading epidemiologist. Garfield, using different data sources from Unicef, thinks the most probable number of excess deaths of under-five children from August 1991 to June 2002 is about 400,000. Beyond that, for over-5s, there is simple not enough reliable data to make an assessment on numbers.

Further information:

The press release of the UNICEF report

A questions and Answers sheet about the Unicef '99 report

Text of the UNICEF report

'Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi Children from 1990 Through 1998: Assessing the Impact of the Gulf War and Economic Sanctions' by Richard Garfield

20. How are sanctions on Iraq different from those that were placed on South Africa?

The embargoes on Iraq and South Africa are very different:

Firstly, the effectiveness (in economic, not political terms) of the Iraqi embargo is of an altogether different magnitude. Sanctions were imposed on a country which had just had much of its infrastructure destroyed in a war. Iraq also earned almost all its foreign exchange from a single, bulky, controllable commodity (making a comprehensive embargo possible). The effects on have therefore been much more serious. Infant mortality has doubled in Iraq. The hardship caused in South Africa by sanctions was nowhere near as grave.

Secondly, while black South Africans were excluded from the political process, white South Africans lived in a democracy of sorts, enjoying some (admittedly circumscribed) influence over their government. When hurt by the embargo, they could put pressure on their government. It could be argued that this was not altogether that significant (in economic terms, the withdrawal of credit by Chase Manhattan and other banks in 1986 was probably more important), but the mechanism was there. The same could be possibly be said about the sanctions on Serbia in the 1990s, which had (again imperfect) structures for the transmission of popular suffering to political consequences. In Iraq, there is no such mechanism. The Iraqi leadership has insulated itself from the effect of sanctions, and even taken advantage of the smuggling opportunities generated by scarcity; the UK/US governments are fond of describing amusement parks and palaces to which they have access, and Saddam Hussein keeps climbing on Forbes Magazine's list of the richest heads of states. The pressure exerted by sanctions on the Iraqi leadership is therefore very limited; indeed, its main component may be an appeal to its compassion for the plight of the Iraqi people. This seems deeply flawed: if there is anything for which this regime is known, it is its lack of this very property.

Third, the role of Rev. Tutu in the South African case is illuminating. In South Africa, there was a clear and internationally recognised structure through which the opinion of black South Africans could be expressed. With some justification, one could say that black South Africans wanted the embargo, saw it as a 'price worth paying' to help get rid of Apartheid. This has no counterpart in Iraq; even the Iraqi National Congress (which is only partially independent of the US government) has expressed unease about sanctions. This ties in with the two previous points: it is unlikely that Rev. Tutu or any other black South African leader would have supported a sanctions regime that had lasted for 12 years without indication of having the desired effect (swaying the sanctioned government), while accompanied by a doubling of infant mortality among South Africans.

[By Per Klevnas, 5 December 2002, adapted by Dan O’Huiginn]

21. What is the goal of the sanctions on Iraq?

Sanctions on Iraq were imposed by the UN Security Council on 6th August 1990 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The aim was to coerce Iraq into withdrawing from Kuwait, which it did in March 1991 at the end of the Gulf War.

In April 1991, the Security Council extended the sanctions, listing a series of conditions that Iraq must fulfil in order for the sanctions on its exports to be ended, namely:

- destruction of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic weapons with a range of over 150km, under the supervision of UNSCOM (the UN weapons inspectors) and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

- agreement that it will not develop these weapons in future

- that Iraq reaffirm its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968

Crucially, it is the Security Council, not the weapons inspectors, who were given the role of deciding when Iraq had complied with these requirements. Given that 100% 'quantitative compliance' -- accounting for every last screw, every last gramme of material involved in its weapons programme -- is impossible, and that any Security Council member has the power of veto of the decision, this allows the lifting of sanctions to become a political bargaining tool. This situation has been much abused by US officials, who, while frequently maintaining that "all Iraq needs to do to end the sanctions is comply with weapons inspectors", have on several occasions stated that sanctions will never be lifted while Saddam Hussein remains in power (see, for example, http://www.arabmediawatch.com/iraq/mythoflifting.htm ). This ambiguity is counter-productive to the stated aims of the sanctions, because any incentive for Saddam Hussein to comply with the weapons inspection programme is removed if he believes sanctions will stay until he is no longer in power, regardless of the weapons inspections.

In December 1999, the Security Council passed resolution 1284, which complicates the matter of when sanctions will be lifted by discussing the "suspension" of sanctions if Iraq complies for a period of 120 days with UNMOVIC (UNSCOM's replacement). The precise details of what such a suspension would involve are not specified (for more on resolution 1284, see CASI's briefing at http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/ob2.html).

To summarise, the current official goal of the sanctions is to coerce Iraq into verifiably abandoning and destroying the weapons programmes listed above. However, the US in particular has repeatedly muddied the waters over the precise conditions for the lifting of sanctions, hinting that they may never be lifted while Saddam Hussein in power.

Further reading: "Non-conventional weapons, sanctions and the threat of war" in CASI's July 2002 newsletter: http://www.casi.org.uk/newslet/0207weapons.html

22. How are the sanctions supposed to achieve their goals?

Economic sanctions imposed on a country are designed to cripple some or all aspects of that country's economy by restricting trade. The intention is that the consequences of the sanctions will be unacceptable to the leadership of the country, who will therefore agree to the demands of those imposing the sanctions.

For this mechanism to work in the case of Iraq, which is ruled by a dictator, we must rely on one of two things. Either the sanctions must inflict hardship on Saddam Hussein's regime directly, or Saddam Hussein must care enough about the wellbeing of Iraq's population that he will not tolerate sanctions which impose hardship on civilian population.

Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq, neither of these conditions are met. Saddam Hussein's regime has no shortage of funds raised from oil smuggling; he and his cronies are able to live a life of luxury, as Western governments are keen to point out with their reports of his palace-building programme. So sanctions aren't directly hurting Saddam Hussein.

On the other hand, Saddam Hussein clearly values his own hold on power above the wellbeing of the population of Iraq (something else that the UK and US governments are keen to point out). So he's not likely to comply with the demands of the Security Council purely in order to lift the burden of sanctions from his civilian population. Broad economic sanctions imposed on a democracy can make sense, because if the leadership refuse to comply with demands, the population will be coerced into changing their leaders. Economic sanctions on dictatorship, however, are a fundmanetally flawed idea, because the cilivian population have no way to turn their suffering into a change of leadership. In fact, there is evidence that sanctions on Iraq have actually increased the regime's grip over the population, as people have been forced to rely on a food ration handed out by the government for survival.

CASI has no objection to military sanctions on Iraq which prevent the import of military equipment into Iraq. Economic sanctions, however, necessarily inflict suffering on the population of Iraq by preventing the re-inflation of Iraq's economy, and as such are not a morally justifiable method of attempting to coerce Iraq into compliance with Security Council demands. Recent changes to the sanctions, such as the introduction of the Goods Review List in Security Council Resolution 1409 (see http://www.casi.org.uk/info/scriraq.html#2002) go some way to reducing the humanitarian impact of sanctions, but fail to address this fundamental question.

23. From whence come the food and other humanitarian goods which are given to Iraq in exchange for oil? Is it surplus? Is it genetically modified? And to whom does the oil go? And which oil companies are drilling it? Also, which oil companies are providing the oil industry infrastructure aid to Iraq?

The goods delivered to Iraq under the Oil for Food programme are not 'given' to Iraq and do not constitute 'aid' - Iraq buys the goods with its own money. The difference to normal trade is that the government of Iraq doesn't have direct access to the money raised by selling oil through the Oil for Food programme. Instead, these funds are paid into a UN-controlled bank account. When Iraq wishes to import goods, it arranges a contract with a supplier and is able to use money from this bank account to pay them. Of course, this process is subject to the constraints of the Oil for Food programme, which currently mean that Iraq must submit to the UN advance notice, every six months, of the items it intends to import in the following six month phase. In addition, contracts only go ahead without delay if none of the items requested are on a Goods Review List of potentially 'dual use' items. In the past (prior to Security Council Resolution 1409) this process was a lot more complicated and less streamlined than it is now, but even in its current form, the process imposes significant constraints on the smooth running of Iraq as a country. To mention just one example of this, often equipment (e.g. a water purification plant) is delivered to Iraq but there is no money available for the Iraqi authorities to pay for local labour to install it.

As to the question of where the oil goes - Iraq can sell the oil to whoever wishes to buy it. The US forbids its own oil-importing companies from buying directly from Iraq, and Iraq also prefers not to been seen to be exporting to countries which it sees as its enemy. In spite of this, the majority of Iraq oil does end up in the US, routed via intermediary companies in other countries.

The oil is drilled by Iraq's state-owned oil companies. Under the Oil for Food programme Iraq is been allowed to import some equipment for the habilitation of the oil infrastructure. Again, this is not aid - it is paid for by the same mechanism I described above, and is supplied by whichever suppliers Iraq chooses to engage.

	Infant And Maternal Health: "Low birth weight babies (less than 2.5 kg) rose from 4% in 1990 to around a quarter of registered births in 1997, due mainly to maternal malnutrition. UNFPA and other sources such as the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies believe that as many as 70% of Iraqi women are suffering from anaemia." (§18)
	Malnutrition: "The dietary energy supply had fallen from 3,120 to 1,093 kilo calories per capita/per day by 1994 - 95. The prevalence of malnutrition in Iraqi children under five almost doubled from 1991 to 1996 (from 12% to 23%). Acute malnutrition in Center/South rose from 3% to 11% for the same age bracket. Results of a nutritional status survey conducted on 15,000 children under 5 years of age in April 1997 indicated that almost the whole young child population was affected by a shift in their nutritional status towards malnutrition (Nutritional Status Survey of Infants in Iraq, UNICEF November 7 1998)." (§19)
	Prices: The UN World Food Programme "indicates that according to estimates for July 1995, average shop prices of essential commodities stood at 850 times the July 1990 level." (§19)
	Infrastructure: "In addition to the scarcity of resources, malnutrition problems also seem to stem from the massive deterioration in basic infrastructure, in particular in the water-supply and waste disposal systems. The most vulnerable groups have been the hardest hit, especially children under five years of age who are being exposed to unhygienic conditions, particularly in urban centers. The WFP estimates that access to potable water is currently 50% of the 1990 level in urban areas and only 33% in rural areas." (§20)
	Health facilities: "Since 1991, hospitals and health centers have remained without repair and maintenance. The functional capacity of the health care system has degraded further by shortages of water and power supply, lack of transportation and the collapse of the telecommunications system. Communicable diseases, such as water borne diseases and malaria, which had been under control, came back as an epidemic in 1993 and have now become part of the endemic pattern of the precarious health situation, according to WHO." (§21)
	Education: "School enrollment for all ages (6-23) has declined to 53%. According to a field survey conducted in 1993, as quoted by UNESCO, in Central and Southern governorates 83% of school buildings needed rehabilitation, with 8,613 out of 10,334 schools having suffered serious damages. The same source indicated that some schools with a planned capacity of 700 pupils actually have 4500 enrolled in them. Substantive progress in reducing adult and female illiteracy has ceased and regressed to mid-1980 levels, according to UNICEF. The rising number of street children and children who work can be explained, in part, as a result of increasing rates of school drop-outs and repetition, as more families are forced to rely on children to secure household incomes." (§22)
	Society: On "the cumulative effects of sustained deprivation on the psycho-social cohesion of the Iraqi population [...] the following aspects were frequently mentioned: increase in juvenile delinquency, begging and prostitution, anxiety about the future and lack of motivation, a rising sense of isolation bred by absence of contact with the outside world, the development of a parallel economy replete with profiteering and criminality, cultural and scientific impoverishment, disruption of family life. [...] UNICEF spoke of a whole generation of Iraqis who are growing up disconnected from the rest of the world." (§25-26)
	Mental health: The World Health Organization "points out that the number of mental health patients attending health facilities rose by 157% from 1990 to 1998 (from 197,000 to 507,000 persons)." (§25)
	Economy: "The data provided to the panel point to a continuing degradation of the Iraqi economy with an acute deterioration in the living conditions of the Iraqi population and severe strains on its social fabric. As summarized by the UNDP field office, "the country has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty"." (§43)

	All revenue from Iraq's oil sales was to be deposited into an escrow account under the auspices of the UN. That is, Iraqi revenues would be transferred to an external body. Aga Khan's report indicates that this provision may have been unnecessary: "the [Iraqi] Government ... noted that all revenues accruing from oil sales were normally held in United States banks and that a suitable device for monitoring such credit balances could be established" [§34].
	Humanitarian purchases were to be screened and approved by the Sanctions Committee and subject to UN "monitoring and supervision" inside Iraq. Again, these words of SCR706 indicate a much more intrusive system than that proposed by Aga Khan's report for "periodic assessments" [§34], and eventually accepted Iraq in SCR986 (1995) for "observation" [§11].
	As all money was to be under UN control and all goods monitored, it is hard to understand the ceiling on oil exports as anything but politically motivated. Within the context of coercion by economic sanctions, this makes sense: if coercion is to have any effect, sanctions need to sting. In the case of Iraq, this sort of reasoning has led to eleven years of widespread starvation and suffering.
	By linking revenues for humanitarian purposes and those intended for compensation payments and weapons inspections, the humanitarian crisis was politicised. Despite their acknowledged deprivation, the Iraqi people would not receive the assistance it needed without its government agreeing to the precise methods and amounts for paying for weapon inspections and compensation to Kuwait. The association of these entirely separate issues is an example of the logic of economic sanctions as used in Iraq: suffering was deliberately and knowingly inflicted, and then used as a bargaining counter.

	There is still a prohibition on foreign investment into Iraq, necessary to rebuild the shattered infrastructure of the country. The Security Council's humanitarian panel reported in March 1999 that, for Iraq to recover, "the oil for food system alone would not suffice and massive investment would be required in a number of key sectors, including oil, energy, agriculture and sanitation".
	"Smart sanctions" contain no new provision for a cash component to the 'oil for food' programme. Because Iraq's oil revenue can at present only be spent on the purchasing of goods, Iraq's major source of earnings cannot be used to pay public sector wages. A cash component to the 'oil for food' programme was allowed by resolution 1284, but it has never been implemented due to a failure to agree terms with the Iraqi government. The Secretary General reported in September 2001 that "the absence of an agreement on the implementation of a cash component as envisaged in resolution 1284 (1999) continues to hamper severely the implementation of the programme."
	25% of oil revenue continues to be paid in compensation for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
	The central purchasing and distribution of goods by the Iraqi government remains, with the population receiving primary commodities through a rationing system. This system leaves the population in a highly vulnerable position if the distribution of the ration is interrupted, through war or other national emergencies. It is also highly inefficient, creates high levels of dependency on the central authorities and destroys normal economic life for the vast majority of the Iraqi people.
	Iraq is not allowed to export any goods other than oil.

	Average rate of oil lifted (millions of barrels per day)
Phase VI	1.93
Phase VII	1.88
Phase VIII	2.14
Phase IX	1.40
Phase X	1.94
Phase XI	1.36
Phase XII (as of 15 November 2002)	1.14