“Initially it began as punishment for the invasion of Kuwait, they were preliminary and maybe modest. After the invasion, and the gulf war which removed Iraq out of Kuwait, the then Security Council sat down and put together this comprehensive and open ended act of sanctions which lasted 13 years. It resulted in the loss of life of well over a million Iraqis, primarily children.”
Conflict to Sanctions:
Sanctions are listed in the UN charter, chapter seven, article 41 as a peaceful resolve to problems without the need to resort to military problems which is the more aggressive resolution, optioned in article 42 in the same chapter. Mr. Halliday was heavily involved in the sanctions Iraq, working on the ‘Oil for Food’ welfare program. This program was a way of bringing food to Iraqis through the sanctions, in exchange for oil. This Program was regulated by the UN. Mr. Halliday’s opinion on the sanctions is contradictory to the UN charters’ and comes from his extensive experience with sanctions; “My argument is sanctions are in fact violent in their own right. They kill. Prolonged sanctions kill more and more and more… That’s what happened in Iraq, and that’s why I resigned.”
Sanctions are not all to blame, as the cause of the effect in the Middle East. However, it definitely played a big role. The sanctions were UN imposed, and a mistake in Mr. Halliday’s eyes. His opinion on the lead up to the current crisis is as follows: “I think sanctions led to the destruction of Iraq. It brought Iraq to its knees. The war with Iran, the invasion of Kuwait, and the sanctions. Those three things put together were catastrophic in terms of loss of life, in terms of loss revenue and keeping the country together, creating wellbeing, employment and opportunity and health and education. All things that were doing so well in the 70’s and 80’s. But with those wars, Saddam made huge mistakes. Kuwait was a huge mistake.”
Mr. Halliday shed light on the specifics of the sanctions and the ‘Oil for Food’ program, going on to describe giant container bays filled with rice, imported from countries such as China. He described the containers to be so big that they needed bulldozers to divide them into smaller containers to ship around the country, so as to feed 25 million Iraqis. “Of course it fell short in terms of quality and proteins. There were no vegetables, no meats. A lot of absences from the diet.”
The rest of this article can be read here: http://on.irishtimes.com/CssMMgr
