Election Crisis and Electoral Reform

[Kevin Quinn]

At 11:08 AM 11/20/00 -0800, BD  wrote:
>Kevin, with all due respect, you simply don't know what you're talking about.
>
>First of all, Iraq has simply not had that much money from selling oil.  It
>could sell more oil if it was allowed to rebuild its industrial base - but we
>haven't allowed that to happen.
>
>Second of all, what Oil-for-Food money is spent on is decided by UN 661
>Committee - not by Saddam Hussain.
>
>Third of all, most of the Iraqi children who have died have died of a lack of
>infrastructure - but you can't restore availability of clean water (for
>example) by importing food and medicine.  You can only do this by importing
>the technology and supplies needed to return Iraq's economy to the 20th
>century - which the US won't allow.  (Nor, for that matter, is it possible to
>rebuild a modern hospital without access to technology).  Importing food and
>medicine won't give Iraq the capacity to dispose of sewage in a safe, sanitary
>manner.  Importing food and medicine won't allow Iraq to restore electric
>power needed to run hospitals and sewage plants.  Importing food and medicine
>won't restore Iraq's agricultural base.

There is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq and you are right that a great deal 
of the deaths are attributable to an economy that has been destroyed. But 
the sanctions did not destroy the economy; the war did. And only if your 
counter-factual is that without the sanctions, the infrastructure would be 
back to its pre-war condition is it fair to blame all these deaths on the 
sanctions. I haven't seen evidence for such a counter-factual and it seems 
unlikely to me.  Iraqi oil sales today are greater than they were prior to 
the sanctions--according to Clinton in that Amy Goodman interview (is this 
so?).


>Not to mention the occasional, ongoing US bombing of Iraq, which also makes
>rebuilding infrastructure difficult.
>
>Fourth of all, the oil-for-food program currently brings in $252 per Iraqi per
>year.  Have you tried eating on $252 per year?  Would that strike you as
>adequate?  What evidence do you have to show that Iraq has the infrastructure
>and technology necessary to sell ten times as much oil as it does currently?
>
>Fifth of all, if the idea of US responsibility for the humanitarian crisis is
>just a self-serving story created by Hussain, then why have so many
>knowlegable people bought the story?  Critics of the US State Department and
>the sanctions include two UN heads of the Food-for-Oil program (both of whom
>resigned in disgust), two former heads of the UN Iraqi weapons inspection
>team, and numerious international humanitarian observers.  Many of these
>people seem far better placed to know what is happening in Iraq, and who is to
>blame for the failures of the Old-For-Food program, than anyone else in the
>world.  Are all of these people in Hussain's pocket, in your opinion?

No: they are  concerned about a humanitarian crisis.  But whether the 
sanctions are causing this crisis is not a question that is settled just by 
eye-witness observation of the suffering that is going on. It requires 
evaluating the counter-factual above. Thanks to you, I have looked at some 
of the UNESCO reports and I do not find this question addressed.