Fwd: Report from Iraq (from ZNet)

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>Report from Iraq 
>			by Charlie Clements
>February 13, 2003
>
>
>
>
>I am a public health physician and a human rights advocate. I have 
>just returned from a 10-day emergency mission to Iraq with other 
>public health experts to assess the vulnerability of the civilian 
>population to another war. I'm also a distinguished graduate of the 
>USAF Academy and a Vietnam veteran, so I have some sense of the 
>potential consequences of the air war we are about to unleash on 
>Iraq as a prelude to the introduction of American troops.
>
>The population of Iraq has been reduced to the status of refugees. 
>Nearly 60 percent of Iraqis, or almost 14 million people, depend 
>entirely on a government- provided food ration that, by 
>international standards, represents the minimum for human 
>sustenance. Unemployment is greater than 50 percent, and the 
>majority of those who are employed make between $4 and $8 a month. 
>(The latter figure is the salary of a physician that works in a 
>primary health center.) Most families are without economic 
>resources, having sold off their possessions over the last decade to 
>get by.
>
>Hospital wards are filled with severely malnourished children, and 
>much of the population has a marginal nutritional status. While 
>visiting a children's hospital, we were told about newly emerging 
>diseases that had previously been controlled when pesticides were 
>available. (Current sanctions prohibit their importation.) Later I 
>saw a mother who had traveled 200 km with her young daughter, who 
>suffered from leschmaniais, or "kala azar" as it is known there. She 
>came to the hospital because she heard it had a supply of Pentostam, 
>the medicine needed to treat the disease. The pediatrician told her 
>there was none. Then he turned to me and, in English, said, "It 
>would be kinder to shoot her here rather than let her go home and 
>die the lingering death that awaits her". Our interpreter, by 
>instinct, translated the doctor's comments into Arabic for the 
>mother, whose eyes instantly overflowed with tears.
>
>The food distribution program funded by the U.N., Oil- for-Food, is 
>the world's largest and is heavily dependent upon the transportation 
>system, which will be one of the first targets of the war, as the 
>U.S. will attempt to sever transport routes to prevent Iraqi troop 
>movements and interrupt military supplies. Yet even before the 
>transportation system is hit, U.S. aircraft will spread millions of 
>graphite filaments in wind-dispersed munitions that will cause a 
>complete paralysis of the nation's electrical grids. Already 
>literally held together with bailing wire because the country has 
>been unable to obtain spare parts due to sanctions, the poorly 
>functioning electrical system is essential to the public health 
>infrastructure.
>
>The water treatment system, too, has been a victim of sanctions. 
>Unable to import chlorine and aluminum sulfate (alum) to purify 
>water, Iraq has already seen a 1000% increase in the incidence of 
>some waterborne diseases. Typhoid cases, for instance, have 
>increased from 2,200 in 1990 to more than 27,000 in 1999. In the 
>aftermath of an air assault, Iraqis will not have potable water in 
>their homes, and they will not have water to flush their toilets.
>
>The sanitation system, which frequently backs up sewage ankle deep 
>in Baghdad neighborhoods when the ailing pumps fail, will stop 
>working entirely in the aftermath of the air attack. There will be 
>epidemics as water treatment and water pumping will come to a halt. 
>Even though it is against the Geneva Conventions to target 
>infrastructure elements that primarily serve civilians, this 
>prohibition did not give us pause in Gulf War I -- and, based upon 
>current Bush administration threats, will not this time. Pregnant 
>women, malnourished children, and the elderly will be the first to 
>succumb. UNICEF estimates that 500,000 more children died in Iraq in 
>the decade following the Gulf War than died in the previous decade. 
>These children are part of the "collateral damage" from the last war.
>
>How many civilians will die in the next war? That is hard to say. 
>One estimate for the last Gulf War was that 10,000 perished, mostly 
>during the bombing campaign that led up to the invasion. That figure 
>will surely climb because our government has promised that a cruise 
>missile will strike Iraq every five minutes for the first 48 hours 
>the war. These missiles will seek out military, intelligence, and 
>security-force targets around highly populated areas like Baghdad, 
>Basra, and Mosul, Iraq's largest cities, where "collateral damage" 
>is unavoidable. Unable to meet the acute medical needs of the 
>country's population now, the health care system of Iraq will be 
>overwhelmed by such an assault.
>
>This scenario is conservative. I have not taken into account any use 
>of weapons of mass destruction, or the possibility that the war will 
>set loose massive civil disorder and bloodshed, as various groups 
>within the country battle for power or revenge. I have also ignored 
>what would happen if we became bogged down in house-to-house 
>fighting in Baghdad, which could easily become another Mogidishu or 
>Jenin.
>
>There was a lot that made me angry on that trip. I have worked in 
>war zones before and I have been with civilians as they were bombed 
>by U.S.-supplied aircraft, but I don't think I've experienced 
>anything on the magnitude of the catastrophe that awaits our attack 
>in Iraq. Still, as deeply troubling as this looming human disaster 
>is, another issue troubles me far more. If the U.S. pursues this war 
>without the backing of the U.N. Security Council, it will undermine 
>a half-century of efforts by the world community to establish a 
>foundation of humanitarian and human rights law. Such an act on our 
>part would also violate the U.N. Charter and make a mockery of the 
>very institution we have helped to fashion in the hopes it would 
>help prevent crimes against humanity. Many might define the 
>consequences of such an attack on the population of Iraq as just 
>that.
>
>Saddam is a monster, there is no doubt about that. He needs to be 
>contained. Yet many former U.N. weapons inspectors feel he has been 
>"defanged". His neighbors do not fear him any longer. There are many 
>Iraqis who want him removed, but not by a war. Against the short- 
>term gain of removing Saddam, we must take into account that idea 
>that we may well unleash forces of hatred and resentment that will 
>haunt us for decades to come in every corner of the world. I can 
>just hear Osama Bin Laden saying now, "Please President Bush, attack 
>Iraq. There's nothing better you could do to help the cause of Al 
>Qaeda!"
>
>Letter from Charlie Clements <<mailto:clclements at aol.com>clclements at aol.com>,
>
>Charlie Clements, a public health physician, has spent much of his 
>professional experience dealing with issues of war, human rights, 
>and the humanitarian needs of refugees. He is the co-founder of the 
>International Medical Relief Fund (IMRF) and was president during 
>the 16 years it functioned (1982-1998). From 1984-1986 he served as 
>the Director of Human Rights Education of the Unitarian Universalist 
>Service Committee (UUSC). He has served on the board of Physicians 
>for Human Rights (PHR) from 1987 to the present and is currently its 
>past president. PHR was one of the founders and leaders of the 
>International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Clements represented PHR at 
>both the signing of the Treaty to Ban Landmines in Ottawa, Canada 
>and the next week at the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, 
>Norway. He is also the founder of the International Commission on 
>Medical Neutrality, which has focused attention on the need to 
>extend the protections afforded military physicians and patients by 
>the Gen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <../attachments/20030213/0fdc53f0/attachment.htm>