"The world has seen again the fine character of our nation through our military as they fought to protect the innocent and liberate the oppressed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.... Last September, I announced several initiatives that will help improve students' knowledge of American history, increase their civic involvement, and deepen their love for our great country...."
-- George Bush, proclaiming May 1, 2003, to be Loyalty Day
It's well known that the conquerors write or rewrite the history books. And now that Iraq has been defeated and occupied, President Bush has just produced the outline for "The Revised History of Modern Iraq."
Several years ago, you may recall, the United Nations reported that over a million Iraqis died as a result of U.S. economic sanctions, which were imposed just before the slaughter known as Gulf War I in 1991. Half of the dead were said to be children under five years old. Since this report, hundreds of thousands more Iraqis have died from the sanctions.
The main reason for the deaths was the Baghdad government's inability to purchase medicines or the materials required to repair and rebuild the country's civilian and industrial infrastructure after the intense U.S. bombardment -- from adequate supplies of drinking water and electricity, to fertilizer for crops, to various types of equipment needed to get the country back on its feet. It was all banned by the sanctions.
Even the UN, under the authority of which the U.S. initiated and enforced sanctions, acknowledges these figures. UNICEF reported in 1999 that the mortality rate for children under 5 increased from 56 deaths per 1,000 live births from the prewar 1984 to 1989 to 131 deaths per 1,000 live births from postwar 1994-1999. Infant mortality, that is the death of children in their first year, rose from 47 per 1,000 live births before the Gulf War to 294 today.
But to hear George Bush rewrite history, as he did in a speech April 28, the U.S. had nothing to do with the deplorable situation confronting the Iraqi people since the end of the first Gulf war. After blaming President Saddam Hussein for Iraq's shortage of clean water, lack of medical care and the malnurishment and deaths of children, Bush declared:
"Saddam Hussein's regime impoverished the people in every way. Today, Iraq has only about half as many hospitals as it did in 1990. Seventy percent of its schools are run down and overcrowded. A quarter of Iraqi children are not in school at all. Under Saddam's regime, the Iraqi people did not have a power system they could depend on. These problems plagued Iraq long before the recent conflict. We are helping the Iraqi people to address these challenges, and we will stand with them as they defeat the dictator's legacy."
We do not intend to make a brief for President Hussein's government. But the fact is that before the 1991 war, Iraq was considered one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East in terms of social services, universal health care and education for the people, the relative equality of women, and in the economic stability of Iraqi society.
According to UNICEF, for example, a substantial reduction in child mortality had taken place in Iraq during the years leading up to the first Gulf War. This was because the Baghdad government had invested heavily in social programs for the people, a fact that the U.S. government and corporate media has completely suppressed. Had this progress been allowed continue throughout the 1990s, instead of stopping in 1991, UNICEF reports there would have been well over 500,000 fewer deaths of children under age 5 by the end of the decade.
It was the U.S. bombing during the earlier war and over a dozen years of killer sanctions that were largely responsible for Iraq's plight. This was acknowledged several years ago when Secretary of State Madeline Albright revealed on nationwide television that the sanctions were "worth the price" of over a half-million dead Iraqi children.
But now that Bush of Baghdad has spoken, we expect that the next editions of America's elementary and high school history textbooks -- in the chapter sure to be titled, "The U.S. Liberates Iraq" -- will banish Albright's admission in favor of a brief account of how "the dictator" was responsible for killing over a million and a half Iraqis from 1991 to 2003 by fiendishly depriving them of adequate nutrition, medicine, drinking water, and electricity in order to invest in gold fixtures for his palaces. --- This article will appear in the May 5 email edition of the Mid-Hudson Activist Newsletter, published in New Paltz, N.Y., by the Mid-Hudson National People's Campaign/IAC, via jacdon at earthlink.net.