Iraq's children.

• Author: Capaccio, George
• Position: Effect of economic sanctions on Iraqi children

I went to Iraq earlier this year as part of a peace delegation. On the plane to Amman, I heard an elderly Arab man say, "When George Bush dies, I pray he goes straight to Heaven."

"Why?" I asked.

"So he will see face-to-face all the lovely Iraqi children he has caused to die," the man answered.

Organized and led by Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago-based campaign, our mission was to deliver medicine, medical books, clothing, and toys to individuals, families, and pediatric wards in Baghdad and Basrah.

We also intended to commit an act of civil disobedience by breaking the U.S. law forbidding American citizens to travel to Iraq without official permission. Members of the group were prepared to risk twelve years of imprisonment and fines of up to $1 million.

Before I left, colleagues and friends expressed consternation about my plans to visit Iraq. I told them I wanted to bear witness to what the United States has done to Iraq--not just the devastating war in January 1991, but the even more devastating sanctions that the United States and the U.N Security Council have imposed. I told them I wanted to view the country myself, without the blinders of the U.S. media.

Since the Gulf War, the media have reported on Iraq's compliance or lack of compliance with U.N. resolutions, its treatment of Kurdish and Shi'ite minorities living within its borders, and its sporadic violation of the no-fly zones imposed on the country. There is also the frequent reference to Iraq as a "rogue state" that must be carefully monitored and brought to heel lest it turn on its neighbors, if not the rest of the world.

But there has been little attention paid to the humanitarian crisis that the sanctions have caused. One notable exception was a 1996 interview between Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and former U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright. Stahl asked Albright to explain the U.S. policy in light of the devastation Stahl had personally witnessed in Iraq. Albright responded: "It's a hard decision, Lesley, but we think the price . . . is worth it."

The price is an estimated half million children who have died from malnutrition and disease attributable to U.N sanctions.

"More Iraqi children have died as a result of our sanctions than the combined toll of two atomic bombs on Japan and the recent scourge of ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia," says John Mahoney, executive director of The Link (a journal published by Americans for Middle East Understanding).

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