War on Iraq Debate

The question dominating the news: When will
we go to war against Iraq?

The answer: We are already at war with Iraq.

The debate over the Bush administration's call
for war is usually described as hawks v. doves
-- those for the war pitted against those
opposing war. In fact, the debate in
mainstream news is hawks v. hawks; the
question isn't whether or not to wage war, but
what form that war should take.

Bush and the ultra-hawks want a full-scale war
as soon as feasible, to secure control over Iraq
and its oil. The hawks at the moderate extreme
argue for continuing "containment,"
a euphemism for devastating
economic sanctions and regular
bombing in the so-called "no-fly
zones."

Sanctions, imposed after Iraq's
1990 invasion of Kuwait, are
administered through the United
Nations but in place only because
the United States insists; most of
the rest of the world has condemned them. The
embargo has helped cause the deaths of more
than 500,000 children under the age of 5,
according to a UNICEF study. That's why two
former U.N. humanitarian coordinators in Iraq --
Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck -- have
resigned in protest, calling the sanctions
immoral and even genocidal.

Though the sanctions have strengthened
Saddam Hussein's control over Iraq while
punishing ordinary people, the United States
insists they remain.

Starting with a complete ban on oil sales and
frequent restrictions even on basic medicines,
the sanctions have gone through stages.
Currently, there is no limit on total oil sales and
most medicines are allowed in, but there are
still major problems with funding projects to
repair critical infrastructure and foster economic
development.

Combined with the almost complete (and quite
deliberate) destruction of Iraq's civilian
infrastructure, particularly water- and
sewage-treatment plants, by U.S. forces during
the Gulf War, the sanctions have meant
increased malnutrition, disease and death --
not for Saddam but for the Iraqi people.

U.S. official blithely claim that the so-called
"smart sanctions" approved by the Security
Council in July would solve these problems. But
instead of feeding Iraqis, the changes mostly
helped confuse the public -- which, according to
some U.S. officials, was the original intent of
smart sanctions.

Now, as worldwide attention to the effects of
sanctions has decreased, the humanitarian
situation has worsened. Even as cumbersome
bureaucratic procedures for approving imports
were supposedly streamlined, the monetary
value of "holds" (contracts held up by some
nation on the Sanctions Committee, almost
always the United States) is at $4.7 billion,
higher than before smart sanctions were
proposed. Worse, because of a retroactive
oil-pricing scheme recently
implemented by the United
States (oil companies don't
know what price they'll pay
for Iraqi crude until after it is
loaded), Iraqi oil exports are
way down; in August, exports
averaged 800,000 barrels per
day, compared with more
than 2 million at earlier
points. This funding shortfall
means Iraq is unable to pay
even for some approved
humanitarian imports.

U.S. officials blame all this on Saddam, and
certainly the Iraqi government has made some
questionable allocations of resources. But Tun
Myat, the current U.N. humanitarian coordinator
in Iraq, has described Iraq's food distribution as
"second to none," echoing evaluations by other
UN officials.

While the sanctions kill slowly, the United
States continues to patrol the no-fly zones in
the northern and southern parts of Iraq,
bombing at will and killing civilians -- at least
27 attacks by U.S. planes in 2002. The most
recent, on Sunday (Aug. 25), killed eight,
according to Iraq.

When challenged, U.S. officials robotically
repeat that they bomb only when threatened by
Iraqi air defenses. However, despite U.S.
claims, there is no U.N. Security Council
authorization for this violation of Iraqi
sovereignty. U.S. journalists rarely mention the
obvious point -- that if the United States
ceased its illegal patrols, Iraqi radar would not
"light up" U.S. planes, making U.S. attacks
unnecessary.

While not militarily significant, these attacks
serve to terrorize the Iraqi people and remind
everyone that the United States exempts itself
from international law. Combined with the
sanctions, they constitute a war on the people
of Iraq.

While the fanatical hawks argue with the
moderate hawks about the way in which a war
against Iraq should proceed, virtually all the
world opposes a full-scale war. It's time for us
to realize that most of the rest of the world
also wants to stop the containment war, end
the suffering of the Iraqi people and begin the
diplomatic process necessary for regional peace.

Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at
the University of Texas and author of Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the
Margins to the Mainstream. He can be reached
at rjensen [at] uts.cc.utexas.edu.

Rahul Mahajan is a member of the Nowar
Collective and the Green Party candidate for
Governor of Texas. His book, "The New
Crusade: America's War on Terrorism,"
(Monthly Review Press, April 2002) has been
described as "mandatory reading for anyone
who wants to get a handle on the war on
terrorism." He is currently writing a book on Iraq
titled "Axis of Lies: Myths and Reality about the
U.S. War on Iraq."

He can be reached at rahul [at] tao.ca.