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political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or Thankstaking Day, USA
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intended to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for purpose of about?
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against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any manner Some U.S. holiday terror?
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One of the common myths about the US war against the Iraqi people is that the US and its American jihad in Pakistan
Western allies are on a “mission” to help the Iraqis in their aspiration for “democracy” and
  Editors' Blog “freedom.” However, a brief analysis of the crimes committed against the Iraqi people in the last
Who’s afraid of Hiroshima?
 
Obama’s nuclear hypocrisy
15 years shows that the main aim of the US and its allies is the destruction of Iraq and Iraqi
  Reclaiming America society. Let’s get fiscal: More
 

stimulus, more government

The Splendid Failure of jobs programs, more debt
  Occupation Prior to 1990, Iraq was one of the more prosperous and economically advanced countries in the relief
 

Arab world, boasting a sizeable middle class; technical capacity; and, compared to other Middle
  The Lighter Side Eastern countries, relatively high standards of education and health care, as well as high numbers Globalization unchecked:
 
of women educated and contributing to the economy and the well-being of society. How alien media are
suffocating real culture
  Reviews
 

As a result of the 1991 US war, Iraq’s industrial and agricultural capacity was completely destroyed America’s leadership deficit
  The Mailbag by US bombings. Iraq’s, transportation and infrastructure systems were obliterated. “The world The US needs to be censured
 

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must learn that what we say goes,” said George Bush I to enthusiastic applause of “freedom- for its immoral behavior
loving” Americans. The war was a one-sided massacre of innocent civilians masquerading as The Hague’s the place for
“liberation of Kuwait.”
trials
Just after the heavy bombings ceased, in March 1991, a UN mission to Iraq led by the then Under-
For Obama it’s one (term) if
by war, two if by peace
Secretary-General Martti Ahtisaari, described “near-apocalyptic results [wrought by the US War]

  Links upon the economic infrastructure of what had been, until January 1991, a rather highly urbanized In a chilly London November,
 

and mechanized society. Now, most means of modern life support have been destroyed or war and remembrance
  Join Mailing List rendered tenuous. Iraq has, for some time to come, been relegated to a pre-industrial age, but
with all the disabilities of post-industrial dependency on an intensive use of energy and
technology.”
Search
More than 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq during the 1991 US war. A large number of
Go
these bombs were encased in ‘depleted’ (DU) uranium, a radioactive by-product of the enrichment
All Categories 6 process used to make nuclear fuel. The ‘dust’ which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years contaminates
Advanced Search the air, land and water, and causes chromosomal radiation damage, especially to soft tissue,
pregnant women and their foetuses. [2] Cancer researchers in Iraq and in the West have shown
that due to DU residue, the ‘rate of cancer has increased nine-fold since the 1991 US war,’
particularly among pregnant women and their babies. According to the Pentagon's own report, the
US-UK dropped 320 tonnes of DU on Iraq in 1991. Greenpeace puts the figure at an estimate of
800 tones. More that 100,000 DU shells dropped on the city of Basra and its surroundings. The
destruction was deliberate and a long-lasting act of terrorism.

Eric Hoskins, a Canadian physician and coordinator of a Harvard study team, reported that the US
War on Iraq “effectively terminated everything vital to human survival in Iraq -- electricity, water,
sewage systems, agriculture, industry and health care.” [3] "All of Iraq’s 11 major electrical power
plants as well as 119 substations were completely destroyed. Eight multi-purpose dams were
repeatedly hit and destroyed -- this wrecked flood control, municipal and industrial water storage,
irrigation and hydroelectric power. The health and education systems weren’t spared. Twenty-
eight civilian hospitals and 52 community health centres were hit." In addition, more than 676
schools were damaged, including 38 completely destroyed (Media Lens 01 July 2002). Was all this
for the sake of returning a tin-pot dictator to Kuwait?

Research by Thomas Nagy, professor of Expert Systems at George Washington University,

revealed that the US military knew the effects of their attacks on the civilian population and
proceeded with them nonetheless. Nagy wrote: “The health effects of the destruction of the water
treatment system were not merely foreseeable in principle but were actually foreseen“. (The
Progressive, September 2001). As Barton Gellman of the Washington Post wrote at the time quoting
a Pentagon source; “People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water
or sewage,’” said the planning officer. “Well, what were we trying to do with [United Nations-
approved economic] sanctions -- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the
attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions.” (Washington Post, 23 June
1991)

To ensure that Iraq would be unable to repair or replace of what had been destroyed, the US and
Britain maintained the genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people, enforced by a massive military
presence and weekly bombing raids designed to terrorise the Iraqi population. The sanctions have
greatly impaired Iraq’s ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to
saving the lives of even their toddlers. The health care system has deteriorated, and the
education system and standard of living were near collapse. In addition, the sanctions were
designed to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world and destroy the fabric of Iraqi society.

A once prosperous nation is being systematically de-developed, de-skilled and reduced to penury.
As the 1999 UNICEF report points out: “In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the
events of 1990-1991, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world,
low infant birth weight affects at least 23 percent of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every
fourth child under five years of age, only 41 percent of the population have regular access to clean
water, 83 percent of all schools need substantial repairs. The ICRC [Red Cross] states that the
Iraqi health-care system is today in a decrepit state. UNDP [UN Development Program] calculates
that it would take 7 billion dollars to rehabilitate the power sector country-wide to its 1990
capacity.” [4]

Former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday has repeatedly denounced what was
happening as “a systematic program . . . of deliberate genocide.” His statements appeared in the
New York Times and other mainstream media during 1998, so it can hardly be contended that the
world, the American public in particular, was ”unaware” of them. He resigned from his post and
refused to be part of this deliberate genocide.

It is estimated that the sanctions killed more than 1.6 million Iraqis. The UN's own report revealed
that 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 were dying each month due to its own policy of
implementing the sanctions. Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, openly confirmed
Denis Holliday’s assessment. When Albright was asked in an interview on 60 Minutes on 12 May
1996, whether she had considered the resulting death of 500,000 Iraqi children, she calmly
announced that, “We think the price is worth it” to see that US objectives were achieved.
Democrats or Republicans; they all participated in the crimes against the Iraqi people and in the
destruction of Iraq.

According to John and Karl Mueller (Sanctions of Mass Destruction, Foreign Affairs May/June 1999),
the sanctions ”have taken the lives of more people in Iraq than have been killed by all so-called
weapons of mass destruction throughout history.” Therefore Iraq's genocide “arguably was the
greatest genocide of the post World War II era.” Despite a worldwide outcry against the
sanctions, the US and Britain -- with tacit approval from other Western states -- continued to
enforce the sanctions violently.

The 13-year long sanctions on Iraq were the UN's biggest and most profitable mass murder in the
history of the UN. While Iraqis children were malnourished and starved to death, obesity and
corruption among UN member states and bureaucrats increased to levels unknown in the
organization’s history. The pretext for this deliberate mass murder was Iraq’s alleged possession
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was well known that Iraq neither had WMD, nor posed
a threat to the American people.

Iraq’s Resistance to this form of international terrorism proved to be successful. In 2002, despite
the Anglo-American orchestrated terror against the Iraqi people, Iraq showed all signs of moving
forward, and leaving the genocidal sanctions behind.

However, a campaign of anti-Iraq propaganda and lies perpetuated by Western governments,

mainstream media and pundits collectively demonised the Iraqi people and played on the non-
existent WMD as a given. Western public opinion, American in particular, was manipulated to the
extent that if Iraq did indeed possess WMD, an unprovoked act of aggression against a sovereign
nation would be justifiable.

Having failed to defeat the Iraqi people through genocidal sanctions, the Anglo-American armies
unashamedly attacked Iraq again. In March 2003, Iraq was massively attacked in a preemptive
and unprovoked act of aggression. The attack was a blatant and gross violation of international
law and the UN Charter.

In the end, every pretext for the war (WMD and Iraq’s alleged connection to “terrorism”) has
proved to be a lie. The UN declared the an “illegal” act of aggression. The motives for the US war
were obvious: the removal of an independent government, enforcing the US-Israel Zionist
domination of the region and control over Iraq’s oil resources.

According to Michael Mandel, professor of Law at York University in Canada; “If we judge [the war]
by the standards laid down by the Nuremberg Tribunal that judged the Nazis after World War II, it
is the supreme international crime.” [5] The Nazis who committed war crimes, crimes against peace
and crimes against humanity were indicted and sentenced to death by hanging. So, in a just
world, the perpetrators and promoters of the war on Iraq must be held accountable and stand
trial on war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

During the three-week massive attacks on a defenceless people, Western leaders proudly
announced to their nations that the one-sided mass murder of innocent Iraqi civilians was
“morally” justified to spread “freedom” and “democracy.” Once again, Iraq was completely
destroyed in barbaric fashion. Iraq’s cultural heritage was deliberately burned or looted. The Iraqi
state, including the Iraqi Army and police were disbanded and replaced by occupying forces and
imported criminals. The Pentagon and the UN estimate that the US and Britain “used 1,100 to
2,200 tons of bombs made of DU during attacks on Iraq in March and April 2003 -- far more than
the 320-800 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War,” reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 04 August
2004. Today, the US continues its war crimes against the Iraqi people with indiscriminate bombing
air raids on Iraqi towns and cities, killing innocent women and children and destroying properties
in a barbaric and cowardly fashion.

After three years of violent occupation, the living conditions in Iraq have worsened since the
invasion. There is no clean water and there is no adequate supply of electricity. Iraq remains a
destroyed nation. The health care system is beyond repair and the education system has
collapsed. A study conducted by the Norway-based Institute of Applied International Studies, or
Fafo, in cooperation with Iraq's Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology, Iraq's
Health Ministry, and the UNDP, reveals that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the
ages of six months and 5 years has increased from 4 percent before the invasion to 7.7 per cent
since the US invasion. In other words, despite the 13-year long genocidal sanctions, Iraqi children
were living much better (by 3.7 percent) under the regime of Saddam Hussein than under the
tyranny of George W. Bush. The study shows that about 400,000 Iraqi children are suffering from
'wasting' and 'emaciation' -- conditions of chronic diarrhoea and protein deficiency.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children have been
needlessly killed by US and British forces. The true number of Iraqis killed may never be known. In
October 2004, the respected and peer-reviewed British medical journal, The Lancet -- the only
serious study so far –, published a ‘conservative’ estimate of 100,000 Iraqis killed, mostly women
and children, by US forces. The US violence and destruction have since increased and the number
of Iraqis killed could be more than half a million. (See The Lancet, 29 October 2004).

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are living in refugee camps and are unable to return to their
destroyed towns and homes. Human rights, women's rights in particular, have disappeared.
Instead of protecting the civilian population, as required by the Geneva Conventions, the
Instead of protecting the civilian population, as required by the Geneva Conventions, the
Occupation is increasing the violence and crimes against the Iraqi people. According to the UN's
recent assessment of the situation, “The ordinary Iraqi has absolutely no protection whatsoever
from the state or from the authorities [and] the prevalence of torture is quite clearly established,
[that] the degree of violence has increased exponentially since the invasion [and that] the country
has been blown apart in terms of its social structures and social fabric.”

Iraq has been turned from a functioning state into a cluster of prisons where hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi prisoners are tortured, abused and murdered by US and British forces and their
collaborators. Any Iraqi, regardless of age and gender is prone to daily random raids and mass
arrests by US forces and their collaborators. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been detained
by US and British military forces at some time during the Occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis
are still languishing in countless US and British-run prisons across Iraq. The majority of these
prisoners are innocent civilians. Many Iraqi towns and villages have been walled in with sand and
razor wire barriers, and turned into “concentration camps.”

Furthermore, to strip Iraq off its national independence and self-determination, the US and its
secret agents (CIA and Israeli Mossad) instituted a terror program of systematic assassination and
murder of thousands of Iraqis, including scientists, academics, prominent politicians and anti-
Occupation voices. The “De-Baathification” program is modeled on the “Salvador Option” -- the
program which was responsible for the murder of thousands of Latin Americans peace activists
and intellectuals in El Salvador and other nations of Latin America. It is misleading to blame these
premeditated murders of innocent people on Iraqis. For more on the US dirty role in Iraq see
Nicolas Davies’ Online Journal article, 15 March 2006.

Despite the well-orchestrated terror, the Iraqi people -- by a large majority -- continue to demand
an end to the violence and the occupation of their country, and refuse to submit to US dictate. The
US and Britain, having destroyed Iraq, are now embarked on a long-term colonial occupation of the
country by openly using an old imperialist tool: ‘divide and rule.’ This deliberate policy of terrorising
the Iraqi population and destroying Iraq’s unity has been the aim of US imperialists and Israeli
Zionists from the outset of the war. From the beginning, “the Americans made it clear that the
Iraqis would have a hard time ever freeing themselves from the American military occupation,”
wrote Michael Mandel. The show trial of President Saddam Hussein provides a perfect
smokescreen to divert the public from the West’s deliberate genocide in Iraq, allowing it to
intimidate and bully other defenceless nations.

While the pretexts for the Occupation have expired, the refusal by the Bush administration to end
the Occupation and its continuing interference in Iraq's affairs left the country in stalemate without
a legitimate government. The creation, financing and arming of ethnic militia groups was designed
to fulfill the Occupation aim of cultivating violence, instilling fear among the population and
controlling Iraq through criminal elements accountable to the occupying forces. Orchestrated and
promoted by the occupying forces and the mass media as “civil war,” the violence and fratricidal
killings are the only remaining pretext for the ongoing Occupation. Indeed, Iraqi community leaders
and prominent anti-Occupation voices “hold the US responsible” for the violence, which they
alleged is perpetuated “under US air cover” in order to “destabilise” the region. All Iraqis rejected
the violence because they rightly believe that only the occupying forces and Israel stand to benefit
from it.

In a recent promotion of civil war in Iraq, one of the Bush administration's closest advisors, Daniel
Pipes, a cross-breed between a hardcore fascist and a hardcore Zionist, and a well-known
Islamophobic ideologue wrote; “Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular
danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden. When Sunni
terrorists target Shiites and vice versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in
short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one . . . Civil war will terminate the
dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push
toward elections. This would have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the
popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago.” This is what Israeli and US Zionists have been
advocating for years, especially during the ‘Iran-Iraq’ war. “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and
internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is
even more important for us than that of Syria . . . In Iraq, a division into provinces along
ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible,” wrote Oded Yinon of the Israeli
Foreign Ministry. [6]. The Zionists dream is an all out war in and bloodshed in Middle East for the
benefit of Israel’s Zionist ideology.

It is not in Americans’ interest that for more than 15 years the Iraqi people have endured the
longest and most violent international terrorism in history. The Iraqi people are demanding the
immediate end to the Occupation and its associated violence. The longer the US remains in Iraq; it
will only increase the destruction and bloodshed.

Yet the line persists among Westerners, Americans in particular, that the US and its allies are on a
“mission” to “teach” Iraqis “democracy” and “freedom.” Most people are aware that this falsehood
is a masked Western extremism. It is the enemy of democracy and freedom. Western extremism is
not only destroying Iraq for no reason whatsoever, but also perpetuating violence around the
world. It is time to demand the immediate end to international terrorism against the Iraqi people
and pay reparations for the crimes committed against the nation of Iraq.

Notes:

[1] US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism Counteraction (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37,
1984).

[2] Laka Foundation (1999). Depleted Uranium: A Post-War Disaster for Environment and Health.
Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Laka Foundation.

[3] Hoskins, Eric (1992). The Truth behind Economic Sanctions, in Ramsey Clark et al. (Eds.), War
Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes against Iraq (Washington, D.C: Maisonneuve Press,
1992).

[4] CAFOD (2001). A People Sacrificed: Sanctions Against Iraq. London: Caritas Europe.

[5] Mandel, Michael (2004). How America Gets Away with Murder. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.

[6] Shahak, Israel, (Ed.). (1982). The Zionist Plan for the Middle East. Belmont, MA: A.A.U.G. Inc. (p.
8-11).
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He can be reached at G.Hassan@exchange.curtin.edu.au.

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