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From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 2:24 PM

To: activist general

Subject: Ramsey Clark: Report to UN Security Council re: Iraq



The following letter from former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark

has been sent to each member of the Security Council. Please help

circulate this information widely.

January 26, 2000

Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations

Dear H.E. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, KCMG,

A delegation of U.S. citizens from twenty states has just returned from
Iraq. On January 17, we observed in Baghdad the 9th Anniversary of the
beginning of the January 17 - February 28, 1991. U.S. aircraft flew 110,000
aerial sorties against Iraq, averaging one every 30 seconds, dropping 88,500
tons of explosives, the equivalent of 7 l/2 Hiroshima bombs.

This was by far the most intensive bombardment in history. It killed tens of
thousands of people, injuring many more. Medicines and medical supplies were
exhausted. It devastated water systems from reservoir, pumping station,
pipeline, filtration plant to kitchen faucet as well as urban sewage and
sanitation systems nationwide. Food production, processing, storage,
distribution, and marketing facilities were widely destroyed. Poultry was
nearly wiped out by loss of electricity and lack of grain. Animal herds were
decimated. Fertilizer and insecticide plants and storage structures were
destroyed. Communications systems, telephone, radio, TV, were shattered.
Transportation was badly battered. Vital industries were attacked
everywhere. Electric power was knocked out across the nation in the first 24
hours of the assault. Petroleum production, refining, storage and
distribution from well to service station were attacked across the nation.

The combined effect of this vast destruction of essential goods, services
and industries with the most comprehensive economic sanctions of modern
times, first imposed on Hiroshima Day, August 6, 1990, has caused more than
a million and a half deaths.

Conditions of Life and Death in Iraq

I have traveled to and within Iraq ten times since sanctions were imposed,
once during the bombing in 1991. Each year, the death rate has risen
radically. The numbers of deaths have been reported internationally
regularly and updated each month since 1991. In Iraq, they are palpable. UN
agencies, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture
Organization, the World Food Program, UNICEF and others have found and
confirmed the deaths time and time again. They must shock the conscience of
every sentient human being. Comprehensive reports by UN agencies and other
sources are available to you. You are charged with this knowledge. The total
numbers of deaths in every segment of the society has risen radically in
each of the past nine years under U.S./U.N. sanctions.

As a tragic illustration total annual deaths of children in Iraq under the
age of five from respiratory infection, diarrhea and gastroenteritis and
malnutrition are:

During

1989:7110 deaths

1991:27473

1994:52905

1997:58845

1998:71279

1999(Jan.- Nov.): 73572

The annual number of deaths of children under age five grew more than
tenfold from 1989 to 1999. Total deaths of children under age five from
these selected causes alone during 1990 to November 1999 is 502,492.

While children under age five are the most vulnerable age group, except for
the extreme elderly, every age group has suffered radical increases in the
numbers of deaths. Members of the population with serious chronic illnesses
requiring regular medication, or therapy, suffer the highest percentages of
death of any sectors, approaching 100% for some illnesses where survival
rates were as high as 95% before sanctions.

The sanctions target to kill, or injure infants, children, the elderly, and
the chronically ill.

The Red Crescent and other knowledgeable professional groups

believe it will be years after the end of sanctions before the

increase in deaths from most causes stops rising because of the cumulative
effect of the sanctions on the physical conditions of parents, children, the
new born and the overall environment.

Most of those who survive suffer severe physical and mental injury from the
sanctions. Indicative of the impact of sanctions is the enormous rise in the
percentage of registered births under 2.5 kilograms, a dangerously low birth
weight in a nation without adequate food, medicine and medical supplies and
equipment. Like death, under weight births have risen radically every year:

Year / % of live births at weights under 2.5 kilograms

1990:4.5

1991:10.8

1994:21.1

1998:23.8

1999(Jan. - Nov.): 24.1

The percentage of live births below 2.5 kg. has increased more than fivefold
to one in four registered births. The consequence for the lives of these
children is enormous. Many will have underdeveloped organs, mental
retardation, remain smaller and weaker than average and be more vulnerable
to sickness, malnutrition and bad water. Their life expectancy has been
reduced by as much as 30%. Probably 90% of all the infants born in Iraq
since 1990 have significantly lower birth weights than they would if there
were no sanctions. The effect on lives and health of children with higher
birth weights is also drastic. This is why foreign medical teams for five
years have referred to a "stunted generation" in Iraq. Suggestive of the
struggle the children living and dying under sanctions in Iraq face are the
following increases since 1990 in treated cases of nutrition related
sicknesses and deficiencies.

Year / Number of cases

Kwashiorkor

1990: 485 (base)

1991: 12796 26.3 times

1994: 20975 42.6 "

1998: 30232 61.4 "

Year / Number of cases

Marasmus

1990: 5193 (base)

1991:96186 18.5 times

1994: 192296 37 "

1998: 264468 50.8 "

Year / Number of cases

Protein, Calorie, Vitamin deficiency, Malnutrition

1990: 96809 (base)

1991:947974 9.8 times

1994: 1576194 16.3 "

1998: 1910309 19.7

Kwashiorkor is an extremely dangerous end product of malnutrition

in which the victim wastes and dies without early intensive care.

Few

doctors in Iraq had ever seen a case before late 1990. From

medical school and continuing studies they associated Kwashiorkor

with starvation in the poorest regions of Africa and south Asia

during

periods of war, drought, pestilence and other calamities. Marasmus

inflicts a lower death rate than kwashiorkor, but is extremely

dangerous, permanently damaging and requires early and extended

care for survival. The effects of severe and protracted

malnutrition

are permanent and life shortening.

Common communicable diseases preventable by vaccination which are provided
nearly all children in developed countries and were standard in Iraq before
1990 have increased by multiples. While rates for these diseases fluctuate
unlike the death rates and rates for malnutrition related sickness, because
of the cyclical nature of their communication, they have been regularly
higher, increasingly so, and have afflicted additional hundreds of thousands
of children. Increases in 1998 over 1989 were as follows: whooping cough,
3.4 times; measles, 4.5 times (25, 818 cases); mumps, 3.7 times (35,881).
The Sanctions Committee of the Security Council has failed to approve
negotiated contracts for Iraq to purchase vaccines for these and other
diseases. Poliomyelitis, which had been virtually extinguished in Iraq, has
increased by a multiple ranging from 2 to 18.6 times since 1989. Cholera
rose from zero cases in 1989 to 2560 cases in 1998 and conditions in Iraq
threaten an epidemic. Amoebic dysentery was 13 times greater in 1998,
totaling 264,290 cases, over 1989 and much higher in several earlier years.
Typhoid fever was up 10.9 times to 19825 cases in 1998 over 1989. Scabies
increased every year from zero cases in 1989 to 43,580 in 1998. Every adult
knows the misery, suffering and sometimes heartbreak these preventable
communicable diseases cause.

Doctors, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, all persons in health care, work
under tragic conditions. Doctors and nurses uniformly state that patients
they could easily save under normal conditions die every day. The hospitals
are in wretched condition: dark, cold, dirty, stairwells crumbling, walls
peeling, beds without sheets, plumbing inoperable, electricity erratic,
equipment without parts, medicines, oxygen, aesthetics, antiseptics,
antibiotics, x-ray film, catheters, gauze, aspirin, light bulbs, pencils
always scarce, often unavailable. Common life saving medicines from
dehydration tablets to insulin are never in adequate supply.

In plain numbers without measuring the conditions under which they were
performed, or the availability of important equipment and supplies, major
surgical operations have declined each year from a monthly average of 15,125
in 1989 to 3823 in November 1999 or by 74.7%. The monthly average number of
laboratory investigations has declined from 1,494,050 in 1989 to 454,375 in
November 1999, or by 68.6%.

Drastic deterioration in the whole environment, the physical plant,
sanitation and the introduction of some 25,000,000 ounces of depleted
uranium by U.S. aircraft and missiles have caused enormous increases in
illnesses from tuberculosis to leukemia and other cancers, tumors and
malformations in fetuses. These conditions will take many years and billions
of dollars to restore to 1989 levels. The hundreds of thousands of lives
destroyed and the health of millions damaged can never be restored.

Today unemployment is 60%. 95% of the private sector of the economy is shut
down. There are no ambulances. 80% of the sanitation trucks from 10 years
ago are inoperable. There are no new trucks, cars, tractors, buses, or other
vehicles. Food distribution from a comprehensive rationing system
controlling staples delivers 1100 calories per day for every person
throughout the country, Kurd, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim, Christian, Jew,
rich, poor, alien, with special rations for infants, pregnant women, the
severely malnourished, and others with special needs. The poor cannot
significantly supplement their food rations. In 1989, daily caloric intake
in Iraq averaged 3400.

These brief facts demonstrate the deadly conditions of life deliberately
inflicted on the entire population of Iraq, but which inherently impact on
infants, children, the elderly and chronically ill first and destroy a vast
part of the nation and its overwhelmingly Muslim peoples.

Representative of the attitude of the U.S. government foreign policy makers
toward Iraq and the sanctions are the considered remarks of former Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger in a syndicated newspaper article published in the
second week of January 2000 in which he referred to the "alleged suffering
of the Iraqi people." Then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine
Albright spoke more forthrightly, if more cruelly. She stated in an
interview on the top-rated CBS national network magazine show 60 Minutes,
seen by tens of millions of people in the spring of 1997, that she believed
the deaths from the sanctions of 585,000 Iraqi children under the age of
five as direct result of sanctions reported by the U.S. Food and Agriculture
Organization in late 1986 was a price worth paying to maintain the sanctions
against Iraq.

The Sanctions Violate the Genocide Convention of 1948

Genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention, in part, as follows:

Article II...genocide means any of the following acts committed with the
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

There can be no doubt that the sanctions against Iraq intentionally
destroyed in major part members of a national group and a religious group,
as such, killing members of the groups, causing bodily and mental harm to
their members and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to
bring about their physical destruction, at least, in part. If this is not
genocide, what is?

The United States, after decades of resisting, finally ratified the Genocide
Convention before these sanctions were imposed. It has frequently accused
other governments of genocide, sometimes assaulting them severely with its
massive, high tech military weapons against which nearly all nations are
defenseless.

The Food for Oil Program has failed to stop the increased death

rates

The Food for Oil program was approved in December 1996 as a means of
maintaining the sanctions against Iraq which were meeting growing opposition
in the Security Council. After three years of operation barely six billion
dollars in contracts under the program have been received from 19 billion
dollars of oil sales. Despite Iraq's desperate needs, more of the funds from
sales of its oil have been turned over to the U.S., the UN and others making
claims against Iraq than have been allocated to contracts approved for
purchase of food, medicine, equipment and equipment parts for the people of
Iraq. Five billion in contracts for purchases entered into by Iraq has not
been approved.

As has been seen the deaths of children and every other segment of the
society from the sanctions have continued to rise in 1997, 1998 and 1999. To
rebuild the health care system, the food production processing, storage and
distribution system and the water systems will cost many billions. Restoring
facilities for health, communications, transportation, education, industry
and clean up of the environment polluted by the U. S. aerial assaults,
including the use of depleted uranium found in extremely dangerous
concentrations in parts of Iraq, will cost many tens of billions of dollars.

Iraq was devoting more than 20 billion annually to public facilities, goods
and services before 1989. Income from oil sales for 1997- 1999 averaged
under 2 billion dollars annually, 10% of the amounts available before
sanctions. If Iraq devoted all of the funds under the Oil for Food Program
to food, medicine and water, the deaths caused by sanctions would continue
to rise and the health of the nation decline. The United States has
proceeded to frustrate approval of contracts under the program in a
systematic way to prolong the genocide against Iraq.

United States military aircraft deliberately destroyed Iraq's water storage,
distribution and quality control systems during the intensive bombing during
January and February 1991. Within two weeks there was no running water in
any city or town in Iraq. Many tens of thousands of people in Iraq have died
as a direct result of drinking contaminated water.

Iraq has entered into contracts totaling $700,000,000 for water and sewage
projects. This sum is a very small fraction of current needs. Only
$65,000,000 has been received, less than 9%. This is done deliberately to
continue conditions of life destructive of the population of Iraq. Purchase
of chlorine for municipal water treatment, a standard international usage,
has been completely rejected. People continue to die at increasing rates
from bad water.

Oil production for even the very low levels authorized under the program,
less than 1/3 of the pre-sanctions level, has been difficult to achieve and
usually below authorized amounts, because of deteriorated and destroyed
facilities and lack of equipment and parts. Still the sanctions committee
has approved only 18% of the tendered contracts for oil production, refining
and transport. This is done to prevent Iraq from restoring its ability to
save its people through the sales of oil.

Of the $207 million sought for communications under the program, not a penny
has been approved. The sanctions committee fears communicated truth will set
opinion free and end the sanctions.

The Oil for Food Program has never been anything more than a means for
slowly increasing the rate of destruction of the people of Iraq. Security
Council Resolution 1284 is simply a means of starting the process over
again. During three years under the program from 1996 to 1999, well over
200,000 children under age five died in drastically increasing numbers each
year at a rate growing from just under 9 to well over 10 times the number
who died in 1989. That experience must not be repeated. The sanctions must
be ended now. It is criminal to hold the lives of the people of Iraq hostage
to demands of the U.S. against their government, whatever those demands may
be. In war it is prohibited to use starvation as a weapon. Medical aid must
be given enemy wounded. Under sanctions an Iraqi is being deliberately
killed every two minutes by conditions of life inflicted by the sanctions.
Sanctions are the functional equivalent of pointing guns at the heads of
Iraq's children and

elderly while saying do what we demand to their government, or we will
shoot, then pulling a trigger every two minutes, or less.

To save the United Nations in the judgment of history, the Security Council
must end the sanctions immediately. They are genocide.

To save itself from the judgment of the people of the world, the U.S. must
immediately act to end the sanctions and account for its acts.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Clark

International Action Center

39 West 14th Street, Room 206

New York, NY 10011

email: [log in to unmask]

http://www.iacenter.org

phone: 212 633-6646

fax: 212 633-2889



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According to the May-June 99 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, excluding
the Nazi Holocaust, "Sanctions [on Iraq] have contributed to more deaths
than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history."