The Washington Peace Letter is published monthly for the social justice community of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It's purpose is to support local, national and international struggles against oppression. It seeks to present a radical analysis of current events, covering information not readily available in the corporate media.

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Modestly dressed in a turquoise shirt and black traveling cloak, she looked Eastern European. Her raven hair was wrapped in a black bandanna patterned with colorful flowers. She sat close to her child, Akram Majid, an angelic figure swaddled in white. I met her and her child in the midst of a nightmare. Akram was too weak to move, his arms limp at his sides. Only two years old, his open mouth revealed lost teeth that would not be replaced. The chief resident doctor at Baghdad’s Medical Teaching Hospital, Dr. Hassan Jabar, informed me that Akram was dying of meningitis, a curable disease.

The UN blockade on Iraq and a failed “oil for food” program have created every parent’s worst nightmare. Akram’s mother was helplessly watching her child die. Dr. Jabar was caught in the same nightmare, fighting an epidemic of long-vanquished diseases without adequate medicine. In a country that once provided clean water to 93% of its urban and 70% of its rural population, a destroyed infrastructure and unsanitary conditions have resulted in an outbreak of diseases. Although Iraq once led the region in providing high-quality health care for 90% of its population, hospitals now run critical shortages and most patients go without even simple medicines. Akram’s mother’s eyes pleaded for help we could not give. Later that day, Akram died.

In the summer of 1997, in defiance of the government I once served, I traveled to Iraq as a Gulf War veteran. I went seeking the first casualty buried in the Gulf—that which remains buried—the truth. I went to investigate stories that the Gulf War was not over, that the children of Iraq were dying en masse. Yet I was unprepared for what I saw, recalling the words of a Persian traveler who came across the ruined city of Baghdad in 1258, shortly after the Mongol attack of Haluga: “You ask me about the sack of Baghdad…It was so horrible there are no words to describe it. I wish I had died earlier and not seen how the butchers destroyed these treasures of knowledge and learning. I thought I knew the world, but this holocaust is so strange and pointless, that I’m struck dumb.”

Like the Persian traveler witnessing the aftermath of Haluga’s brutality, I was struck dumb by pediatric wards filled with dying children, streets flooded with sewage, the Tigris River turned foul with disease, the destitution of families, and the defeat of reason and knowledge. Returning to the U.S., I encountered a deafening silence while the Gulf War raged on under the hush cloak of sanctions.

Then in early 1998, under the threatening clouds of a major U.S. air strike, the tide briefly turned. Penetrating the media blackout for the first time, letters to the editor and articles about Iraq’s humanitarian crisis appeared in major newspapers. Teach-ins, vigils and mass rallies were held, with thousands turning out for marches from New York to San Francisco. In mid-February, the anti-war movement culminated in the internationally broadcast “Columbus Town Hall Meeting.” The world watched as protesters confronted Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen, and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. Intended as a public relations whitewash, the best laid plans of the U.S. Government backfired, embarrassing an unprepared national security team and empowering a new generation of activists. By March, the peace movement had succeeded in stilling the war drums, and directing desperately needed attention to the plight of the Iraqi people.

When the diplomatic “crisis” passed, however, the U.S. Government and media proved to have a very short memory. Yet, dedicated people of faith and action refused to forget the people being sanctioned to death. In May, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Kathy Kelly, and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark led a delegation of over eighty activists, the largest ever to travel to Iraq since the sanctions began. That same month, I moved to Washington, D.C., to confront the policy makers, and founded the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC).

Recently, EPIC worked with a coalition of NGOs to bring Denis Halliday, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, to Washington to testify on the effects of sanctions on Iraqi civilians. An ad-hoc congressional hearing coincided with the official delivery of the Conyers letter, signed by 44 House members, calling on President Clinton to delink the economic sanctions from the military sanctions.

Making his first public appearance in the U.S. since he submitted his resignation in protest of sanctions, Halliday testified, “the human cost and human rights violations continue to bring anxiety to many of us.” According to Halliday, the incompatibility of sanctions with the UN Charter “undermines the moral credibility of the United Nations.” Reporting that 6-7,000 children die each month, he declared: “It is unnecessary and unacceptable to allow this human tragedy to continue.”

A former UN Assistant Secretary General with 34 years of distinguished service, Denis Halliday’s resignation and scathing indictment of sanctions offered the national media the perfect opportunity to bring the plight of Iraq’s civilian population to light. But this news was deemed not “fit to print” in the New York Times and other major dailies. Weeks earlier, Scott Ritter of the UN’s Special Commission had testified before Congress. Ignoring the humanitarian crisis completely, Ritter objected to the disarmament process being undermined by divisions within the UN Security Council and the U.S. backing down from intrusive inspections. A weapons inspector with five years of service to the UN, he was front-page news and continues to be covered.

Halliday evoked outrage for a tragedy the U.S. could end, while Ritter exploited long-cultivated fears. For eight years, the fear of weapons of mass destruction has eclipsed the reality of sanctions—themselves weapons of mass destruction—in a calculated effort to legitimize a morally bankrupt UN policy. The human face of Iraq is lost in the equation. “We have heard that half a million children have died...that’s more children than died in Hiroshima.” 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl asked in May 1996, “Is the price worth it?” Madelaine Albright answered “Yes, we think the price is worth it.”

“The death of one Iraqi child attributable to economic sanctions is one death too many,” Mr. Halliday testified. I think of Akram and his mother’s anguish and hope that more Americans will feel the same.

Erik Gustafson is a member of Voices in the Wilderness and founder of the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC). To support EPIC, write 747 10th St. SE #2, WDC 20003, call (202) 543-6176, or email epicenter@igc.org.

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