Unpunished crimes, the UN, and the US

Alain Gresh, writing in Le Monde Diplomatique, suggests that the worst of all problems of the UN -- the sorts Bolton, Delay and others love to cite as their basis for UN reform or elimination -- is one they conveniently forget, the Iraq sanctions. The sanctions also serve to explain some of the present-day problems of the occupation and so-called reconstruction.

But no committee of inquiry has been set up to investigate the worst scandal. The imposition of sanctions on Iraq in August 1990, and their maintenance after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, had devastating consequences that will burden Iraq for a long time. While the media often drew attention to Iraq's difficulties in obtaining food and medical supplies, even after the start of the oil-for-food programme in 1996, it neglected the destructive effect of sanctions on Iraqi society. Despite the inventiveness of Iraqi engineers, the infrastructure gradually crumbled and fell apart. Basic services, ministries, power stations and drinking water suffered. Corruption spread through all levels of society. Crime exploded. The inhabitants of Baghdad, who had never bothered to lock their front doors or their cars, barricaded their homes. When the US invaded, it needed only a little push for the worm-eaten state to collapse.

Sanctions also affected the structure of the population. Middle-class emigration, which had begun before 1991 as people fled the brutal dictatorship, accelerated. Iraq was emptied of its managers and administrators. The education system, which had catered for all the young, was abandoned by its pupils. Children left school to work and help meet their families' needs, resulting in a generation of lowered literacy standards. Academic links with other countries were severed: the sanctions committee even banned the import of scientific journals. Iraq fell 15 years behind and is not about to catch up.

And for what? Everyone realises sanctions did not penalise the regime's leaders, who continued to enjoy considerable resources. Nor did they weaken its grip on the population: the introduction of rationing enabled the Ba'ath party to keep tabs on everybody, and the regime could have survived for years. But sanctions do explain the problems in rebuilding Iraq. These are due not only to a rise in armed resistance, but also to the dilapidated state of the infrastructure. Another factor, which should not be underestimated, is the determination of the US to monopolise the reconstruction contracts. Getting the electric power supply working again would have required involving Siemens and ABB, the German and Swedish firms that built Iraq's modern electric power grid. With the telephone system, help was needed from Alcatel in France, which had installed the network and was familiar with the terrain. But the US was out to punish the governments of Old Europe and secure juicy contracts for the companies that fund the Republican party.

Sanctions caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. What is more, they destabilised a key state in the region and initiated its fragmentation. Who will be tried for these crimes? What committee will report on these errors, for which the whole Middle East is paying so dearly? And who will guarantee that the US and the UN do not again choose to impose sanctions on a country and punish an entire people for the crimes of its leaders?