http://www.mediamonitors.net/gowans22.html
by Stephen Gowans
The United States is knowingly violating Article 54 of the Geneva
Convention which prohibits any country from undermining "objects
indispensable to the survival of (another country's) civilian
population," including drinking water installations and supplies, says Thomas Nagy,
a business professor at George Washington University.
Writing in the September 2001 issue of The Progressive, Nagy cites
recently declassified documents that show the United States was aware
of the civilian health consequences of destroying Iraq's drinking water
and sanitation systems in the Gulf War, and knew that sanctions would
prevent the Iraqi government from repairing the degraded facilities.
During the Gulf War, coalition forces bombed Iraq's eight multi-purpose
dams, destroying flood control systems, irrigation, municipal and
industrial water storage, and hydroelectric power. Major pumping
stations were targeted, and municipal water and sewage facilities were
destroyed.
Article 54 of the Geneva Convention prohibits attacks on "drinking
water installations and supplies and irrigation works."
Nagy says that not only did the United States deliberately destroy
drinking water and sanitation facilities, it knew sanctions would
prevent Iraq from rebuilding, and that epidemics would ensue.
One document, written soon after the bombing, warned that sanctions
would prevent Iraq from importing "water treatment replacement parts and some
essential chemicals" leading to "increased incidences, if not
epidemics, of disease."
Another document lists the most likely diseases: "diarrheal diseases
(particularly children); acute respiratory illnesses (colds and
influenza); typhoid; hepatitis A (particularly children); measles,
diphtheria, and pertussis (particularly children); meningitis,
including meningococcal (particularly children); cholera (possible, but less
likely.)"
Then U.S. Navy Secretary John Lehman estimated that 200,000 Iraqis died
in the Gulf War, but many more have died since. UNICEF estimates that well
over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S-led sanctions
regime, in place for the last decade. Some 500,000 children have died,
and an estimated 4,000 die from various preventable, sanctions-related
diseases, every month, says the U.N. agency.
Despite the massive human toll, the United States continues to support
the sanctions regime, arguing that sanctions won't be lifted until U.N.
inspectors are free to return to Iraq to verify that the country has
rid itself of weapons of mass destruction.
American Scott Ritter, a former U.N. arms inspector, claims that Iraq
is effectively disarmed, and has been for some time.
And deaths from sanctions exceed those from weapons of mass
destruction. Political scientists John and Karl Mueller say that sanctions have
"contributed to more deaths during the post Cold War era than all the
weapons of mass destruction throughout history," including deaths at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At one point, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said
that despite the civilian deaths the sanctions were "worth it."
Meanwhile, Israel, a U.S. ally in the region, is widely believed to
have an arsenal of 200 nuclear weapons. While in violation of countless U.N.
Resolutions ordering its withdrawal from the Occupied Territories,
Israel faces no sanctions and no order to disarm. Amnesty International, which
has warned that Israel's crackdown on the latest Palestinian uprising,
or Intifada, borders on war crimes, recently condemned Tel Aviv for its
"utter disregard for human life in the Occupied Territories" and for
its violations of international law. And yet even calls for intervention as
mild as placing international observers in the Occupied Territories
have been rebuffed.
The Gulf War erupted after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait. After the
war, the United Nations imposed sanctions, ordering Iraq to disarm. Iraq's
violation of international law in invading its neighbor was cited for
the harsh treatment. But critics of the policy say that punishment for
violations of international law are being meted out unevenly and
hypocritically. Israel's innumerable transgressions go unpunished,
while governments that have fallen out with Washington, often over investment
or debt repayment issues, are treated severely.
Moreover, say critics, the United States itself has a long track record
of violating international law. Washington's undermining of Iraq's water
treatment and sanitation facilities in violation of the Geneva
Convention is just one of many recent transgressions, including the bombing of
Yugoslavia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the continued bombing of Iraq.
U.S.-led NATO forces also targeted civilian infrastructure in
Yugoslavia. At one point, U.S. Air Force General Michael Short explained that
NATO's bombing campaign was aimed at causing misery in the civilian
population. "If you wake up in the morning," said Short, "and you have no power to
your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is
down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you
begin to ask, 'Hey, Slobo, what's this all about? How much more of this
do we have to withstand?'"
NATO forces used depleted uranium munitions in Yugoslavia, as did
coalition forces in Iraq. Depleted uranium may be toxic, and may be
responsible for an epidemic of cancers and birth defects that have
arisen in Iraq over the last decade. Some have charged that Gulf War syndrome,
a cluster of mysterious and debilitating illnesses suffered by U.S. and
allied soldiers, is related to depleted uranium. Others point to the
contamination of soil, water and air by carcinogenic effluent from
destroyed industrial facilities and chemical plants as being
responsible.
Nagy says that what is most disturbing about the documents is that they
reveal a U.S. government concerned more with the potential negative
publicity of the deaths, than with the deaths themselves. Dealing with
the public relations downside of massive killing is a common theme in U.S.
foreign policy. During the Gulf War a bomb that hit a marketplace and
killed civilians led CBS News correspondent Dan Rather to remark: "We
can be sure that Saddam Hussein will make propaganda of these casualties."
Frequent reference is made in the documents Nagy has uncovered to the
potential for Iraq to use epidemics for propaganda purposes.
When Nagy sent the documents to the media last fall, only two reporters
wrote lengthy articles. One was Felicity Arbuthnot, who wrote in
Scotland's The Sunday Herald that the "US-led allied forces
deliberately destroyed Iraq's water supply during the Gulf War flagrantly breaking
the Geneva Convention and causing thousand of civilian deaths." Despite
the seriousness of the allegations, and their being backed up by official
documents, the story quickly fizzled.
Mr. Steve Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in
Ottawa, Canada.