Background Information on Iraq

(September 24, 2001)

Recent news reports indicate that the Bush administration is considering making Iraq an early target in its "war against international terrorism."

The following article provides some background material on the war which U.S. imperialism's has been waging against the Iraqi people for the past ten years.

A U.S.-led coalition launched war against Iraq on January 15, 1991.

The war, which proved disastrous for Iraq, lasted only six weeks, and a cease-fire was announced by the U.S. on 28th February 1991.

Iraq estimates that 75,000-100,000 soldiers were killed as a result of the war, and 35,000-45,000 civilians killed as a result of extensive aerial bombardment of civilian population centers.

It is estimated that the U.S. military fired more than one million rounds of munitions tipped with radioactive depleted uranium in southern Iraq. The infrastructure of Iraq was left in shambles - its water and sewage treatment plants, bridges, buildings, and electrical generating facilities destroyed. A U.N. report observed that Iraq was back in the "pre-industrial" age as a result of the war. The same report estimated that it would cost Iraq at least $22 billion to restore power, oil, water, sanitation, food, agriculture, and health sectors.

In the past ten years, the U.S. has used two policies to keep Iraq under its thumb. They are: 1) economic sanctions and 2) "low-intensity war."

Economic Sanctions

After the war, the U.N. Security council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq on April 3, 1991 which have severely restricted the country's foreign trade including its sale of oil. The alleged purpose of the sanctions was to prevent Iraq from stockpiling chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Over the years, thousands of arms inspections have been carried out and even U.S. and U.N. experts have repeatedly reported that there is no evidence that Iraq is building such weapons. Still the U.S. has repeatedly blocked the Security Council from lifting the sanctions.

The sanctions have caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The country faces widespread malnutrition and other diseases such as malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis. According to U.N. statistics, more than 1.4 million Iraqi people, including 750,000 children below the age of five, have died because of the scarcity of food and medicine. UNICEF estimates that another one million children in Iraq are severely malnourished. The World Health Organization has reported that "since the onset of sanctions, there has been a sixfold increase in the mortality rate for children under five and the majority of the country's population has been on a semi-starvation diet." Other statistics show that one Iraqi child dies every nine minutes due to the sanctions. The death rate among children from diarrhea has increased eleven-fold since August, 1990, while the death rate from pneumonia rose tenfold. Deaths due to malnutrition increased 24 times during the same period, and the infant mortality rate increased to 92.7 for every 1000 births.

The embargo on spare parts for sewage plants and on chloride for water purification has also had a devastating effect on the country. The U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs reports that Iraqi "public health services are near total collapse -- basic medicines, lifesaving drugs and essential medical supplies are lacking throughout the country. Fifty percent of rural people have no access to potable water and waste water treatment facilities have stopped functioning in most urban areas."

In 1996, the U.N. started the "oil-for-food" program under the pretext of helping Iraq with the humanitarian crisis caused by the sanctions. The U.N. sanctions committee, which must approve any purchases the Iraqi government wants to make with the revenues of its oil sales, routinely denies Iraq permission to rebuild its infrastructure. By the veto power of the U.S. representative on the committee, Iraq has been denied items such as ambulances, chlorinators, and even pencils. Currently, some 1.8 billion dollars worth of items requested by Iraq are "on hold," because the U.S. claims that they could have a dual use. The Economist magazine recently observed that: "Sanctions impinge on the lives of all Iraqis every moment of the day. In Basra, Iraq's second city, power flickers on and off, unpredictable in the hours it is available. . . . Smoke from jerry-rigged generators and vehicles hangs over the town in a thick cloud. The tap-water causes diarrhea, but few can afford the bottled sort. Because the sewers have broken down, pools of stinking muck have leached through the surface all over town. That effluent, combined with pollution upstream, has killed most of the fish in the Shatt al-Arab river and has left the remainder unsafe to eat. The government can no longer spray for sand-flies or mosquitoes, so insects have proliferated, along with the diseases they carry."

The Iraqi News Agency reported that 1,498,926 people have died as a result of the sanctions.

Low-Intensity War

For the last 10 years, the U.S. has continued to wage a low-intensity war against Iraq, regularly bombing the country, including civilian populations.

The bombardment of Iraq is carried out under the pretext of "no-fly zones" which the U.S. and Britain are unilaterally imposing on both the north and south of the country. The no-fly zones, which deny Iraq access to its own airspace, are a blatant violation of the country's sovereignty.

Over the years, the U.S. has carried out hundreds of bombing missions, killing and wounding thousands of civilians. In a recent article, the Washington Post admitted that "civilian deaths and injuries are a regular part of the little-discussed U.S. and British air operation over Iraq." Since operation "Desert Fox" in December 1998, American and British jets have been bombing Iraq on an almost weekly basis. The Iraqi News Agency reports that 365 people have been killed in US-British raids since December 1998.

U.S. imperialism continues its economic and military pressure against Iraq both to keep the country under its thumb as well as to justify its continued and extensive military presence throughout the Persian Gulf region.

Tens of thousands of U.S. troops are stationed in the region and warplanes and warships regularly prowl the Gulf. The U.S. has also established a network of military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and elsewhere. The U.S. military is constantly engaged in training exercises and war games in the region, building up the armies of various reactionary Arab regimes and bringing these forces under its direct command. It has pre-positioned enormous supplies of military hardware in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and elsewhere. In 1995, the U.S. created a new war fleet, permanently based in the Persian Gulf, and including at least 15 warships with more than 10,000 sailors and Marines, two nuclear-powered submarines, and an aircraft carrier with 70 war planes.

The on-going U.S. military actions against Iraq and the continuing U.S. sanctions must end. We must put an end to U.S. militarization of the Middle East, demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region, and the dismantling of all aggressive military alliances. This is a key part of the struggle for a genuinely democratic foreign policy which ends U.S. interference and aggression against other countries and recognizes the right of every nation to determine its affairs for itself.