Just four days after its invasion of Kuwait, sanctions were imposed on Iraq to force it to withdraw, prevent it from waging further wars on its neighbors, and to cripple its capacity to build weapons of mass destruction.

The sanctions imposed on Iraq are “comprehensive economic sanctions.” These are the widest in scope, and limit the transfer of all goods and services to the target state.

Iraq is currently the only country in the world on which comprehensive sanctions are imposed.

The oil-for-food program is supposed to be allowing Iraq to import the basic goods needed by the Iraqis for civilian use. Still, many basic goods and medicines are banned under the claim that they are dual-use goods that can be used in the manufacture of weapons. These banned dual-use goods include pencils, baby food, and food additives.

Eleven years of sanctions have resulted in the loss of more than one million civilian lives, including 500,000 children under the age of 5. This number of victims is more than the victims of Hiroshima and much more than that of September 11. The Iraqis hold the UN, the US, and the entire international community responsible for their suffering.

Furthermore, the US currently alleges the sanctions were not successful in preventing Saddam from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and thus, according to the US, war has to be waged for the country to be effectively disarmed.

Given the allegations of the US, the basic outcome of the sanctions can therefore be summed up as: the death of 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, and the increasing power and legitimacy of Saddam’s regime in Iraq.

Despite US claims that Saddam is the only one responsible for the suffering of the Iraqis, the fact remains that the United States and the United Kingdom are the only two countries demanding the continuation of the sanctions regime imposed on the Iraqi people. The US usually blocks the entry of humanitarian aid to Iraq, even after UN approval and authorization.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. It had, and still has, many problems with its neighbors. However, the Iraqi government seems to be exerting serious efforts in solving these problems. Saddam Hussein has even apologized for the invasion of Kuwait.

Iraq is not the only country in the world that has ongoing disputes with its neighbors. Israel, for example, has many ongoing disputes, and is in fact currently in occupying of the territories of at least two states.

Adherence to international law is obviously not the defining criteria in determining which is a “rogue” state. The question therefore remains as to what the standards utilized by the United States in referring to some states as being “rogue” are.

The mainstream media never emphasizes the fact that, in 1998, the UNSCOM inspectors were not expelled from Iraq by the Iraqi government, but rather withdrew after it was revealed they had been infiltrated by US intelligence. The controversial UNSCOM has now been succeeded by the UNMOVIC. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan affirmed, Iraq has so far shown full cooperation with UNMOVIC inspectors, granting them unfettered access to all the locations they wish to inspect, including Saddam’s presidential palaces.

The American president always says that he would go to war on Iraq for the establishment of democracy and the liberation of the Iraqi people. He argues that he would go to war for the salvation of the Iraqi nation from Saddam’s totalitarian regime. The irony remains that, in doing so, he will put at least one million Iraqi citizens to certain, inevitable death, through comprehensive sanctions and military attacks that could very possibly cause civilian casualties.

It is important to note that the US is currently allied to many totalitarian regimes in the Middle East. Additionally, the US was in fact an ally of Saddam Hussein before 1991, even though he was known to have committed several war crimes.

To justify the maintenance of the sanctions, the United States argues that these sanctions are to disable Iraq from acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction or the capability to develop them. Yet at the same time the US wishes to wage war on Iraq for the claim that the sanctions are not effective enough for the disarmament of Saddam Hussein.

George W. Bush is always reiterating that his aims in Iraq are to achieve freedom for the Iraqis and to maintain peace in the Middle East. He affirms that he would veto any resolution calling for the lifting of the sanctions.

Throughout history, the US foreign policy has been guided by American national interest. As the US is currently the only super power in a unipolar international system, American national interest became the sole frame of reference for the dynamics of that system.

A war on Iraq would possibly cause the death of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. This happened in Operation Desert Storm as it was reported that 200,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of the direct operation, not counting the losses resulting later from depleted uranium and the economic sanctions.

A war in the Middle East would send further turbulence in an already unstable region. The scenario of the events that would take place after a war on Iraq may be identical to what already happened in Afghanistan: the fall of the rogue regime and its replacement with a pro-US political system, which would assure the US presence in the country and a firmer grip over its geo-political and geo-economic resources.

Although Iraq has been so far showing full cooperation with UN inspectors, and although the Iraqi regime has been eventually responding to the demands of the international community, the American president appears to be persistent in his quest for war.

US politicians have stated openly that they would attack Iraq to change its political regime, whether or not that regime abides by the international law and complies with the UN resolutions.

Many former UNSCOM inspectors stress that Iraq has been disarmed, which means that Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction.

With deadly sanctions imposed on Iraq for 11 years, and with frequent American and British military strikes on the country, Iraq has been officially stripped off any form of power enabling it to defend itself.

Over the past eleven years of sanctions, and along with successive military attacks/air strikes that deliberately or “mistakenly” hit civilians, Iraq has lost more than one million innocent lives, and the death rate continues to be on the rise. Health conditions are rapidly and gravely deteriorating and access to medicine is denied (under the claim that they are of “dual use” and may be used by the Iraqi regime in the manufacture of biological weapons). Since the beginning of the war, child mortality under the age of 5 has more than doubled. Yet when asked whether or not a price like that was worth it, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied with a yes: “…we think the price is worth it.”