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Saddam Celebrates War Anniversary As World Condemns Sanctions
additional reporting by Riham al-Kasaby
CAIRO (IslamOnline) - President Saddam Hussein of Iraq marked the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War with a pledge that Iraq will emerge victorious in its struggle against the United States while sanctions opponents protested in the U.S.
"Iraq has triumphed over the enemies of the [Arab] nation and over its enemies. It will triumph in all the remaining rounds with the help of God because it has achieved its triumph inside its soul, its conscience, its heart and its mind," the Iraqi leader said in a taped televised address to the nation.
On January 16, 1991, Iraq came under a devastating and sustained aerial bombardment from a U.S.-led coalition. The attack, sanctioned by a U.N. Security Council resolution, followed Iraq's failure to withdraw from Kuwait, after it earlier invaded the county.
Sanctions were imposed in 1990 immediately after Iraq's invasion of its neighbor.
"On a day like this day 10 years ago, evil and all those who made Satan their protector lined up in one place, facing those who represented the will to defend right against falsehood and who had God as their protector," Saddam said.
Despite Saddam's rhetoric, an increasing number of humanitarian flights are landing in Baghdad, bringing aid and visitors sympathetic to the plight of the Iraqi people as calls requesting and end to the embargo are being heard worldwide.
In addition to the calls, a number of Western oil companies have expressed interest in doing business with Iraq.
Activists state that economic sanctions cause more harm to the Iraqi people than to Saddam Hussein's regime and are backed by U.N. organizations in the country stating that the people are enduring enormous suffering.
The U.S. has insisted that the sanctions should remain in place until Iraq proves it has no weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam's speech was preceded by a demonstration of about 1,000 people in Baghdad against the sanctions.
The Iraq Sanctions Challenge, a delegation of 50 activists led by former U.S. Attorney General and founder of the International Action Center (IAC), Ramsey Clark, joined the demonstration in downtown Baghdad.
During the demonstration, the delegation expressed their opposition to the sanctions by joining thousands of protesters in chants such as "Down, Down U.S.A," "Clinton, Albright, You can't hide, Sanctions Equal Genocide," and "Road to peace, U.S. out of the Middle East".
The protest began at 2:00 am, the exact time ten years ago when U.S. and British bombs were first dropped on Baghdad ten years ago.
Damacio Lopez, an activist from New Mexico and U.S. delegation member, will be collecting soil samples from sites within Iraq contaminated with Depleted Uranium (DU).
A storm of protest in Europe brought international attention towards the threat, to soldiers and civilians, of life-threatening radioactivity in toxic DU shells left behind by coalition forces.
Years before the U.S. used DU in Yugoslavia, they used it in Iraq. The test will be carried out in Europe.
In Washington, the American Muslim Council (AMC) urged in a statement that Muslims should inform current U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and subsequently contact newly designated Secretary of State Colin Powell, "tell[ing] them that a decade after their imposition, the lifting of the U.S.-led sanctions on Iraq is greatly overdue."
The AMC noted that former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General and former U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, Dennis Halliday, his predecessor Hans von Sponeck and UNSCON Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, all resigned their United Nations posts in protest to sanctions imposed on Iraq. Their argument was that the suffering of the Iraqi people should have been taken more seriously.
Meanwhile, although all Arab Gulf countries took part in the 1991 war against Iraq, a Gulf newspaper on Tuesday called for an end to the sanctions. It warned that the new administration, led by George W. Bush, would deal much harsher with Iraq. Several other publications in the Arab world voiced the same fear.
In the U.S., human rights activists said that sixteen people including Kathy Kelly (2000 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee) were arrested on the steps of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. Wednesday as they protested the sanctions and continued bombings. January 16th marked ten years since the start of the Gulf War.
Although the formal Gulf War itself lasted only 42 days, sanctions, combined with bombings in the U.S. and British-imposed "No Fly Zones", have killed between 1.5 and 2 million people over the past ten years.
UNICEF has stated that one in ten children under the age of one will die before their first birthday as a direct result of the sanctions. The organization has also stated that 5000 Iraqi children ages five and under die every month as a direct result of the sanctions.
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