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U.S., U.N. Blamed for "Misery" in Iraq and Afghanistan
With additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem
BAGHDAD, Nov 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A senior Iraqi leader has blamed the United States and the 11-year U.N. sanctions for the "misery" of Iraq and Afghanistan's children, news agencies reported.
"The ongoing 11-year embargo and the American aggression targeting civilian and service sites have had a negative effect on the situation of childhood and motherhood, resulting in high mortality rate among children in Iraq," Iraqi Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Thursday, quoted by the state-run
Al-Iraq daily.
Ramadan said the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan would bring more misery to Afghan children.
"Who could anticipate the kind of future awaiting Afghan children after the aggression committed by America and Britain on their country?" he added, in remarks to a Baghdad conference on children.
The U.N. sanctions, of which the United States is the staunchest supporter, were imposed in 1990 to punish Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait.
Contradictory to international opinion, human rights organizations and the U.N.'s own UNICEF agency, the United States maintains that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's policies, rather than the sanctions, are to blame for the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Last month, Iraq's Health Ministry said a total of 15,454 children under the age of five died from curable illnesses such as diarrhea and malnutrition during July and August. In May and June of 1989, a little more than a year before the sanctions were imposed, only 784 Iraqi children died from similar causes.
According to UNICEF, at least 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a direct result of the sanctions.
Iraq has consistently blamed the sanctions for the high mortality rate among its children. It also accuses the United States and Britain of influencing the U.N. committee monitoring the sanctions to delay the import of humanitarian items under a five-year-old U.N.-supervised program to use revenues from oil exports to purchase basic supplies.
Known as the "oil-for-food program", the supposed humanitarian effort to help ease the effects of the sanctions have been directly criticized by senior officials in charge of monitoring it. Top U.N. officials Dennis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck both resigned their posts after declaring the failure of the oil-for-food program to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people.
UNICEF has complained that U.N. Committee 661, in charge of releasing contracts and money to Iraq as a result of its oil exports, has instead repeatedly frozen Iraqi money, funds, and contracts, and has greatly counteracted the proclaimed goal of the program.
An IslamOnline correspondent meeting with UNICEF in Baghdad earlier this year was told that Committee 661 has hindered their ability, let alone that of lay Iraqis, to get the medication needed to fight the increased illness and malnutrition plaguing the country.
The organization also lamented that their first goal now is just to get Iraqi children to live past their first year of life, and then past their fifth birthday.
In addition, Committee 661 has also frozen contracts designed to help rebuild Iraq's decimated infrastructure - including water treatment and sewer facilities.
Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, set off Wednesday for Damascus and Amman, en route to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
Iraqi officials said Thursday that Sabri would discuss the U.N. economic embargo and the continued U.S.-British air raids against the country.
Iraq would also give its opinion on international terrorism at the assembly, which is set to convene on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin denied Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had plans to visit Iraq as part of a broader tour of the Middle East.
"[Putin] has no plans to visit Iraq yet," Putin spokesman Alexei Gromov said, contradicting a statement made Wednesday by the Russian ambassador to Amman, Alexander Ivanov.
If Putin were to visit Iraq, he would be the first Russian president to do so.
Iraq is a strategic trading partner to Russia, despite the fact the United States classifies the country as a "sponsor of state terrorism".
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