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Shadows on Iraq's Ramadan as Baghdad Rejects Bowing to U.S. Threats
BAGHDAD, Nov 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Eleven years after the imposition of a crippling sanctions regime, Iraqis are facing the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan this year confronted by high food prices and possible U.S. military strikes.
So far, Baghdad remains defiant, implying it would not allow United Nations weapons inspectors in, as recently demanded by the Bush administration. Washington has warned Iraq to allow the inspectors back or face the consequences.
"Iraq is capable of defending itself and its rights. It does not accept threats," said a government spokesman, quoted by the official INA news agency.
The spokesman called on the U.N. Security Council to "honor its commitments to Iraq by totally lifting the embargo and respecting Iraq's independence and sovereignty."
As an act of good will, "an end should be put to the so-called 'no-fly zones' [in northern and southern Iraq], to recurrent aggression against Iraq and to interference in its internal affairs," the spokesman added. "It is then - and not through threats - that any Security Council member, including the United States, can tell others what should be done."
Meanwhile, continued U.N. economic sanctions have left a bitter poverty among the majority of Iraqis. Market stalls are crammed with goods, but prices remain beyond the budgets of most people. Many Iraqis have been impoverished by the embargo and are reliant on the government for discounted basic rations.
"All the food we want is available in the shops but prices have increased over past months," Afaf Ibrahim lamented as she browsed in a Baghdad market. The mother of six told Agence France-Presse (AFP) her family depended on the government's food handouts for survival.
Iraq has been distributing food rations for subsidized basic goods since the U.N. economic sanctions were first imposed following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The average monthly income of a government worker is only between $3-5, (983.85 - 1639.75 Iraqi dinar…or the price of three eggs), with the public sector also granting family allowances in an effort to make ends meet. Many struggle with two jobs and have to put their children to work.
Baghdad says more than 1.5 million Iraqis, 41% of them children under five, have died from the impact of U.N. sanctions in force since August 1990.
UNICEF, the United Nation's children's fund, states that at least 500,00 Iraqi children have died as a direct result of the sanctions.
Most of the deaths were caused by diarrhea, pneumonia and respiratory problems, as well as malnutrition.
The short, cool November days make fasting more bearable, but Iraqis still suffer electricity cuts which deprive them of heating and special Ramadan television programs during the evening.
Authorities attribute the daily power shortages - two hours in the morning and two in the evening - down to the dilapidated state of installations and increased demand because of temperatures below the seasonal average.
Ramadan here has also been overshadowed by talk of a possible military strike by the United States against Iraq in the framework of the anti-terror campaign once the war in Afghanistan comes to an end.
"We do not rule out a new U.S. attack under the pretext of fighting terrorism, but it will not cow the Iraqi people," said businessman Ibrahim Shaker, a retired civil servant. "America has already attacked Iraq during Ramadan
[in 1998] and it will not be a surprise if it starts again, given its criminal past."
When President George W. Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Monday to allow U.N. arms inspectors back in Iraq to prove to the world he is not developing weapons of mass destruction, his words indicated the possibility of such an attack.
Asked what consequences a refusal would bring, the US leader replied: "He'll find out" - a cryptic reply amid speculation that the Baghdad regime might be next in Washington's crosshairs after Afghanistan's Taliban militia.
Washington has indicated it will pursue its declared war on terrorism after the end of the war against the Taliban.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara warned Tuesday that a U.S. military strike against an Arab country in the fight against terrorism would be "a fatal mistake."
"We reject any threat against an Arab country. Any strike against an Arab country, wherever it comes from, will cause endless problems," al-Shara told journalists. "America knows it, Europe too, and I think that harming any Arab country would be a fatal mistake."
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who also served as a U.S. Marine during the Gulf War, said Tuesday that a strike on Iraq would undermine the success of the anti-terrorism coalition.
"If the United States expands its war on terror to be inclusive of Iraq, I think you will see that the coalition that we have put together, the international support we have garnered to take on terror - Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda - will dissipate," he said.
There was no evidence that Iraq was involved in the deadly September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, said Ritter.
"I don't believe that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein is involved in international terror," he told BBC radio. However, Ritter said the Iraqi regime had supported terrorist organizations in the past and had dealt brutally with any opposition.
"In terms of anti-American terror? No," added Ritter. "Saddam Hussein, that is not his method of operation. That is not what he does. I think he is focused solely on getting economic sanctions lifted against his county."
In light of the difficulties faced by the Iraqi people under the sanctions, Hussein has opened some palaces to the Iraqi people since Ramadan began to take the "iftar" or fast-breaking meal.
Hundreds of men, women and children stream into the "people's palaces" on a nightly basis, in a now-regular occurrence during Ramadan in Iraq.
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