MER - Washington - 24 November:

The U.S. is at war with Iraq -- make no mistake about that. And it is brutal, nearly genocidal war -- make no mistake aboutthat. And it is substantially the result of the convoluted, but real nevertheless, U.S./Israeli/Saudi alliance to controlthe entire Middle East region -- make no mistake about that either.

Iraq is being collectively tortured for its defiance of American and Israeli domination plans for the region. Even official U.N. reports document that nearly 1 million Iraqis -- mostly the young and the elderly -- have died in the past sevenyears as a direct result of American policies. Other expert estimates put the number at somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million --half under the age of 5.

When compared to the American population, this would be the equivalent of some 12 to 20+ million Americans killed since 1990!

And more bombing, destruction, misery, and collective death lie immediately ahead. And yet, still facilitating this terriblecarnage -- no matter what public relations theatrics they use -- the Arab "client regimes" from Cairo to Amman to Riyadh continueto allow American aircraft carriers and battle ships to pass through the Suez Canal and American bombers of all descriptions to land at their huge desert military encampments, preparinganother round of devastation for the people of Iraq.

The following eye-witness account was published last Sunday in THE BALTIMORE SUN:
 

Observations: "Our government doesn't want us to see the devastation our policy has caused," says a free lance-writer who visited the country.

When you picture Iraq, what do you see? Visions of Saddam Hussein?Hidden containers of anthrax and nerve gas? Scud missiles on the alert? Having visited Iraq last spring, this is what I see: dignifiedMuslim women begging on Baghdad Street corners; young boys hawking cigarettes and kerosene to help support their families; a father running with his child into a hospital emergency room because thereare so few functioning ambulances;a middle aged man with diabetes standing by a hospital entrance and pleading with me for insulin.

Inside the hospitals, I see blood and urine stained mattresses; brokenair conditioners and light fixtures; dimly lighted pediatric wards; mothers tending their children day and night; and hundreds of childrenwaiting for medicine that never comes. This is what several years of sanctions has done to this once prosperous country. This is the pictureyou won't see on the 6 o'clock news.

When i went to Iraq I broke the law. The United States want Americancitizens going there. And for good reason. Our governement doesn't wantus to see the devastation our policy has caused.

Our policy of sanctions against Iraq has claimed the lives of more than1 million Iraqis - mostly children.  I visited hospitals in Baghdad and Basra. I met Iraqi women andchildren. They are sick and they are dying.They do not have enough foodor medicine. They do not have hope. They are without these things because the United States has decreed they can be sacrificed in thename of a vendetta against Saddam Hussein.

In Iraq, I saw numerous little boys and girls with signs of severemalnutrition-distended bellies, glossy eyes, discolored hair and profound weakness. Thanks to sanctions, the doctors, in too many cases,can do nothing but provide supportive care while these children wither away in hospitals that are falling apart.

 What could I have said to these dying children? Should I have said whatthe American media are now telling us that the suffering of the Iraqi people is due to one man and his intransigence in the face of international opposition? That whatever the price, the United States must stop this person from manufacturing weapons of mass destruction?

 The United States and the United Nations are the ones weilding theweapons of mass destruction. These weapons are the sanctions against Iraq.

I tried to tell an american official in the U.S. Embassy in Amman,Jordan, what it was like to cradle an Iraqi child in my arms, to caress his hair and brow, and to know this child's quiet pain and sufferingare the fruits of U.S. policy. The official responded he had a job to do, to clarify U.S. policy, not justify it, he said.

Over and over, the people I met asked me, "Why is your government doingthis to us? When will it end?

It will end when our government stops punishing the people of a countryfor the policies of its leader. It will end when we reach out to ordinary Iraqi people with fellowship and compassion. It will end whenwe help them rebuild their country, rather than sending them aircraft carriers and cruise missiles."

[Baltimore Sun - Sunday - Nov 23, 1997 Page 7F]
 

Note on author: George Capaccio is a free-lance writer and artist and educator based in Arlington, Mass. Last march he traveled to Iraq to distribute medical supplies and to witness for himself the effects of seven years of sanctions.