Talking Points, as of December 19, 1998 -- No to Bombing! No to Sanctions! Let Iraq Live!

Please remember...

The Iraqi People are bombed while still suffering from a Continuing Eight-Year Sanctions War.

Bombing innocent people to influence the Iraqi Regime is a Blatant Act of Terrorism (see section on law)

The United Nations & the Security Council are against the attack. This attack Violates the UN Charter.

Please voice your opposition to this act of military violence, and to the continuing economic violence (i.e. 'sanctions'), against the Iraqi people.

Summary Information & Talking Points

The Bombing on Iraqi cities -- Dec 14-Dec 19 ...

Summary Information

By December 18, 1998, a third wave of air strikes had been launched against Iraq. The United States says that it has fired more cruise missiles in the current wave of strikes than during the entire Gulf War. On December 19, the first day of Ramadan, the US and UK began the fourth wave of massive attacks.

Among the 'targets' destroyed was a warehouse, managed by the U.N. World Food Program, holding 260,000 tons of rice. Two hospitals, a few primary schools, residential areas, and the National Museum were also damaged. (For more information - see Strikes Set Back Iraq Aid Program )
Friday night's bombing attacks were reported to be the heaviest yet against Iraq. More than 20 cruise missiles hit one area of central Baghdad alone. More than 350 cruise missiles have been launched at Iraq, as well as hundreds of sorties by US and British warplanes.
Friday, Iraq held a mass funeral for 68 civilians killed by US/British bombing in Baghdad. Each of the 68 coffins was carried in a procession on top of taxis, and each carried a photograph and details of the victims. Some were women and children. Iraqi officials say that 5 civilians were killed and 21 injured by bombing in the northern province of Tamin. Official estimates of casualties for the whole country are still unavailable.
Demonstrations against the US/British bombing have occurred in several countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, the UK, and the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as throughout the United States.

Talking Points

Is Iraq a threat? If Iraq really is a threat to the region, then neighboring Arab states would be supporting the strikes. not one Arab government has expressed support for the attacks against Iraq. If the neighboring countries to Iraq are not threatened by Iraq, how can Americans here be threatened?

Former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Dennis Halliday said that the US-British air strikes on Iraq were "an absolute tragedy" for the people of Iraq. Halliday resigned last September from his job overseeing the Iraqi oil-for-food programme in protest at the continuing sanctions. Halliday said sanctions are responsible for the deaths 5,000 or 6,000 Iraqi children every month due to lack of adequate health care, basic drugs and malnutrition. "Apart from the death situation which is appalling in itself, we are running at malnutrition levels of over 30 percent of children under five years which puts Iraq back comparable to the very lowest of the least developed countries."

Former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, Raymond Zalinskas, has said that inspectors had already wiped out any possible chemical and biological weapons sites in Iraq by 1995. He noted that no bombing raid could guarantee these weapons would never be produced unless they kill every Iraqi scientist. (Source: NPR Morning Edition, 13 February 1998)

A specialist on the Middle East for the American Friends Service Committee, Kathy Bergen, said: "On the eve of momentous religious holidays for all three Abrahamic faiths, the U.S. has taken actions that could, by the Clinton Administration's own admission, result in the deaths of 10,000 Iraqi civilians, even in a `medium case scenario.' (Washington Post, Nov. 16)"

Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, Stephen Zunes, said, "No member state of the United Nations can unilaterally enforce a Security Council resolution without expressed approval by the Security Council. The U.S. had such authorization in 1991 regarding the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait -- but it has no such mandate now." Zunes added: "If the U.S. could unilaterally attack Iraq for its violations of a U.N. Security Council resolution, then Russia could unilaterally bomb Israel for its many violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions."

A Set-Up? Scott Ritter (former weapons inspector) was quoted yesterday in the NY Post as saying that UNSCOM was sent back into Iraq last month to "provoke a crisis" and "to generate a conflict" to "justify a bombing". Further, the US was instrumental in the writing of Butler's report and that it was composed in a secure US area in the UN and that the contents of the report were leaked before it was submitted to the Security Council. There's more on UNSCOM and Butler in the program. Yesterday's Washington Post also had an article in which it was disclosed that Clinton told Netanyahu before he (Clinton) left Israel that Butler's report would be "very difficult" and that it "would obligate him to act."

EFFECTS OF THE 8-YEAR SANCTIONS ON THE MILLIONS IN IRAQ:

"The increase in mortality reported in public hospitals for children under five years of age (an excess of some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is mainly due to diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. In those over five years of age, the increase (an excess of some 50,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney diseases." Approximately 250 people die every day in Iraq due to the effect of the sanctions. - UNICEF, April 1998.

"The Oil-for-Food plan has not yet resulted in adequate protection of Iraq's children from malnutrition/disease. Those children spared from death continue to remain deprived of essential rights addressed in the Convention of Rights of the Child." -- UNICEF, April 1998.

"32 percent of children under five, some 960,000 children are chronically malnourished - a rise of 72 percent since 1991. Almost one quarter (23%) are underweight - twice as high as the levels found in neighboring Jordan or Turkey." - UNICEF, November 1997.