On Tuesday, December 10, 1996, when Iraq resumed oil exports to world markets after a six-year break, a sigh of relief must have been felt by those who skillfully negotiated the deal over several months of intense discussions with the United Nations. The feeling of relief echoed on that historic day by millions of Iraqis, whose suffering mounted since August 6, 1990, when stringent trade sanctions were imposed on Iraq, four days after its troops invaded Kuwait. Iraqi citizens celebrated euphorically, and were reportedly firing guns into the air and singing and dancing in the streets.
This momentary joy notwithstanding, the harsh realities of the oil-for-food deal were evident even before the flow of oil resumed. Concocted under the pretext of securing the basic needs of Iraq's population for food and medicine, the deal is flagrantly inadequate to meet these needs and, in addition, carries the risk of prolonging rather than ameliorating their suffering.
In 1989, Iraq's oil revenues totaled $12 billion. In 1990, before the
invasion, Iraq exported more than 3 million barrels of oil daily. Iraq
enjoyed one of the most advanced health care systems in the region. Iraq's
Ministry of Health allocated an annual budget of $24 per Iraqi exclusively
for the purchase of medicines, for example. This amounted to
approximately $500 million annually, a relatively small fraction of the
Ministry's total budget. Preventive and vaccination programs, prenatal and
maternal care, infectious disease eradication, rural health projects and
other community health programs occupied the largest portion of Iraq's
annual budget of more than $2 billion. Today, after six years of
persistent and severe deterioration which rendered the country's public
health systems essentially non-operable, the oil-for-food plan will allow
Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil over six months, on renewable basis,
with proceeds mostly going to pay for badly needed food, medicine, and
other humanitarian goods, subject to UN supervision. After 30 percent of
this revenue is deducted by the United Nations to pay for dismantling
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and for war-related claims, the
remaining six-month revenues translate to a mere 33 cents per day for each
Iraqi! This amount is expected to pay for all
The reasons that led Iraq to finally accept this unlikable deal are understandable, given the intolerable hardships that torment its citizens. The revenue from this deal is inadequate to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi citizen. It can hardly meet the pressing need to repair essential public facilities that have a direct impact on the population's health and welfare. Furthermore, the deal runs a serious risk of pacifying the legitimate concerns regarding the resources needed to bring the country's public health system to a pre-war level. Indeed, the risk that the international community's conscience could be numbed with respect to the unmet humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people is inherent in the oil-for-food agreement. At best, the deal is inadequate to meet the Iraqis' needs, and at worst, it would usher a stae of international apathy and inaction that will result in their continued suffering. Either way, the deal provides yet another argument in favor of the total lifting of the economic sanctions as the only realistic solution to the continued suffering of Iraq's more than 22 million citizens. Sanctions are a blunt and indiscriminate political instrument of punishment.
Historically, sanctions impact the poor, spare the rich and powerful, and strengthen the authority rather than weaken it. The success of sanctions against Iraq is evidenced only if measured by their implied intent to weaken the country, to threaten its social fiber, and to undermine its human and intellectual resources. The historical affirmation that even more savage attempts at Iraq ave gone in vain is reason to expect that the Iraqis will weather this storm too. To reduce the human cost of this round, however, Arab Americans should call upon the Clinton Administration and Congress to prompt a disentanglement of the humanitarian aspect of this lingering matter from its complex political roots, as the first step toward addressing the suffering of the valiant Iraqis. Those who proclaim no ill intentions against the people of Iraq should affirm their decrees with deeds which are long overdue.
Arfan J. Al-Hani, M.D., was Director of the Department of Cardiology at St. James Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. He participated in fact-finding missions to Iraq and authored several articles and studies on the effects of the economic sanctions on the Iraqi population
The article was published in ADC Times (Dec. - Jan. 1997).