This UN offer for limited oil sales is [unfortunately] actually being looked upon favorably by many. Why unfortunately? Because it will provide barely any support to the millions in need in Iraq, may actually cost Iraq instead of having Iraq gain, and very likely may prolong the destructive blockade on Iraq.

This "UN compromise" specifies that Iraq could sell up to 2$billion of oil every 6 months, which the UN would then use the money - part of the money going to Kuwait, part going to sustain the UN activities, and part going for food and medicine that the UN deems are necessary and which the UN will then decide how to distribute. Of this 2$Billion every 6 months, only 1$Billion will be used for food and medicine for Iraq. Considering Iraq's population of 20 million, that amounts to less than $10 per person per month, approximately $2 per person per week.

Setting aside the fact that this 'compromise' is a gross violation of national sovereignty, here are some other reasons why this 'compromise' should not be accepted.

It takes more than mere food and medicine to rehabilitate a people, to provide basic health to a country's citizens. The 42 day military war against Iraq did not merely destroy military structures, but destroyed the country's infrastructure needed for life. Bush had ordered the destruction of facilities essential to civilian life and economic productivity throughout Iraq (a violation of the Geneva Convention).

"The intention and effort of the bombing of civilian life and facilities was to systematically destroy Iraq's infrastructure leaving it in a preindustrial condition. Iraq's civilian population was dependent on industrial capacities. Among the facilities targeted and destroyed were: electric power generation, relay and transmission; water treatment, pumping, and distribution systems and reservoirs; telephone and radio exchanges, relay stations, towers and transmission facilities; food processing, storage and distribution facilities and markets, infant milk formula and beverage plants, animal vaccination facilities and irrigation sites; railroad transportation facilities, bus depots, bridges, highway overpasses, highways, highway repair stations, trains, buses and other public transportation vehicles, commercial and private vehicles; oil wells and pumps, pipelines, refineries, oil storage tanks, gasoline filling stations and fuel delivery tank cars and trucks, and kerosene storage tanks; sewage treatment and disposal systems; factories engaged in civilian production (e.g. textile and automobile assembly); and historical markets and ancient sites. The United States intentionally bombed and destroyed civilian life, commercial and business districts, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, historical sites, private vehicles and civilian government offices" (Source - Ramsey Clark, from his book "War Crimes: A Report of United States War Crimes Against Iraq").

So why do I bring this up?? Well, even if we were to pretend that the minute sum afforded to each Iraqi via this "UN compromise" is sufficient for food and medicine, more is needed to sustain their health - let alone to improve their health!

This 'compromise' only provides for little food and medicine - nothing is said of the infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt in order for human health to be restored! Potable water and sanitary living conditions are not luxuries, but necessities to survival - necessities which the UN, in all its proclaimed humanity and morality, does not consider.

Iraq's electrical production and telecommunications systems have been destroyed. The transportation system has been critically damaged by massive bombing of bridges and lack of fuel due to sanctions and bombing of Iraq's oil refining centers. The lack of fuel seriously impairs Iraq's ability to use generators as alternative sources of electrical power. The destruction of bridges, traditionally used by civilians, has hampered the transport of medical supplies.

These factors have severely affected health care. Health care facilities throughout Iraq have limited access to electrical power. Many health centers lack intra-facility telephone service. Without electricity, most of the technology of modern health care cannot be used: laboratory services, blood banking, culturing of media, sterilization of equipment!, storing of medicines, radiography equipment...

Are these luxuries? Are these elements not necessary for human health?

The primary health care threat is that of gastro-intestinal disease caused by water-born infectious illnesses resulting from consumption of contaminated or inadequately treated water. The water supply in Baghdad has been drastically reduced - primarily as a result of lack of power needed to move water through pipe systems and purification systems. Plants producing aluminum phosphate and chlorine gas have been destroyed by bombing and sewage treatment plants severely damaged. In Baghdad, barely half of the water treatment plants are functioning. (Source David Levinson, MD, 'The Effects of the War on Health Care in Iraq).

Is clean, drinkable water a luxury??

Clearly, one must realize that providing the people of Iraq with a bit more food and medicine is far from sufficient to restoring their health - and it is the health and lives of the people that concern us, not so??

70% of the seeds used for Iraq's agriculture were imported. The machines utilized in agriculture need spare parts - which cannot be provided within Iraq. Is allowing a nation the means to sustain itself a crime?? - especially if we remember that these agricultural sectors were bombed during the military war against Iraq. [Was bombing agricultural fields not a crime??]

In addition, not only would accepting this 'condition' not result in much improvement in the lives of the Iraqis, but it very likely could result in the prolongment of the blockade - and that would result in further deaths by the thousands, the continuation of the genocide.

Furthermore, only $1 billion of the $2 billion of oil sales will go to Iraq. The $2 per person per week that is left does NOT take into account that this $1 billion is NOT a net figure that remains after the costs of the oil production are taken out. We still would need to cover the costs of the oil production. Thus, the minute sum that would be left for the people is even less than $2 per person per week, and may very likely be a negative sum!!

What is necessary is the lifting of the blockade - and not merely providing the people with an unlikely chance for a bit more food and medicine!!

The Blockade states that the 'supplies intended strictly for medical purposes, and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs' are exempt. This has not been the case. The government of Iraq is prohibited from purchasing and importing any medicines or medical equipment!! Medicines!! (Source: Eric Hoskins MD, 'The Truth Behind Economic Sanctions: A Report on the Embargo of Food and Medicines to Iraq")

Some may wonder, as a colleague once told me, that "whether blockade or not it makes an ounce of difference in the end as long as Saddam is in his place and people cheering for and supporting him. That's what this is about."

It would be ludicrous to seriously believe that the people of Iraq will suffer MORE if the blockade is lifted. 4 million people may die from starvation in a year - 2.4 million of them children under the age of five. Does one seriously think that Saddam Hussein would starve millions in Iraq?? Does one seriously think that Saddam Hussein would not rebuild the electrical power plants and restore the waste water treatment facilities - but instead that he would be content with Iraq, once clean, being transformed into a country of running sewage and darkness and poor health care??

We must remember that it is not Saddam Hussein and his circle that is suffering, but the people, the poor, the middle class. Why would any sentient being possibly justify killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by these UN sanctions?? Should the UN - and all its supporters - devastate more than 18 million people living in Iraq, depriving them of food and medicine, so the US/UN can impose its political will on the region??

Second, and more importantly, do you believe it to be moral and just to bring suffering onto a people because of the POTENTIAL crimes of their leader?? Shall I shoot my neighbor, who has a criminal record, simply because he may commit another crime?? Is it just to starve millions not because of their crimes, but because of what their dictator MAY do?? There isn't even any logic in punishing a people because of the real crimes of their dictator - let alone in punishing them because of what he may do in the future!

More than 560,000 children have died, have been killed by these sanctions. When will humanity's voice be louder than the voice of economic power and greed?

Third, is this really what this is about - the safety of the people of Iraq?? Does one believe that is the reason this blockade is in place - to ensure that the people of Iraq are treated humanely??

What this is about is simply greed, and economic power, and the New World Order. Morality and human rights were never a part of this equation.

Finally, by supporting the 'compromise' one is implicitly supporting the blockade on Iraq - and in the name of humanity. The blockade is a violation of morality. It is illegal, ineffective, immoral, and a genocide.

In the words of Ramsey Clark:
Tyranny has always blamed its victims for its excesses. Now the Security Council is blaming the Iraqi people its sanctions are killing and crippling. The Security Council seeks to place responsibility for its brutal acts on Iraq thus revealing indifference and contempt for truth and the lives of its victims. History will record these sanctions as one of the greatest persecutions ever committed against an entire people. That it was committed in the name of the United Nations is the ultimate pity.

The issue is simple: END THE BLOCKADE ON IRAQ.