Four days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the United States under the disguise of United Nations, imposed a near-total financial and trade embargo on the nation of Iraq. The idea(as stated to the world) was to ‘force Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction.’
But when the true picture of effects on the Iraqi people during sanctions came into the public eye, a million or more Iraqis has been killed by means of malnutrition and disease, Many victims were children under the age of five. When Madeleine Albright, a secretary of state under Bill Clinton was asked, if the death of so many innocents was worth the price?, she remorselessly said, “We think the price is worth it.”
This John Pilger documentary(shot in year 2000) is an analysis of the effect of economic sanctions on Iraqi people. It is a testament to the international crimes against the Iraqi people, long before U.S’s ‘War on Terror’.
What happens when modern civilized life is taken away? Imagine all the things we take for granted are suddenly not available, or severely limited: clean water, fresh food, soap, paper, pencils, books, light bulbs, life-saving drugs. Telephone calls to the outside world are extremely difficult, computers no longer work, when you fall ill you must sell your furniture to buy medicine, when you have a tooth out there’s no anesthetic. No country will trade with yours, and your money is almost worthless. Soon your children become beggars. It’s as if the world has condemned your whole society to a slow death, and all because of a dispute between governments over which you have no control. That’s what has happened here in Iraq, where almost 10 years of extraordinary isolation, imposed by the U.N. and enforced by America and Britain, have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, including half a million young children.” – John Pilger
