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Morocco
in Transition
(Middle
East Report 218, Spring 2001)
Editorial
On
February 16, US and British warplanes bombed targets outside the
no-fly zones for the first time since December 1998, prompting a
brief media frenzy that refocused the world's attention on the low-level
US-UK air war waged against Iraq since the 1990-91 Gulf war. But
the media mostly missed the real story. With bitter irony, George
W. Bush's characterization of the raid as a "routine mission"
highlighted the media's near-total neglect of the remarkable escalation
of bombing inside the no-fly zones over the last two years. When
the story faded from the front pages, US Iraq policy had once again
escaped the thorough interrogation it deserves.
The
latest raid, personally authorized by Bush, exposes the essential
contradiction of US Iraq policy since 1991: measures employed to
protect Iraqi civilians and topple Saddam Hussein have instead strengthened
his regime and devastated Iraqi society. US claims that the bilaterally
enforced no-fly zones protect Kurds in the north and Shi'a in the
south are specious. The northern no-fly zone has not protected Kurds
in Kirkuk from expulsion by the Iraqi army, nor does it apply to
Turkish aircraft, whose repeated incursions into northern Iraq to
hunt PKK fighters have caused civilian deaths and extensive property
damage. Since 1994, US State Department reports have conceded that
the southern zone does not protect Shi'a civilians from Iraqi ground
forces and artillery. The no-fly zones -- which cost US taxpayers
billions of dollars annually -- are mostly a way for successive
US administrations to appear "tough" on the Iraqi regime.
Almost
absent from media assessments of the "damage" done by
the latest bombing was any reference to the lasting damage to Iraqi
society caused by the US-led economic sanctions. Bush and Secretary
of State Colin Powell can still distract the domestic media by averring
that Saddam Hussein hoards or misspends the oil revenue Iraq obtains
through the UN's Oil for Food program -- hence the US has no responsibility
for the deaths and malnutrition of children. (No one mentions the
children who died before Oil for Food any longer.) But in the international
arena, the US and UK face growing criticism for placing capricious
"holds" on non-military goods ordered by Iraq to maintain
and improve its infrastructure. The maze of restrictions is baffling
even to insiders. As Benon Sevan, executive director of the UN Iraq
Program Office, said: "Don't look for logic in the Iraq program.
There is no logic." Quite independent of Oil for Food, increased
oil smuggling and sanctions-busting humanitarian flights from Europe
and the Arab world have mitigated the humanitarian crisis inside
Iraq. Long after the sanctions are gone, Iraq's schools, health
care facilities and water supply and irrigation systems will struggle
to recover from years of degradation. Every day that passes with
the US refusing to lift sanctions increases US culpability for this
disaster.
In
this context, the media focus on "what to do about Saddam"
after the bombing was a major public relations victory for the US.
Talk about "self-defense" and "keeping him in a box"
again diverted attention from the fact that US Iraq policy has failed.
On
February
22, the Washington Post reported that nearly half of the
"precision-guided" standoff missiles fired February 16
missed their targets. Given the numerous Republican tongue-lashings
the Clinton administration received for its "pinprick"
bombings, we may reasonably expect that the Bush administration
will order another raid to finish the job.
As
Powell prepares for his whistlestop "listening tour" of
several Middle Eastern countries beginning February 23, initial
signals indicate that the US and UK may try to trade relaxation
of the punishing economic sanctions for tacit Arab approval of stepped-up
military action against the Iraqi regime, possibly including another
doomed adventure for the fractious Iraqi opposition. The only "international
leader" who cheered the last attack was Ahmad Chalabi, head
of the feckless Iraqi National Congress, who -- by happy coincidence
-- was visiting the State Department the day the missiles hit the
outskirts of Baghdad. Apparently, the US and the Iraqi regime will
recommence their ten-year danse macabre: the "bold"
initiatives of each merely fuel the public relations machines of
the other, and Iraqi civilians pay the price.
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