MER Article Elusive Justice Saddam Hussein's regime has long been one of the world's worst human rights violators. But the international community largely ignored Iraq's record of human rights abuse -- brutal repression of internal dissent, atrocities during the eight-year war with Iran -- until after Hussein crossed the red l Joost Hiltermann • 9 min read
MER Article A Shaky De Facto Kurdistan Surrounded by four states that do not wish it well, officially embargoed, still divided by internal conflicts, Iraqi Kurdistan hasn't had it this good for years. Paradoxically, Kurds in northern Iraq are hoping everything stays exactly the way it is. "If the government comes back we lose everything Quil Lawrence • 7 min read
MER Article The Politics of Consensus in the Gulf As American and British warplanes flew into action over Iraq in December 1998, they blasted away not only Iraqi targets but also the remnants of international consensus. After the Gulf war, the Security Council authorized economic sanctions and intrusive inspections aimed at the elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) Marc Lynch • 10 min read
MER Article The Public Health Impact of Sanctions Throughout the 1990s, social conditions in Iraq have deteriorated to levels last experienced three and four decades ago. This decline is associated with a dramatic reduction of the gross national product from around $3,500 to under $700 per capita, but changes in the GNP do not tell the entire story Richard Garfield • 12 min read
MER Article Depleted Uranium Haunts Kosovo and Iraq Iraq and Kosovo may be thousands of miles apart, but they share the dubious distinction of contamination with radioactive residue from depleted uranium (DU) bullets used in American air strikes. After several years of silence, US officials finally admitted that 340 tons of DU were fired during the G Scott Peterson • 3 min read
MER Article Daghara Dispatch In 1996, five years after the Gulf war, my anthropologist husband Robert Fernea and I returned to Daghara, a predominantly Shi'i Muslim provincial town on a tributary of the Euphrates in south central Iraq. We had lived there for two years before the Iraqi revolution of 1958 against British colonial Elizabeth Warnock Fernea • 4 min read
MER Article Sanctioning Iraq After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 triggered the imposition of international economic sanctions, it was widely believed that the Gulf crisis would be rapidly resolved. The scale of Iraq's military defeat in the 1991 Gulf war suggested that the government would accept ceasefire terms, Sarah J Graham-Brown • 13 min read
MER Article "And They Called It Peace" Ten years ago, on August 2, 1990, US policy in, toward and around Iraq dramatically changed course. From close if sometimes distasteful allies, Baghdad's government and its leader, Saddam Hussein, were transformed overnight into Washington's public enemy number one: "Hitler!" thundered President George Bush. Phyllis Bennis • 11 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 2000) In the spring of 1995, a special issue of Middle East Report offered a damning assessment of US and Allied policy toward Iraq since the Gulf war: Economic sanctions imposed to topple the Iraqi government were punishing the Iraqi people instead. Over five years later, little and much has changed. UNI The Editors • 2 min read
Current Analysis "They Dignified Our University" In February 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger held a "town meeting" at Ohio State University to rally public support for a new round of bombing of Iraq. Despite the administration's careful orchestration of the Fadia Rafeedie, Nadine Naber • 7 min read
Current Analysis The Situation in Iraq: Democracy Cannot Be Manufactured at Foggy Bottom or the Pentagon Few members of Congress are critical of US policy toward Iraq; fewer still are those willing to go public in their criticism of that policy. Not representative Cynthia McKinney. She is one of four members of congress who decided to send their senior aides on a fact-finding tour to Iraq Laurie King-Irani • 6 min read
MER Article Clipped Wings, Sharp Claws Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999). Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (New York: HarperCollins, 1999). Scott Ritter, Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem Once and For All (New Joost Hiltermann • 7 min read
