Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Iraq

  • Scene of the Crime

    Iraqi President Saddam Hussein levels a sneer at the thought of combat with the United States, the specter of which looms more vivid with the seasons. His derision may visit him out of habit these days—military conflict, one area peace advocate contends, is only one more phase in a de facto war waged on the country for the better part of the last 12 years.

    “Sanctions are a form of war,” the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Leah Wells said. “Essentially, what they amount to is one in eight children not reaching their first birthday and 5,000 children a month under the age of 5 dying as a result of malnutrition and water-borne diseases.”

    The United Nations imposed numerous embargoes on fundamental goods to Iraq following its 1990 attack on Kuwait and amid speculation that Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction.

    Wells, who will leave for Baghdad Sept. 19 on a fact-finding mission for her Santa Barbara-based nonprofit peace group, has experienced such degradation firsthand. Her trip to Iraq last August yielded the sight of raw sewage mixed with water supplies as children played around them.

    Iraq’s educational infrastructure founders under the sanctions, Wells added—an irony given the nation’s stature among world cultures.

    “That’s the area where the art of writing was invented—it’s the cradle of civilization,”Wells said. “The love of learning has always been very rich there. I’m really curious to see what the effects of this war preparation have on teachers and students.”

    Wells, 26, will return from Baghdad Sept. 29.

  • Statment Opposing Military Action in Iraq

    Thank you, Rep. Kucinich for inviting me to speak today. I do not believe that our world, our children, the people of the Middle East or the citizens of Israel will be safer by going to war against Iraq. I believe that going to war against Iraq would be a mistake. The cost would be heavy in lives lost, dollars wasted and it would squander the goodwill of our allies.

    The serious question is when will the human race work towards peace, rather than war. As citizens of the most educated and financially well-off country in history, when will we decide to put our strength and our energy and our creativity behind peace rather than destruction.

    It is true that Saddam Hussein is a dictator – he is a menace and the world would be better off without him. But, the world will also be better off if the United States works within the scope of international institutions instead of launching an unprovoked first-strike against Iraq. America’s greatest asset is our moral authority, not our military power. Attacking a sovereign country unprovoked forfeits that authority completely.

    A war with Iraq will cost between $100-250 billion. Just think what we could do with that amount of money if we decided to invest in humanity rather than military hardware.

    With $150 billion we could help developing countries in Africa by forgiving half of the continent’s debt, $112 billion would repair or rebuild all the public schools in the United States, and for only $12 million we could demine and replant the breadbasket of Afghanistan to help that nation recover from more than 20 years of continuous war.

    We owe it to our children to exercise the full range of diplomatic options in Iraq, so we can prevent a war that will cost thousands of lives, and give a boost to our real enemies – the terrorists who planned September 11.

    War represents a failure of national policy. It is a last resort. America’s strength is our commitment to moral action and a government based on the rule of law. That law must never be silent, and our moral sensibilities must never be intimidated by fear.
    Dated: September 19, 2002 10:00 AM Cannon Terrace

  • Local teacher heading to Iraq: Pacifist will study how war threats, embargoes affect schools

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    Fear is violence.

    It may not always bring physical wounds but inflicts harm just the same by paralyzing and isolating people, said Leah Wells, a Santa Paula teacher whose impending peace mission to Iraq makes her something of an expert in the matter.

    The 26-year-old pacifist said that if she allowed her journey to be detoured by the possibility of U.S. bombing, war and political coups — fears real enough that trip organizers are talking to the about half-dozen participants about the risks — she’d be on the wrong side of the battle.

    “Fear is the worst form of violence. It makes us step back from who we really are,” she said. “Life is inherently dangerous. Cave people knew that. You do what you do. You trust in the goodness of people.”

    On Thursday, Wells will take her trust and convictions on a journey aimed at studying how Iraq’s schools have been affected by war threats and 12 years of economic embargoes.

    She’ll go to Chicago, then to Jordan and finally, in a 15-hour drive, to Baghdad for about eight days in Iraq. The roundabout route is dictated by a travel sanction that means Wells and others in her group could face U.S. penalties including prison and fines — a possibility she alludes to briefly before moving on to another topic.

    The brevity may be linked to what she calls baby steps. She copes with her fears by looking at her trip as a series of moments to be taken one at a time. She’ll get on the plane, then deal with the next obstacle.

    Ask what her parents think, and Wells said they’re proud but “very, very afraid for me.”

    Ask again why she’s going.

    “Because it’s the right thing to do … because I believe really strongly in nonviolence,” she said.

    Wells, who grew up in a southern Illinois farming community, studied neuro-linguistics at Georgetown University. She got her start as peace educator about four years ago when she co-taught at a maximum-security juvenile prison near Washington, D.C. Now she works for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, teaching Solutions to Violence classes at three Ventura County high schools.

    At a continuation school in Santa Paula, students quote Gandhi and talk about ways to solve conflict in the world, school and home. The principal says Wells’ efforts were the reason there were no fights on campus last year.

    Her class is unusual. The students together make up their rules and goals. When a boy reading aloud from a pacifist essay about the Gulf War asks when he should stop, she tells him to keep going as long as he wants. When she’s in Iraq, the students may take turns leading the class.

    Wells said she does not advocate her opinions, but instead pushes the students to make their own conclusions. Some of the students think U.S. strikes against Iraq are defensible.

    “If Iraq is helping out the terrorists, they should pay consequences,” said a boy in a “Save the Planet” T-shirt.

    Another student thinks any bombing should be carefully planned to avoid civilian casualties. He calls Wells crazy for going to Iraq. She gets that a lot.

    “I feel pretty sane,” she said. “I think the people talking about war are the crazy ones.”

    She is traveling as part of a humanitarian group, Voices in the Wilderness. She joined it on a trip to Iraq last year. She saw poverty and suffering everywhere: Children playing next to canals of raw sewage; a mother watching her child die in a cancer ward that was woefully underequipped; markets displaying withered fruit so pitiful her next trip to a Ventura grocery store brought tears.

    Wells has heard schools are hurting, too. She’s been told some families will send only one child to school because they can only afford one pencil and one notebook.

    “I just want to see for myself,” she said.

    Wells doesn’t think the media covers the plight of the Iraqi people, instead fixating on Saddam Hussein and politics. She wants to collect stories and help Americans understand the inhumane impact of sanctions and threats of war on the way everyday people live.

    It’s not only a few of her students who disagree with her. She gets long, passionate e-mails from people who question her patriotism and understanding of the destruction perpetrated by Saddam. She answers them all, sometimes getting involved in long, intricate dialogues.

    Wells doesn’t support Saddam or anything connected to him. She wants the people to choose their own leader through nonviolent revolution.

    Suggest she’s idealistic, and she interprets it as a compliment. Ask about the feasibility of global peace, and she paraphrases words used by Martin Luther King Jr.:

    “The arc of the universe is long,” she said, “but it bends toward justice.”

  • Local Peace Mission Going to Baghdad

    Published in the Santa Barbara News Press

    Following her first trip to Iraq, Leah Wells returned to Santa Barbara and described how citizens of the Middle Eastern nation fared after more than a decade of international economic sanctions and embargo.

    “The people of Iraq are unable to purchase aspirin and vitamins,” she wrote shortly after the 10-day trip in July 2001. “I saw raw sewage flowing openly through the trash-lined streets and mixing with the drinking water supply. … I am convinced that if the American people know the real face of our economic and political policy toward Iraq, we would mobilize together to put an end to this.”

    More than a year later, the sanctions continue. Talk of a U.S. invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tops the news.

    And Ms. Wells, peace education coordinator at the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is headed back.

    During her upcoming second trip to Iraq, the 26-year-old Santa Paula resident, who teaches nonviolence classes in Ventura schools, will study how Iraqis, mostly schoolchildren and teachers, but also other citizens, are faring under threat of war.

    “My guess,” she said, “is that the everyday threat of war is psychological warfare.”

    As she prepared to leave, the national and international debate over Iraq continued. In recent weeks, President Bush has intensified his call for regime change. Iraq appeared to soften its stance Monday. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that nearly four years after weapons inspectors left the country, Iraq had unconditionally accepted their return.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has taken a firm stance against any new military action against Iraq, and has condemned sanctions against the nation.

    Ms. Wells’ delegation opposes the sanctions and a new war with Iraq on moral, religious and humanitarian grounds, according to the foundation. However, polls that show most Americans support military action.

    Floyd Brown, executive director of the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative group founded under the Reagan Administration, said he believes most people in Santa Barbara would consider the trip to Iraq an “almost treasonous” act that “provides aid and comfort to the enemy.”

    He noted that Mr. Hussein is condemned by many human rights groups, and said the criticism of the President is particularly objectionable while America stands under a threat of further terrorist strikes.

    “It just shows how out of step they are with most Americans, and most of Santa Barbara,” he said.

    The trip technically violates U.S. policies — the federal government officially bars Americans from traveling to Iraq, prohibitions similar to restrictions against travel to Cuba.

    “We consider Iraq a supporter of state-sponsored terrorism,” said Greg Sullivan, spokesman for the U.S. State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs bureau.Still, Americans who enter the country are unlikely to face punishment, Mr. Sullivan noted, unless it is proven that they somehow provided “material benefit” to the Iraqi government.

    “Conditions throughout Iraq remain unsettled and dangerous,” according to the latest U.S. State Department travel warning, issued in July 2001. “Foreigners present in Iraq have in the past been used as ‘human shields’ by the (Hussein) regime during periods of confrontation with the international community.”

    Ms. Wells will make the trip, which starts Thursday, as part of a seven-member “Iraq Peace Team” sponsored by the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness, anonprofit organization focused on ending sanctions against the nation of more than 22 million people.

    The group, with members in several states, will fly to Amman, Jordan, and later enter Iraq on the ground.

    Its first destination? The capital city of Baghdad.

    Much of the itinerary was still being worked out Monday, Ms. Wells said.

    “We’re not there to do big events,” she said. “We’re there to be quiet observers.”

    On the side, Ms. Wells said she hopes to visit at least one site rarely viewed by Westerners. “I’m Catholic, and I’m really interested in seeing where St. Matthew is buried,” she said.

    Once her delegation returns, “I’m hoping to publish as many articles as I can about the trip,” she said.
    *News-Press City Editor Andy Rose and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

  • Opposing the President’s Call for ‘Relentless War’

    Opposing the President’s Call for ‘Relentless War’

    In an article reflecting on the anniversary of September 11, President Bush wrote, in an instant, America was transformed from a nation at peace to a country at war. We were called to defend liberty against tyranny and terror. And we have answered that call with the might of our military and the spirit of a nation inspired by acts of heroism.

    I am in complete accord on two issues. Yes, there was a horrendous attack on two major structures that symbolize our country s economic and military power, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, costing thousands of innocent lives. And yes, there was genuine heroism shown by those who resisted the terrorist attacks and by the emergency workers who sacrificed selflessly for the victims of September 11.

    But was America, as Bush claims, instantly transformed from a nation at peace to a country at war? If it was transformed in this way, it is because this is the direction in which Bush and his advisors transformed it. Becoming a country at war meant to the Bush administration an opportunity to expand US military forces while constricting civil liberties for ordinary Americans. Starting with his candidacy, Bush has pressed for increasing funding for the military. The September 11 attacks, along with a frightened and compliant Congress and American public, provided the opportunity to do so.

    We responded to September 11 with the might of our military, which pummeled Afghanistan and attacked al Qaeda training camps, leading to a regime change in Afghanistan. But all of this military might has failed to apprehend Osama bin Laden, the individual purported to be responsible for the attacks. Has the use of this military might against Afghanistan truly made us any more secure?

    There are few signs that Americans are more secure now than they were before the terrorist attacks. Our airports and other potential targets remain penetratable by terrorists, and virtually nothing has been done to address the root causes of terrorism. Our policies on the Middle East have become less even-handed, and we no longer seem to have sufficient respect in the region to play the role of honest broker in a peace process. Our dependence on foreign oil has not diminished. We have been an obstacle to upholding and strengthening international law in virtually all areas.

    Bush and his military team have not spent much time addressing the reasons that the terrorists chose to attack symbols of American economic and military power. They have simply used the blunt instrument of military force to strike out at a regime viewed as dangerous. The United States under the Bush administration appears more like a helpless flailing giant than a country basing its responses on reason, law and morality. The Bush administration seems oblivious to the decent respect for the opinions of Mankind referred to by the founders of our nation in the Declaration of Independence.

    Our attacks against Afghanistan have resulted in the deaths and injuries of thousands of innocent Afghanis due to our high-altitude bombing. Our response to September 11 has probably killed more innocent Afghanis than the number of innocent persons who died in the terrorist attacks. But our President tells us we are a country at war, and dismisses the deaths of the innocent people we kill as collateral damage.

    This will be a long war, Mr. Bush tells the American people, and unprecedented challenges await us. It will be a long war because we are failing to take necessary steps to achieve peace. It will be a long war because we are led by an administration that has no vision of peace or of a better world for others. It has no vision and few resources for alleviating poverty, or for building schools instead of tanks. It has no vision of preserving the environment and natural resources for future generations because it is intently focused on goals that merely serve corporate interests. It has no vision of halting arms sales, an area where the US remains indisputably number one in the world. Nor does it have a vision of bringing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction under control. We are an empire and empires require double standards. Thus, this will be a long war.

    The concepts of war and defense have often been confused in the minds of Americans, and appear particularly confused in the minds of Bush and his advisors. Through most of our nation s history, we had a War Department, but in 1947 the name of this department was changed to the Department of Defense, one suspects largely for purposes of public relations. Commenting on this change, novelist Joseph Heller astutely observed that since switching the name to Department of Defense, we have never again been in danger of war, only of defense.

    Now we are in danger of perpetual war. The United States under the Bush administration is leading the world in exactly the wrong direction, away from international law and toward increasing reliance on military force. Although no connection has been found between Iraq and the terrorist acts of September 11, Bush and Cheney are eager to wage war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Hussein may have weapons of mass destruction. But other countries, including dictatorships, actually have weapons of mass destruction. Possession of weapons of mass destruction has never been the litmus test for launching a pre-emptive and aggressive war. If we considered the elimination of nuclear weapons truly important, perhaps we would model the behavior we seek for others.

    It is highly unlikely that Saddam Hussein would attempt to inflict injury on citizens of the United States even if he had weapons of mass destruction unless, of course, he was attacked by the United States. Such an attack would put American soldiers in harm s way of Hussein s arsenal, and give Hussein the right under international law to act in self-defense. This right would still not include using weapons of mass destruction, although he might still choose to use them illegally when confronted by overwhelming US force.

    Bush has called for our government to wage an effective and relentless war against terrorists. Perhaps we should think instead of waging peace against the terrorists, acting with such justice and decency in the world that we would again be viewed as a positive model.

    How does a country wage peace? There are some seeds of an answer in Bush’s advice to the American people: Overcome evil with acts of goodness. Love a neighbor. Reach out to somebody in need. Feed someone who is hungry, teach a child to read&. These were Bush s suggestions for what Americans can do to help in the war on terror. But imagine if these suggestions were followed by our country in our policies toward the rest of the world. What if America sought to overcome evil with acts of goodness, rather than military might? What if America reached out to people everywhere who were in need of food, shelter, health care and education?

    Americans must choose the direction they wish to take. If left to make the choice itself, the Bush administration will lead the United States into a potentially devastating war against Iraq, which will undoubtedly increase the already simmering hatred toward the United States in most of the poorer areas of the world. The only way that Mr. Bush can be derailed from the perpetual war he seeks to wage is if the American people make their voices heard so clearly and persistently that Congress will have no alternative but to stand up to the President and say No! If the American people choose to docilely follow Mr. Bush into war against Iraq, we should not be surprised when the next front of the war returns to America in the form of increased terrorism.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • “Unlimited Damage”

    Originally Published in The Telegraph, Calcutta

    There are genuine fears that the anticipated US war on Iraq might lead to such an explosion of hostility to the US that somewhere down the line over the next few years or decades nuclear weapons might be used by terrorist groups or by the US itself. Such a prognosis no longer seems unreal. The world remains very much under the nuclear shadow. Barring the first few years after the end of the Cold War (when genuine steps towards actual nuclear disarmament and not just arms management were being made) in the post-Cold War period now unfolding, the dangers of nuclear war are even greater, albeit different, from what they were during that past. Then the justified fear was of a global holocaust. Now it is of a regional or ‘limited’ nuclear war or exchange.

    Supporters of nuclear weapons in India do not want to believe this. On the contrary, they want to use the example of that Cold War past, as the reassurance that we need not fear the use of nuclear weapons now. Deterrence assured peace then, so it will do so now! Actually, the world came close to nuclear use on a number of occasions during the Cold War especially in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Nuclear peace was not the result of deterrence but much more because of the existence of a nuclear taboo established by the very horror of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 57 years ago. Despite US governments contemplating the use of nuclear weapons during the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as on other occasions, the White House was fully aware that even the American public would not condone such use except in circumstances where the homeland territory itself was threatened.

    The longer this taboo lasted – and credit here must go to the much derided peace movements and to the general public sentiment that viewed these instruments of war as uniquely evil – the more difficult it became to break the taboo. Now, it is a very different situation. There are four possible contexts in which this taboo might finally be broken. Moreover, was this to happen the world would not come to an end. There would most likely not be a nuclear winter and much of the advanced and prosperous world would escape the consequences of these regional or ‘limited’ holocausts were they, as most likely, to take place in the ‘third world’.

    As much as the Indian bomb lobby, in particular, might wish to deny it, the first scenario of such possible use involves South Asia and the India-Pakistan face-off. The US and the USSR were not territorially contiguous. They did not have a foundational dispute (like Kashmir) existing from their very inception as independent states. They never suffered from the growing ascendance of communal or religious extremist forces promoting the kind of hatreds and demonizations of the ‘other’ that are so prevalent in South Asia today. They never had direct conventional wars, or the near-wartime situations that belong to the history of India-Pakistan relations and which create the most favorable contexts for escalating hostilities to the nuclear level. Their respective military-technology systems were never as ramshackle as those in South Asia, that make the chances of an accidental triggering of nuclear exchanges so much greater here.

    There are three possible positions one can take regarding the prospects of a nuclear war in South Asia arising from an India-Pakistan conventional military conflict escalating into a nuclear exchange. The first view, widespread outside India and Pakistan among both pro nuclearists and anti-nuclearists, is that such an exchange sometime in the future between the two countries is almost inevitable. A second view is that the danger of this is so small it is negligible. This is certainly the position of most of those in India who supported India going nuclear. Interestingly, among Pakistani supporters of the bomb there is a greater degree of pessimism with a greater proportion, who even as they support Pakistan’s acquisition of the bomb, are fearful that there could well be a nuclear exchange between the two countries. The difference in perspectives between these two bomb lobbies is not difficult to understand. Pakistan’s tests in 1998 were a reaction to India’s tests. The Pakistan bomb has always been India-specific motivated by fear of India. India’s tests, however, were not motivated by fear of Pakistan (no matter what the occasional rhetoric) but was motivated by more grandiose visions of enhanced global and regional status and the desire to be taken more seriously as a major power. Prospects of growing regional insecurity or nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan have always been more casually dismissed on the India side. There is, of course, a third position that is far and away the most sober one – the possibility of a nuclear exchange is not negligible nor inevitable but in-between; that is to say, it is a real-case scenario, not just a worst-case one, and that its likelihood varies depending on how serious conjunctural tensions are between the countries

    The second context in which a ‘limited’ or regional nuclear conflict might break out is easy enough to visualize. India and Pakistan have ‘got away’ with having nuclear weapons. This inspires others. In a few more years, Iran could well do the same and this would certainly be followed by open declaration of nuclear status by Israel dramatically raising nuclear dangers in the Middle East, with nuclear-capable countries like Egypt aiming to follow suit. Does anyone, even among those worshipping at the altar of nuclear deterrence, think the Middle East would become safer were this to happen?

    In the third scenario, terrorists attack the US with a ‘suitcase’ nuclear bomb or a dirty bomb (explosive dispersion of radioactive materials but no nuclear chain reaction) or attack a nuclear reactor plant. Such is the mind-set of the US elite and much of its population after September 11, that the first would be virtually certain to lead to a serious nuclear retaliation somewhere by Washington, while even the second or third kind of terrorist attack might push it to break the taboo against use of tactical nuclear weapons.

    In the fourth scenario, the US deliberately initiates the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The US today is much more aggressively unilateralist in its behavior and nuclearly ambitious than ever before. Its nuclear policies and practical preparations (e.g. the Ballistic Missile Defense systems) aim at establishing a unilateral dominance over all other countries; at developing a range of tactical weapons, even mini- and micro-nukes; at extending their possible use (against selected countries deemed to have biological and chemical weapons); at completely blurring the distinction between such weapons and conventional ones. The latest Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) makes both part of the same military operational strategy to support general US foreign policy perspectives and ambitions.

    There are a great many powerful people in and around the US government who want to break the taboo against use of nuclear weapons since these would be ‘confined’ to places far away from the homeland and against forces that have no capability to retaliate against it. As for the threat of a possible nuclear terrorist attack against the US, the prior use of tactical nuclear weapons against some perceived enemy is, itself, seen as providing the most powerful deterrent example to prevent such an attack happening in the future.

    Short of again creating a disarmament momentum, it will be folly to think that over the next 57 years, nuclear weapons will not be used.

  • Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Statement Opposing War Against Iraq

    We are firmly opposed to waging war against Iraq.

    The rush to war against Iraq violates the spirit and letter of the US Constitution, as well as disregards the prohibitions on the use of force that are set forth in the UN Charter and accepted as binding rules of international law. The proposed war would also have dangerous and unpredictable consequences for the region and the world, and would likely bring turmoil to the world oil and financial markets, and might well lead to the replacement of currently pro-Western leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with militantly anti-American governments.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation opposes on principle and for reasons of prudence, the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, by any country, including, of course, Iraq. Our position is one of support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a temporary expedient, while a good faith effort is being made to achieve the overall abolition of nuclear weapons through a disarmament treaty with reliable safeguards against cheating. Unfortunately, at present, no effort to achieve nuclear disarmament is being made.

    At the same time, the acquisition of nuclear weaponry, prohibited to Iraq by Security Council resolution, is not itself an occasion for justifiable war. After all, the United States, along with at least seven other countries, possesses, and continues to develop such weaponry. There is no good reason for supposing that Iraq cannot be deterred from ever using such weapons, or from transferring them to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. The government of Iraq, notwithstanding its record of brutality and regional aggression, has shown a consistent willingness to back down in the face of overwhelming force, as it did in the Gulf War and during the subsequent decade.

    It is necessary to take seriously the possibility that al Qaeda operatives could gain access to weaponry of mass destruction, and would have little hesitation about using it against American targets. Unlike Iraq, al Qaeda cannot be deterred by threats of retaliatory force. Its absence of a territorial base, visionary worldview, and suicidal foot soldiers disclose a political disposition that would seek by any means to inflict maximum harm. The US government should guard against such risks, especially with respect to the rather loose control of nuclear materials in Russia. Going to war against Iraq is likely to accentuate, rather than reduce, these dire risks. It would produce the one set of conditions in which Saddam Hussein, faced with the certain death and the destruction of his country, would have the greatest incentive to strike back with any means at his disposal, including the arming of al Qaeda.

    The recent hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not provide an occasion for public debate, as the witnesses called accepted the premise of a regime change in Baghdad, disagreeing only with respect to the costs and feasibility of a war strategy. No principled criticism of the strategy itself was voiced, and thus the hearings are better understood as building a consensus in favor of war than of exploring doubts about the war option. As well, it is regrettable that the hearings paid no attention to the widely criticized punitive sanctions that have had such harsh consequences on Iraqi civilians for more than a decade.

    Granting the concerns of the US government that Saddam Hussein possesses or may obtain weapons of mass destruction, there are available alternatives to war that are consistent with international law and are strongly preferred by America’s most trusted allies. These include the resumption of weapons inspections under United Nations auspices combined with multilateral diplomacy and a continued reliance on non-nuclear deterrence. This kind of approach has proved effective over the years in addressing comparable concerns about North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.

    We are encouraged by the reported opposition to the proposed war by important US military leaders and most US allies. We urge the American people to exercise their responsibilities as citizens to join in raising their voices in opposition to waging war against Iraq.

  • Act to Save the Children of Iraq

    August 6, 2002 (Hiroshima Day) marked the 12th year of the economic sanctions against Iraq. These economic sanctions were described to me during my visit to Iraq by an Iraqi teenager as being a “silent nuclear bomb that drops into every home and is slowly destroying not only the children but the whole Iraqi nation.” Well over a half million Iraqi children have died of malnutrition and preventable diseases (resulting from the after-effects of the Gulf War and continuing economic sanctions) and each day more children die unnecessarily.

    Now, as the Bush Administration is making extremely clear, Iraq is in serious danger of an all-out US assault in the coming months. This week when the Iraqi government offered weapons inspections, the American administration responded by saying it is not about weapons inspections. Rather than going into yet another war causing further untold suffering to Iraqi civilians (also effecting the Middle East and the entire human family, as we are now so interconnected), every diplomatic option must be tried to divert war. The age of wars has gone, such barbaric activity is not acceptable at any time. But even for those who believe in war, it should not be acceptable when diplomatic options are readily available as has been, and continues to be, the case with Iraq.

    The American Government has a responsibility to uphold its democratic constitution, abide by international law, and respect the democratic wishes of many American people and the vast majority of governments and peoples of the world, who are calling for a non-violent solution to this crisis. War on our Iraqi brothers and sisters would be a war on the spirit and dignity of the entire human family.

    We are currently in the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010). This challenges us all to focus on the children and do all in our power to see they have clean water, food, medicine, and a safe environment and safe world. Children in Iraq do not have these things because of UN/USA/UK sanctions. The continuing death and suffering of Iraqi children is preventable. Let us therefore prevent it.

    Oppose US war against Iraq and work for diplomatic options, including the lifting of economic trade sanctions against the Iraqi people, who have been living and dying under these brutal sanctions and effects of war for too long.
    *Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council, is a Nobel Peace Laureate from Northern Ireland and a founder of Peace People.

  • Don’t Attack Saddam

    Originally Published in the Wall Street Journal

    Our nation is presently engaged in a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. Leaks of various strategies for an attack on Iraq appear with regularity. The Bush administration vows regime change, but states that no decision has been made whether, much less when, to launch an invasion.

    It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace. He terrorizes and brutalizes his own people. He has launched war on two of his neighbors. He devotes enormous effort to rebuilding his military forces and equipping them with weapons of mass destruction. We will all be better off when he is gone.

    That said, we need to think through this issue very carefully. We need to analyze the relationship between Iraq and our other pressing priorities — notably the war on terrorism — as well as the best strategy and tactics available were we to move to change the regime in Baghdad.

    Saddam’s strategic objective appears to be to dominate the Persian Gulf, to control oil from the region, or both.

    That clearly poses a real threat to key U.S. interests. But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them.

    He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address. Threatening to use these weapons for blackmail — much less their actual use — would open him and his entire regime to a devastating response by the U.S. While Saddam is thoroughly evil, he is above all a power-hungry survivor.

    Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for his aggression. There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression. Rather, Saddam’s problem with the U.S. appears to be that we stand in the way of his ambitions. He seeks weapons of mass destruction not to arm terrorists, but to deter us from intervening to block his aggressive designs.

    Given Saddam’s aggressive regional ambitions, as well as his ruthlessness and unpredictability, it may at some point be wise to remove him from power. Whether and when that point should come ought to depend on overall U.S. national security priorities. Our pre-eminent security priority — underscored repeatedly by the president — is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken.

    The United States could certainly defeat the Iraqi military and destroy Saddam’s regime. But it would not be a cakewalk. On the contrary, it undoubtedly would be very expensive — with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy — and could as well be bloody. In fact, Saddam would be likely to conclude he had nothing left to lose, leading him to unleash whatever weapons of mass destruction he possesses.

    Israel would have to expect to be the first casualty, as in 1991 when Saddam sought to bring Israel into the Gulf conflict. This time, using weapons of mass destruction, he might succeed, provoking Israel to respond, perhaps with nuclear weapons, unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East. Finally, if we are to achieve our strategic objectives in Iraq, a military campaign very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.

    But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism. And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence.

    Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that bitter conflict — which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve — in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest.

    Even without Israeli involvement, the results could well destabilize Arab regimes in the region, ironically facilitating one of Saddam’s strategic objectives. At a minimum, it would stifle any cooperation on terrorism, and could even swell the ranks of the terrorists. Conversely, the more progress we make in the war on terrorism, and the more we are seen to be committed to resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue, the greater will be the international support for going after Saddam.

    If we are truly serious about the war on terrorism, it must remain our top priority. However, should Saddam Hussein be found to be clearly implicated in the events of Sept. 11, that could make him a key counter-terrorist target, rather than a competing priority, and significantly shift world opinion toward support for regime change.

    In any event, we should be pressing the United Nations Security Council to insist on an effective no-notice inspection regime for Iraq — any time, anywhere, no permission required. On this point, senior administration officials have opined that Saddam Hussein would never agree to such an inspection regime. But if he did, inspections would serve to keep him off balance and under close observation, even if all his weapons of mass destruction capabilities were not uncovered. And if he refused, his rejection could provide the persuasive casus belli which many claim we do not now have. Compelling evidence that Saddam had acquired nuclear-weapons capability could have a similar effect.

    In sum, if we will act in full awareness of the intimate interrelationship of the key issues in the region, keeping counter-terrorism as our foremost priority, there is much potential for success across the entire range of our security interests — including Iraq. If we reject a comprehensive perspective, however, we put at risk our campaign against terrorism as well as stability and security in a vital region of the world.
    *Mr. Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, is founder and president of the Forum for International Policy.

    Dated: Wall Street Journal 15 Aug 2002 p.A12

  • Summer in Iraq Yields Lessons About War

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    Before we talk about a new war with Iraq, we must recognize that the “old war” never ended. Last month, an airstrike by the United States killed one Iraqi and injured 17 others — and we should not miss the significance of this fact. More than a thousand Iraqis have been killed and many more wounded since the illegal no-fly zones were imposed in 1991 — areas that we purportedly patrol to keep Iraqis safe.

    In spite of the slanted testimony of the recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the potential for a renewed war with Iraq, where no dissenters were allowed to speak, the entire world seems to be sending a message to the United States that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein is an unequivocally bad idea.

    Nations such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Germany have demonstrated outright disapproval and nonsupport for a U.S.-led war against Iraq.

    Not invited to testify were Scott Ritter, the ex-U.S. Marine who led the UNSCOM weapons inspection team until December 1998 when the United Nations withdrew the group prior to a heavy bombing raid on Baghdad, and Dennis Halliday and Hans Graf von Sponeck, two career United Nations officials who resigned their posts as chief humanitarian coordinators in Iraq in protest of the devastating effects of the sanctions. These three would have provided vital information regarding the status of the Iraqi population, the deaths of more than half a million children due to preventable illnesses and malnutrition, and more than a million total people in Iraq since the Gulf War of 1991.

    “I bear personal witness through seven years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq for the United Nations to both the scope of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs and the effectiveness of the U.N. weapons inspectors in ultimately eliminating them. While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq’s proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90 to 95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq,” wrote Ritter July 20 for the Boston Globe.

    Noticeably absent from the dialogue about Iraq is the impact a “new” war would have on the civilian population. A Los Angeles Times report states that much of the fighting this time around would be centered in cities and urban areas, increasing the likelihood of high numbers of civilian casualties.

    Also unmentioned is the impact the war preparation is having on the children of Iraq whose lives are suspended in wait of more bombings. In a letter to American students in reference to the December 1998 bombing, “Please send us gifts and not bombs from Father Christmas.” We must consider the psychological toll that even the preparation for war takes on the children.

    The following stories attempt to humanize the lives of average Iraqis as I encountered them last summer. Not much has changed since then.

    Scenes of war

    Iraq is the cradle of civilization, home to the famed Garden of Eden, to Babylon, to the Tigris and Euphrates, to the Fertile Crescent. It houses the birthplace of Abraham, the mosque of Imam Ali and the most widely accepted evidence of the Great Flood — seashells atop a 4,000-year-old ziggurat in the middle of the desert. Yet, since the Gulf War, the sanctity of this historically significant land has been desecrated and its people demoralized, as I learned while visiting Iraq July and August 2001.

    Daily calls to prayer broadcast throughout the city awakened me to the impact of the sanctions and the residual effects of the Gulf War. The call begins with “God is greater than all.” I quickly learned that since Aug. 6, 1990, the effects of war are even more far-reaching than God.

    Omran

    Omran was a 12-year-old shepherd boy walking through his family’s field in May 2000 when a stray bomb fell from a U.S. plane patrolling the illegal no-fly zones over the southern portion of Iraq. This bomb instantly killed him — and ripped apart the social fabric of his tiny village near Najaf.

    I visited Omran’s family last summer. I tried my best to explain to Omran’s mother, father, brothers and entire village that the memory of their son is not forgotten. Omran’s story has been told hundreds of times to high school students, to colleges, to peace and justice and religious groups across the United States as part of a nationwide project to remember Omran.

    I listened as Omran’s father told of his inexplicable loss, of the pain of losing a child, of no apology from anyone, save the five American pacifists sitting before him hot and dusty in the dry Iraq desert. Omran’s mother, who has scarcely spoken since he was killed and who is suffering from a serious heart condition, embraced me and we shed tears together over the helplessness of the situation.

    Cancer ward

    It is 140 degrees inside the hospital at Amara. The air conditioning does not work because the electrical facilities were bombed during the Gulf War and spare parts are routinely denied as dual-use items by the Sanctions Committee at the United Nations.

    A mother sits cross-legged on her son’s bare hospital bed, a piece of torn cardboard in one hand, fanning her child. She is sobbing uncontrollably, rocking back and forth. Her son is unconscious, dying of cancer; he has no IV bag, no medicine, no painkillers. She has no tissue, so I ask for a handful and give them to her; she glances at me with tired appreciation.

    She places the cardboard fan on the bed and begins to knead at her son’s body — his torso, his legs — in a desperate attempt to rouse him. He does not move. I sit helpless on the sheetless bed next to her, watching, invading this private moment, glued to this scene, futile tears rolling down my cheeks. I think, “This is my fault.” The guilt endures.

    Across the room, the doctor escorting our group through the hospital pokes and prods at sleeping, sick babies causing them to wake up screaming in pain to demonstrate the malignancies, tumors and gross deformities that have mysteriously appeared since the Gulf War. All the children are crying now; all their mothers try to comfort them and not look annoyed that the gawking Americans have disturbed their lives.

    The car accident

    We fasted for a day across from the United Nations on Aug. 6, 2001, in the oppressive heat. At the end of the day, a blowout on the road a few feet from us caused a car to spin out of control and crash into our Iraqi friend’s car — our 70-year-old friend who is a taxi driver and who relies on his car for income. Both cars are totally wrecked, blood everywhere. Spare car parts and new tires are expensive. The transfer rate for the Iraqi dinar to U.S. dollars has been devalued from 3:1 to 2000:1, meaning average Iraqis have virtually no purchasing power.

    I call out for our friend who miraculously emerges from the back seat of his smashed vehicle, banged, bruised and filled with glass in his eyes. He is dazed, then suddenly realizes that his livelihood has been instantaneously taken from him. He starts to cry. I try to negotiate with Kalashnikov-toting soldiers to let our friend get examined by a United Nations doctor for internal injuries before they take him to the police station. We ask another Iraqi how much to junk the car and buy a new one. He looks surprised. “Junk the car? In Iraq, we fix everything.”

    While we in the United States live out foreign wars vicariously through our movies, through the news and through the threats of nuclear force made by those in power, I recall the people I met in Iraq whose lives are considerably less glamorous than the remote Hollywood versions we see and hear about. I often wonder if the case of Iraq is an example of the best our foreign policy can be.

    Iraq is more than its one leader. It is a country of 23 million people who all have stories, hopes and fears.

    Basketball and books

    When 58-year-old Zuhair Matti moved to Los Angeles from Baghdad, Iraq, in March 1977, he hardly figured that returning to his homeland would be an intangible goal.

    A member of the 1973 Iraqi Olympic basketball team, Matti played against athletes from all over the world in the games that symbolize internationalism, peace and sportsmanship. Held in Tehran, Iran, just a few years prior to the Iran-Iraq war, the 1973 Olympics were a chance for Matti to shine as a national celebrity for Iraq. His athletic ability and love of his country and people made him a national superhero with fame and status.

    In 1977, Matti moved to Los Angeles at the behest of his wife, whose family lived here. Now an American citizen with two American-born sons, ages 23 and 14, Matti makes ends meet by working at Home Depot, still pining for a family half a globe away whom he has not seen for 24 years.

    When Matti fled Iraq, he was an officer in the army; he took a vacation and never returned. That, compiled with travel made more difficult by the U.N.-imposed and U.S./U.K.-upheld economic sanctions, which disallow travel to and from Iraq, dims hopes that Zuhair will return to his native country soon. He explains: “Travel is so expensive and I don’t want to return with only a few dollars in my pocket. I want to be able to treat everyone very well when I go back. Iraqis are the most generous people on Earth. They are magnanimous people.”

    Al-Mutannabi Street in Baghdad is a well-known book market there, which offers evidence to the academic and intellectual impact of embargo. Half a mile long, lined on both sides of the street with books ranging from 1980s computer manuals to linguistics textbooks to copies of the Qu’ran, the book market demonstrates the impact on the educated class through a persistent starvation of minds and deprivation of information.

    The street is lined with children peddling comic books and middle-aged men selling novels, manuals and movie posters. The children ought to be in school and the men ought to be working in their professional capacities. Fifty-year-old shoe shiners were at one time physics professors. Taxi drivers were electrical engineers.

    Since it is illegal to send anything weighing more than 12 ounces to Iraq through the U.S. Postal Service, medical textbooks and other professional journals cannot be sent. None of the books I saw was published later than 1989.

    That hot day on Aug. 3, 2001, I met Matti’s brother Gassan selling books on Al-Mutannabi Street. Through a translator, he asked where I live. When I replied that I live near Los Angeles, his face lit up. “Please call my brother when you get back home,” he implored. “Tell him I am well! Tell him our mother is well! Tell him how I look; you see I look well, right? I have not seen him in more than 20 years!”

    One of the few promises I can make to the Iraqis I met last summer is that upon my return, I will tell their stories to as many people as will listen. Upon returning to the United States, I called and subsequently met Zuhair Matti, fulfilling Gassan’s wish.

    “You are a nice young woman, Leah,” Matti tells me. “Thank you for what you are doing for my people.” His gratitude surprises me, yet marks a quintessentially Arab sentiment that for however good you are to someone, the goodness will be returned tenfold to you.

    Perhaps Zuhair Matti will be able to travel to Iraq, whether or not he violates the inhumane sanctions that divide families and isolate the Fertile Crescent from the rest of civilization. Perhaps he will see his aging mother before she passes away. He says that the most important thing is “to judge a person based on how nice he is,” and how important it is to have diverse friends. He believes that people are good, regardless of race and ethnicity.

    Perhaps if more Americans knew Iraqis like Zuhair Matti, we would not be so quick to condemn all Iraqis to a slow death via sanctions or an even more expedient death in a new war.

    Precarious situation

    Prior to 1990, Iraq was deemed an emerging first-world country by the United Nations. The oil empire had brought Iraqi citizens great wealth and a prosperous society that boasted free medical care for every citizen as well as free education up through university. In many ways, the standard of living in Iraq once was comparable to middle-class American life.

    Because of the sanctions, no currency flows in or out of Iraq. Any financial transactions must be approved by the Sanctions Committee 661 at the United Nations in New York. It is illegal to wire money from the United States — or anywhere else — to family inside Iraq’s borders. All goods and funds entering or leaving Iraq must have the approval of the five permanent members of the Security Council whose representatives sit on the 661 Committee. The economy has been at a standstill for 11 years, targeting the civilian population while a powerful few score illegal contracts to smuggle oil out of the country.

    Yet for most Iraqis in 2002, many of the basic health and household amenities are far out of reach. Prior to the Gulf War in 1991, the transfer rate of dinar:dollars was 3:1. Now the transfer rate soars at nearly 2,000 dinar to $1, effectively stripping the average, middle-class Iraqis of any meaningful purchasing power.

    During a visit to a pharmacy in Baghdad, I learned that only the wealthiest private sector can afford higher-quality toothpaste, costing 1,250 dinar (71 cents). The rest of the population buys lower-quality toothpaste at 250 dinar (14 cents). Prior to 1990, diapers cost 18 dinar and were widely used throughout Iraq. A box of 10 diapers in August 2001 cost between 2,000 to 4,000 dinar ($1.14 to $2.29). One bottle of shampoo costs 1,500 dinar, or $1.86.

    An average salary in Iraq is roughly 5,000 dinar per month. The Iraqi government, dominated by the Ba’ath party, employs many people — doctors, teachers, engineers and other civil servants. Prior to the Gulf War, teachers in Iraq earned the equivalent of $300 to $400 per month. They now earn the equivalent of $3 to $4 per month.

    Health care has gained a price tag as well in Iraq. Once-affordable medicines like aspirin are too expensive for people to buy now. Ibuprofen and vitamins cost 200 dinar each (11 cents) for 10 tablets. Twelve capsules of Erythromyacin, an antibiotic, cost 500 dinar (29 cents). Some health-care and household items are available in Iraq and to a certain extent are available to the general public. But, families must spend their money only on necessities such as rent and food rather than on aspirin and cough syrup or trips to the hospital.

    Iraqi families finding themselves in financially precarious situations often take their children out of school and send them to beg, steal, peddle candy or cigarettes or shine shoes. I spent a great deal of time with Achmed and Saif, 13 and 12, respectively, who shined our shoes every day for 750 dinar, less than 50 cents. They arrived at our hotel long before we awoke and stayed until late at night.

    Because of the devaluation of the dinar, often only one child per family will be able to attend school due to the cost of supplies such as books, shoes and clothes. A remarkable increase in both depression and juvenile delinquency has occurred in Iraq in the past 11 years. One 10-year-old boy had been sent by his father to sell cigarettes on the street to increase the family’s income rather than attend school. Many customers took advantage of his naivete, taking cigarettes and promising to return with payment later. At the end of the day, when the boy had no cigarettes and no money to show, his father scolded him and sent him to bed with no dinner. This young boy went to his room, wrapped himself in towels and set himself on fire.

    Once-rare crimes like theft and vandalism are now more commonplace among the young, and because the onset of social problems only began within the last 11 years, state-supported social services have only a feeble infrastructure to deal with the ever-expanding magnitude of these issues.

    Desperation and poverty have contributed to a breakdown in family structure and support. The hopelessness for a better future pervades the culture of Iraq, especially among the youth. Their scholastic apathy shows a scary trend signifying their awareness of their dim future. Regardless of how hard they study in school, they know they do not have promising prospects.

    We must not allow Iraqis to take steps backward toward enforced child labor, divestment from quality education and further poverty. Justice and peace for Iraqis mean that they must have a sense of economic mobility and stability in their society.
    *Leah C. Wells of Santa Paula serves as peace education coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She also teaches at local high schools.