In April 1997, a New England Journal of Medicine editorial said that --Iraq is an even more disastrous example of war against the public health . ... The destruction of the country's power plants had brought its entire system of water purification and distribution to a halt, leading to epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and gastroenteritis, particularly among children. Mortality rates doubled or tripled among children admitted to hospitals in Baghdad and Basra-- [my emphasis]
The evidence had accumulated since 1991 that the U.S. had purposely targeted Iraqi civilians and especially very young children and had therefore killed them as an act or war. This was clearly genocide. In its 1999 news release, UNICEF announced: "if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998."
The British journalist Robert Fisk called this intentional destruction of Iraq's infrastructure "biological warfare": "The ultimate nature of the 1991 Gulf War for Iraqi civilians now became clear. Bomb now: die later." In his declaration to the court, Sacks wrote that the Centers for Disease Control, in warning about potential terrorist biological attacks on the U.S., clearly lists attacks on water supplies as terrorism and biological warfare:
Water safety threats (such as Vibrio cholerae and Cryptosporidium parvum): Cholera is an acute bacterial disease characterized in its severe form by sudden onset, profuse painless watery stools, nausea and vomiting early in the course of illness, and, in untreated cases, rapid dehydration, acidosis, circulatory collapse, hypoglycemia in children, and renal failure. Transmission occurs through ingestion of food or water contaminated directly or indirectly with feces or vomitus of infected persons.
By January 1997, as a result of such statements and those of U.S. military and government officials and reports in medical journals and media, Sacks concluded that the United States government was guilty of the crime of international terrorism against the civilian population of Iraq. And being a man of conscience, he therefore proceeded to lead a delegation to Iraq to alleviate suffering, even while knowing it was a drop in the bucket.
It is important to emphasize that the U.S. government knew full well that its intentional destruction of Iraq's infrastructure would result in massive death and suffering of civilians. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said of such destruction that "If I had to do it over again, I would do exactly the same thing." All the deaths that followed were done as part of an effort at regime change - to force Hussein out of office, something finally accomplished by the George W. Bush administration with their lies about weapons of mass destruction and their 2003 war against Iraq that killed between 1-2 million more Iraqis. The recent accolades heaped on Colin Powell, who as Secretary of State consciously lied at the UN and who led the first war against Iraq - two major war crimes - should be a reminder of how unapologetic U.S. leaders are for their atrocities. I would go so far as to say they revel in their ability to commit them. Because he called them out on this by doing what all journalists and writers should do, they have pursued and caged Julian Assange as if he were a wild dog who walked into their celebratory dinner party.
In this 1991 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," you can read how these people think. And read Thomas Merton's poem "Chant to be Used in Processions around a Site With Furnaces," and don't skip its last three lines and you can grasp the bureaucratic mind at its finest. Euphemisms like "uncomfortable" and "collateral damage" are their specialties. Killing the innocent are always on their menu.
Bert Sacks and his delegation got some brief media publicity for their voyage of mercy. He believed that if the American people really knew what was happening to Iraqi children, they would demand that it be stopped. This did not happen. His tap with the hammer of conscience failed to awaken the hypnotized public who overwhelmingly had elected Clinton to a second term in 1996 six months after the 60 Minutes interview. Yes, "Everything is [was] quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics."
Although the evidence was overwhelming that Iraqi children in the 1990s were dying at the rate of at least 5,000 per month as a direct result of the sanctions, very few major media publicized this. The 60 Minutes show, with its shocking statement by Albright, was an exception and was seen by millions of Americans. After that show aired, to claim you didn't know was no longer believable. And although most mainstream media buried the truth, it was still available to those who cared. There were some conscience-stricken officials, however. In his declaration to the court, Sacks wrote:
The first two heads of the "Oil-for-Food" program - Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck - each resigned a position as UN Assistant Secretary General to protest the consequences of the U.S. imposed sanctions policy on Iraq. Mr. Halliday said, 'We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.' He called it genocide.
There were also, doctors, politicians, independent writers, and Nobel Peace Laureates who called the policy genocide and said, "Sanctions are the economic nuclear bomb." Sacks told the court that "Finally, this list includes a 32-year career, retired U.S. diplomat - Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism - who says: 'you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in [terrorist] activities. Ours is one of them.'"
Military planners, moreover, wrote in military publications that it was desirable to kill Iraqi civilians; that it was an essential part - if not the major part - of war strategy. They called it "dual-use targeting" and called themselves "operational artists."
Sacks was able to reach a few officials and journalists who realized this was not art but massive war crimes. This showed that it is not impossible to change people, hard as it is. The judge in his court case, James L. Robart, while agreeing that OFAC had not exceeded its authority in fining him, acknowledged that the court had to accept as true that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as reported by UNICEF had come to constitute genocide, but [my emphasis] U.S. law prohibited the bringing of any consideration of genocide into a legal proceeding, which allows the U.S. government to commit this crime while barring any other party from raising the issue legally.
In other words, the U.S. government can accuse others of committing genocide, but no one can legally accuse it. It is above all laws.
Ten months before his 1997 trip to Iraq, Sacks met with Kate Pflaumer, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. He says:
We met in her office and I asked her for the legal definition of terrorism pursuant to the laws of the United States. She asked what could she do for me. I said "Prosecute me for violating U.S. Iraq sanctions by bringing medicine there." She said, "I won't do that for you! Can I help in any other way?" I asked for the U.S. legal definition of terrorism. She pulled out a law book, had her secretary copy the page for me, and didn't forget my request. When she left office, she wrote the op-ed on June 21, 2001"calling U.S. Iraq policy terrorism! The two main elements relevant to the issue here are: (1) it is an act dangerous to human life; and (2) done apparently to coerce or intimidate a civilian population or a government (see 18 U.S.C. Â � 2331).
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