As the war drums are beating.....................this is the story about
the people of Iraq.

Beth

-----Original Message-----
From: IHP-owner@... [mailto:IHP-owner@...] On
Behalf Of Paula Brentlinger
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 3:22 PM
To: International Health
Subject: eyewitness health reporting from Iraq


_____________________________________

A note from Charlie Clements, an old friend from medical school, who
remains a leader in peace activities:

I am a public health physician and a human rights advocate. I have just
returned from a 10-day emergency mission to Iraq with other public
health experts to assess the vulnerability of the civilian population to
another war. I'm also a distinguished graduate of the USAF Academy and a
Vietnam veteran, so I have some sense of the potential consequences of
the air war we are about to unleash on Iraq as a prelude to the
introduction of American troops.

The population of Iraq has been reduced to the status of refugees.
Nearly 60 percent of Iraqis, or almost 14 million people, depend
entirely on a government-provided food ration that, by international
standards, represents the minimum for human sustenance. Unemployment is
greater than 50 percent, and the majority of those who are employed make
between $4 and $8 a month. (The latter figure is the salary of a
physician that works in a primary health center.) Most families are
without economic resources, having sold off their possessions over the
last decade to get by.

Hospital wards are filled with severely malnourished children, and much
of the population has a marginal nutritional status. While visiting a
children's hospital, we were told about newly emerging diseases that had
previously been controlled when pesticides were available. (Current
sanctions prohibit their importation.) Later I saw a mother who had
traveled 200 km with her young daughter, who suffered from leschmaniais,
or "kala azar" as it is known there. She came to the hospital because
she heard it had a supply of Pentostam, the medicine needed to treat the
disease. The pediatrician told her there was none. Then he turned to me
and, in English, said, "It would be kinder to shoot her here rather than
let her go home and die the lingering death that awaits her." Our
interpreter, by instinct, translated the doctor's comments into Arabic
for the mother, whose eyes instantly overflowed with tears.

The food distribution program funded by the U.N., Oil-for-Food, is the
world's largest and is heavily dependent upon the transportation system,
which will be one of the first targets of the war, as the U.S. will
attempt to sever transport routes to prevent Iraqi troop movements and
interrupt military supplies. Yet even before the transportation system
is hit, U.S. aircraft will spread millions of graphite filaments in
wind-dispersed munitions that will cause a complete paralysis of the
nation's electrical grids. Already literally held together with bailing
wire because the country has been unable to obtain spare parts due to
sanctions, the poorly functioning electrical system is essential to the
public health infrastructure.

The water treatment system, too, has been a victim of sanctions. Unable
to import chlorine and aluminum sulfate (alum) to purify water, Iraq has
already seen a 1000% increase in the incidence of some waterborne
diseases. Typhoid cases, for instance, have increased from 2,200 in 1990
to more than 27,000 in 1999. In the aftermath of an air assault, Iraqis
will not have potable water in their homes, and they will not have water
to flush their toilets.

The sanitation system, which frequently backs up sewage ankle deep in
Baghdad neighborhoods when the ailing pumps fail, will stop working
entirely in the aftermath of the air attack. There will be epidemics as
water treatment and water pumping will come to a halt. Even though it is
against the Geneva Conventions to target infrastructure elements that
primarily serve civilians, this prohibition did not give us pause in
Gulf War I and, based on current Bush administration threats, will not
this time. Pregnant women, malnourished children, and the elderly will
be the first to succumb. UNICEF estimates that 500,000 more children
died in Iraq in the decade following the Gulf War than died in the
previous decade. These children are part of the "collateral damage" from
the last war.

How many civilians will die in the next war? That is hard to say. One
estimate for the last Gulf War was that 10,000 perished, mostly during
the bombing campaign that led up to the invasion. That figure will
surely climb because our government has promised that a cruise missile
will strike Iraq every five minutes for the first 48 hours the war.
These missiles will seek out military, intelligence, and security-force
targets around highly populated areas like Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul,
Iraq's largest cities, where "collateral damage" is unavoidable. Unable
to meet the acute medical needs of the country's population now, the
health care system of Iraq will be overwhelmed by such an assault.

This scenario is conservative. I have not taken into account any use of
weapons of mass destruction, or the possibility that the war will set
loose massive civil disorder and bloodshed, as various groups within the
country battle for power or revenge. I have also ignored what would
happen if we became bogged down in house-to-house fighting in Baghdad,
which could easily become another Mogidishu or Jenin.

There was a lot that made me angry on that trip. I have worked in war
zones before and I have been with civilians as they were bombed by
U.S.-supplied aircraft, but I don't think I've experienced anything on
the magnitude of the catastrophe that awaits our attack in Iraq. Still,
as deeply troubling as this looming human disaster is, another issue
troubles me far more. If the U.S. pursues this war without the backing
of the U.N. Security Council, it will undermine a half-century of
efforts by the world community to establish a foundation of humanitarian
and human rights law. Such an act on our part would also violate the
U.N. Charter and make a mockery of the very institution we have helped
to fashion in the hopes it would help prevent crimes against humanity.
Many might define the consequences of such an attack on the population
of Iraq as just that.

Saddam is a monster, there is no doubt about that. He needs to be
contained. Yet many former U.N. weapons inspectors feel he has been
"defanged." His neighbors do not fear him any longer. There are many
Iraqis who want him removed but not by a war. Against the short-term
gain of removing Saddam, we must take into account that idea that we may
well unleash forces of hatred and resentment that will haunt us for
decades to come in every corner of the world. I can just hear Osama Bin
Laden saying now, "Please President Bush, attack Iraq. There's nothing
better you could do to help the cause of Al Qaida!"

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Charlie Clements is a co-founder of the International Medical Relief
Fund and was its president for fifteen years. He is a former President
of Physicians for Human Rights and served on their board for fifteen
years. He is currently CEO and President of WaterWorks, a not-for-profit
organization that assists U.S. communities that are without running
water and sewer. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force
Academy and a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Washington
School of Public Health. H also teaches at the Bartos Institute for the
Constructive Engagement of Conflict at the United World College in
Montezuma, NM. He has recently returned from an emergency mission to
Iraq sponsored by the Center for Economic and Social rights
<clclements@...>