Iraq under sanctions and preparing for war
by David Smith-Ferri

On September 19th, I left our 10-year-old daughter Rachael and traveled to Iraq. In the week leading up to this trip, afraid that bombs would fall on me in Iraq, Rachael became increasingly distressed, taking longer and longer to fall asleep at night, waking up from nightmares or just to be comforted, and finally on the last evening, faced with my imminent departure, breaking down completely in heart-rending sobs that lasted two hours. This turmoil disturbed the clarity I had held about the purpose and rightness of this trip. Every instinct in my body told me that it was wrong to create this level of distress in my daughter. And I did not know what to say to comfort her.

This experience with Rachael has become one of the lenses through which I view my encounters in Iraq. It helps me understand the distress that Iraqi parents feel today, with the threat of war looming larger and larger. The people I spoke with in Iraq are frightened, angry and aggrieved. Typically, they expressed their feelings by talking about their concern for their children. Children inside Iraq cannot be isolated from talk of an impending invasion. "At school, children repeat what they hear at home," explains Salah Dinar, a music store owner, "and now in the morning my eight-year-old son asks, ‘Daddy, is today the day we are going to die?’"

Nadra, a school teacher in Baghdad, reports that many families have chosen not to enroll their children in school this fall, preferring instead to put money for registration and supplies toward preparation in the event of a war. The parents of other Iraqi children are removing their children from school because of poverty and the need to put their children to work, begging or shining shoes. Other families have sent their children to live in uncertain circumstances in Jordan or Syria, thinking they will at least be safe from U.S. bombs. In Jordan I was told, "You will find more and more Iraqi children begging on the streets of Amman and Damascus." I learned that non-governmental organizations in Jordan are quietly preparing for an influx of Iraqi refugees.

The brutal policy of economic sanctions has not only taken hundreds of thousands of lives, but robbed the living of their future. Iraqi men are leaving their marriages as unemployment has stripped their lives of meaning, leaving an increasing number of women as single heads of households. Women, desperate to care for themselves and their children, are turning to prostitution. Young people in Iraq today are dropping out of school, dropping out of society. What is the point of an education in a society where trained engineers are driving taxis or working odd jobs? They are choosing not to get married because their economic future is so bleak. For over a decade, malnutrition on a massive scale has poisoned the lives of Iraqi children, stunting their bodies, shrinking their minds.

If the threat of war alone is causing hardship and pain in Iraq, what might an actual invasion mean to people there? Consider that most of Iraq’s 24 million citizens depend heavily on a monthly food ration distributed by the government and monitored by the UN Oil-For-Food Program. For some families, the Spartan contents of the ration – flour, sugar, rice, lentils, cooking oil, tea, soap – comprises their entire income. Because this food is imported, distribution begins at the ports, and continues overland through an elaborate countrywide system. According to Tourben Due, head of the UN World Food Program in Iraq (WFP), disruption of this system, especially if it occurs over a period of months, will imperil people. An aerial assault targeting civilian infrastructure such as roads, bridges and the electrical grid could provoke a humanitarian catastrophe. Indeed, a UNICEF statement released in February of this year concludes that "chaos would be the immediate effect" of an interruption of food distribution. "Very rapid intervention [in the midst of chaos] would be required to avoid a further deterioration of malnutrition and even famine on a large scale."

Zainab Fartous, an English teacher and mother of four with a quick smile and lively eyes, knows firsthand the grave consequences of war. She is the center of gravity in an extended family of 25 people, all living under one roof in the al-Jumeriyyah neighborhood of Basra. I had to step through a crowd of children to enter her home, where she greeted me with, "Welcome! Welcome. This is your home." There is no furniture. For two hours, we sat on the floor. Children came and went. The talk was cheerful, mostly about a group of Americans whom we both know and who lived in the neighborhood for two months in the summer of 2000. Stories were told. The concrete walls amplified our laughter and the voices of children. Throughout, Zainab was a gracious hostess – arranging for tea and pillows, smiling, answering questions – and an attentive mother, playing, comforting, responding. Then, in one private and unexpected moment, she dropped her guard. Turning an intense, wide-eyed face toward me, she asked, "What is the mood in the U.S.? Do you think they will attack?" My response eclipses the light in her face.

On January 25, 1999, a U.S. warplane fired a guided missile that exploded in Zainab’s neighborhood, killing five children including her 7-year-old son, Heider, and permanently injuring her other son, Mustafa. The block she lives on is now referred to as "Missile Street," because so many houses were damaged or destroyed in the explosion. An Air Force spokesperson informed me later that year that the "missile went off course." The "problem," he added quickly, "has been corrected." But Zainab knows well that if there is war, other bombs will stray, other children will die.

I asked Zainab, "What do you need?" "We need clothes for the children, especially coats for winter, and shoes. We need food and medicine." Daily life under sanctions in Iraq remains a battle for survival which war will only intensify. By shutting down the Iraqi oil economy, sanctions destroyed the professional jobs that it supported, and decimated the once large Iraqi middle class.

As a school teacher, Zainab earns less than $5/month, an almost meaningless sum. Prior to sanctions, Zainab’s family lived a comfortable middle-class existence in their own home. Now, packed into a dreary concrete building with her extended family, she is not only burdened by the discomforts and fears of extreme poverty, but prevented from being the mother and person she wants to be. "If I had the means," she told me, "I would move out of this house right now. I need the space to be with my children." She paused and sighed. "And to be with myself."

When I left for Iraq, I felt an unexpected sense of relief, to be free from the noise of war-talk, the din of voices arguing in favor of an invasion of Iraq. But this trip to Iraq has shaken me deeply. It is disturbing in the extreme to acknowledge that families who so recently welcomed me into their homes and shared tea and hospitality with me, may soon be ringed and fired upon; that children I played soccer with two weeks ago may not live through the winter because war may cut off their food supply.

Back home once again and subject to the inescapable warmongering, it occurs to me that people in the U.S. are also under psychological warfare. In the wake of the terror of September 11th, Americans are understandably anxious and unsure about our safety. The impulse to do whatever we can to prevent more terror is a good and intelligent impulse. But what will make us more secure?