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>Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From: "Milan Rai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "CASI Discussion Group" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 09:56:04 +0100 >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 >Subject: [casi] Sweeney piece from today's Observer >Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-BeenThere: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.8 >List-Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=help> >List-Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >List-Subscribe: <http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss>, > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=subscribe> >List-Id: CASI Discussion List <casi-discuss.lists.casi.org.uk> >List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss>, > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe> > >Dear folks, > >Here's the Sweeney piece from today's Observer. Letters should be sent to >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (remember to include your address and telephone >number). Letters should be sent to the Observer by Tuesday evening at the >latest. > >Four brief comments: > >a) Sweeney claims that the regime has faked 'mass baby funerals' in Iraq. >This may well be true but is clearly totally irrelevant to the questions >'has there been a dramatic increase in child mortality in Iraq since the >1991 Gulf War?' and 'if there has been such an increase what are its >causes?' Similar remarks apply to Sweeney's allegations regarding human >rights abuses in Iraq. > >b) Again, the Iraqi Government's own figures (as distinct from the UNICEF >survey data - see below) *are* almost certainly incorrect. However again >this is clearly irrelevant to any of the serious questions that arise about >the public health impact of the sanctions. Sweeney's clear intention >throughout the piece is to attempt to identify, in the minds of his readers, >the anti-sanctions position with the Iraqi Government. In doing so he >ignores the views of a wide range of highly credible organisations and >individuals (eg. Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and Hans von Sponeck) >who have spoken out on the issue. > >c) Sweeney breezily rubbishes the conclusions of the August '99 joint >UNICEF - GoI child mortality survey, writing that it is 'open to question. >It was based on data from within a regime which tortures children with >impunity. All but one of the researchers used by UNICEF were employees of >the Ministry of Health, according to the Lancet.' In reality it is only >apologists for the sanctions, such as Mr Sweeney, who 'question' the >reliability of these surveys. > >Indeed, UNICEF were careful to guard themselves against such allegations. >The following is the relevant extract from their August '99 document >'Questions and Answers for the Iraq child mortality surveys' (available on >the CASI web-site at >http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/info/unicef/000816qa.html ) > >************************************* >Q: How can UNICEF be sure that the results are accurate/reliable? > >A: The large sample sizes - nearly 24,000 households randomly selected from >all fifteen governorates in the south and center and 16,000 from the three >autonomous northern governorates - helps to ensure that the margin of error >for child mortality in both surveys is low. Another important factor was >that in the south and center of Iraq the survey interviewers were all women >and all were medical doctors. In the northern governorates 80% of >interviewers were female - each team had at least one female interviewer - >and all interviewers were trained health workers. UNICEF was also involved >in all aspects of both surveys - from survey design through to data >analysis. Specifically: > >UNICEF had direct input to the design of the surveys - which are based on >internationally respected household survey format - the DHS (Demographic and >Health Survey) format; >UNICEF was involved in the training of all survey supervisors; >UNICEF conducted field visits to every governorate (major administrative >unit in Iraq) while the survey was being conducted; >UNICEF oversaw the process of data entry; >UNICEF had full access to the hard copies of the interview records and the >complete data sets for both surveys at all times. > >Q: What checks have been made on the data? > >A: Each questionnaire was first checked at the local level and then at the >governorate level by staff of the local statistical offices. This check was >primarily to determine whether the randomly sampled households were >correctly identified, visited and interviewed. Final editing and checking >was done at the central level for completeness and consistency. A number of >internal checks normally carried out for Demographic and Health Surveys >(DHS) were also completed for both surveys. The surveys and findings were >also reviewed by a panel of experts in early July. This panel included >senior personnel from DHS, Macro International, WHO and senior UNICEF offici >als from the Regional Office in Amman and New York Headquarters. > >Q: Could the Government of Iraq have manipulated the data to give higher >mortality figures? > >A: If the Government had attempted to manipulate the data by influencing the >survey interviewers to over-record the number of deaths or by directly >manipulating the survey data on the computer, this would have been detected >by analyzing the spread of births and deaths. The panel of experts who >reviewed the survey methodology and results looked for this, but it was not >found. > >******************************** > >d) Finally, Sweeney makes the totally ridiculous claim that 'the dead babies >are blamed by Saddam's regime on cancers and birth defects ... it says >[were] caused by depleted uranium weapons.' Of course, *nobody* has made any >such claim, though there are certainly people who would claim that *some* of >'the dead babies' have died in such a manner. Whatever the status of claims >about DU all independent observers agree that water-borne disease is the >biggest killer of children in Iraq today. > >Best wishes, > >Gabriel >voices uk > >****************************** >How Saddam 'staged' fake baby funerals > >The Iraqi dictator says his country's children are dying in their thousands >because of the West's embargoes. John Sweeney, in a TV documentary to be >shown tonight, says the figures are bogus. Here he reports from Iraq on his >findings > >Sunday June 23, 2002 >The Observer > >The witness against the government of Iraq walked stiffly into the room, >metal callipers buckled to heavy medical shoes. They had tortured her two >years ago. She is now four. >Her father had been suspected of involvement in a plot to kill Saddam >Hussein's psychopathic son, Uday. He fled to the north of Iraq, but the >secret police, the mukhabarat, came for his wife, still in Baghdad, and >tortured her. When she wouldn't break, they tortured 'Anna' in front of her. > >Her father, 'Ali', is a thick-set Iraqi who worked in Saddam's privileged >inner circle. He described what they did to her: 'They had a wooden stick. >They would squeeze her feet and ask "Has Daddy called you?" - she >understood - "Does Daddy contact you?"' > >She is a victim of Saddam's brutality, proof that he is prepared to dispense >violence against even his country's children. By a cruel irony, her father >is also witness to Saddam's efforts to portray those same children as >victims of Western sanctions, which he claims have cost hundreds of >thousands of young lives. > >Osama bin Laden justified the 11 September attack on America by referring to >a million dead Iraqi children - killed by sanctions. But there is a belief >among many Iraqis that Saddam is inventing the numbers. > >Ali, outraged that Saddam's torturers may have crippled his daughter for >life, spoke openly about how the regime's propaganda has faked mass baby >funerals - 'evidence' of the 7,000 children under five the regime claims are >being killed each month by sanctions. > >Small coffins, decorated with grisly photographs of dead babies and their >ages - 'three days', 'four days', written usefully for the English-speaking >media - are paraded through the streets of Baghdad on the roofs of taxis, >the procession led by a throng of official mourners. > >There is only one problem. Because there are not enough dead babies around, >the regime prevents parents from burying infants immediately, in the Muslim >tradition, to create more powerful propaganda. > >The taxi drivers do what they are told - as everybody does in Saddam's >Iraq - to their evident disgust. Before Ali defected to the north, one >friend of his, a taxi driver, explained how it worked: 'I went to Najaf [a >town 100 miles south of Baghdad] a couple of days ago. I brought back two >bodies of children for one of the mass funerals. The smell was very strong.' > >Ali continued: 'The taxi driver didn't know how long they'd been in >freezers, perhaps six or seven months. The drivers would collect them from >the regions and would be informed of when a mass funeral was arranged so >they would be ready. Certainly, they would collect bodies of children who >had died months before and been held for the mass processions.' > >A second, Western source, went to visit visited a Baghdad hospital and, when >the official Iraqi minder was absent, was taken to the mortuary. There, a >doctor showed the source a number of dead babies, lying stacked in the >mortuary, waiting for the next official procession. > >Anna was the youngest witness to child torture by the Iraqi government in an >investigation, The Mother of All Ironies, to be broadcast by BBC2's >Correspondent today. It found six other adult witnesses in the Kurdish safe >haven in the north - the only part of Iraq where people are free to speak. > >The most chilling witness was one of Saddam's torturers, who was captured >spying against the Kurds this year. 'Kamal' told us: 'They would bring the >son in front of his parents, who were handcuffed or tied, and would start >off with simple methods of torture, such as cigarette burns. Then they >started using other methods of torture, more serious ones. > >'They would tell the father that they'd slaughter his son, and they'd bring >a bayonet out, and if the parents didn't confess they'd kill the child. 'The >interrogator has the right to kill the child, or perform any other butchery, >whatever's necessary.' And then Kamal chuckled. > >It is an absolute of the government of Iraq - and others - that thousands of >Iraqi children are dying every month because of sanctions. We managed to get >a cameraman to accompany a fact-finding trip into Iraq this year by the >Great Britain-Iraq Society, led by its chairman, Labour MP George Galloway. > >At the start of the trip Galloway, in Iraq for the ninth time in >two-and-a-half years, said: 'Every six minutes an Iraqi child will have died >under the embargo. That's every six minutes of every day, of every night, >every year for 12 years.' > >In 1999 Unicef, in co-operation with the Iraqi government, made a >retrospective projection of 500,000 excess child deaths in the 1990s. The >projection is open to question. It was based on data from within a regime >that tortures children with impunity. All but one of the researchers used by >Unicef were employees of the Ministry of Health, according to the Lancet. > >The dead babies are blamed by Saddam's regime on cancers and birth defects >which first appeared in 1991 and were, it says, caused by depleted uranium >weapons. While no one should underestimate the lethality of these weapons >and the stupidity of the US military machine, the claim does not make >radiological sense. According to Dr Nick Plowman, head of clinical oncology >at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, the claim 'is ridiculous. It flies in >the face of everything learnt from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.' > >Cancers do not develop overnight. Bombs that fell in 1991 could not have >caused cancers or birth defects in that year. Fast leukaemias might occur in >four or five years, heavy tumours around now, said Plowman. > >Richard Guthrie, a chemical weapons researcher at Sussex University, said: >'It's much more likely to be chemical weapons. There are serious clusters of >cancers in the south of Iraq near Basra. In the late Eighties, Basra was >almost taken by Iranian human-wave offensives, and Saddam stopped these by >dropping chemical weapons on them and, by accident, on his own people. > >� John Sweeney's report will be shown in Correspondent on BBC2 at 7.15pm > > > >_______________________________________________ >Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. >To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss >To contact the list manager, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] >All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
