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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Clement" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2000 6:46 PM
Subject: Inhuman and unnecessary - Letter to the editor opposing the
sanctions published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette - 10/7/00
> http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/20001007lets9.asp
>
> Inhuman and unnecessary
>
> Pittsburgh Post Gazette. October 7, 2000.
>
> I would like to comment on the Sept. 19
editorial
> "Sanctions Must Stay." In
> 1998, the United States withdrew the weapons
> inspectors so it could bomb
> Iraq. Tariq Aziz, deputy prime minister of the
> Republic of Iraq, has since
> stated that if the sanctions are lifted, Iraq
> will allow the inspectors to resume
> their work.
>
> And the former U.N. arms inspector who
> aggressively pursued disarmament
> in Iraq, Scott Ritter, recently stated that he
> believes Iraq is qualitatively
> disarmed and the Security Council should
reassess
> its position. A careful
> reading of the latest U.N. Resolution regarding
> Iraq makes it clear that
> sanctions will not be automatically lifted if
the
> inspectors are readmitted.
>
> Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's
statement
> that Saddam Hussein can
> let himself out of the sanction box by letting
> the inspectors in is a lie. There is
> no rational excuse for maintaining economic
> sanctions that are killing Iraqi
> children at the rate of one every six minutes.
>
> The editorial states that Iraq has been able to
> buy billions of dollars worth of
> food and medicine with the oil for food money.
In
> fact, out of these proceeds,
> Iraq is paying $400 million per month
> compensation in war reparations to
> Kuwait and others who lost property during the
> Gulf war. What is left
> amounts to about 70 cents per Iraqi per day.
And
> billions of dollars worth of
> medical and food supplies requested by Iraq
have
> been blocked by the
> sanctions committee under pressure from the
> United States.
>
> During the Gulf war, the U.S.-led allied forces
> deliberately destroyed the
> infrastructure in Iraq needed to produce clean
> water. Since then, the sanctions
> have blocked the importation of equipment
needed
> to rebuild this
> infrastructure and the importation of medicines
> with which to combat the
> waterborne diseases that are now killing
> thousands of Iraqis, mostly children.
>
> The statements I am making are contradicted by
> information put out by the
> State Department, but I believe that my sources
> are credible and that my
> statements are based in fact. Iraq is often
> called the cradle of civilization. If the
> economic sanctions are not soon ended, the
ashes
> of Iraq will be the
> deathbed of our humanity.
>
> MARK L.
> CLEMENT
>
> Farmington, Pa.
>
> Editor's note: The writer is a member of the
> Bruderhof Communities, a
> group of Christian pacifist communities. His
> family is hosting a child
> from Iraq, Mariam Hamza, who is in the United
> States for medical
> treatment.
