Bush's policies towards Iraq come in for particular criticism - and, in several cases, gross distortions. Moore writes that "There were claims that the French were only opposing war to get economic benefits out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In fact, it was the Americans who were making a killing. In 2001, the U.S. was Iraq's leading trading partner, consuming more than 40 percent of Iraq's oil exports. That's $6 billion in trade with the Iraqi dictator." (page 69) In reality, that "trade" was done under the auspices of the United Nations oil-for-food program, which allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil to purchase humanitarian supplies. (For details on the program, see this report to Congress.) One can only imagine what Moore would have said if the U.S. refused to purchase Iraqi oil and allowed its citizens to starve.
full: http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031016.html
These people at spinsanity.com advertise their "fearless" independence on their website. But with accolades from Howard Kurtz, the Washington Times, The New Republic on the right and the Nation on the "left", you can probably figure out where these people fit into the spectrum: they are typical centrists. By "exposing" the excesses of the extreme left (Michael Moore--interpreted liberally) and the extreme right (Rush Limbaugh), you get the message/subtext that the truth is somewhere in the middle: ie., the NY Times editorial page, NPR and PBS. The knuckleheads that run this website can best be described as Jim Lehrer in Old Navy clothing. In other words, Thomas Friedman gets a free ride no matter how much blather he writes.
The paragraph on the oil-for-food program is typical spinsanity.com. It is really public relations for the war on Iraq. The oil/humanitarian supplies "exchange" was not calculated to prevent Iraqis from starving. It was designed rather to keep them *hungry* while making the oil available to US corporations. Here's commentary on the oil-for-food program from Koehnlein, an activist in NYC who works with the Brecht Forum. No doubt this "extremist" analysis won't pass muster with our friends from spinsanity.com whose press coverage might be better described as press-coverage-up:
--- The United Nations' oil-for-food program has been touted as a humanitarian gesture, designed to alleviate the starvation, disease epidemics, and deprivation suffered by the Iraqi people. This program allows Iraq to sell a controlled amount of oil to raise cash to buy food, medical supplies, and some goods necessary to repair that nation's infrastructure, devastated during the Gulf War bombing and subsequent economic blockade. In reality, very little food has been shipped, there are few essential medical supplies available, and the national infrastructure remains almost totally unrepaired. What the oil-for-food program has actually done is to allow the United States, through its proxy, the UN, to expand its role in Iraq, while simultaneously forcing Iraq to pay the costs of UN operations there. It has also transformed that country into a huge "welfare system", where most of the population receives below-subsistence levels of food and medicine.
A report in the Financial Times of February 25, commenting on the "oil-for-food" program, notes that "...Mr Annan stressed the need to streamline the complex procedures that have often delayed the arrival of products to Iraqi homes. UN bureaucracy and Iraqi inefficiency combined with cases of blocking of contracts by some UN member states and resistance to the programme by the Iraqi government have produced a system so nightmarish that one UN official says `it is a miracle it works at all.'
"It takes the Iraqi government months to produce distribution plans, while contracts have to go through a committee at the UN in which 16 member countries are represented. The US and the UK have been accused of blocking contracts because some products requested--such as veterinary supplies or agri-chemicals--can have dual purposes.
"Another main irritant to the government is that out of the $5.3bn [of Iraqi oil] that it [the Iraqi government] will theoretically be able to sell, only $3.5bn will go for humanitarian needs, *while the rest will be distributed to a Gulf war compensation fund and to pay for the UN operation in Iraq.* [Emphasis added.]
"Furthermore, the Kurdish north of Iraq, which is no longer under the control of the central government and is at odds with Baghdad, receives a disproportionate amount of the allocation. For example, UN figures show that under the current phase of the programme, $44m was allocated for water sanitation. The north, with a population of 3m, received $20m. The centre and south, with a population of 19m, received only $24m....
"For Iraqis, however, the main problem with oil-for-food has always been its humanitarian [sic] rather than developmental nature. It turns the country into a huge welfare system supervised by the UN where people are handed out just enough to eat and drink and barely enough medicine to survive.
"Although some funds are allocated to rehabilitate collapsing infrastructure, the government cannot invest in new infrastructure. According to a report by Mr Annan, more than $7bn would be required to address the electricity sector's operating problems and $870m are needed for immediate rehabilitation. But all that can be allocated to electricity, even with $5.3bn of oil sales, is a mere $137m every six months."
The article also points out that Iraq, despite the UN's allowance of $5.3bn in oil sales, can only pump $4bn worth because of a shortage of spare parts for the pipelines. And if, as expected, the world price of oil drops, "even this estimate of $4bn may be optimistic," states the FT.
Is this oil-for-food scheme humanitarian aid, or is it a part of capital's program of genocide?
Bill Koehnlein Brecht Forum/New York Marxist School New York, New York
Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
