If Saddam were still in power, would you support continued sanctions?

[Darranar]

I wouldn't. Sanctions always hurt more than their intended target. Thousands of Iraqis - perhaps more than died in the invasion of 2003 - starved to death due to those sanctions. The oil-for-food program didn't get enough food in.

I have heard defense of these sanctions lately. What do DUers think?

[quinnox]

1. I wasn't aware of this back then

I wasn't paying attention to politics at that time, but if I had, I guess it would have depended on what kind of sanctions and why.

[Darranar]

2. What do you think about them now?

I guess the phrasing of the question was bad - I wasn't very politically aware back then either.

There. I thiink I phrased it better this time.

[quinnox]

5. I don't know enough to really form an opinion

I would have to research it to have an opinion. I know Clinton did this, and I did think he was an excellent president and that he probably had good reasons for it, is all I could say.

[quinnox]

8. On the new question

I would support sanctions against Saddam, instead of a war. This might change of course depending on intelligence information, and what Saddam might have done if he were still in power. For example, if there was intelligence that was concrete that Saddam was aiding al-queda or trying to build nukes or if Saddam invaded another country such as Saudi Arabia, then I would be in favor of a war with Saddam.

[IndianaGreen]

3. I wanted sanctions to be lifted

It was a shameful performance by both Clinton and Bush to keep the sanctions in place even when it was clear they were hurting the innocents. Clinton's war criminal Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said that it was worth it to kill so many Iraqi children. Nazi bitch!

"We Think the Price Is Worth It"
Media uncurious about Iraq policy's effects- there or here
By Rahul Mahajan

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

http://www.fair.org/extra/0111/iraq.html

[Darranar]

6. A question....

(I'm playing devil's advocate here, don't think I'm pro-war.) Didn't the war end the sanctions at the cost of less innocent lives than the sanctions would have taken if they had gone on?

[IndianaGreen]

7. The sanctions are still in place, or haven't you taken notice?

The US requested that the sanctions on Iraq be kept in place, even though Iraq is an American colony. Why? I don't fully understand the satanic reasoning of the Bush regime, but I do know that in order to get the UN to lift sanctions, Iraq has to have UN weapons inspectors certify that there are no WMD in Iraq.

The US hasn't found WMD, and it doesn't want the UN weapons inspectors to come to Iraq to search for them.

What a sick country we are citizens of!

[LittleApple81]

9. You do have your knowledge of the issues right at hand.

I agree with you. I was trying to remember why the Bush administration wanted the sanctions to be left in place and your statement brought it back.
We are really twisted, aren't we?

[Darranar]

11. Oh, yes...

I forgot about that little detail. Apoligies.

What if the sanctions were lifted, though?

[IndianaGreen]

12. The war is not over by any stretch of the imagination

Estimates of civilian casualties in Iraq since the start of the war have ranged from a few thousands to as high as 37,000 in one post I saw in DU over the weekend.

We destroyed not only Saddam regime, but Iraq's entire society. The cost in lives and suffering is incalculable, and we are nowhere near the end of the misery that we have inflicted on this helpless nation.

I don't play this game that the Iraqis are better off today than they were under Saddam. This is like murdering a young girl's parents and siblings in front of her, raping her, and then asking her what hurts her the most, the rape or the killing of her family.

Lifting the sanctions must go with ending the occupation, and nothing short of the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US troops from Iraq can be justified.

[Darranar]

13. Okay...

Do you think that military intervention is ever justified for the sole purpose of regime change and/or preventing genocide?

I agree completely about the sanctions.

[IndianaGreen]

14. No, and Yes (with conditions)

Do you think that military intervention is ever justified for the sole purpose of regime change...?

No

...and/or preventing genocide?

Yes, but only under the provisions of the UN Charter when collective security is involved.

The best guarantee against genocide is the certainty that criminals will face justice. The US subverts this principle by its insistence on immunity from prosecution under the ICC.

The next President of the US should sign the ICC accords, and we should make it national policy to extradite military and civilian officials that are accused of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against peace. My first candidate for extradition: Henry Kissinger.

[Darranar]

15. Basically agreed...

but two questions: What do you consider collective security, and how will the UN be able to catch war criminals?

[IndianaGreen]

16. Members of the UN have police powers and they rely on INTERPOL

Many of the wanted war criminals are caught as the result of pressure being put on governments, or are arrested by peace-keeping forces, or as in the case of Kissinger and Pinochet, travel to a country where they can be detained pending an extradition hearing. In Britain, Blair had to intervene to let Pinochet escape to Chile, and Kissinger was smuggled out of the country by the US.

Do a google search on my personal hero, Judge Baltasar Garson, a man that has given fits to Western leaders for their unwillingess to extradite wanted war criminals that enter their jurisdiction.

[Ein]

4. Not really.

It seemed to only affect the civilians. I cannot say how it affected Saddam. One would predict the strains on civilians would've caused increased dissent, which would cause more repression, which would cause more dissent...etc, and thus internal unrest. But it just seemed to give Saddam more power over a weaker populace

[bigtree]

22. ...it just seemed to give Saddam more power over a weaker populace.

Great point. Some of the sanctions were counter productive, like denying them chlorine for their water system because of its dual-use in nukular production plants. Sanctions were ideologically driven and mis-targeted.

[LoneStarLiberal]

10. Our Sanctions vs. Smart Sanctions

There was a concept that grew out of the "sanctions work" research and literature called smart sanctions that I think would have worked far better in terms of the end result of limiting Saddam's power to acquire new WMD and replenish stores of WMD his regime previously held.

Smart sanctions basically are targeted as opposed to blanket sanctions. Instead of slapping economic sanctions on Iraq as a nation thereby punishing all Iraqis you target your sanctions against the regime in power (block any transactions to and from any of Saddam or his sons' Swiss accounts which we had enough information on to act). Freeze foreign assets of all those in the regime and initiate a crackdown on all black market operations by which they make money not encumbered in foreign accounts (in the case of Iraq, oil smuggling would be the thing to have targeted to a greater degree than we did).

Smart sanctions also involve some tit-for-tat component so that reform measures taken by the regime reward them in some small positive way with a flexible loosening of restrictions. Flexibility is the key, however: Your ability to loosen restrictions must be backed up with an ability to immediately tighten them down once more if reform efforts are thwarted.

The sanctions that George Senior put in place and that Bill Clinton carried through were foolish, ham-fisted efforts that poisoned the Iraqi people against the U.S., and for good reason: While it looks probable that the Iraqi sanctions greatly weakened Saddam's military, it also a known quantity that the civilian population bore the gruesome burden of our sanctions.

[sujan]

17. no

the sanctions did nothing but kill more people.

[Booberdawg]

18. A moot point

Not worth considering

[Darranar]

19. I disagree...

There are other dictators in the world like Saddam. the issue of the sanctions is important in case containing one of them may be neccesary.

[Booberdawg]

24. To be fair the question was about Saddam

NOT other dictators. The question about Saddam is a moot point and not worth the powder to consider.

[Darranar]

25. Okay...

I still think that speculation about such things helps build reasonable foreign policy in the future.

[mike_c]

20. the economic/trade sanctions were, and continue to be...

...a crime against humanity. Under the present conditions-- keeping them in place largely to prevent whistle-ass from losing face if Iraq is free of WMD-- is especially egregious. This is another crime that I hope to see the Bush* junta face war crimes charges for one day.

[Clete]

21. I was never in favor of sanctions.

I always believed that Saddam or for that matter any dictator can be pressured to go into exile, like Charlie Taylor and like Idi Amin, by a coalition of nations especially those that are close by. All dictators have one thing in common, their primary concern is to save themselves. Sanctions, like war, only hurt the common person especially the most vulnerable like children.

[Kbowe]

23. NO!!! I don't support sanctions and starving innocent people just to get

at their leaders. We either deal with the leaders man to man or mind our own business!

We could have bought Saddam off with money and acknowleding him has a legitimate leader of his people. Lord knows it would have been cheaper, safer, and saved many lives. We have done this over and over again with far more brutal dictators than Saddam. It used to be our MO until we became the shill for Sharon-led Israel.

[sushi]

26. I certainly wouldn't!

There must be ways of dealing with a dictator without victimizing the innocents. Add to it the fact that Saddam Hussein used to be a friend.
I was also thinking, who knows some of the extremists have lost one or more relatives as a result of sanctions. Imagine how strongly they feel about hitting back now!

[sistersofmercy]

27. Sanctions should have been lifted long ago!

[tinnypriv]

28. Depends WHAT sanctions

Military sanctions are fine. Economic sanctions are not.

The people responsible for the latter are despicable war criminals who should be locked in the Hague.

FWIW, without economic sanctions in place I would have also supported extending the no-fly zones to encompass the entire territory of Iraq. With those two policies in place Saddam would likely have been overthrown by his own people long ago, even taking into account the failed uprising of 1991.

Also, conservative estimates suggest that it wasn't "thousands", but hundreds of thousands who died thanks to the sanctions. Put another way, they killed more than all the WMD used in human history.

[InkAddict]

29. I think I would have tried lifting the

sanctions during negotiation for better, more advantageous terms of delivery - not more oil, maybe, but more accurate/secure recording of how the goods were distributed to those in need (food, medicines and care), more like honest TRADE TRACKING. Even dictators enjoy the praise of those they subjugate when it appears there's more benevolent leadership. Perhaps in the long-run we'd still get the opportunities for global cooperation. If there's truth in LIHOP/MIHOP (deep abiding pain), then I want OBL's head because Noriega doesn't deserve any company, along with "due process" in justice for those that treasonly aided/abetted in unprecendented abdication of Congressional mandates to allow far too many "Executive Orders" and suspension of our Bill of Rights, even if by omission/neglect of their responsibility to abide by the Constitution of the United States of America as sworn with hand on the Bible. A lot of hi-powered bleach will be need to CLEAN EXECUTIVE OFFICES, HOUSE, SENATE of these so-called representatives of the people, so there could be government for the people by the people's free choice without suspension of the Rules we live by. Oh well, naive, I know...That's MHO.

OMG, just look at the mess we've got instead, here and around the world. Undoing the damage will be a very long process but we've got to make changes ASAP; is ASAP soon enough???????

[dudeness]

30. may I suggest a book?

"Iraq under siege" edited by Anthony Arnove

a comprehensive look at the effects of war and sanctions on the Iraqi people in particular , children.