DATE=4/24/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=U-S CONGRESSMAN IN IRAQ
NUMBER=5-46188
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: For the first time since the Gulf War, a
member of the U-S congress has visited Iraq to assess
conditions there. He found them worse than he had
expected: a once quite prosperous country reduced to
begging. And what Iraqis mainly beg is for the United
Nations to lift the economic sanctions that have
impoverished them. V-O-A's Ed Warner reports the
Congressman's remarks and the views of another recent
American visitor to Iraq.
TEXT: You have to watch your step in Iraq, says U-S
Congressman Tony Hall, who recently spent four days
there. At a hotel in Baghdad, his hosts almost had him
walk over the face of former President George Bush in
a mosaic on the floor. Photographers were ready to
snap a picture.
"I sidestepped that propaganda trap and several
others," said Mr. Hall at a briefing on Capitol Hill.
But beyond these political games, he found genuine
suffering as he toured schools and hospitals, health
clinics, and water treatment plants.
What struck him above all was the appearance of the
children: malnourished, listless, sometimes wasted
because they are unable to grow. He found rampant
disease, including ailments like cholera that have
disappeared elsewhere. He came across many children
with leukemia and other forms of cancer. Infant
mortality is perhaps the highest in the world.
For those who reach adulthood, there are few jobs.
Unemployment exceeds 50-percent. The middle class has
been wiped out with an average wage between three and
five dollars a month.
Wherever Congressman Hall went, the plea was the same:
lift the economic sanctions that have ruined our
country. Some countries, including France, China, and
Russia, are heeding that plea and asking to relax the
sanctions.
Mr. Hall says the United States should also respond:
/// FIRST HALL ACT ///
I think that this situation in Iraq poses a
serious moral dilemma for the world. And while
we must insist on inspection of weapons of mass
destruction, we can do a much better job of
helping the innocent people of Iraq overcome
their many difficulties. We do not have enough
international workers there. We do not have
enough private voluntary organizations. They are
not permitted to go there. It is very difficult
to get into Iraq.
/// END ACT ///
Congressman Hall noted that the United Nations
sanctions committee, under U-S pressure, takes a very
hard line on what Iraq is allowed to import. Anything
with a possible military use is banned.
This is taken to extremes, said Mr. Hall. Garbage
trucks are forbidden, despite Iraq's severe pollution.
So are air conditioners and parts for refrigerators,
which are needed for storing polio vaccine, among
other uses.
All this is unknown to most Americans, said Mr. Hall.
Lacking information, they have an outdated view of
Iraqis:
/// SECOND HALL ACT ///
We went to war with them. They are the enemy.
That is the major problem right there. We are
not thinking of women and children that are
dying. We have concentrated on the sanctions.
But there is no concentration in my opinion on
the humanitarian aspect - on workers, on
medicines, on food.
/// END ACT ///
The Congressman could have gone further and urged
lifting the sanctions, says Phyllis Bennis of the
Institute for Policy Studies who joined Congressional
aides on a trip to Iraq last summer:
/// BENNIS ACT ///
But I think this is a very important first step.
The delegation that I accompanied helped to set
the stage for this visit, but I think it is much
more significant that a member traveled on his
own, and particularly Congressman Hall because
he has a history of credibility on the question
of hunger and humanitarian crisis. He has seen
it before. He knows what to look for.
/// END ACT ///
Phyllis Bennis says she hopes other members of
Congress will make a similar trip. (Signed)
NEB/EW/TVM/gm
24-Apr-2000 21:26 PM EDT (25-Apr-2000 0126 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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