Early in the year Iraq denies landing permission for an inspection team flying into the country. 200 Iraqi personnel cross the newly demarcated border into Kuwait and seize armaments and surface-to-surface missiles. On January 13^th the US and UK respond by sending 114 aircraft on bombing raids on targets in Iraq.

(It transpired soon after that the refusal of landing permission created a simple delay. It also emerged that the Security Council had in fact granted Iraq permission until January 15^th to remove Iraqi property from land now donated to Kuwait. Iraqi authorities had carelessly failed to inform the Council they were doing so.)

21^st January: Further UN inspectors arrive to search again for nuclear and missile equipment. They report a fresh and conciliatory attitude from Iraq, probably as a result of Saddam’s attempts to cultivate a better relationship with newly elected US President Bill Clinton.

Nevertheless US inspector Gary Milhollin accuses the Iraqis of ‘…outfoxing…’ the inspectors: "…harrassing them and making it more and more likely that Saddam Hussein will wriggle out from under the current embargo with large parts of his A-bomb effort intact."

A UN source brands the charge a "…grotesquery….biased, unfair, and misinterpreting the facts."

The rumour of a hidden nuclear facility is finally dispelled after persistent UN investigations. Bob Kelly of the IAEA states:
"Having looked at this for two years, I think it is time to put it on the back burner. We have analysed a huge body of data and I think it is a good time to put the story to bed."

February: Minister of State at the British Foreign Office, Douglas Hogg, declares that there is: "Nothing to prevent the Iraqi government using it’s own resources to pay for humanitarian supplies."

(Hogg does not mention that all Iraqi exports are still prohibited and all assets still frozen.)

His comments are echoed by Ronald Newman, head of the Northern Gulf Bureau of the US State Department.

"The measures taken by the world community are not aimed at the Iraqi people. Iraq may import, and indeed does, foodstuffs, medicines and essential civilian consumer goods."

(Newman does not mention the export / asset situation, nor the tiny amount of imports allowed into the country by the sanctions committee.The food and medicine supply was by now reduced to 50% and 10% respectively of the pre-war level.)

Signs emerge that the blockade is leaking with small amounts of trade resuming with Iran and Turkey. Turkish and Egyptian officials visit Baghdad ostensibly to voice concern over the treatment of their nationals, regarded as a pre-cursor to trade discussions. Jordan continues to be a lifeline for Iraq.

UNICEF commission Dr. Eric Hoskins to compile a new situation analysis for Iraq. His wide ranging and ultimately embarrassing report is shelved, and one UNICEF official declares he has reached conclusions ‘….not based entirely on fact…’ His findings were later completely confirmed by the FAO and WFP Special Alert Report published in July.

Hoskins concluded: ‘Three years of sanctions have created circumstances in Iraq where the majority of the civilian population are now living in poverty. The greatest threat to the health and well-being of the Iraqi people remains the difficult economic conditions created by internationally mandated sanctions and by the infrastructural damage wrought in the 1991 military conflict.’

He went on to say: ‘One fundamental contradiction remains: that politically motivated sanctions (which by definition are imposed to create hardship) can not be implemented in a manner which spares the vulnerable.’

(Another aspect covered by Hoskins’ report was the dilapidated state of Iraqi schools. A UN estimate that 205 kindergartens and 1767 primary schools had been destroyed was borne out by his findings. Many surviving schools were without consistent electricity. Drop-out rates were rapidly increasing as children took to the streets to work or beg. School equipment like chalk and paper were in very short supply and their prices had increased more than fifty fold. In 1989 the Children’s Publishing House in Baghdad had published 200 books. In 1991 it produced less than fifty, and thereafter none at all.)

February: Having led an assessment team through Iraq, Dr. Michael Viola of Stony Brook University, New York, presents his report ‘Health Status in Iraq’

His findings are clear: ‘The functional embargo of medicines and biologicals (vaccines), hospital and laboratory equipment, and most critically spare parts for medical equipment, has resulted in a complete collapse of the health delivery system.’ The report concludes: ‘Iraq must be allowed to sell oil or borrow on assets in order to finance a major reconstruction of the entire hospital and public health system to prevent further unnecessary deaths.’

1^st February: ‘The Independent’ carries an article about Iraq’s social decay and the rising tide of crime.

(The collapsing society led to increased repression. Incidences of armed robbery and theft were dealt with brutally by the Iraqi regime, including brandings and amputations. These actions served only to strengthen the resolve of Western governments to maintain a ‘…robust…’ sanctions policy. Despite the existence of public executions in Saudi Arabia, and the widespread murder of Palestinians in Kuwait after the war, these countries enjoyed the status of Western allies.)

18^th February: Ramsey Clark again writes to new UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali asking for an immediate end to sanctions, which are causing:

‘….the deaths of more than 2000 people a week……there can be no doubt about the deaths….UNICEF estimates 80-100,000 deaths of children under 5 in 1993 if sanctions remain in place. [….] They violate humanitarian law because they are known to deprive a population of essential food and medical care.’

Medical Aid For Iraq undertake another mission to the country, and their conclusions are that the situation is now desperate. They find comatose diabetic children arriving at hospital and simply left to die due to lack of insulin. Asthmatics dying for want of inhalers, incubators out of order, premature births and low birth weight babies rising rapidly, no protein food, no antiseptics, no intravenous fluids, constant re-use of needles and syringes. In Samawa Children’s Hospital, the hospital director Dr. Saad al-Tibowi had given his own blood three times in one week. Worst of all the UNICEF feeding programme is collapsing.

March: Whitehouse spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers declares: ‘It is inconceivable that Saddam Hussein could remain in power if he complied with all UN resolutions.’

A substantial proportion of UN inspectors report that they are satisfied that Iraq no longer poses a military threat to its’ neighbours. The inspection regime is ‘…now giving way to a lower key programme of long term monitoring.’

March 29^th: The UN Security Council routinely reviews sanction policy, and maintains the embargo. The Clinton Administration proclaims its’ intention to ‘depersonalise’ the issue. World attention begins to slip away from Iraq and on to the deteriorating situation in Yugoslavia.

April: An alleged assassination attempt on George Bush takes place whilst he is visiting Kuwait. The US accuses Iraq of complicity.

May: The ‘UN Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme in Iraq Co-operation Programme’ report states: ‘It is evident that the first group to suffer most from food shortages are children, pregnant and lactating women.’

UN and NGO’s report that caesarean operations commonly take place without anaesthetic. Contraception is in very short supply, and abortions and subsequent maternal deaths are rising. Miscarriages are increasing as malnourished mothers are no longer able to carry to term.

(The Harvard International Study team had interviewed women in 1991 and reported that of those surveyed, nearly two thirds were suffering from psychological problems, severe malnutrition, menstrual irregularities and problems with breast feeding. The study also noted that the breakdown of the family structure was likely to give, and was in fact producing, a rise in societal collapse and subsequent crime and violence. Their predictions had borne out.)

June: The UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs calls a conference to discuss the funding crisis. Small aid funds are available through the DHA’s revolving fund, with sponsorship coming from Turkey and the Pan-Arab Council. 50% of these donations were not allocated to humanitarian supplies. The funds also paid for the commission of compensation and weapons destruction, as well as UN costs in retrieving Kuwaiti property and demarcating the boundary. As of 15^th April, only $41.5 million of the $101.5 million raised had been spent on humanitarian supplies. At the time Iraq had approx. $4 billion frozen in overseas assets. The US Treasury held $1.1 billion of these and would not release them.

(By contrast Britain had released $120 million, Switzerland $120 million, Italy $4 million and Canada $3 million, yet the vast majority of assets were still unusable).

The US blocks a number of applications for export on the grounds that they constitute an input to Iraqi industry. They include glue used to manufacture text books, nylon cloth for filtering impurities from flour, polyester and acrylic yarn used in textile production, and a shipment of PVC material was also blocked by Britain as it was destined for the private hospital sector in Iraq.

In the middle of the month Iraq refuses UN inspectors permission to install video cameras at two missile testing sites. The US once again threatens air strikes.

The Sanctions committee also blocks shipments of steel bars, cable joints and 25,000 tons of concrete additives destined for house, school and hospital re-building projects, on the grounds that either the end user could not be guaranteed or they constituted an input into Iraqi industry.

June 27^th: Clinton authorises the firing of 23 Tomahawk Cruise missiles at Baghdad in response to the alleged assassination attempt on George Bush. The US concedes that some have hit residential areas and caused civilian casualties. One explosion destroyed the house and took the life of Leyla Attar, a painter revered throughout the Arab World.

Madeleine Albright attempts to justify the attacks. ‘The New York Times’ comments that to swallow the US case ‘…as it stands requires a leap of faith and a complete suspension of political cynicism.’

A Kuwaiti judge later dismissed the assassination charges against Iraq due to lack of evidence.

July: UNICEF reports that school drop out rates are now one fifth, leading to an incremental decline in literacy. Continued discussions between Iraq and the UN on the adoption of SCR 706 and 712 fail to produce concessions on either side.

19^th July: The Iraqi authorities reverse their earlier decision and grant permission for surveillance cameras to be installed at the missile sites. Ekeus notes that Iraq is now ready to accept ‘…on-going monitoring and verification as contained in SCR 715…’ Iraq insists that the embargo now be lifted in light of their full compliance. Ekeus responds he can not recommend an easing of sanctions until Baghdad is prepared to give a full and detailed disclosure of its’ weapons capabilities and suppliers.

Douglas Hurd later declared: ‘We will not hesitate to use force if necessary…..’ but that the West ‘…had no quarrel with the Iraqi people. They have suffered enough.’

20^th July: UNICEF reports that child mortality has ‘…greatly increased…’ and that ‘…plagues and maladies…’ are now increasing amongst children.

July: The UN FAO reports that the ration system is ‘…basically equitable….and generally efficient…and an exclusive and indispensable means of sustenance for the vast majority of households.’ The report went on to conclude that the ration ‘….can not be supported by the government for too long without the ability to earn foreign exchange. The inability of the country to resume international trade renders the public rationing system extremely vulnerable; a collapse of the system would spell a catastrophe for the majority of the Iraqi population.’

The World Food Programme, a division of the UN FAO, publishes Special Alert Report No. 237 soon afterwards:

‘It is a country whose economy has been devastated….above all by the continued sanctions….which have virtually paralysed the whole economy and generated persistent deprivation, chronic hunger, endemic under-nutrition, massive unemployment and widespread human suffering. A vast majority of the Iraqi population is living under the most deplorable conditions and is simply engaged in a struggle for survival. A grave humanitarian tragedy is unfolding….the nutritional status of the population continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Large numbers of Iraqis now have food intakes lower than those populations in the disaster stricken African countries."

It again noted that only the Iraqi government ration system had prevented ‘…massive starvation’.

Health expert Dr. Salman Rawaf, taking into account the WFP/FAO report, and his own findings from various medical organisations, described Iraq as ‘…18.8 million people in a refugee camp..’ Other observers went further: ‘A concentration camp with a population of 18 million, one third of which are children – of whom at least 100,000 are now dead, not from war but from hunger.’

The Special Alert also states that there is evidence that ‘…the deliberately contrived administrative delays in the UN clearance procedures were causing approved agricultural items to arrive too late to aid productivity.’

It concludes: ‘The lasting solution to the current food crisis would lie in the regeneration of the Iraqi economy which cannot be achieved without a resumption of international trade by the country. Such an action will not only relieve the grave human suffering in Iraq, but will also allow a release of scarce humanitarian assistance resources (currently being used in Iraq) for their most appropriate allocation to the benefit of large numbers of starving people elsewhere in the world.’

(By mid July there had been 13 Security Council reviews of Iraq’s compliance with the various UN resolutions. It upheld full and total sanctions in every one of them. Simons makes the point that US policy, in failing to differentiate between Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq, was akin to burning down a whole house filled with people due to the wrongdoing of one of them.)

July 24^th: A consignment of cotton for medical swabs and gauze is blocked by Britain.

August: Early in the month the inspectors install cameras at the two missile sites. Team leader Bill Eckert praises the Iraqis for their co-operation. At the same times plans emerge of a new, larger staffed and more intrusive monitoring phase. Saddam Hussein complains that the plan smacks of CIA involvement in an attempt to track his movements prior to an attempt on his life. Ekeus states that lifting sanctions is still not on the agenda as Iraq has failed to declare the names of his suppliers of chemical weapons and missiles. Fearing this information would fall into CIA hands, Iraq refuses to divulge them. After eight days of talks, Ekeus secures the required list, but will not recommend lifting sanctions until ‘…long term…’ monitoring of Iraqi arms development is accomplished. He does not give a time frame regarding how long this ‘…long term…’ will be.

14^th August: An application by Japan to supply hospital/ambulance communication links equipment is blocked by the US and Britain.

1^st September: Tariq Aziz, now Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, meets with UN Secretary General Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali to discuss sanctions. Nothing comes of the meeting, and neither do further discussions on 21^st November.

17^th September: An order of Shroud cloth, whose only use is to wrap the bodies of the dead in accordance to Islamic custom, is blocked by the US and Britain.

(The block was later lifted by Britain, but new Department of Trade and Industry regulations meant that the licence was revoked before shipment, and the application process had to begin all over again.)

October: Hans Blix, director general of the IAEA reports: "In all essential aspects the nuclear weapons programme is mapped and has been neutralised through the war of thereafter."

(By this time Ekeus believed that Iraq’s chemical programme had been dismantled and that all Scud missiles were now accounted for. In his report to the UN Secretary General he acknowledged the progress made, but that doubts still remained that the biological programme had not been fully exposed and destroyed.)

October: Medical Aid For Iraq return from yet another mission. They confirm all previous findings and additionally note that aplastic anaemia is increasing, kwashiorkor and rickets are now ‘…common…’, gastro-enteritis is ‘…rife…’, mortality rates from septicaemia and meningitis are ‘…very much on the increase…’, and they record ‘…unprecedented increases ‘… in leukaemia, cancers, amoebic dysentery and infectious hepatitis.’

The report also emphasises the sheer strain that Iraqi medical personnel are under. They are now attempting to wash once-only surgical gloves without soap, disinfectant or sterilising solutions. (One story described an emergency caesarean operation being performed only for the surgeons to discover there was no cat gut or silk thread to stitch up the post operative patient. Lack of supplies means that doctors were now forced to have meetings to discuss which children should be left to die.)

28^th November: The Security Council again reviews sanctions and maintains them, despite Iraq’s almost total compliance with SCR 687, and having agreed the terms of SCR 715 which were designed to ensure long term monitoring of Iraq’s weapons production. Washington continues to express concern about the repression of the Shia people in the South, as referenced in the non-mandatory SCR 688. (No mention is made of the fact that during the war the Shia were the worst affected by allied bombing, or that the majority of Iraqi troops carpet bombed in the desert were comprised primarily of Shia and Kurdish conscripts.)

December: Another FAO report confirms the findings of the Special Alert No. 237 report.

12^th December: Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath, whilst not supporting a lifting of sanctions, calls for Britain to resume diplomatic links with Iraq, and acknowledges the assistance that the Iraqi population desperately needs. He points out that sanctions are counter productive, rallying people around Saddam due to their resentment of their treatment by the West. Washington responds that only when Iraq recognises the sovereignty of Kuwait can sanctions be relaxed.

(Simons points out that when Iraq later complied with this demand, the US still maintained sanctions.)

The US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright states that there is a ‘two stage approach’ to lifting the ban on Iraqi oil exports. Firstly Iraq will have to abandon all Weapons of Mass Destruction programmes as stipulated by SCR 687. Rolf Ekeus, leader of UNSCOM, the UN Special Commission on Iraq, will be required to verify this. Secondly, Baghdad must prove ‘….its’ readiness to rejoin society…’ – a vague comment that is irrelevant to any UN resolutions. She continues: ‘There has to be an overall package here.’

(Simons makes the point that the US wanted a facility to include any conditions they chose to on an almost week by week basis.)

Clinton, having stated he was not ‘obsessed’ with Saddam, begins to resort to Bush’s hard-line approach.

According to Iraq / UNICEF figures, the cumulative sanctions related death toll for children under twelve was 369,892.