THE FIRE THIS TIME - LIFE AND DEATH IN IRAQ

Except as noted the photos were taken
by

Karen Robinson (1999) - [KR]

Robinson, a professional photographer, has graciously allowed use of her material on this site.
Those wishing to re-use or reprint her photographs in any other format, site and/or hard copy publications,
please contact her c/o cb@spannerfilms.net

Professor Siegwart-Horst Gunther (1993 - 1998) - Copyright free [SHG]
Used with kind permission

For specific details of the the humanitarian situation in Iraq, I highly recommend that you read the ARTICLES by Miriam Ryle, Kathy Kelly and Dr. Eric Herring, and the INTERVIEWS with Denis Halliday, Hans Von Sponek and Scott Ritter. What follows is a gallery of pictures from Iraq, and my own personal reflections.

Under the omnipresent gaze of the world's favourite bogeyman, the 22 million strong Iraqi population, who are not named Saddam Hussein, are engaged in a day by day struggle to survive. That they have reconstructed their country to the extent they have is nothing short of a miracle. Iraqis have a reputation for ingenuity and tenacity which has served them well in the long years of sanctions. Not well enough to prevent the death of an average 4500-6000 children every month. And not for want of trying. When a 'Medical Aid to Iraq' team visited Samawa Childrens and Obstetrics Hospital in early 1993, the hospital director, Dr. Saad al-Tibowi, had given his own blood three times in the past week, whilst subsisting on a diet of rice, beans and bread, and working 16 hours a day.

"The great advantage of economic sanctions," wrote John Foster Dulles, "is that on the one hand they can be very potent, whilst on the other hand they do not involve that resort to force which is repugnant to our objective of peace."

Sanctions combined with force are truly devastating, as the US war planners knew. By January 25th 1991, the entire electrical generation capability of Iraq was destroyed. "Not an electron was flowing," the Pentagon told the US press. By the end of March, and prevented from obtaining any imports whatsoever, Iraqi repairs had managed to bring only 4% of the grid back on-line. Iraq's electricity supply was now at 1920's levels; about the same capacity as when refrigeration was first introduced. Food and medicine spoiled across the entire country. Baghdad was in darkness for six months. Hospitals struggled to deal with caesarean sections, and to treat the wounded, by candlelight and without pain relief or anaesthetic. Forced to cook on dangerous kerosene lamps, many people were badly burned and killed.

With all foreign assets frozen, and a prohibition on the sale of oil, Iraq could barely generate enough revenue even for the items that the US saw fit to allow them. Malnutrition was rampant, disease spread rapidly, inflation spiralled out of control. The country descended into poverty and hunger on a scale rarely seen in modern times, on a par with the drought ravaged sub-Saharan regions of Africa. And the UN's response was to offer Iraq the chance to earn, from a single oil sale, approximately $550 million dollars, on the condition that the UN, dominated by the US, would decide what Iraq needed and what it didn't. This same organisation had spent the past six months denying Iraq almost everything it required for basic sustenance. The Iraqi government turned it down, and was widely criticised for doing so. And thus began a tactic that has lasted for over a decade now: blame the victim.

Try to imagine that your country is a dictatorship that has invaded a neighbour, an act beyond your control. Try to imagine emerging from under a 42 day bombardment equivalent to seven Hiroshimas by a 30 country 'coalition' and finding your entire country in ruins. No electricity, no food, no medicine, no fuel, no clean water. The majority of your roads and bridges have been destroyed, as have your seed warehouses, your irrigation and pumping stations, your railways and bus stations, your farms, schools, universities, churches, radio communication and telephone systems, government buildings, industrial and manufacturing plants, oil pumping, refining and pipeline infrastructure. You decide that your leader, who has brought this upon you, is a tyrant and must be overthrown. You rise up against him only to find that the 'coalition' has allowed him access to arms and helicopters with which he slaughters you in the thousands, dropping sulphuric acid on you, and shooting your friends in the streets. 2 million of you have left the country. 500,000 of you attempt to flee into the mountains where thousands more of you freeze and starve to death.

The 'coalition' decides that this is cruel and inhuman, and offers your country the opportunity to sell oil to the value of $550 million to fix the entire problem.

The Arab Monetary Fund estimated in 1996 that the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure would require $232 BILLION, of which $7 billion would be required to repair the electrical grid alone.

This was the fate of Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf war. More bombs were dropped on Iraq in that time frame than in any conflict in history. The uprising against Saddam Hussein, so loudly called for by the West was brutally crushed, whilst the West looked on with indifference. Why they did so is cynical to the extreme. "Our policy," said Richard Haas of the US National Security Council "is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime."


Many Iraqis have been forced to sell the majority of their belongings to earn enough money to supplement the ration. Markets and roadside stalls have sprung up where people sell whatever they can. [KR]		Begging and street vending are now commonplace. Many children whose parents can not afford to send them to school are forced to send them out to earn a pittance as shoe shiners or cigarette sellers. [KR]

Not even the most rabid anti-imperialists will deny that Saddam Hussein is in no way responsible for the fate of Iraq. Even Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz confided to French Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement that the invasion of Kuwait was a mistake. The question is whether an innocent population, who had no part in the decision making process, should be made to pay such an extreme price. According to former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, they should. "This is a hard choice," she told Leslie Stahl of the '60 Minutes' programme in 1996, "but the price.....we think the price is worth it." According to Robert Gates, a former US National Security Advisor, the answer is also yes, telling the Los Angeles Times in May 1991: "Iraqis will be made to pay the price whilst Saddam Hussein is in power." Note that he did not say 'the Iraqi regime', but 'Iraqis.'

Gates feels that untreated sewage pouring by the cubic ton into the only source of drinking water is the 'price' they must pay. Albright decides that Iraqis watching their children die for lack of clean water is 'a hard choice....but worth it.' This is the reality for ordinary Iraqis. Not only must they contend with living in a repressive regime that the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights described in 1995 as "... the worst of any country since World War II..." but they must contend with the US and UK denying them everything but extremely basic food and medicine, whilst their country degenerates into chaos.


A couple and child outside Saddam Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. [Photo courtesy of Gerri Haynes]	Most of the lifts in this hospital have not worked in years, due to the inability to import spare parts. [GW]	A typical example of the 'cannibalised' wiring of lights in the hospital. Unable to import sufficient tubes, the staff try to run those that function as best they can. [GW]

In April 1999, a special UN Humanitarian panel was set up to assess Iraq's needs. Its' conclusions were damning of the 'Oil-For-Food' programme:
"The gravity of the situation is indisputable and can not be overstated. The magnitude of the humanitarian needs is such that they can not be met within the context of the parameters set forth in Resolution 986 [‘Oil-For-Food’ programme] and succeeding SCR 1153. [….] Nor was the program intended to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people. [….] Given the present state of infrastructure, the revenue required for its’ rehabilitation is far above the funding level available. [….] Under current conditions the outlook will remain bleak and become more serious with time. The humanitarian situation will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy."

As at March 2001, this continues to be the reality for ordinary Iraqis, with the exception that they now receive approximately $230 a year. Such is the benevolence of the US and UK.


A young couple at their wedding. The institution of marriage, traditionally very strong in Iraq, is crumbling, as unemployed fathers, many without income for years, abandon their families and responsibilities. [KR]	A parade of real coffins through the streets of Baghdad, made as a protest against sanctions. Western media outlets have sometimes been astonishingly cynical about these demonstrations, claiming that they are staged in order to garner sympathy. [KR]	An old woman begins crying during a Christian church service, Good Friday, Baghdad. Religious tolerance, traditional in Iraq, has been undermined. Islamic 'Shiraya' law has been re-introduced into what had been a secular state for decades. [GW]

The full regeneration of Iraq's economy is the only solution, but sanctions prevent this.

The implications are far reaching, perhaps the most important of these is in the education sector. School attendance rates, and thus literacy, are dropping rapidly. Badly malnourished children are forced to sit three to a desk, sharing a single book.....if they have desks and books. Many schools do not; many don't even have chairs. Without reliable electricity for air conditioning and heating, in the summer these children endure stifling heat, in the winter, intense cold. During thunderstorms some schools are inundated with sewage from an overflowing and broken sanitation system. Their teachers, dedicated far beyond the call of duty, earn an average of $5 a month. Many are forced to work additional jobs, such as taxi driving. The question is rarely asked: what are sanctions doing to the forthcoming generation?

Another aspect is the social decay and disintegration of traditional value systems. Personal recollections from visitors to pre-war Iraq recount stories of their world renowned hospitality and generosity. Year after year of sanctions have begun to erode this. People can simply no longer realistically afford to extend their hospitality on such a level. But such is the strength of tradition that many still do, at enormous personal expense. Almost any visitor to Iraq will tell you this.


An old woman beggar in a park in Baghdad. Along with children, the older generation are particularly suffering. Begging was almost unheard of in Iraq prior to sanctions. It is frowned upon by Iraqis in general, and the regime, who do not want their people to be seen this way. I had to give my 'minder' the slip to take this picture, even at a distance. [GW]	Children suffering from 'shell shock' caused by the Gulf war. Without supplies of any sedatives or access to psychological counselling, some parents have been forced to tie their children down during thunderstorms as their reactions, typically extreme shaking, are so strong. [SHG]	A Stack of Iraq dinar at the main market in Baghdad. Whilst it looks like a lot of money, it is actually almost worthless. Inflation has decimated the currency. One dinar was worth $3 in 1989; 250 dinars are now worth just 12.5 cents. All oil revenues are handled by the UN and held in an escrow account, thus no 'trickle-down' benefit to the economy is possible. As at April 1999, Iraq's foreign debt stood at $190 billion. [GW]

But crime and corruption has increased dramatically. The regime has responded to this by imposing brutal and ever more repressive measures. Thus sanctions actually strengthen Saddam Hussein. His rule is now stronger than ever; the people more dependent on central government than ever. This has an additional effect of creating a 'welfare' mentality. This combines with the rising fundamentalism of young Iraqis, who are dissatisfied with their leaders' continued willingness to enter into dialogue with the UN. It may well produce an isolationist outlook which will shore up the current tyrannical regime, or perhaps a future regime, even further. What constructive dialogue can the western people of the world ever hope to have with Iraqis if they have allowed sanctions to go on for this long? According to former UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, we are fermenting conditions for future conflict. The events of September 11th may have been the first manifestation. This in no way suggests or implicates Iraqi involvement of any kind, as repulsion for sanctions is felt by Arabs throughout the Middle East. It was a key opinion in the broadcasts made by Osama bin Laden.


Unemployment averages 60%. Poverty is now widespread. This is a scene in old Baghdad city. [KR]	Mohammed, an Iraqi man, holds a photo of his own severely burned body. He was one of only seven who survived the attack on the El Ameriyah civilian shelter in February 1991. He is now a medical student at the University of Baghdad. [Photo courtesy of Gerri Haynes]	A budding photographer in a park in Baghdad. [GW]

The visit I made to Iraq in April 1999 was a terrible and powerful experience. There is no question that the regime is brutal and repressive, but the horrors inflicted on the people by the US and UK maintained sanctions policy are obviously far worse. Aside from watching the televised bombing of Kosovo through gun sight cameras whilst at the Iraqi Ministry of Information, one particular memory stands out. And it is an example of the immense kindness of the Iraqis, and their ability to separate ordinary people from the leaders and policies of other countries.

We had spent the day filming in the hospitals in Baghdad - a relentless tour of misery, with the fierce stares of mothers with their dying children, and the humiliating sense that the doctors had simply had enough of westerners with cameras recording it all for an audience who did nothing about it. Back at the hotel, I sat alone in the empty restaurant. I was on the point of tears. A waiter walked over and asked me if I wanted anything. I simply looked at him and said: "I want to apologise. I want to say sorry for what we've done to you." He replied: "It's not your fault. There are good people in the world and there are bad people in the world. It's not your fault."

Thus he could simply and eloquently distinguish me from John Major and George Bush, from Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Something I'm ashamed to say that, until very recently, people in the west were unable and unwilling to do for him.


One of the many street sited electrical generators in Baghdad. In April 1999, power cuts in the city averaged between 4 and 10 hours a day. The situation in the countryside was much worse, with cuts of up to 20 hours. The noise of the generator was so loud that ordinary conversation could not be heard within a 20 feet radius. [GW]	At the main second hand book market in Baghdad. The Iraqis love of books is renowned, but needs are such that the intellectual classes are selling their entire libraries. The breadth and depth of the subject matters is astonishing; from politics to science, medicine to literature. All sell for just pennies. [GW]	Children work here too, selling their heritage to whomever can afford it. [GW]

Douglas Hurd, former British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and one of Margaret Thatcher's principle arms dealers to Iraq in the 1980's once wrote:"We will not hesitate to use force if necessary…..[but the West]…has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. They have suffered enough."

Disgusting hypocrisy aside, Hurd wrote that in 1993. Eight years on and the Iraqi people continue to suffer terribly.


'Our' enemy and former ally.... [KR]		'Our' enemy and future ally....? [GW]


Two girls outside a mosque in Baghdad. [GW]	Extreme poverty in the suburbs of Baghdad. [KR]