Mark Trahant of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer writes that the situation in Iraq is more complicated than either the White House or its critics seem willing to admit. In what way is the situation more complicated? Trahant gives this example:
There's no question that Iraqi people suffered because of Saddam. But, all too often, ordinary people also suffered because of the U.S. and international sanctions against Saddam.Well yes, but if I may one-up Trahant's complexity with some complexity of my own, I might point out there was a good reason for those "U.S. and international" sanctions. I would also boldly add that now that the U.S. has removed Saddam from power, there is no new suffering on account of either Saddam or the sanctions. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 19, 2003 09:14 PM
The Iraqi people suffered under UN sanctions because Saddam stole most of the "Oil for Food" money and used it to buy weapons and bribe countries like France and Germany to support the continuance of his regime. It is time to lay to rest the fantasy that sanctions were the reason the Iraqi people suffered. There were no sanctions on food or medicine, Saddam just chose not to buy any for the reasons mentioned above.
Posted by: Jim Brown on October 20, 2003 03:18 AMActually, that's not true. There were certainly some problems with the Oil for Food Program, but recall that the reason that the program was started in the first place is that the Security Council realized the sanctions were hurting ordinary Iraqis. The Program was put in place to mitigate those harmful effects. This does not excuse Saddam, but neither does it excuse the sanctions.
Posted by: Shaheddy on February 5, 2004 05:22 PM