PBS Frontline Paints Distorted Picture of Gulf War
The War Against Iraq Continues
By Rania Masri
March
1996
Five years after the start of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. media sought
to glorify the military onslaught against Iraq. Recently, the PBS
television series, Frontline, presented a program on the Gulf War that was
consistent with the U.S. media's reports; it was full of lies and
distortions.
Numerous critical facts were not disclosed in this report, and many
blatant lies were presented as truth. One of the most obvious falsehoods
was the depiction of the Iraqi army as a formidable power capable of
matching the military strength of the Pentagon or the military forces of
the other Western powers. The Iraqi army was nothing of the kind.
Among the false reasons given by George Bush and his entourage to gain
public support for this horrendous war was the threat of Iraq as a nuclear
power. However, inspection teams from the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) have never found a nuclear bomb, or evidence that one
exists, in Iraq. According to Dr. Albright and Dr. Hibbs, in the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, despite the large sums of money that Iraq spent
on nuclear research, it was still many years away from producing even one
small atomic weapon, and independent studies of Iraq's nuclear facilities
point out that most assumptions of their future nuclear plans are
improbably optimistic, based on the progress of the U.S. Manhattan Project
during WWII, rather than the experience of a small developing country that
has had to import most of its technology from the West.
The PBS report talked about "precision bombing" and presented the
Americans as only once attacking civilians, in the case of the assault on
the infamous shelter. In truth, the American military deliberately
targeted civilian structures. The 42 day military war against Iraq
devastated more than military structures; Bush had ordered the destruction
of facilities essential to civilian life and economic productivity
throughout Iraq, a violation of the Geneva Convention.
The Pentagon said in the PBS report that "if it had known of the
civilians [in the shelter], it wouldn't have been bombed." Is this to say
that the Pentagon was not aware of the actions of their own government? A
daytime air attack on a bridge in Nasiriya, in southern Iraq, killed at
least 100 civilians. A similar attack on a bridge in Samawa killed over
100 civilians. More importantly, the entire city of Basra, with a
population of over 800,000, was declared a target -- despite the Geneva
Convention prohibiting area bombing in cities, and the American alleged
concern for the Iraqi civilians.
According to Ramsey Clark in his book "War Crimes: A Report of United
States War Crimes Against Iraq," "the United States intentionally bombed
and destroyed civilian life, commercial and business districts, schools,
hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, historical
sites, private vehicles and civilian government offices". Even after the
end of the military war, the U.S. periodically fire-bombed the
agricultural fields in Iraq, as if to ensure the deaths of the civilians
through malnutrition and starvation.
Approximately 150 American soldiers died during the war, most of them
by friendly fire. The Iraqi victims killed strictly due to the military
onslaught were more than 200,000. Clearly, this was not a war- - but a
massacre. And the massacre continues.
This PBS television series failed to discuss the deathly consequences
of the continued use of sanctions against the Iraqi people. The Frontline
Gulf War account came at the time when the United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organization report revealed that more than 564,000 children
under the age of five have died as a direct result of the sanctions on
Iraq. In addition, 23 percent of all Iraqi children have stunted growth.
More than 70 percent of all pregnant Iraqi women are anemic. In all,
according to the most conservative estimates, more than one million Iraqis
have died due to these sanctions. More than four million people in Iraq
are under imminent threat of death or severe permanent injury due to
malnutrition. The victims include 2.4 million children under five, some
600,000 pregnant women, nursing mothers, and hundreds of thousands of
elderly.
Prior to the embargo, which began in August 1990, Iraq used to import
75 percent of all its food products. Thus, due to the embargo, 75 percent
of the country's food products have been cut dramatically while Iraq's
economy lay in ruins. In addition, currently the food industry is
operating at only a fraction of its pre-blockade level because severe
constraints on agricultural machinery, food seeds, fertilizers,
pesticides, and herbicides have resulted in a dramatic decline in
agricultural output. Furthermore, both as a result of the deliberate
military bombardment of the water and sanitation systems and the present
lack of supplies, due to the embargo, needed for repairs, the water and
sanitation system throughout Iraq has been dangerously degraded, resulting
in the spread of many infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, infective
hepatitis, and nutritional marasmus.
Due to the hyperinflation and high cost of basic food items, many
people have been selling household and personal belongings to buy food.
People in collective villages in the north were seen selling bricks and
other building materials, which they obtained by pulling down their own
homes. Consequently, the number of beggars and street children has
increased enormously.
The situation of famine throughout the country has been prevented
largely by the government system of public rationing. Due to lack of
funds, this system provides only a third of the food energy available
prior to the embargo. However, the whole system is unsustainable and its
eventual collapse may result in a mass famine.
The United Nations FAO report concluded that both the cause of Iraq's
problems and the solution to those problems are clear. The problems are
that without hard currency, the country cannot purchase food, medicines,
spare parts, machinery, fertilizers, seeds, herbicides, and other
agricultural supplies. Without spare parts for pumps and other needed
materials necessary for the water supply and sewage disposal system,
impure water and sewage backups produce severe health risks for the
population. The combination of decreased food availability and the
occurrence of infectious disease results in increasing malnutrition,
especially in children.
And what is the solution? End the war on Iraq. End the sanctions on
Iraq, and allow Iraq to resume trade. There can be absolutely no
justification for the deaths of children, and children are dying from
malnutrition and infectious diseases caused by the lack of food, medicine,
hard currency, and spare parts needed to repair essential life-supporting
systems.
More than eighty years ago, Gibran Khalil Gibran wrote of the famine in
Lebanon in WWI. Unfortunately, today his words apply again to the famine
imposed upon Iraq.
"The death of my people is a silent
accusation;
it is a crime conceived by the heads of the unseen serpents...They died
silently, for humanity had closed its ears to their cry. ... What can be
done for those who are dying? Our lamentations will not satisfy their
hunger, and our tears will not quench their thirst; what can we do to save
them from between the iron paws of hunger? My brother, the kindness which
compels you to give apart of your life to any human who is in the shadow
of losing his life is the only virtue which makes you worthy of the light
of day and the peace of night."
