Economic Sanctions In Iraq Essay Research Paper

Economic Sanctions In Iraq Essay, Research Paper

IRAQ CONFLICT:

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS

From all of the turmoil in the Persian Gulf, the most controversial issue is certainly the economic sanctions imposed upon Iraq. These sanctions, constructed by the United States and supported by the United Nations, were meant to target Saddam Hussein and his regimes, but they have had tremendous and terrible effects on the civilian population of the country. Although their purposes were originally sound and honorable, the sanctions that were imposed upon Iraq have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths throughout that nation, and their legitimacy and necessity are a worldwide topic of speculation. A change is regulation is far past due. The United States and United Nations must revamp their policies to save the lives of the remaining Iraqi citizens and to more exclusively target the Iraqi government, if they will not lift the current sanctions completely.

In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran; the Iran-Iraq war began. At this time, the United States (US) was allied with Iraq. This was not an alliance that revealed the feelings the US had about Iraq, but rather about Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran controlled a rapidly-growing military force, and although the US had no reason to try to squelch this power, the Iraqi invasion served as the perfect opportunity to exercise a tactic which would be later titled “dual containment”. The strategy of dual containment entails siding with one of two opponents to prolong a conflict they have with each other, of which the home country is not a main part of. This keeps both sides occupied with each other, and at the end of the conflict, both nations would be substantially weaker, leaving the home country, in this case the US, much at ease.

The war ended in 1988, with Iraq as the victor. Iraq immediately was on the move again, targeting Kuwait for invasion. But this time they would not have US support, because the Kuwaiti army was a small fraction of the military power that Saddam Hussein controlled, not to mention that the primary objective (sack and pillage) was nothing that the US wanted to be a part of. To the contrary, the US immediately sided with Kuwait, and warned Hussein that there would be severe consequences if he did not withdraw his troops. Now, Iraq was in a tricky position. Because the US and other European allies were the main source of Baghdad’s arms, technology, weapons and seed stock – in other words Baghdad’s power (Bennis 2) – Hussein was faced with a big decision to make. Hussein’s hunger for Kuwait’s outweighed his fear of losing the US as an ally and gaining them as an adversary, and he continued his invasion.

While the US military’s physical presence held the Iraqi military partly at bay, the political leaders were hard at work in Washington. In 1990, The United Nations (UN) Security Council made public a trade embargo, which the US came up with and that the UN deemed a good plan. The restrictions on Iraqi trade were meant to reduce the quality of life in Iraq, and hopefully cause the nation’s public to overthrow Hussein.

The embargo that the UN Security Council passed in 1990 froze all exports and almost all imports. The sale of oil was forbidden, and all import exchanges with Iraq were suspended as well. Even medicine and food imports were prohibited at the start of the sanctions, but were eventually allowed. The sanctions were set in place only a few days after Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait, and they were declared at their introduction to be lifted when Hussein withdrew his forces from Kuwait.

Operation Desert Storm opened in January of 1991. The US, under the authorization of president Bush, sent thousands of troops over to the Persian Gulf to stand in the way of any and all Iraqi soldiers in the region of Kuwait. By land, air and sea the bullets flew, the missiles screamed and the bombs dropped for three months – all the while the economic sanctions were in effect. In April of the same year, a cease-fire was ordered by the UN via Resolution 687, but this bill also served the Iraqi government rigorous conditions to meet (Bennis 3).

The post-April sanctions regime was centered on Iraq’s productions of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). The same economic sanctions were to remain in effect until the time that the Iraqi government complied with the “prohibition on WMD programs” (Bennis 3).

For the next seven years, the US kept close watch over Iraq. Iraqi research and production sites (where WMDs could have been and were once constructed) were under constant surveillance via thorough inspections by the US military. These arrangements went on, not too smoothly but by and large successfully. The “Oil-for-Food” program was enacted in 1996 (suggested in 1991), after Hussein finally decided to cooperate. This plan is titled quite well, as it entails the trading of oil for food. Iraq was allowed to export 5.3 billion per year in oil for the purposes of food only.

Though there was much complaining from Hussein, the same policies continued. The only change in procedure was the “Oil-for-Food” program – until 1998. It was at this time that Hussein refused to comply any longer, realizing that these inspections would go on forever and that the economy had not gotten any better since 1991 when Resolution 687 was imposed. As a warning, the US president, now Clinton, a