Iraq: The Human Cost of History

The people of Iraq have suffered for more than a decade from the most severe sanctions ever imposed on any nation in history. United Nations' sanctions against Iraq began in August 1990, as an attempt to force Iraq out of Kuwait. This book reveals why the sanctions regime has failed in its most basic aims, and ask serious questions about the real motivations of the powers involved. It explains how, if sanctions had been carefully applied, they could have worked. The massive bombing campaign of 1991destroyed Iraq's social infrastructure. Sanctions should have been modified to meet the post-Gulf War environment. Also, the US and the UK refused to agree that sanctions would be lifted if Iraq complied - left with little incentive to disarm, it is not surprising that Saddam Hussein did not co-operate. Why did the sanctions continue if they did not fulfil their avowed purpose? The contributors argue that the real motives of the US and the UK were much more complex: instead of revolving around violations of human rights, terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation, sanctions may have had more to do with political powerbroking and the danger that Iraq and Iran presented to US hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East. Assessing these and other related questions, the contributors put forward the idea that the current sanctions against Iraq are illegal under international law.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Iraqi Question In World Politics by Tareq Ismael 1. Iraq, The United States, And International Law: Beyond The Sanctions by Richard Falk 2. Power, Propaganda And Indifference: An Explanation Of The Maintenance Of Economic Sanctions On Iraq Despite Their Human Cost by Eric Herring 3. British Policy Towards Economic Sanctions On Iraq, 1990-2002 by Milan Rai 4. Oil, Sanctions, Debt And The Future by Abbas Alnasrawi 5. Safeguarding 'Our' American Children By Saving 'Their' Iraqi Children: Gandhian Transformation Of The CIA’s Genocide Planning, Assessment, And Cover-Up Documents by Thomas J. Nagy 6. The U.S. Obsession With Iraq And The Triumph Of Militarism by Stephen Zunes 7. Not Quite An Arab Prussia: Revisiting Some Myths On Iraqi Exceptionalism by Isam Al Khafaji Index

About the Author :
Tareq Y. Ismael is Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, Canada and President of the International Centre for Contemporary Middle East Studies at Eastern Mediterranean University. His most recent works include Middle Cultural Cleansing in Iraq (Pluto, 2009), The Iraqi Predicament (Pluto, 2004) and Iraq (Pluto, 2003). William W. Haddad is Professor and Chair of the Department of History, California State University, Fullerton. For over a decade, he was closely associated with Arab Studies Quarterly, serving as Editor-in-Chief from 1995-1998. He is co-editor of Iraq (Pluto Press, 2003).

Review :
The contributors to this volume include academics and human rights campaigners. they reveal why the sanctions regime failed in its most basis aims, and ask serious questions about the real motivations of the powers involved, notably the UK and US. -- Oxfam This book is a devastating critique of the sanctions regime imposed by the United Nations on Iraq in 1990. -- Journal of Commonwealth Lawyers' Association