The Scourging of Iraq: Sanctions, Law, and Natural Justice
By Geoff Simons. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. 304 pp., $45.
In the wake of the November crisis over the UN weapons inspection program in Iraq and the American media's pro-administration coverage of it, Geoff Simons' The Scourging of Iraq is a welcome attempt to make sense of United States-United Nations-Iraqi issues. The author's discussion of the Gulf War, the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq, and the plight of the Iraqi people is a fact-filled yet engaging analysis that clarifies issues often obscured by rhetoric from Saddam Hussein and the West alike.
Simons claims that United States-driven UN policy toward Iraq since the war has been as harsh as--if not harsher than--Hussein's own policies. In criticizing United States-UN policy, Simons intends not to play the game of demonization but instead create an understanding of the Iraqi people's dilemma: they are repressed domestically, unable to oust Saddam, and internationally, they are unable to be re-humanized or viewed empathetically by the West. Iraqis are simply powerless, Simons argues, and if they hate Americans, it is because Hussein's anti-American propaganda diverts attention from his political and economic failures. Also, the loss of 158,000 Iraqis--half of whom were women and children--in the Gulf War and its immediate aftermath (compared with 137 Americans) has left open wounds among Iraqis. (Official Iraqi casualties have never been released by the United States or Iraq; the estimate of 158,000 is by a United States Census Bureau demographer who, Simons points out, was almost fired for publishing her findings.)
Simons' central point is that United States- shaped UN sanctions have long ceased to be a means of punishing Hussein and have instead become a tool for "targeting the powerless," as he puts it. As early as 1993, for example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program reported, to no avail, that the sanctions on Iraq were "pushing the bulk of the Iraqi population into destitution"--evidenced by growing poverty, hunger, and unemployment since 1991. Simons is infuriated by what he characterizes as the moral hypocrisy of United States and UN policy toward Iraq, but he meticulously documents events surrounding the sanctions in order to let the hypocrisy speak for itself.
Simons' focus leads him not to address issues such as the question of how Iraqis can liberate themselves from Hussein and from the Western wrath he provokes. The book offers almost no discussion of Iraqis' efforts to change their state or protest Saddam's love of conflict. Simons is evidently convinced that the present power structure inside and outside Iraq is unshakable, and that only the West can alter it.
A scourged Iraq is an unpopular image, but Simons presents it lucidly and makes a convincing case for easing sanctions, which have been in place for eight years. Some may find his passionate attack on the legitimacy of the sanctions off-putting, but this should not distract from his central focus on their invidious impact.
Rachel Roberts
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