Health

Before 1990 and the imposition of sanctions, Iraq had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East. Now Unicef reports that at least 200 children are dying every day. They are dying from malnutrition, a lack of clean water and a lack of medical equipment and drugs to cure easily treatable diseases.

The current food ration, while nearly sufficient in calories, does not include enough vitamins, minerals and protein for health or growth. Malnutrition is now endemic amongst children. Diseases like kwashiorkor or marasmus are common in paediatric wards. Before 1990 the most important problem faced by Iraqi paediatricians was childhood obesity.

Many sewage treatment plants were targets of the air strikes during the war. Others have since disintegrated without equipment and spare parts from abroad. Chlorine and other water purification chemicals are now banned under 'dual use' considerations. As a result children are dying of what should be treatable diseases: simple diarrhoea, typhoid, dysentery and other water-borne illnesses.
 
The health system has disintegrated under sanctions. Hospitals are short staffed with doctors' and nurses' salaries insufficient to support them. Medical equipment like incubators, X-ray machines, and heart and lung machines are banned. The Security Council consistently blocks vaccines, analgesics and chemotherapy drugs, claiming they could be converted into chemical or biological weapons. Problems with transportation and refrigeration mean that even drugs that are allowed - like antibiotics - arrive only intermittently. Children with leukaemia, who can be saved with a full course of antibiotics, die, because one dose is missing.

Morphine, the most effective painkiller has been banned by the Security Council. At the same time the number of cases of cancer has risen sharply especially in southern Iraq.

After the Gulf war Iraq was not allowed the equipment to clean up its battlefields. More than 1 million rounds of weapons coated in depleted uranium (basically nuclear waste) were used by the allies during the war. As much as 300 tonnes of expended DU ammunition now lies scattered throughout Kuwait and Iraq.

Depleted uranium dust gets into the food chain via water and the soil. It can be ingested and inhaled. Prolonged internal exposure leads to respiratory diseases, breakdown of the immune system, leukaemia, lung cancer and bone cancer.

Cases of cancers in Iraq have risen tenfold since 1990. If cancers continue on the present upward curve, 44 per cent of the population could develop cancer within ten years.

Doug Rokke interview

Education

In 1990 Iraq had one of the highest rates of literacy in the world. The Iraqi government maintained its commitment to high quality education even during the Iran/Iraq war.

The government built schools, trained teachers, and distributed free textbooks and other school supplies.

Graduates from high school were accepted in universities throughout the world. Primary school children received milk, cod liver oil, hummus, fresh fruit and vitamin supplements on daily basis.

This system has been gradually destroyed over the last ten years. Iraqi teacher salaries have fallen from $400 to $3 per month. Teachers have to work a second job in order to earn enough to survive.

Delegations from Unicef, AFSC and other humanitarian organisations paint the same picture. In classrooms all over the country children sit on the floor during lessons. There are no desks or chairs even for teachers. There are no school supplies: books, pencils and paper are all banned under 'dual use' considerations. Each class shares a single dilapidated textbook

Agriculture

In 1999 74% of Iraq's arable land had salinity problems. This figure is increasing steadily with several thousand hectares of land going out of cultivation annually. This coupled with a lack of functioning agricultural equipment, fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and seeds has resulted in a massive decline in food production.

Livestock poultry and fish industries have suffered through severe shortages in spare parts for equipment and veterinary drugs. Bombing raids during and since the Gulf War killed many livestock. The bombardment affected conditions of surface soil, destroying plants and causing soil erosion.

Foot and mouth disease is now present throughout Iraq and is threatening to spread to neighbouring countries. The factory that was used to produce food and mouth disease vaccines was put out of commission by Unscom's biological weapons monitoring programme. Lack of refrigeration and transport facilities make it hard to distribute the vaccines that can be imported from abroad.