Major_Armstrong

Saddam's parades of dead babies are exposed as a cynical charade
(Filed: 25/05/2003)

UN sanctions did not kill the hundreds of infants displayed over the years - it was neglect by the former regime, Iraqi doctors in Baghdad tell Charlotte Edwardes


The "baby parades" were a staple of Saddam Hussein's propaganda machine for a decade. Convoys of taxis, with the tiny coffins of dead infants strapped to their roofs - allegedly killed by United Nations sanctions - were driven through the streets of Baghdad, past crowds of women screaming anti-Western slogans.

The moving scenes were often filmed by visiting television crews and provided valuable ammunition to anti-sanctions activists such as George Galloway, the Labour MP, who blamed Western governments for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.

But The Telegraph can reveal that it was all a cynical charade. Iraqi doctors say they were told to collect dead babies who had died prematurely or from natural causes and to store them in cardboard boxes in refrigerated morgues for up to four weeks - until they had sufficient corpses for a parade.

Many of the children died, they say, as a result of the Iraqi government's own neglect as it lavished funds on military programmes and Saddam's palaces in the knowledge that it could blame sanctions for the lack of medicines and equipment in hospitals and clinics.

"We were not allowed to return the babies to their mothers for immediate burial, as is the Muslim tradition, but told they must be kept for what became known as 'the taxi parade'," said Dr Hussein al-Douri, the deputy director of the Ibn al-Baladi hospital in Saddam City, a Shia district in eastern Baghdad.

"The mothers would be hysterical and sometimes threaten to kill us, but we knew that the real threat was from the government."

Asked what would have happened if he had disobeyed the orders, Dr al-Douri replied: "They would have killed our families. This was an important event for the propaganda campaign."

Dr al-Douri, who has worked for 10 years as a paediatrician, said the parades were orchestrated by officials from the ministries of health, information and intelligence.

He said: "All 10 hospitals in Baghdad were involved in this and the quota for the parade was between 25 and 30 babies a month, which they would say had died in one day.

"We had to tell the babies' families that it was a government order and that they would be paid to keep quiet. The reward was sometimes in money, the equivalent of $10 per baby, or in food: rice, sugar and oil."

The government then ordered members of the Iraqi Women's Federation, an organisation funded by the regime, to line the streets of Baghdad and wail and beat themselves in mock grief.

"They portrayed an image of mothers in mourning for their recently dead children," he said. "It was too dangerous not to follow the orders. We were very afraid. The families were afraid, too."

Dr al-Douri showed The Telegraph the morgue where babies' bodies would be stored in cardboard boxes before being transferred to wooden coffins carrying their names and sometimes photographs.

Dr Amer Abdul al-Jalil, the deputy resident at the hospital, said: "sanctions did not kill these children - Saddam killed them. The internal sanctions by the Saddam regime were very effective. Those who died prematurely usually died because their mothers lived in impoverished areas neglected by the government.

"The mortality rate was higher in areas such as Saddam City because there was no sewerage system. Infectious diseases were rampant.

"Over the past 10 years, the government in Iraq poured money into the military and the construction of palaces for Saddam to the detriment of the health sector. Those babies or small children who died because they could not access the right drugs, died because Saddam's government failed to distribute the drugs. The poorer areas were most vulnerable."

He added: "We feel terrible that this happened, but we were living under a regime and we had to keep silent. What could we do?"


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../25/wirq25.xml

Major_Armstrong

Iraq to investigate UN oil-for-food programme
Reuters, 03.23.04, 10:31 AM ET


By Alistair Lyon

BAGHDAD, March 23 (Reuters) - Iraq's Governing Council decided on Tuesday to launch a formal inquiry into alleged corruption in the now-defunct U.N.-administered oil-for-food programme, a spokesman for council member Ahmad Chalabi said.

"Saddam Hussein was able to loot billions of (dollars of) Iraqi people's money under the supervision of the United Nations," spokesman Entifadh Qanbar told a news conference.

He said the council would hire international legal and accountancy firms to help the inquiry investigate "all personalities, companies, families, leaders, politicians all over the world who received these bribes".

Media reports have alleged that government officials, foreign firms and a senior U.N. official were among those who profited illegally from the humanitarian programme.

Chalabi heads the U.S.-backed council's finance committee, which has been making preliminary investigations.

The United Nations has already begun an in-house probe of its staff and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week asked members of the Security Council for their support in a second independent, high-level inquiry into the allegations.

Annan has been under pressure to conduct an inquiry from U.S. officials searching for Saddam's suspected hidden assets.

One name on a published list was Benon Sevan, who ran the U.N. programme that began in December 1996 and ended a year ago. Oil companies chosen by Iraq put money into a U.N. escrow account out of which suppliers of civilian goods were paid to ease the impact of 1991 Gulf War trade sanctions on Iraqis.

Sevan has denied the allegations and U.N. officials have said they have not been given any documents.

Annan, in his letter to Security Council members on Friday, said the media allegations must be addressed "to bring to light the truth and prevent an erosion of trust and hope that the international community has invested in the organisation".

U.N. officials say any probe would need to look at foreign companies, suppliers, middle men who bought the oil and the French bank BNP-Paribas, which handled the U.N.-Iraq account.

The oil-for-food programme handled more than $65 billion in funds for food, medicine and other civilian goods. It was shut down last year after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam.

The U.S. General Accounting Office, an interagency body headed by the Treasury, is trying to locate and seize $10 billion to $40 billion in estimated hidden Iraqi assets.

The GAO said in a report last week that Saddam acquired $5.7 billion of these assets from the proceeds of oil smuggled through Syria, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere.

Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service

http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswi...tr1308551.html

Confed999

Sad so many don't see it that way. I hope the people that helped Saddam do these things are caught and charged...

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Electric Hermit

With that amount of money slopping around it would be remarkable if there was no corruption. But the fact of the matter is that, despite the White House inspired media witch-hunt against the UN, no actual evidence of wrong-doing has been forthcoming. It is all rumour and gossip and hearsay and innuendo.

The man who started the whole thing is Claude Hankes-Drielsma -- a rather dubious character and close ally of the Bush regime's former favourite to replace Saddam Hussein as dictator, Ahmed Chalabi. On 27 May, 2004 Hankes-Drielsma was interviewed for the BBC by Tim Sebastian. From the outset it is clear that there is nothing whatever to substantiate the allegations that have been made against the UN. Which is not to say there won't be when the official investigation is concluded. But the man who is making the allegations is not someone I would trust. Judge for yourself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/pr...elsma27may.ram

Electric Hermit

Anything Saddam can do, the Bush regime and its friends can do better.

Suffer the Little Children
Every big media event needs what journalists and flacks alike refer to as "the hook." An ideal hook becomes the central element of a story that makes it newsworthy, evokes a strong emotional response, and sticks in the memory. In the case of the Gulf War, the "hook" was invented by Hill & Knowlton. In style, substance and mode of delivery, it bore an uncanny resemblance to England's World War I hearings that accused German soldiers of killing babies.

On October 10, 1990, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill which provided the first opportunity for formal presentations of Iraqi human rights violations. Outwardly, the hearing resembled an official congressional proceeding, but appearances were deceiving. In reality, the Human Rights Caucus, chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, was simply an association of politicians. Lantos and Porter were also co-chairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity that occupied free office space valued at $3,000 a year in Hill & Knowlton's Washington, DC office. Notwithstanding its congressional trappings, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus served as another Hill & Knowlton front group, which - like all front groups - used a noble-sounding name to disguise its true purpose.

Only a few astute observers noticed the hypocrisy in Hill & Knowlton's use of the term "human rights." One of those observers was John MacArthur, author of The Second Front, which remains the best book written about the manipulation of the news media during the Gulf War. In the fall of 1990, MacArthur reported, Hill & Knowlton's Washington switchboard was simultaneously fielding calls for the Human Rights Foundation and for "government representatives of Indonesia, another H&K client. Like H&K client Turkey, Indonesia is a practitioner of naked aggression, having seized . . . the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. Since the annexation of East Timor, the Indonesian government has killed, by conservative estimate, about 100,000 inhabitants of the region."

MacArthur also noticed another telling detail about the October 1990 hearings: "The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of congress, and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accouterments that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied. ... Lying under oath in front of a congressional committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to a caucus is merely public relations."

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of N****ah. According to the Caucus, N****ah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," N****ah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."

Three months passed between N****ah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that N****ah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached N****ah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.
If N****ah's outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action. Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush's Gulf policy. As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush's January 15 deadline.85 On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush's favor.

Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm N****ah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty International, which had fallen for the story, was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction. N****ah herself was unavailable for comment. "This is the first allegation I've had that she was the ambassador's daughter," said Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. "Yes, I think people . . . were entitled to know the source of her testimony." When journalists for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question N****ah about her story, the ambassador angrily refused.

How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf

Ray

I don't know what he has said since I couldn't watch the programme, nor could I see the video as my speakers have conked out.

The only part which may sound jarring is 'an adviser to Ahmed Chalabi'. It is true that Chalabi has given the word 'corrupt' a new dimension; and has also squealed on the US by revealing things about the US to Iran. Therefore, I don't trust this Quisling and turncoat Chalabi.

However,I wonder if the connection can mean that what Claude Hankes-Drielsma cannot be taken for what its worth.

Electric,

Post the stuff and then we can judge. Or else, it is no go.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Electric Hermit

I did post "the stuff". The stuff consists of a TV interview. No transcript is available. And a transcript would not do justice to the material in any case.

Confed999

You're saying they purposely killed hundreds of thousands of innocents? Made rape, torture and murder policy?

Liberation shouldn't wait any longer than it has too, regardless of the location.

Electric Hermit

That may well be what you read. But it bears no relation whatever to what I wrote.

Electric Hermit

"Liberation" is one of those fine-sounding words which, like "democracy" and "freedom" are often used in a purely talismanic sense. Particularly -- though by no means exclusively -- by Americans. Such words are too often chanted in ritualistic fashion with little or no regard for the context in which they are being applied, far less the deeper connotations of the terms or the concepts and principles which they ideally encapsulate.

They are used in much the same way as the shaman uses incantations to ward of evil spirits. Or they are used in a manner which owes more to the rhetoric of the advertising industry than the language of human enlightenment.

Or, as is the case with the Bush regime and its devotees, words like "democracy", "freedom" and "liberation" are stripped of all noble sentiment to become no more than a war-cry. A tribal chant intended to invoke and channel the dark spirit of violent aggression while completely by-passing the intellect.

Confed999

Exactly...

As to your other post... whatever... as I am not a "Bush devotee" I guess it doesn't apply to me. But, I guess it would have been a good thing, if someone who called himself a liberal had said it...

Electric Hermit

Can't argue with that. If everything was different, nothing would be the same.

Is this what passes for philosophy in the Bush War Cult?

ChrisF202

The people who helped him do these horrible acts are the UN, they wont be caught anytime soon ... unless you have the NYPD storm the UN Building and arrest them for not paying the traffic tickets they get and then charge them for helping Saddam.

Confed999

Are you trying to attack me? Why do you say I'm "in the Bush War Cult"? I would have supported the removal of Saddam by anyone.
Please read the rules for posting on this board @ http://www.militaryaffairsboard.com/...ead.php?t=2232

Electric Hermit

If I was attacking you, there would be no mistaking the fact. If you are not part of of the Bush War Cult, there is no reason for you to get your panties in a predicament.