Present Iraq conflict is resumption of 1990

THE EDITOR: I would like to humbly make a few comments on a letter published in the Newsday on 28/03/2003 by Haji Ralph D Khan.

America has not declared war on Iraq. The present conflict is a resumption of hostilities that began in 1990 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. At the cease-fire following the first war the Saddam regime agreed to certain disarmament conditions. The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq to force compliance with this agreement. The fact that the sanctions are still in place 12 years later implies that the United Nations have not been convinced that the Saddam regime has fulfilled their obligations under the cease-fire agreement. Violation of a cease-fire agreement is the resumption of war. As the major contributors to obtaining the cease-fire agreement the British and the Americans have every right to enforce its compliance.

It is not correct to say that the current action is a violation of sovereignty. It is equally incorrect to assert that ‘America’ has crippled the country. At any point over the last 12 years the regime could have had the sanctions lifted, simply by doing what it had agreed to do. Clearly the Saddam regime had a greater interest in protecting their weapons programme than in feeding the people of Iraq. There is further dishonesty in ‘war for oil’ argument. Nothing could have stopped the United States from occupying Iraq during the last war. They could have made a deal with Saddam to get as much oil as they wanted, at any price they wanted. All they needed to do was to supply Saddam with arms, at a profit, and look the other way, as he conquered all the countries of the Middle East. The no fly zones were established to prevent the regime from butchering Iraqi civilians. Iraqi civilians do live in the no fly zones so again it is wrong to claim that they do not have access to the zones.

As to the weapons inspectors, there is at least one standard, against which the jobs they were doing were less than commendable. This is the standard set by the United Nations resolutions. I would have like to deal with the ‘might is right’ assertion but the writer provided no indications as to the meaning of ‘right’. I guess any discussion of rights would be very embarrassing to the writer’s position, as he might have to tell us what right the Saddam regime has to govern Iraq.

KIRK RAMNANAN
Trincity