jd@homxc.att.com (John A Dinardo) (06/25/91)
The following letter was published in the July 1, 1991 issue of
THE NATION Magazine
72 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10011
by Eric Hoskins, M.D.:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Following her four-day tour of Baghdad, Erika Munk would have us
believe that conditions are near normal in postwar Iraq. How
extraordinary the difference between her perception and my own.
As medical coordinator of the Gulf Peace Team, an international,
nonpartisan group committed to nonviolent resistance to war,
I spent four weeks in Iraq after the war. Most recently,
I participated in a comprehensive health assessment mission to
fourteen major towns in north and south Iraq.
Till now, I have yet to see the "high-tech, low-gore" war the
author refers to in her article. What I did see was hundreds upon
hundreds of children weak with malnutrition and diarrhea, many of
them emaciated and dying, futilely awaiting the medicine that
doctors have not seen since last August. I saw a country that,
since the war began, had received, in total, less than one single
day's food requirements from the international community. I saw
water, sanitation, electricity, transportation and agriculture all
ground to a halt; I saw old men dying in front of emergency
departments for lack of medicine, and caesarean sections performed
with flies swarming over the incision because windows shattered by
bomb blasts cannot be replaced because of sanctions. In short,
I saw enough "gore" to last a lifetime.
Articles such as Munk's undermine efforts by those of us who are
trying to impress upon the international community that the war
against Iraqi civilians IS CONTINUING. Disease, malnutrition and
suffering exist on a scale never before seen in that country.
Perhaps death by cholera and starvation is not as "glamorous" as
a Cruise missile destroying a civilian air-raid shelter. However,
the victims are equally as dead, and we must now, as then, accept
much of the responsibility.
To suggest that Iraqi citizens (including more than seven million
children) do not require our help is not only blind, it is
disturbingly cruel. It is time now to dispense with the finger-
pointing. We can no longer pretend "not to know" the scale of the
calamity. We must focus on humanitarian need, relieve the suffering
and mend the wounds.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I hope you will save this report and disseminate it to anyone
whom you think might care enough (e.g. leaders of religious
congregations, senior citizens groups, parent/teacher associations,
scouting, etc.) to contact their Congressperson and insist that
our government render life-saving assistance from the people of
the United States to the ravaged and imperiled people of Iraq.
John DiNardo