Letter from Baghdad
Iraq daily Newspaper:
This is an ancient people with a civilization 7000 years old (Iraqis point out that the United States is barely 300 years old), an economy that until the 1980s was a model for the entire Middle East, and with a free health service that was ahead of the National Health Service in the UK. The streets are now rubble-strewn, most of the middle class have left, and people are selling their household goods on street corners in order to survive.
Twelve years of sanctions, which were intended to make the Iraqi people revolt against their leadership, have had the opposite effect. Sanctions have simply disabled Iraqi people through hunger and the wholesale disintegration of their infrastructure.
They feel defiance towards Bush and Blair, which their leader can constantly reinforce, since their sense of honor is continuously provoked. The humiliation is very deep and very dangerous.
In these circumstances a war and subsequent occupation of Iraq will no doubt fuel the fires of hatred and terror, and consequently the risk of attacks on the West.
Partial quote taken from www.transnational.org/
- Margarita Papandreou, former First Lady of Greece
- Scilla Elworthy, Director, Oxford Research Group, UK
- Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq
- Christian Harleman, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden
- Jan Oberg, Director, the Transnational Foundation, Sweden
- Zeynab Oral, Winpeace and Peace Initiative, Turkey
- Omaima Rawas, peace activist and Vice President of the Syrian Arabic League, Syria
- Fotini Sianou, President, Women’s Committee, European Trade Union Confederation