Iraq blames sanctions for suffering

Associated Press ^ | December 5, 2002 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Iraq blames sanctions for suffering

12/05/2002

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Baghdad said Wednesday that Iraqis are suffering not from torture and other human-rights abuses at the hands of their own government, but from the effects of sanctions that it blames on Britain and the United States.

The comments were Iraq's first reaction to a 23-page report presented Monday by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, saying that the Iraqi people live in fear and that Saddam Hussein's regime was in breach of its international obligations.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has issued another "of his statements that are full of falsifications, accusations, fabrications and lies against Iraq, its people and leadership," am Iraqi Foreign Ministry statement said.

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"Blair this time spoke about human-rights matters in Iraq, and of course no one expected Blair to speak about what the criminal and immoral siege imposed on the Iraqi people for more than 12 years has done," the statement said, quoting an unidentified spokesman.

The British dossier includes intelligence material, firsthand accounts from Iraqi victims of torture and oppression, and reports by nongovernmental organizations.

Iraq says United Nations economic sanctions imposed as punishment for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, and it accuses the United States and Britain of working to keep the sanctions in place. The sanctions can be lifted only when the U.N. Security Council is satisfied that Iraq is no longer stockpiling weapons of mass destruction or the missiles to deliver them.

Weapons inspectors have been working in Iraq for a week under a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that Iraq surrender banned chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs. So far, the inspectors have reported that the Iraqis were generally cooperating.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/120502dnintiraqbritain.a6a86.html

[MeekOneGOP]

[SuziQ]

So what's new? Saddam has been saying this for years! He conveniently forgets that the millions upon millions used to build his new palaces could have been used to ease the suffering of 'his people'. If they're suffering, it is his own damn fault!