Sir, - It is with a deep sense of disgust, shame and sadness I write to you on the tenth anniversary of the UN sanctions led by the United States and Britain against the people of Iraq. In those 10 years, 1.5 million Iraqis, over half of them children under the age of five, have died as a direct result of the sanctions and the continuing bombing attacks. Infant mortality, which had fallen in the period before the Gulf War, rose from 47 per 1,000 in 1984-89 to 108 per 1,000 in 1994-1999, as reported recently in The Lancet.
All would agree with the aims of the United Nations: "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women of nations large and small..." The UN has made a major contribution since the second World War to upholding those aims in many areas in the world. However, much disquiet exists within the UN following many failures, notably in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Sierra Leone. Amid growing international clamour for radical reform of the UN, there is the particular need to remove the power of veto by the five permanent members of the Security Council. This would avoid what Denis Halliday called recently in Dublin "the double standards of Security Council decisions...protecting their national interests without due regard to the Charter itself, human rights and other aspects of international law."
I call upon all doctors, nurses and others who worked in the Irish-managed Ibn al Bitar Hospital in Baghdad from 1983 to 1991 to lend their support to the Iraqi people by supporting the "Campaign to End the Iraq Sanctions - Ireland", at 125 Winter Garden, Pearse Street, Dublin 2. With an end to the sanctions and international support, perhaps the Iraqi nation may gather enough strength to rid itself of Saddam Hussein and his hated regime. -Yours, etc.,
Dr Brenda Moore-McCann Church Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin 6.