"I love the work and if I die, know that I'm doing precisely what I want to be doing."-- Fern Holland,
Michael Yon changed my mind about the war in Iraq, by making me understand it for the first time.
From the very beginning I was against the war. I thought it would be a disaster, another Vietnam. And until I had the privilege of working on this book with Michael I was always for immediate pull-out: why should one more American die for a doomed effort?
Michael--who is as close to totally non-political as anyone I know--showed me two things. First, because I judged by Vietnam, the war of my youth, I had radically underestimated what American soldiers could do. I knew they could blow away any regular opponent on any battlefield. But wage a counterinsurgency against an enemy with broad support in the population? Win the "hearts and minds," to use the Vietnam era phrase that now can be used only ironically? That was asking too much, I thought.
I was 100 percent wrong. Today's American soldiers excel at counterinsurgency, because they excel at the most important thing: winning over the people by inspiring them with their own courage and compassion, discipline and determination. Reading this book is like watching the movie Apocalypse Now, but in an alternate universe in which the opposite always happens. Every time our soldiers get into an incredibly tense situation with some Iraqis who might be friends or might be enemies or murderers, some situation in which what's needed is amazing calm and courage to keep things from blowing up and ending in a blood bath, our guys pull it off!
Just wait until you read the Chapter "High Noon" (my favorite), the story of the American soldiers who have to arrest a corrupt but politically popular Iraqi police chief we had put in office in the first place because he had been a real hero in fighting the terrorists. He had to be removed by Americans to show the Iraqis we really did believe in the rule of law. The whole thing could have blown up into a one-town civil war with hundreds dead on both sides. Won't tell you how it ends, but you will be amazed and very proud.
The other thing Michael helped me understand is the difference between terrorists we just have to kill (often foreigners, or local criminals) and local insurgents we should have been working with all along. For almost five years I could not tell from watching the news--and certainly not from listening to the Administration--who the enemy was, what they wanted or why they were fighting. Not surprisingly it turns out that understanding the various people we were fighting--some of whom have since become great allies--was the key to winning the war, which we are now clearly doing.
I am convinced that everything I once thought about the war was wrong. The truth is we are doing a great thing in Iraq, most of the Iraqi people really do want to be a united democratic nation and already consider America their greatest friend and ally. It would be a crime to turn tail now and abandon them now.
I owe all that to Michael's book, which is why I believe publishing Moment of Truth in Iraq may be the best thing I have ever done for my country.
The mission of the Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project (IARP) is to promote reconciliation between the people of the United States and Iraq in response to the devastation affecting Iraqi families, society, and culture. IARP recognizes the common humanity of the people of Iraq and the people of the United States.
Our Goals:
1. Raise consciousness in the American public about the well-being of average Iraqis, their daily lives, and their culture.
2. Provide material support to Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT).
3. Build bridges between the people of both countries
In July of 2007, IARP was established as a non-profit organization. It is currently under the fiscal sponsorship of Springboard for the Arts, a 501 (c)3 corporation. IARP was founded as grassroots, citizen-based support, in the United States, for MPT in Iraq.
Along with the Iraq Art Project, Letters for Peace, Water for Peace, and the Sister City Project, IARP provides financial support to MPT for their work in Iraq. IARP is designed for your participation and offers you ways to engage with the people of Iraq.
To request a copy of our brochure, contact us, call 952.545.9981, or download here.
How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply
by Thomas J. Nagy
Over the last two years, I've discovered documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway.
The primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities" is dated January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying clean water to its citizens.
"Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals to purify its water supply, most of which is heavily mineralized and frequently brackish to saline," the document states.
"With no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease."
The document goes into great technical detail about the sources and quality of Iraq's water supply. The quality of untreated water "generally is poor," and drinking such water "could result in diarrhea," the document says.
It notes that Iraq's rivers "contain biological materials, pollutants, and are laden with bacteria. Unless the water is purified with chlorine, epidemics of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid could occur."
The document notes that the importation of chlorine "has been embargoed" by sanctions. "Recent reports indicate the chlorine supply is critically low."
Food and medicine will also be affected, the document states. "Food processing, electronic, and, particularly, pharmaceutical plants require extremely pure water that is free from biological contaminants," it says.
In cold language, the document spells out what is in store: "Iraq will suffer increasing shortages of purified water because of the lack of required chemicals and desalination membranes. Incidences of disease, including possible epidemics, will become probable unless the population were careful to boil water."
The document gives a timetable for the destruction of Iraq's water supplies. "Iraq's overall water treatment capability will suffer a slow decline, rather than a precipitous halt," it says.
"Although Iraq is already experiencing a loss of water treatment capability, it probably will take at least six months (to June 1991) before the system is fully degraded."
Other DIA documents confirm the Pentagon's monitoring of the degradation of Iraq's water supply:
As these documents illustrate, the United States knew sanctions had the capacity to devastate the water treatment system of Iraq. It knew what the consequences would be: increased outbreaks of disease and high rates of child mortality.
And it was more concerned about the public relations nightmare for Washington than the actual nightmare that the sanctions created for innocent Iraqis.
The Geneva Convention is absolutely clear. In a 1979 protocol relating to the "protection of victims of international armed conflicts," Article 54, it states:
"It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive."
But that is precisely what the U.S. government did, with malice aforethought.
It "destroyed, removed, or rendered useless" Iraq's "drinking water installations and supplies." The sanctions, imposed for a decade largely at the insistence of the United States, constitute a violation of the Geneva Convention.
They amount to a systematic effort to, in the DIA's own words, "fully degrade" Iraq's water sources.
The Iraq Water Project (IWP) is a project of Veterans for Peace, Inc. (VFP), a national veterans Peace & Justice organization based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Our principal partner for IWP's major water facility reconstruction projects was Life for Relief & Development, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, and dedicated to alleviating human suffering in Iraq and many other parts of the world.
Recently, we are working with Muslim Peacemaker Teams, Iraq, in providing water filtration units, helping supply clean water for schools, hospitals, and the Iraqi people.
Veterans For Peace Asks For Your Contribution to Continue our Clean Water Projects in Iraq!
Please help and give a tax deductible donation online
Or send a check made out to VFP-Iraq Water Project to:
Veterans for Peace
- Iraq Water Project -
216 South Meramec Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63105
_________
Special Report by Yusha (formerly Tom) Sager
Memorial Day, May 30, 2005
_________
Prior to the March 2003 US invasion, the Iraq Water Project sent three teams of veterans to Iraq who paid their own expenses and worked alongside the Iraqi laborers repairing water treatment plants.
We were then proud to announce that thanks to the IWP six water treatment plants in different cities and provinces of Iraq were once again sending clean drinking water to more than 85.000 people. Read a post-invasion report by our IWP Project Coordinator sent from Iraq in August 2003.
Tribute to Edilith Eckhart, Co-Founder, Iraq Water Project
In 1999, responding to the continuing crisis in Iraq due to the first Gulf War and the devastating, comprehensive sanctions imposed by the United Nations, Veterans for Peace members in the United States created the Iraq Water Project.
The second, but equally important goal of the original IWP was to educate the American people about the devastating effects a decade of sanctions had on the average citizens of Iraq and to force an end to these sanctions against Iraq.
The sanctions have been lifted, not as we hoped, through education and pressure on the US government, but as a byproduct of US President George W. Bush’s unprovoked attack on that nation.
The sanctions have been lifted because the War on Iraq completed the desolation of the infrastructure, a foreseeable consequence that was completely ignored in prewar planning. The US made sure the oil was flowing, but did nothing to prepare for the chaos that comes after the violent fall of a government.
Now it is not only the vast rural areas that are without safe drinking water, but the big cities as well. The US government and its Iraqi understudy have been unable to even get the lights reliably on, feed the hungry or provide basic health care.
Before this latest war, and in calamitous consequence of earlier US policy, Iraq was a social and environmental disaster in the making. Now it is a social and environmental disaster, assembled and delivered.
A major readjustment of the project’s approach was clearly necessitated by the advent of the United States invasion and occupation. The project goal of demonstrating to Americans the pernicious consequences of our government’s Iraq policy remains, however, as important as ever. But the unabating chaos that this war brought, and the vastly heightened danger to personnel engaged in reconstruction are obstacles not lightly dismissed.
In the fall of 2006 IWP decided to make a tactical change in our campaign to help Iraqis. In place of water plant rebuilds which benefit specific but limited urban and rural populations, we switched over to a more diffuse approach, whereby we send small and relatively inexpensive sterilizer units to public and private institutions all over Iraq.
This new direction offers the advantage of a wider exposure to Iraq's people while at the same time removing the pressure of funding deadline obligations. We send the units at the rate that donations and grants come in.
As well, IWP has entered an alliance with Michigan Peaceworks (Ann Arbor) and Muslin Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. We are each doing the same work and cooperation makes us all stronger. Photographs on this homepage show some of this effort. Click on the What's New section for further explanations.
Thank you for your interest in the Iraq Water Project.
http://www.iraqwaterproject.org/
The mission of the Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq (INOC) is to join together and to act out of the teachings of our faith traditions to end the economic sanctions and war against the people of Iraq in a nonviolent manner.
Given the war in 2003, nothing has occurred which has lessened INOC's concerns for the 24 million people of Iraq. INOC will work towards:
a. Having humanitarian needs met, e.g. water, electricity, and food.
b. Establishment of a legitimate government respectful of human rights.
c. Education of Americans on the health effects of wars and the unacceptability of bombing civilian infrastructure and economic sanctions.
d. Role for U.N. including meeting humanitarian needs and formation of a government.
INOC was formed in February 1999 when former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday and Middle East foreign affairs expert Phyllis Bennis gave presentations in Seattle to faith group leaders. In January 2000, INOC formally became a program unit of the Church Council of Greater Seattle.
While INOC is related to a Christian organization, it is interfaith in that participants are from the Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist faiths, as well as Catholic and Protestant.
Non-religious participants are also welcome. INOC is a member of the Seattle International Human Rights Coalition and the National Network to End the War Against Iraq.
Some participants in INOC with invited speaker Hans von Sponeck (2001).
CCPI is a Seattle-based public awareness campaign and part of a nationwide and worldwide movement dedicated to ending the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by members of the United Nations Security Council.
The sanctions were an embargo on all trade, except for humanitarian shipments specifically approved by the Security Council, and were initiated in 1990.
According to UNICEF, they have contributed to the deaths of half a million children under-five and continue to contribute to 'excess' deaths of over 5,000 children per month.
The sanctions have been widely condemned as a form of warfare, a 'weapon of mass destruction', directed against the civilian population.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in May 2003, U.N. sanctions were lifted by the Security Council; but economic sanctions against Iraq remain in force under U.S. law. *
Updated on November 12, 2003.
