HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN IRAQ: The people of Iraq are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Damages of war, misguided government policies, and deprivations imposed by the current sanctions regime have led to a virtual collapse of the industrial, agricultural, health, and educational systems in Iraq, leaving most civilians caught in a downward spiral of poverty and desperation. Many lack adequate food and clean water. Diseases run rampant for lack of basic medicines. Child mortality rates are shocking. The personnel of our churches and counterpart agencies have witnessed the scale of this suffering firsthand. In light of this crisis, we regard the status quo as indefensible both morally and practically.

• What responsibility does the United States government have to respond to the humanitarian calamity that has engulfed the people of Iraq?
• Whatever other policy priorities may apply regarding Iraq, how can we act to save a whole generation of Iraqi children?

OIL-FOR-FOOD PROGRAM: One response to the humanitarian crisis is the Oil-For-Food Program. Operating under United Nations' supervision the program has been a commendable effort to provide food, medicine, and related supplies to Iraq's people. It was never intended to meet the overall needs of Iraq's people. Even with expanded sales of oil now permitted, it cannot meet basic needs much less enable the re-building of Iraq's infrastructure and civilian economy which alone can assure adequate nutrition and health standards. Merely extending the current Oil-For-Food program will mean continued victimization of a vulnerable people.

• How can the Oil-For-Food Program be radically transformed and expanded, allowing Iraq more fully to feed and care for its civilian population?
• What new arrangements may be necessary to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure, social services, educational systems, and health care capacities?

IRAQ'S WEAPONS: In recent years the government of Iraq has engaged in brutal attacks both against neighbor states and against its own people. The most dangerous aspect of this violent behavior has been the actual use of Weapons of Mass Destruction as well as a sustained effort to acquire an extensive and varied arsenal of such weapons. Iraq's potential to use again Weapons of Mass Destruction must be curbed and contained.

The UNSCOM inspection and monitoring regime was a pioneering multi-lateral effort to assure such restraint. Despite shortcomings as well as determined Iraqi evasion, it achieved considerable but not complete success. The December, l998 attack on Iraq makes any renewed presence by UNSCOM inside Iraq most unlikely.

• What new scheme for inspection and monitoring of Iraq's weapons programs can be devised that can secure entry into Iraq and sufficient compliance with its revitalized mandate? (Such a new scheme might have reduced range of on-site inspections in return for assuring long-term monitoring of key locations.)

The U.S. government should be less prominent in any new U.N. inspection regime. Will the U.S. agree to allow and enable a truly multi-lateral team of inspectors to take up the mandate? (The work of inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency provides one model.)

Reported misuse of UNSCOM by the United States to derive specific intelligence data apart from the arms inspection mandate (including possible guidance for staging direct attacks against Iraq) has gravely damaged not only UNSCOM but the goal of effective multi-lateral efforts at Peace-keeping and weapons restraint.

•  Will the United States refrain from such misuse of any future arms inspection regime?

REGIONAL DISARMAMENT: The effort to restrain Iraq's acquisition of Weapons of Mass Destruction should be pursued with equal emphasis upon regional disarmament. The cease-fire resolution at the end of the Gulf War (UNSC #687) makes explicit reference (in paragraph 14) to disarming Iraq as a step toward "the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons." Scant attention has been given to this commitment as the necessary context for disarming Iraq. Indeed, Iraq's determination to possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons must be seen in part as a response to the threat of such weapons held by others in the region.

• How and when will the United States government begin public discussion and energetic diplomatic pursuit of regional accords to monitor, reduce, and ultimately to eliminate ALL weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East and the Gulf?

The goal of regional disarmament involves sensitive issues affecting weapons of mass destruction in the region held by U.S. forces, by Israel, and potentially by other states - Iran? Syria? Egypt? Turkey? .....?

Negotiations on regional disarmament will be difficult and controversial but willingness to pursue them seriously would restore a perception of balance and fairness by the U.S. in dealing with such issues.

One crucial element in regional disarmament is to curb the flow of additional and high-tech weapons into the Gulf and the Middle East.

•  Will the United States take the lead in establishing moratoria on such arms transfers into the region and urge comparable restraint by Britain, France, Russia, and China?
• Will the United States also ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as a necessary step toward taking leadership in disarmament efforts?

THE UNITED NATIONS:  Following the Gulf War, the United Nations through the Security Council has endeavored to monitor and remove Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, maintained a sweeping economic embargo pending achievement of the disarmament goal, and, later, facilitated food and medical aid to Iraq. This combination of policies has now led to grid-lock within the Security Council on arms inspections and a mounting humanitarian crisis inside Iraq (as noted earlier). A new configuration of policies must be created.

• What fresh combination of policies and mechanisms under the United Nations can be devised that adequately monitors Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction but does not hold the civilian population hostage to ever-deeper suffering and deprivation?
• Can the impact of the sanctions regime be narrowed to focus upon the military and elite leadership in Iraq OR is it time to restructure the embargo fundamentally to allow Iraq greater economic and trade freedom while relying upon other means of inspection and monitoring to control Iraq's weapons programs?

ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES:  Too often the United States either strives to control the outcome of United Nations deliberations and Security Council votes or else ignores the U.N. and goes its own way, thus undermining respect for its leadership. Both the efforts at manipulation and the persistent unilateralism by the U.S. have the effect of weakening the United Nations and undercutting the capacity of the Security Council to gain respect and compliance with its peace and disarmament endeavors.

• Will the United States (and Britain) consistently respect the integrity and mandate of the United Nations and the Security Council to pursue multi-lateral responses to threats of aggression and refrain from "go-it-alone" behavior?

Most observers agree that there are no military solutions to the problems posed by Iraq. Further bombing is not likely to compel the government of Iraq to conform to U.S. or U.N. requirements or to abandon its quest for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The heavy attacks staged in December were launched without explicit approval by the U.N. Security Council, thus raising doubts not only about their utility but also about the legality of the raids.

At this time, the United States (along with Britain) is apparently locked into a policy of periodic military attacks against Iraq, while impeding forward movement within the Security Council on the matter of lifting the existing sanctions regime.

• How can creative ideas be given the possibility to germinate, given the current impasse among Security Council members?
• Does current U.S. policy provide sufficient political space for diplomatic resolution or significant improvement in conditions of life for the people of Iraq?

The Clinton Administration altered its policy goals toward Iraq at the time of the December raids. The U.S. now seeks the removal of Saddam Hussein - by whatever means - as a policy priority. The U.S. will also finance and help to train as well as arm opposition groups committed to overthrowing the current government of Iraq.

The policy and conduct of the United States toward Iraq - especially our readiness to resort to the use of armed force despite civilian casualties - has led to a widespread popular perception that the United States places less value on the lives of Arabs and Muslims, that we do not follow a consistent standard of respect for the rights and well-being of all peoples in the region.

• Will the United States behave in ways that lessen the growing anti-American passions in the region, that seek to calm rather than provoke the confrontation with extremist Islamic movements, and that witness to our respect for the value of all lives and the rights of all peoples in the Gulf and the Middle East?