Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 21:08:52 EDT
Fairness and Accuracy In Reportig (FAIR) analysis of New York Times article. note in particular:
In a December 1998 letter to the London Independent, Michael Stone, the outgoing chief of the U.N.'s Multidisciplinary Observation Unit wrote that British officials, like their American counterparts, "frequently state that the Iraqi leadership have diverted supplies under this [humanitarian] program. This is a serious error. Some 150 international observers, travelling throughout Iraq, reported to the United Nations Multidisciplinary Observer Unit, of which I was the head. At no time was any diversion recorded. I made this clear in our reports to the UN Secretary General, and he reported in writing to the Security Council accordingly."
forwarded by Carolyn Scarr
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ACTION ALERT: "Paper of Record" Distorts Record on Iraq Sanctions September 13, 2000
On September 12, the New York Times ran a blatantly biased front-page article by U.N. correspondent Barbara Crossette about Iraq's decision not to allow two teams of United Nations experts into Iraq to assess the effects of the sanctions. This article is only the latest example of Crossette's alarming willingness to repeat increasingly shrill-- and largely discredited-- charges from the U.S. State Department that the Iraqi government is sabotaging the U.N.'s relief work. (See http://www.fair.org/extra/0003/crossette-iraq.html )
Throughout the article, Crossette's reporting aims to give the impression that Iraq does not allow any outside experts to investigate humanitarian conditions inside the country. The headline reads, "Iraq Won't Let Outside Experts Assess Sanctions' Impact on Lives." The lead paragraph reported, "Iraq will not allow independent experts into the country to assess the living conditions of Iraqis a decade after economic sanctions were imposed, Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Security Council today."
Crossette anonymously quotes "a diplomat" who says, "They claim they can't get things done, but won't let anybody come in and fix it." She cites an anonymous "official" as saying that government repression has "made it almost impossible to work there." An anonymous "European diplomat" is quoted as saying that there are "fairly solid reports" that Iraq is exporting its medicines abroad, with no further evidence given. Crossette writes that "concern is growing" that "if no independent collection of information is possible, Iraq can continue to blame outsiders, particularly the United States, for illnesses and deaths from disease or malnutrition."
In fact, there are literally hundreds of outside experts in Iraq who regularly collect such information and have done so for years. They include officials from the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Development Program, UNESCO, UNICEF and the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator's office in Baghdad. They make thousands of visits each year to water projects, power plants, farms, warehouses, mills, food distributors, schools, hospitals, and ordinary homes.
The U.N.'s Baghdad office maintains a 150-person verification team, the Multidisciplinary Observer Unit, to inspect relief distribution. It also employs a Swiss auditing company on contract with the United Nations to verify humanitarian shipments. Not only do the Iraqi ministries cooperate with these groups, but the U.N. requires Iraq to *pay* for the operating expenses of these last two groups out of the proceeds used to buy food and medicine.
All of this is documented in the very same United Nations briefing that is the subject of Crossette's article. For example, the briefing describes a World Food Program study carried out this summer to investigate Iraq's system for transporting food. It "found most of the equipment...in a deplorable state, owing to age, poor maintenance and lack of spare parts."
The investigators were "encouraged to learn, however, that the government of Iraq was already entering into contracts for the gradual replacement" of the aging equipment.
In July, a World Health Organization team visited an Iraqi medicine factory. "The observers reported that the plant would require substantial investment...to bring it up to international standards." The factory's Iraqi management "gave assurances that it will cooperate fully with the United Nations and that observation of its facilities can be carried out at any time, with or without prior notification," the Secretary General reported.
Several other examples of Iraq's cooperation with UN humanitarian workers were discussed in the report. Yet Crossette's article, based on the same report, sought to give exactly the opposite impression. Last year, UNICEF worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Health on a comprehensive nationwide survey of child and maternal mortality. Ironically, the study was reported in the New York Times in an article by Barbara Crossette (8/13/99). It went unmentioned in yesterday's article.
In a December 1998 letter to the London Independent, Michael Stone, the outgoing chief of the U.N.'s Multidisciplinary Observation Unit wrote that British officials, like their American counterparts, "frequently state that the Iraqi leadership have diverted supplies under this [humanitarian] program. This is a serious error. Some 150 international observers, travelling throughout Iraq, reported to the United Nations Multidisciplinary Observer Unit, of which I was the head. At no time was any diversion recorded. I made this clear in our reports to the UN Secretary General, and he reported in writing to the Security Council accordingly."
Other top United Nations officials have also challenged the assertion that Iraq interferes in the relief effort. Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Denis Halliday and his successor, Hans von Sponeck have both expressed frustration that the U.S. and British governments were putting out misleading information designed to make it appear that Iraq was sabotaging the U.N.'s relief work. Crossette has refused to cover their criticism (Hans von Sponeck, U.N. Press Briefing, 10/26/99; Denis Halliday, press release, 9/20/99).
Crossette's reporting is astonishingly selective. The Secretary General's briefing, which Crossette's article is based on, is a 90-day progress report that covers all aspects of the oil-for-food program. Typically, the Secretary General notes both improvements and problems in the ongoing program, praising and criticizing the Iraqis as necessary. But Crossette notes only the criticisms, inflating and distorting them out of all recognition.
Out of this week's 50-paragraph briefing, Crossette's entire front-page article is devoted exclusively to paragraphs 11 and 12, which note that Iraq declined to host the newly proposed teams of experts. She fails to mention that elsewhere in the briefing, Secretary General Kofi Annan praised Iraq for improvements in its nutrition program that were made in response to criticism Annan offered in a briefing last year.
In August 1999, Crossette wrote an entire article about that two-paragraph criticism, found in Annan's 104-paragraph briefing, which noted some flaws in Iraq's distribution of food supplies. Crossette trumpeted the comments as an example of the U.N.'s alleged exasperation with Iraq ("Do More to Aid Nourishment of Very Young, U.N. Tells Iraq," 8/24/99).
Since then, Iraq has implemented the changes that the Secretary General recommended. In this week's briefing, Annan praised the government for having followed his suggestions: "I welcome the decision by the Government of Iraq to increase considerably the allocations... to meet the food, nutrition and health requirements of the population.... [The steps taken by Iraq] are both welcome and in line with the recommendation contained in my supplementary report."
The praise went unmentioned in Crossette's September 12 article.
ACTION: Call on the New York Times to publish an editor's note clarifying two points: (1) that Iraq has hundreds of outside inspectors and experts verifying the humanitarian relief programs, contrary to the Times' front-page September 12 story; and (2) that United Nations humanitarian officials who dispute the charge that Iraq sabotages the U.N. aid programs should have been quoted in this story.
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
CONTACT:
Barbara Crossette
Bureau Chief, United Nations
bcrosset@nytimes.com
Joseph Lelyveld
Executive Editor
letters@nytimes.com
To read the original New York Times article:
http://www.fair.org/articles/crossette.html
To read the United Nations report discussed in the New York Times article, visit: http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/reports/phase890.html
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Subject: House hearing Wednesday
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 14:01:25 EDT
From: EPICalc@aol.com
PLEASE FORWARD
from Carolyn Scarr
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Wednesday, 10:00 a.m., 2172 Rayburn Office Building, Washington DC
Although the subject of the hearing is on Russia, Ranking Committee Member Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney will be asking Secretary Albright to answer questions regarding the United States military targeting of Iraq water supplies as described in the recently discovered document IRAQ WATER TREATMENT VULNERABILITIES, dated 18 January 1991.
Ask your congressperson to attend this hearing. At least to send a high level staff person. To ask the hard questions about the intentional destruction of Iraq's water supply by the combine effects of bombing and the UN sanctions. To call for an end to economic sanctions, to allow Iraq to rebuild their water system and other essential civilian services.
This is a public hearing. If you live close enough you can attend.
excerpts from IRAQ WATER TREATMENT VULNERABILITIES:
2. WITH NO DOMESTIC SOURCES OF BOTH WATER TREATMENT REPLACEMENT PARTS AND SOME ESSENTIAL CHEMICALS, IRAO WILL CONTINUE ATTEMPTS TO CIRCUMVENT UNITED NATIONS SANCTIONS TO IMPORT THESE VITAL COMMODITIES.
3. 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. . .
IRAQ HAS MADE A CONSIDERABLE EFFORT TO SUPPLY PURE WATER TO ITS POPULATION. . . .
11. IRAQ'S RIVERS ALSO 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. . . .
SOME AFFLUENT IRAQIS COULD OBTAIN THEIR OWN MINIMALLY ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF GOOD OUALITY WATER FROM NORTHERN IRAOI SOURCES. IF BOILED, THE WATER COULD BE SAFELY CONSUMED. POORER IRAQIS AND INDUSTRIES REQUIRING LARGE OUANTITIES OF PURE WATER WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO MEET THEIR NEEDS. . . .
FULL DEGRADATION OF THE WATER TREATMENT SYSTEM PROBABLY WILL TAKE AT LEAST ANOTHER 6 MONTHS. (misspellings in original)
- Subject: January, 2001 Congressional Delegation to Iraq
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 03:17:02 EDT
Backlink to: TownCrier posting
Endorsement Lettter:
The Justice Promoters of the Dominican Order* in North America, their Iraq Coordinating Committee and the Executive Committee of the Dominican Leadership Conference invite religiously affiliated organizations and congregations to endorse and support a Congressional delegation to Iraq (January 3-11). The delegation offers a unique opportunity to reconsider United States support for comprehensive sanctions against Iraq.
According to numerous United Nations and independent studies, sanctions have caused economic collapse, poverty, hunger and disease throughout Iraq, resulting in the deaths of well over 500,000 children. In recent years, the two highest-ranking U.N. humanitarian officials in Iraq have resigned in protest, arguing that stop-gap measures like the food-for-oil deal do little to slow the senseless and avoidable suffering of innocent civilians. As the primary architects of the sanctions policy, we in the United States cannot simply accuse Iraqi leaders and wash our own hands of responsibility. Every day of continued political stalemate, children die.
In a letter to President Clinton, twenty-four American Christian religious leaders stated "we have long been deeply concerned by clear evidence that the embargo against Iraq is contributing to falling living standards and life expectancy. By almost every measure - - such as malnutrition, child mortality and overall morbidity - - the situation of most Iraqi civilians has deteriorated markedly...Whatever the cause, whoever the adversary, we cannot tolerate the suffering and death of countless innocents...It is time for fresh thinking and new approaches."
A recent Dear Colleague letter to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert stated, "In the United Nations and the United States, the sanctions policy has become mired in controversy. We want to move beyond this nine-year stalemate and explore options for what can be done now to ensure peace and security in the region without exacting a devastating humanitarian toll on innocent people...The Congress would certainly benefit from a review of the sanctions, as well as the political, social and economic situation in Iraq."
The Congressional delegation comes at an auspicious time - after ten years of war and sanctions, on the eve of a new Presidential administration, and at the end of a Jubilee year (every 50 years) in which we are urged to "raise up the former devastations [and] repair the ruined cities (Isaiah 61)." There have been political delegations to Iraq from Europe and other countries, yet this would be the first high-level visit by U.S. policy-makers. In the spirit of justice and compassion, we strongly support this step towards dialogue and peace-making.
Travel related expenses for members of Congress will be covered through donations. Depending on response from members of Congress, the organizers may need to solicit contributions. Your endorsement does NOT obligate a financial contribution.
For more information contact: Rick McDowell Tel: (978) 544-9021 e-mail: rjpmcd@aol.com
* The Dominicans are a Roman Catholic Order of women and men in existence since the 13th century and have a significant presence in Iraq. Since 1998, two North American Dominican delegations have traveled to Iraq.
Endorsements (in process)
Dominican Leadership Conference
Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, Bishop of Galveston-Houston
John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ
American Friends Service Committee
Mennonite Cental Committee
Pax Christi, USA
Fellowship of Reconciliation, USA
Mary Mollison, CSA, President, Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
Stephen Glodek, SM, President, Major Superiors of Men
Provincial Council of the Chicago Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame
Dominican Sisters of Springfield, IL
Sisters of Charity, BVM, Dubuque, Iowa, Leadership Team
Chicago Regional Leadership Team, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns
Rev. Daniel J Fox, OFM Cap, Provincial, Detroit Province of Capuchins
Sisters of St. Joseph, Third Order of St. Francis Central Board
Rev. Evan Eckhoff, O.F.M., Order of Friars Minor Provincial, Sacred Heart Province
8th Day Center for Justice, Chicago
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Detroit
DanielB.Zwickel@PeaceHost.net, Pacifist Nation
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