MOHAMMED SAID AL-SAHAF, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iraq, said the comprehensive sanctions imposed on his country, now in their eleventh year, amounted to genocide. They constituted a flagrant violation of the Charter and of international law and international humanitarian law. That had been confirmed by reports of United Nations agencies and humanitarian and human rights organizations, the most recent being a working paper adopted by the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights at its fifty- second session held in Geneva from 31 July to 18 August this year.
The United States and British claims that the “oil-for-food” programme alleviated the impact of sanctions against Iraq proved baseless when set against United Nations figures, he said. Of the $31.6 billion worth of oil exported by Iraq since the start of the programme, $9.5 billion had been allocated to the Compensation Fund in Geneva and $1 billion for United Nations administrative expenses. He said $8.3 billion had been disbursed for purchases to cover the needs of the Iraqi people. There were "floating and semi-frozen allocations" for certain needs of Iraq amounting to $10 billion that had not been disbursed because of the obstructions placed by the United States and the United Kingdom. "Such egregious obstructions" had resulted in 1,173 contracts for construction materials valued at more than $2 billion being put on hold.
He said the Security Council, in applying comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, had gone far beyond the purposes and principles of the Charter, so as to “turn itself into a cover for perpetrating a policy of genocide against an entire people”. His country was being subjected to "a continued daily aggression by American and British aircraft" in the no-flight zone imposed on Iraq by "a unilateral decision of the Washington and London Governments". The continued military action had no basis in law or in any binding resolution passed by the competent organ of the United Nations. Those American and British acts of aggression had inflicted huge material losses and a loss of more than 300 martyrs and injuries to 900 civilians.
His country was being subjected to "a continued daily aggression by American and British aircraft" in the no-flight zone imposed on Iraq by "a unilateral decision of the Washington and London Governments". The continued military action had no basis in law or in any binding resolution passed by the competent organ of the United Nations.
Think about it. They have been operating out of the UN mandate.
