DATE=4/24/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=U-S CONGRESSMAN IN IRAQ
NUMBER=5-46188
BYLINE=ED WARNER
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:


INTRO:  For the first time since the Gulf War, a 
member of the U-S congress has visited Iraq to assess 
conditions there. He found them worse than he had 
expected: a once quite prosperous country reduced to 
begging. And what Iraqis mainly beg is for the United 
Nations to lift the economic sanctions that have 
impoverished them. V-O-A's Ed Warner reports the 
Congressman's remarks and the views of another recent 
American visitor to Iraq.


TEXT:  You have to watch your step in Iraq, says U-S 
Congressman Tony Hall, who recently spent four days 
there. At a hotel in Baghdad, his hosts almost had him 
walk over the face of former President George Bush in 
a mosaic on the floor. Photographers were ready to 
snap a picture.

"I sidestepped that propaganda trap and several 
others,"  said Mr. Hall at a briefing on Capitol Hill. 
But beyond these political games, he found genuine 
suffering as he toured schools and hospitals, health 
clinics, and water treatment plants.

What struck him above all was the appearance of the 
children: malnourished, listless, sometimes wasted 
because they are unable to grow. He found rampant 
disease, including ailments like cholera that have 
disappeared elsewhere. He came across many children 
with leukemia and other forms of cancer. Infant 
mortality is perhaps the highest in the world.

For those who reach adulthood, there are few jobs. 
Unemployment exceeds 50-percent. The middle class has 
been wiped out with an average wage between three and 
five dollars a month.

Wherever Congressman Hall went, the plea was the same: 
lift the economic sanctions that have ruined our 
country. Some countries, including France, China, and 
Russia, are heeding that plea and asking to relax the 
sanctions. 

Mr. Hall says the United States should also respond:

            /// FIRST HALL ACT ///

      I think that this situation in Iraq poses a 
      serious moral dilemma for the world. And while 
      we must insist on inspection of weapons of mass 
      destruction, we can do a much better job of 
      helping the innocent people of Iraq overcome 
      their many difficulties. We do not have enough 
      international workers there. We do not have 
      enough private voluntary organizations. They are 
      not permitted to go there. It is very difficult 
      to get into Iraq.

            /// END ACT ///

Congressman Hall noted that the United Nations 
sanctions committee, under U-S pressure, takes a very 
hard line on what Iraq is allowed to import. Anything 
with a possible military use is banned.
 
This is taken to extremes, said Mr. Hall. Garbage 
trucks are forbidden, despite Iraq's severe pollution. 
So are air conditioners and parts for refrigerators, 
which are needed for storing polio vaccine, among 
other uses. 

All this is unknown to most Americans, said Mr. Hall. 
Lacking information, they have an outdated view of 
Iraqis:

            /// SECOND HALL ACT ///

      We went to war with them. They are the enemy. 
      That is the major problem right there. We are 
      not thinking of women and children that are 
      dying. We have concentrated on the sanctions. 
      But there is no concentration in my opinion on 
      the humanitarian aspect - on workers, on 
      medicines, on food.

            /// END ACT ///

The Congressman could have gone further and urged 
lifting the sanctions, says Phyllis Bennis of the 
Institute for Policy Studies who joined Congressional 
aides on a trip to Iraq last summer: 

            /// BENNIS ACT ///

      But I think this is a very important first step. 
      The delegation that I accompanied helped to set 
      the stage for this visit, but I think it is much 
      more significant that a member traveled on his 
      own, and particularly Congressman Hall because 
      he has a history of credibility on the question 
      of hunger and humanitarian crisis. He has seen 
      it before. He knows what to look for.

            /// END ACT ///

Phyllis Bennis says she hopes other members of 
Congress will make a similar trip.  (Signed)  

NEB/EW/TVM/gm



24-Apr-2000 21:26 PM EDT (25-Apr-2000 0126 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.