Ron Paul on Iraq: 'Who's better off?'

in a country of 25 or so million is hardly a reliable sample.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20050419/ts_usatoday/violenceisoffthechartinareaoniraqborder
Medact, British-based charity, released a detailed study a few months ago, that examined the impact of war on health, revealed cases of vaccine-preventable diseases were rising and mismanagement of relief and reconstruction work. The deputy director of Medact,Gill Reeve,said, "the health of the Iraqi people has deteriorated since the 2003 invasion ... The 2003 war not only created the conditions for further health decline, but also damaged the ability of Iraqi society to reverse it".
Here's the report:http://www.medact.org/content/wmd_and_conflict/Medact%20Iraq%202004.pdf

The Norway-based Institute of Applied International Studies, or Fafo, did a similar study in cooperation with the Iraq's Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology, Iraq's Health Ministry, and the UN Development Program (UNDP). Their study concluded that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and 5 years has gone from 4% before Iraqi Freedom to 7.7% since the US invasion of Iraq. In other words, despite the 13-years sanctions, Iraqi children were living much better (by 3.7%) under the regime of Saddam Hussein than under the Occupation.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/11/22/malnutrition-Iraq_041122.html

A recent UNICEF report shows that, "[before 1990 and the imposition of sanctions, Iraq had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East". Now UNICEF reports, "at least 200 children are dying every day. They are dying from malnutrition, a lack of clean water and a lack of medical equipment and drugs to cure easily treatable diseases". The UNICEF report shows that, child mortality was not getting any better since the conflict started in 2003 and that the death rate among children was rising.

This is an interesting report from an M.D. who has spent a lot of time in Iraq. You may not find it acceptable. I'm not sure which sources you find credible:
http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/pha-exchange/msg01328.html
The United Nations Population fund issueda report which concluded that:
The breakdown in security within and around health care facilities as well as in the society in general, has meant that that access to health care facilities by women and girls has become problematic.
and:
the mortality rate of Iraqi women during pregnancy and childbirth has reached three times the rate reported during the period between 1989 and 2002,
Here is the whole study:
http://www.unfpa.org/rh/docs/iraq-rept04-08-03.doc
It's no wonder they want the Coalition to go:
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1529690,00.html
Wouldn't you want your country back after all this?:
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=632439&host=3&dir=75

... was in Germany during the war and immediately thereafter until she could return with her mother and sisters to this country. My FIL was in a German refugee camp during the war having escaped Ukraine. My sister's MIL was in that same refugee camp having fled Latvia with her family. Life under Hitler in Germany wasn't all that bad for Mom (until that annoying war broke out), it sure was a lot worse during the war and in the aftermath. The progress in Iraq after three decades under Saddam in a matter of just a little over two years is something to get behind and cheer.

So Saddam fooled the world on WMD, yet you think these organizations can get reliable information regarding what was going on in Iraq during his reign? Yeah right. I hear the Brooklyn Bridge might actually be for sale

BTW, seems you are lamenting the fall of Saddam. Things were so much better under him. BS!

highest standard of living in the region.
Continuously invoking the harsh realites of Iraq under Saddam is nothing more than a salvage operation.
Sure it's good that Saddam is gone. But for it to be realistically good, the Iraqis must not live in an environment marked by fear, death,disfigurement, illnes and hunger. Otherwise we are merely replacing one evil with another.
By the way it is not particularly useful to discredit studies regarding the Iraqi quality of life before the invasion, unless you can show these studies are flawed.
We do have reliable data on Saddam's Iraq. It was not a closed off state under Saddam. Journalists, U.N. officials and many aid organizations were all able to visit and move around Iraq before the 2003 invasion and the 1990 war. Don't forget Saddam Hussein was a friend of the Reagan administration. Saddam did very well courtesy of the Reagan administration.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html

There is no sense trying to turn me into an apologist for Saddam.
All Iraqis enjoyed that standard of living.
Iraq had its reasons for invading Kuwait and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq gave Saddam the go-ahead to invade Kuwait. His reasons? Kuwait's gaming of oil prices to insure Saddam could not earn enough revenue to repay loans it had incurred in its war with Iraq.The Kuwaitis were also said to be slant drilling.
As I said before the fact that we have now retreated to a "how bad it was under Saddam" line of apogetics is the direct result of the Bush Administration's duplicity. If Bush had just said Iraqi Freedom was a rescue operation, I and others would have supported him,maybe. Given the grisly aftermath of this invasion I am not so sure I can say that Iraqis are better or worse off now than under Saddam. I think it's a close call.

Regards,

... Iraq SINCE the Gulf War and AFTER we ousted Saddam. Pre-1990 standard of living has no relevance. The grumblings about electricity and other services used to bash the US must be compared to pre-war levels, not our 24/7 standards.

The US Ambassador gave Saddam permission to invade Kuwait? Links please, cuz that's a new one to me!

on the part of Glaspie. It turns out the story is more involved than I thought. I also saw a Frontline (PBS) a couple of years ago that said the same thing, that Glaspie gave Saddam the go-ahead.

http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/durableRedirect.pl?/durable/1999/05/27/p23s3.htm

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1102395/posts

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20031218-074154-5698r.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&notFound=true

... From a translation of Iraq's transcript of the meeting, released that September, press and pundits concluded that Ms. Glaspie had (in effect) given Saddam a green light to invade. {emphasis mine}

Now you don't suppose Saddam had an interest in altering that account to suit his needs do ya? C'mon!

However, that transcript would be consistent with the amicable naure of Iraq/U.S. relations at that time.Don;t forget that U.S./Iraqi relationship up till that time had been quite profitable for both parties.
If the Iraqis really wanted to doctor this transcript, don't you think they would have worded the transcript to make the U.S. response to their invasion plans seem blatantly favorable and less ambiguous?
Also I am glad you are taking a skeptical eye to government/authority. I wish you would do the same now for your own government.

Why doctor something so much as to give it the appearance of a Rathergate Memo? That would allow it to be dismissed out of hand -- can't be too obvious. Doctor it slightly and you get those like you who buy into the conspiracy theory.

What makes you think I'm not skeptical of my own government?

Why then would Glaspie need to "seek better relations with Iraq."??

Your conclusions based on the links seem to indicate you read only a sentence or two here and there that supports your position, and ignore (or skim past) a whole lot more that oppose it.

From the end of the (short) CSMonitor article,

In November 1992, Iraq's former deputy prime minister, Tarik Aziz, gave Glaspie some vindication. He said she had not given Iraq a green light. "She just listened and made general comments," he told USA Today. "We knew the United States would have a strong reaction."

Ah yes, Tarik Aziz, US sympathizer? LOL.

Senators and officials for example Dole and Simpson were blaming the "haughty and pampered" media and
insisted that Iraq and the U.S. government were fine. Dole and the other seators were still intent on doing business with Saddam. Glaspie also blamed the media for the need to improve relations. She apologizes for one article by the American Information Agency.

I did see the comment by Tariq Aziz but I am not sure what it means. If they knew the U.S. would have a strong reaction why would they invade Kuwait and subject themselves to that kind of punishment.
Why call the U.S. ambassador in and discuss it with her if you already knew what the U.S. response would be.
The Iraqi invasion is more consistent with a tacit approval from the U.S.It is more consistent with the U.S. assurance that it wanted better relations with Iraq.Jim Baker and others had been saying that The U.S. was neutral in these Arab affairs.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/trainor/1.html
She was asked later by the media about this and she said no one believed he'd take all of Kuwait.
Also the U.S. State Department never denied the validity of the Iraqi transcripts.

Saddam is gone. Why? GW and the Iraq invasion.

Had there been no invasion Saddam or one of his monster sons would be in firm control of Iraq today.

End of story. If you are glad Saddam is gone, you have Bush to thank.

As for the rest of it, see my take on postwar Europe. Not fair to judge Iraq right now. And yes, that report was a snaposhot in that it tabulated data in the midst of a work-in-progress. In many ways things are better now than they were ten months ago. I don't think it can be credibly argued that toppling Saddam was a bad thing.

Your other concerns, about collateral damage and so forth are real, but I would note such deaths have been minimal comparerd to other conflicts due to the precise tartgeting practiced by the Coalition.

The jury is out on the extent of illness caused by depleted uranium. The claims you make are those of people highly critical of the war and the military in general. I'd rather see some objective, scientific analysis.

I agree, postwar europe is an important comparison. One important difference, however, is that the Allies and Soviets had enough troops there to maintain a far higher degree of order.
Toppling Saddam was a bad thing if we don't do better than Saddam. Two years on and things are not improving. In which ways are things better than ten months ago?
I would have much rather seen the previous status quo maintained than what is passing for an occupation now,an occupation which is violating treaties anf agreements the U.S. signed a while ago.
By previous status quo I mean the no-fly zones which effectively gave Saddam control over one third of his country. He had a pathetic, obsolete third world army and stood no realistic chance of invading a neighbor.
I still think your wait and see approach is the only way to go in all of this.I can't imagine the chaos and violence in that region if the U.S. were to leave any time soon.


I kept in mind your concern about anti-Bush sources regarding DU and its health effects. I collected a number of links from sources I hope you will find acceptable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1118590.stm
This is a report done by a Chemist/Biochemist:
http://traprockpeace.org/du_health.pdf
The Sunday Herald, as far as I know, is not particularly biased either way.
http://www.sundayherald.com/40096
This one is from the Sunday Herald. It is reproduced at this alternate media site:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1604020.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2960030.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1115209.stm
Here's a story from mainstream american media, where I might add, there has not been a whole lot of coverage on this issue.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/133581_du04.html
This sight is maintained by some gulf war veterans:
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du.htm
This story relates to our own (Canadian) soldiers:
http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/du/

And for balance, I found an article arguing aginst the probability of adverse health effects of DU:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1205632.stm
And here:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1217816.stm

Just not true.

As for the health effects of DU and collateral damage, the percentage of precision bombs used in Iraq was MUCH higher than that NATO dropped in the Balkans and far less DU was used. Oh, but you supported that war so I guess that was OK. Some consistency

(as well as Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and East Timor)Because it was a humanitarian intervention. If left unchecked the whole region could have been dragged into the conflict.It was not sold as some dire threat to national security. It was not waged by an all-oil administration that takes millions from big oil in a region rich with oil.
Precision munitions is an oxymoron.Besides, precision really doesn't matter when you are using it in populated areas. Some U.S. ordinance can level two or three city blocks e.g. the 1 and 2000lbs it was dropping on Fallujah and other places.Cluster bombs by definition are inaccurate and imprecise. Plus the Coalition did not use precision munitions alone.Much of the ordinance was so-called dumb munitions.
DU is present in most of the ammunition the U.S. uses. For example the Warthog fires 4000 rounds a minute and each round has a DU tip.Anti tank rounds are DU tipped.

Do you consider Tommy Franks to be an honorable man? Listen to him.

But thanks for the PBS links. Colin Powell is beginning to look like more of the problem where Iraq has been concerned all along, than part of the solution. No wonder he's a favorite of the left.

You only need to Google or Alta Vista or Yahoo any of the
subjects I mentioned in my "BS" post.
Tommy Franks abandoned any pretense of credibility when he started campaigning for Bush and playing fall guy for the "Mission Accomplished" banner.
As for Powell, you're right. He has become a favorite of the left and that's too bad. I don't think he ever was going to fit into that neo-con/big oil crowd in the Bush White House. I certainly wish he had not gone to the U.N. and made that presentation about Saddam being such a threat. No one in that room believed him. And he has since said it was based on false and manipulated intelligence. Even Tenet has now said he wished he had never mad that "slam dunk" comment.

administration. Bush is oil, Cheney is oil, Condi Rice is oil. She even has an oil tanker named after her. Rumsfeld had millions in oil and other energy company stock.I'm not sure whether he properly divested himself of those stocks before he joined the Bush cabinet.Donald Evans was an oil executive. Read all about him:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/evans-bio.html
Look around a bit Evie. You will see that the Bush administration as well as the Republican party take millions from oil companies. Google it maybe.

oil that we Republicans stole?????? Sheesh! An old one that has been proven over and over to be a lie!

You know that the Iraqi oil has yet to be fully accessed and brought on line. If it had been stolen it would be in oil tankers and/or oil refineries somewhere.
I said the Republican party and the Bush administration take millions from big oil and related energy industries.
Getting angry about it does not change it.
Where has any of this ever been disproven?

>> Please examine where that false info came from, which party had cultivated and collected that false info for eight years<<

Yes, there was a consensus that Saddam probably had WMD. But which administration (with Bolton on point) pressured the CIA to stifle their doubts about that assumption -- doubts which proved well-founded? It wasn't the Dems who invaded Iraq over non-existent WMDs, no matter how much they may have assumed they were there!

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

... and blacks were blocked from the voting booths in Florida in 2000

Evie

and this morning I have about 10 minutes before having to get K's car to the shop. BTW, Ron Paul was Libertarian Candidate for president in 1992, and is now a Republican Congressman from Texas (sadly, mine, as his views are diammetrically opposite from the needs of his district).

BTW, here's some more showing he's dead wrong on the WMD issue:
Final report finds no WMD evidence.
-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

You said,

Yes, there was a consensus that Saddam probably had WMD. But which administration (with Bolton on point) pressured the CIA to stifle their doubts about that assumption -- doubts which proved well-founded? It wasn't the Dems who invaded Iraq over non-existent WMDs, no matter how much they may have assumed they were there!

I heard,

No matter how much my party was convinced Saddam had WMD, and how many times the USA and the UN warned him, we weren't about to do a darned thing to defend this country from another Hitler wannabee or further democracy in the world. In fact, Saddam was so used to dealing with just talk Democrats, he made the statement, "I didn't believe the United States would attack, right up to the moment the invasion started."

And us Liberals are proud of that.