More than 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 have died since the imposition of the U.N. sanctions against Iraq, according to priest and retired ethics professor G. Simon Harak.
Harak highlighted the suffering Iraqi civilians endure as a result of the sanctions last night in his presentation, "Iraq: On the Ground, Behind the Headlines," held in Minor Hall.
"We are indeed besieging Iraq as a whole country," Harak said.
The sanctions are designed to compel the government to concede to U.N. demands by causing civilian death and suffering, he said.
Iraqis had access to free medical care and education before the war but are now denied the most basic of necessities, he added.
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The country has not benefited from the U.N.-implemented "oil for food program" because the U.N. has not allowed Iraq to gain access to the profits, Harak said.
The program allows Iraq to use profits from the sale of oil to purchase food and other humanitarian needs.
Harak also outlined tactics he believes the United States uses to prevent the allocation of further humanitarian aid to Iraq.
For example, the United States will allow the donation of insulin to Iraq but refuse the allocation of syringes, he said.
Consequently, Iraq must store the unusable insulin in warehouses.
U.S. officials then will accuse Iraqis of not using the aid they receive, he said.
Harak said he feels the U.S. is compromising its security by maintaining the sanctions against Iraq.
"I think it is remarkable that no Iraqi terrorist has attacked us" in the 10 years since the sanctions were implemented, he said.
Harak also claimed the U.S. government misled the public about certain aspects of the Persian Gulf War.
The U.S. dropped more bombs on Iraq than on any of its World War II enemies, he said. The bombs destroyed power plants and plunged much of Iraq into darkness, he added.
Harak emphasized the devastating effect the war had on civilians by asking the audience to visualize what would happen if electricity to hospitals was cut off.
The U.S. also used depleted uranium - a less radioactive form of the element - for the first time in the bombing of Iraq, which may have resulted in the poisoning of Iraqi civilians, he said.
The number of rare cancer cases in Iraq has increased dramatically since the war, he added.
First-year College student David Buckley said he found the speech informative.
"It shed light on the real effect of U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq. The sanctions are not weakening Saddam Hussein," he said.
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