PERSPECTIVE ON THE EMBARGO : Hunger Shouldn’t Be a Weapon : Not only is a food blockade immoral, it could backfire, costing the United States much international support.

Seldom has the temptation to use food as a key weapon been so strong as it is in the case of Iraq. But the temptation should be resisted.

Iraq is particularly vulnerable to a food blockade. The nation is dependent on imports for 75% of its food, and President Saddam Hussein, having underestimated the international reaction to his aggression, appears not to have taken extraordinary precautions to stock food. The country is already beginning to feel the pinch, and Hussein has sternly warned that the hoarding of food by merchants is a crime to be punished by death. Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the combination of supplies and harvests should enable the Iraqi population to fend off famine for at least several months, the anticipation of widespread hunger could bring a quicker conclusion to the crisis than the shortages themselves warrant.

Further, Hussein is not only a blatant aggressor, but a dangerous and ruthless head of one of the world’s more powerful war machines. He has used poison gas against Iran, as well as against Kurdish rebels in his own country, and has threatened to use it against Israel. In addition, he is believed to be only a few years away from fully developing nuclear weapons.

Given these realities, clearly now is the time to stop Iraq, and if a total blockade of food will help to do so, why not impose it?

The reasons for not doing so are compelling.

Food is a basic human right, acknowledged to be so in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by overwhelming vote of the U.S. Congress in the 1976 Right to Food Resolution. To use it as a weapon against innocent civilians is morally abhorrent and would quickly be seen that way if Iraqis began to starve. Why hand this moral argument to Hussein?

Success in our response to Iraq, especially in a protracted standoff, is dependent upon maintaining unified international support. U.N. Security Council Resolution 661 supporting the blockade explicitly exempts “supplies intended strictly for medical purposes, and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs.” Any blockade of food must make an exception for shipments to prevent people from going hungry. Violation of this principle would almost surely erode support for the blockade, divide the international community and make a sustained and successful effort more difficult.

A hunger- or famine-provoking food blockade would especially invite erosion of support from within the Arab world, where that support is most vulnerable and where Hussein is already exploiting a widespread impression of the United States as a foreign imperial power propping up oil barons who keep the masses of Arabs impoverished. If we were to win in a showdown but emerge in the minds of Arabs as intruders willing to starve them to obtain cheap oil, the long-term consequences would almost certainly turn against us.

We can assume that American hostages and those from other countries participating in the blockade would be among the victims of hunger--an exceedingly difficult posture for us to maintain on purely political grounds.

In short, the prospect of widespread hunger in Iraq and Kuwait--abhorrent in its own right--beamed into households and villages around the world each day by television would diminish respect for the United States and probably be self-defeating even for immediate strategic purposes.

Of course, the blocking of Iraqi exports constitutes an indirect use of food as a weapon because it cuts off a financial lifeline and limits Iraq’s ability to purchase food. The blockade of Iraqi imports further restricts its access to food, but the action of the U.N. Security Council draws a clear line: Civilians must not be forced to go hungry and life or health must not be jeopardized. President Bush should publicly promise to respect that distinction, so there can be no doubt that in the heat of confrontation we will do what is right, not what may seem expedient.

One cannot be sure of outcomes. It is remotely possible that a tight food blockade in violation of the Security Council resolution would bring Hussein more quickly to his knees and have none of the unintended consequences named above. But that is not a chance worth taking or worthy of us. Far better--even if it means a longer, more costly struggle--to stay on high moral ground and honor the principle that food is a right and should not be used as a weapon. The international mandate must be respected.