Sanctions Take Grave Toll on Iraqi Children

* Thank you for writing the story about the effects of the sanctions on the people of Iraq (“Southland Muslims Seek to Ease U.S.-Led Embargo on Iraq,” Dec. 25). UNICEF and other world health organizations say that the sanctions are causing the deaths of 4,000 Iraqi children every month. The number of sanctions-related deaths has risen to over 1.5 million in the last 10 years.

Denis Halliday worked for the United Nations for 34 years. He was the director of the oil-for-food program in Iraq who resigned from the U.N. after one year at this assignment, saying the sanctions are causing a genocide to the children of Iraq.

These children are innocent and have nothing to do with the United States’ battles with Saddam Hussein. If more American people really understood what horrific conditions the sanctions have caused to the children of Iraq, I believe they would not allow them to continue. The children do not have clean water to drink because the water systems in Iraq were destroyed during the bombing 10 years ago. The sanctions do not allow Iraq the materials needed for the rebuilding of the water system. Over 200,000 Iraqis were killed in the first six weeks of the Persian Gulf War.

I will be at the Westside Federal Building with many others at 6 p.m. on Jan. 16, on the 10th anniversary of the start of that bombing. Our collective statement is that we want to see the sanctions ended and the bombing of Iraq, which has continued and killed thousands more Iraqis, to stop.

FRANK DORREL, Member

Save the Iraqi Children

Coalition, Culver City