BY VANNESSA HEARMAN
MELBOURNE — At a public meeting, entitled "Counting the Cost of War", held by the Victorian Peace Network on January 29 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's Storey Hall, a number of speakers highlighted what war would mean for the people of Iraq.
"This is a time of crisis for our nation", Dr Sue Wareham, president of the Medical Society for the Prevention of War, told the 800-strong meeting. Wareham condemned Prime Minister John Howard for lying to the Australian people, when he promised that there would be a parliamentary debate before any new troop deployment to the Persian Gulf in preparation for war against Iraq.
Wareham challenged those who argued for war to see the aftermath of war. She said that the Iraqi people are less able now, after 12 years of sanctions and continuous bombing raids, to withstand another war. She said that the key to stopping the war is to mobilise "everyone who is opposed to this war".
Similar sentiments were expressed by other speakers, including Dr Rob Moodie, the chief executive officer of the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth).
Moodie was part of a group of Harvard University post-graduate medical students who entered Iraq in April 1991 to measure the effects of the first Gulf War and the UN sanctions. He said there was widespread malnutrition and a cholera epidemic, partly as a result of the US bombing of the country's power and water treatment infrastructure. He also visited hospitals, where the students met and talked with Iraqi health professionals who were forced to work with few medicines and equipment.
Moodie estimated that 50,000-70,000 people died in the eight months following the end of the January-February 1991 war, as a result of disease and hunger. He warned that sanctions always hit the most vulnerable and that the Iraqi military "was hardly touched" by the sanctions. "This is a scenario that is set to be repeated, if another war against Iraq happens", said Moodie.
Scott Burchill, lecturer in international relations at Deakin University, cited the numerous incidents of US non-compliance with international law. Burchill also said that the US had used its power of veto in the Security Council vexatiously, largely to block resolutions condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinians and on Lebanon. He said that humanitarian arguments have often been put forward to justify Western military attacks, such as those by NATO against Serbia in 1999, designed to shore up Western interests.
Responding to Howard's comments that he had seen evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Burchill challenged him to "pass on his knowledge to [chief UN weapons inspector] Hans Blix." He remarked that among Western politicians and the media the moral authority of the UN seemed dependent on whether it was doing the bidding of the US and its allies.
Roman Catholic Bishop Hilton Deakin told the meeting that "all the major churches are against this war".
Carmen Lawrence, federal Labor MP for Fremantle, has recently been outspoken against the war on Iraq and the Coalition government's treatment of refugees. She pointed out that in the 1991 Gulf War, where "there was little media coverage on the ground". This has resulted in a perception of "a war without pain". "We can't maintain this denial", she said.
Lawrence also concentrated on the human cost of a war against Iraq. There is a perception "that violence is a way to solve problems" through the use of "weapons of mass destruction to get rid of weapons of mass destruction". She urged those at the meeting "to tell Howard, Bush and Blair that we will not be complicit in an act of mass murder".
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
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