Life & Death in Iraq

Jump to NEWS LIFE & ARTS COMMENTARY P-I ANYWHERE MARKETPLACE OUR AFFILIATES On Aug. 6, 1990, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 661, imposing economic sanctions on Iraq. It includes a full trade embargo on Iraq, except for medical supplies, food and other items of humanitarian need, as determined by the Security Council sanctions committee. The sanctions, amended several times since 1990, remain in force. The United States has maintained its own sanctions against Iraq since Aug. 2, 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, leading to the Persian Gulf War. Larry Johnson, the Post-Intelligencer's foreign desk editor, and Post-Intelligencer photographer Dan DeLong spent two weeks in Baghdad, Iraq, during April 1999. They accompanied a 22-member delegation of medical workers and others, sponsored by the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, who attempted to gauge the effect of sanctions on Iraqi citizens, especially children. The medical group, in part to call attention to the effects of the sanctions, intentionally defied them. Visiting Iraq is in itself a violation of the sanctions. The group also brought medicine, equipment and medical textbooks without obtaining the required U.N. approval. They also did not obtain a required U.S. government permit to travel to Iraq. The Post-Intelligencer's Johnson and DeLong, as journalists, were exe...