Falk, Von Sponeck and Halliday Call for New Steps to Replace Failed U.N. Iraq Policy

Hans Von Sponeck resigned his position as assistant secretary-general of the U.N. in March of this year after a 32-year career with the organization. He described the situation in Iraq today as a horror story. Pre-sanctions Iraq had state-of-the-art medical services, road and sanitation systems as good as anywhere in Europe, and a 90 percent literacy rate for both men and women. Today it is in the category of least-developed countries. Iraq's infrastructure has collapsed. Twenty-one percent of Iraqi children under five are malnourished. Diseases that had disappeared, such as typhoid and cholera, are now the major killers of children. The U.N. estimates that 5,000 children die every month because of the economic sanctions. Teacher training facilities have disappeared and the literacy rate has dropped to 66 percent. Cyberspace is unknown. His predecessor in Iraq, [Denis Halliday], resigned in September 1998 after 36 years with the U.N. Halliday said the outlook is changing. Seventy U.S. congressmen signed a letter opposing economic sanctions. Europe and Great Britain have come to view sanctions as a blunt instrument that doesn't work. Halliday proposed specific steps that take into account the concerns of Iraq, the U.N., and the U.S. to resolve the problem: