Re:prayers (Score 0)

You are missing the point. The UN commitees responsible for vetting every single putative import into Iraq for having the potential to be used for making WMD are staffed, conveniently enough, by British and US civil servants. During the sanctions regime, approximately 5.5 billion dollars worth of goods have been prevented from finding their way into Iraq. Undoubtedly some of these items have been of a dubious nature, but all kinds of things have been held back: Water purification equipment, chemotherapy drugs (to treat all the victims of DU munitions) etc. Some of this looks exceptionally cruel, and it is reflected in the number of unnecessary deaths. So it is simply untrue that Hussein's regime has just wasted all the cash on luxury consumer goods and palaces, although suffering travels towards the lower echelons of any power structure, especially one as dictatorial as the regime of Iraq. It is true that most of the misery of the sanctions is directly the responsibility of the implementors of the policy. Why do you think Hans von Sponeck resigned in disgust?