On bombing of Iraq

The New York Times branded President Saddam Hussein a recidivist (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 2, 1999). I wonder what the Times would like to brand President Bill Clinton, a sex fiend, a terrorist or what? The American government in the name of the UN Security Council imposed an economic embargo on Iraq, which is now in its seventh year.

Weapons inspections have been going on for five years but have failed to prove that Iraq is producing weapons of mass destruction. Not satisfied with the economic sanctions, the U.S. also enforced non-fly zones in Iraqi airspace. The arrogant attitude of the U.S. government and the British resulted in the four-day air strikes on Iraq merely because UN Special Commission Chairman Richard Butler accused Iraq of being totally uncooperative with the team's inspectors. Now let me asked the Times these questions:

* What right or authority did the U.S. and British governments have to bomb Iraq?

* What kind of human values do they practice that allowed them to commit such barbaric acts?

* What legal right do they have under international law to kill Iraqi people and devastate their country?

* Have the American people lost their conscience, enabling them to witness their leaders kill Iraqis, especially Iraqi children, due to the endless economic embargo?

I think the sanctions inflicted on the Iraqi people since the bombing and the air strikes seven years ago, the present economic sanctions, the air embargo, and the last four-day air strikes (December 1998) are more than enough to add to the miseries of the Iraqi people.

Continuing the sanctions, the embargo, etc. on Iraq will only disgrace the U.S. and British governments. It is high time for the members of the Security Council to reconsider their roles in the council rather than letting the U.S. manipulate them. I think members like France, Russia and China have awakened from their sleep to realize that the Security Council has lost its legitimacy. The Security Council is now merely a tool of the world's single superpower portraying to legalize its actions whatever are the consequences. What a shame!

I think to prolong the sanctions on Iraq will place the world body and its executives nowhere, since the credibility of its actions are based upon the ambitions and the emotions of the U.S. government and not upon the secret aims it established.

Without extending full credit to President Saddam Hussein, I am of the opinion that the Iraqi people possess total legal rights to reject all the sanctions imposed upon them.

MUHD. RAMZY HASIBUAN

Jakarta