Saddam brushes sanctions aside to take on U.S.

By Heiko Flottau

CAIRO (DPA): Saddam Hussein is back. At least in Gaza and Ramallah. People's hearts have been warming to the international outcast and the huge sums of money he has been spending on them. Even better -- he pays cash.

Saddam may have spent the last 10 years in international quarantine but he is now stepping out in style and donating US$10,000 to each and every martyr's family. In Palestinian- Arabic jargon, a martyr is a man who has died in the war against Israel.

Saddam has made available a total of US$5 million to the Palestinians -- despite his constant complaints about the devastating effects the United Nations' sanctions are having on his country. His Palestinian representatives distribute the money to the martyrs' families personally because Saddam -- similar to other Arabic leaders -- does not trust Yasser Arafat's autonomous authority.

Money delivered to the authority's address tends to end up in the pockets of many of Arafat's compliant helpers, never reaching those for whom it is intended.

Saddam Hussein is still in place almost a decade after the outbreak of the Gulf War and has withstood all the sanctions introduced by the UN which were supposed to lead to his downfall. However, the embargo has pushed the Iraqi people to the edge of the precipice. According to reports produced by every international organization active in the area, infant mortality has increased rapidly and enormously.

Economic activity in what was once a flourishing country has dropped off almost totally and the country's middle-class has been financially destroyed. The young people who are supposed to be preparing to lead a post-Saddam Iraq have nothing to do.

Kofi Annan, a vocal critic of the sanctions, now plans to rearrange Iraq's "oil for food" aid program to make it more effective. This is a real success for the Iraqi people -- but also one for Saddam.

He has used the suffering of the people he rules over to serve his own ends. He threw the UN weapons inspectors out of the country in 1998, but this also meant postponing an end to the sanctions almost indefinitely. If intelligence agencies' reports are to be believed, he has once again started work on the manufacture of missiles and other banned weapons.

Barely a single foreign aircraft has landed at the airport in Baghdad -- named after Saddam, of course -- in the last 10 years. Yet since the end of the summer, Arab countries have been falling over each other to be first and foremost in paying their respects to the Iraqis. Those who choose not to show their face are going to find themselves being left far behind -- this is what has become of war-torn Iraq.

Iraq's arch enemy Syria is opening its borders to Iraq, as is Saudi Arabia -- despite the threat Iraq poses to the country. And after a decade, the oil pipeline snaking across Syria is once again in business.

Saddam has also succeeded in having payments into the Iraqi -- but UN-controlled -- oil account made out in euros, not in the currency of the enemy, the dollar.

Rising oil prices are also responsible for bigger payments into this account. It is the same money which could bring relief to many of those Iraqis hit hardest by the sanctions but Saddam does not care. The increased profits have made him more rebellious than ever: he has refused to allow inspectors from the new weapons commission Unmovic into the country and has demanded permission to sell oil on a scale which the UN will never accept.

First, he wants a 50-cent surcharge levied on every sold barrel of oil paid into an Iraqi bank account. Second, he wants to turn off the tap which provides his arch enemies, the United States and Britain, with the oil from his country.

Saddam clearly feels quite sure of himself. There is no end to the sanctions in sight -- this would require the approval of the US who, frankly, would like to keep quiet for as long as it can about the fact that its policy against Iraq has failed. Meanwhile, the US and Britain are continuing their attacks against military targets inside Iraq.

The main aim of this undeclared war is to prevent Iraq's military of ever being capable of presenting a challenge to Israel. At least in this area, the US can claim to have been successful to some degree. Despite all the attempts Iraq has allegedly made to produce new weapons, Baghdad is regarded as little more than a dwarf when it comes to military might in the region.

A high price has been paid for this progress. Iraq once had one of the most developed societies in the Middle East but is now operating on the level of a Third World country. The U.S., meanwhile, has seen its reputation in the region battered and damaged for a long time to come.