The following letter was sent to each member of the UN Security Council.
International Action Center
39 West 14th St., #206
New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-6646
fax: (212) 633-2889
http://www.iacenter.org
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
March 4, 1999
Dear Ambassador,
The Security Council, and thereby the United Nations, risks losing all legal and moral authority if it does not act immediately to end the relentless acts of war against Iraq committed by the United States and the United Kingdom in its name.
Each aerial strike by U.S. and UK military aircraft, now a daily event, is unjustified military aggression against a sovereign state, an act of war. Hundreds of civilians have been killed. The purpose is obviously part of U.S. strategy to overthrow the government of Iraq. See, New York Times Editorial, Unexplained Strategies on Iraq, March 3, 1999, p. 16.
The Security Council hopelessly compromised UNSCOM by authorizing U.S. and British intelligence officers to represent it in Iraq over a period of years, creating the inescapable appearance of forcing acceptance of hostile spies. Who could believe such inspectors would not use illegal means and turn over to their national intelligence agencies information concerning every aspect of Iraq’s military and civilian vulnerabilities? Now, while sophisticated and deadly U.S. and British military planes attack Iraq daily, the truth that U.S. and British agents in the service of the UN in fact unlawfully spied and committed espionage is confirmed. See, U.S. Spied on Iraqi’s Military via UN, Washington Post, March 2, 1999, p. 1.
The greatest assault against Iraq which attacks the entire population with sickness and hunger as its weapons in violation of the Geneva Conventions is the U.S.-coerced sanctions. Those sanctions kill thousands monthly, most infants, children and the elderly. They violate the Genocide Convention which prohibits "acts committed against a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" with the intent of "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part."
The Security Council cannot end the scourge of war when its own members are committing the worst acts of war and war crimes in its name.
The Security Council must end the sanctions against Iraq immediately, denounce U.S. and UK air strikes and acknowledge the wrongfulness of employing belligerents acting in its name to spy and commit espionage under cover of UN arms inspections.
Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark
Archives of Previous Letters to the UN from Ramsey Clark
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