...To The Grave

‘It was a four day intensive aerial bombardment of selected targets inside Iraq. But where did the target information come from?’

'The CIA ran an unauthorised eavesdropping operation against the Iraqis from UNSCOM’s office in Baghdad, and information collected by the spies was used by the British and the Americans to pinpoint targets in the Desert Fox air strikes on Iraq.'

The bombing continued into the next century, as did sanctions.

[SCOTT RITTER]
‘The United States killеd UNSCOM.’

And without UNSCOM, the conditions for lifting the embargo could not bе met.

After 6 months in office, Dennis Halliday’s replacement, Hans von Sponeck, was in despair.

[VON SPONECK]
‘Iraq now has an estimated national debt of 190 billion dollars.’

‘Right now we are selling the stage for depriving another generation of opportunity to become responsible national and international citizens of tomorrow.’

[HALLIDAY]
‘And it’s not a passive thing, it’s not neglect, it’s an act of decision making process of the member states of the Security Council. They know what they’re doing.’

"They know we own their country […] We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now, especially when there’s all that oil out there we need."

In October, Secretary General Kofi Annan accused America of deliberately…

"…disrupting the oil for food programme, upon which millions of people depend for their survival."

Four months later, Hans von Sponeck resigned.

[VON SPONECK]
‘There is a much wider design here where Iraq fits somewhere […] but the experiment is over, and we should never apply this kind of thing to any other country again, because we have seen that this experiment fails, in human terms.’

For nearly a decade, the United Nations agencies, dedicated to health, development and the protection of children, had meticulously documented the results of the experiment.

In the name of Justice and International law, the governments of the Security Council had overseen the pitiless destruction of a nation, without condemnation or outcry from their own citizens.

[GHAZWAN]
‘Here you are killing hundreds and hundreds of thousands… and nobody cares.’

[NASRA]
‘It was as if the world has built a Berlin wall of Silence all around Iraq.’

One in four children were now slowly starving. Physically and intellectually stunted, these children will never recover.

[NASRA]
‘Why? So that the multinationals could get our oil. We would have sold our oil anyway. It’s useless to anybody to be kept in the land.’

Others have already paid the price in full.

[HALLIDAY]
‘There is no other way to describe the death of one, possibly 1.5 million people. To describe the death of thousands of kids each month, to describe the death of probably 600,000 children since 1990. What else is that, but genocide?’

[NASRA]
‘It’s the war, it’s malnutrition, it’s lack of medicine: why?’

Twenty centuries after the birth of Christ, George Bush addressed US air crews running bombing missions over Iraq:

"I am delighted…"

He told them…

"… that I’ve been invited out here today to salute you, who, in my view, are doing the Lord’s work."

['Revelations']
"Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down…"

[GHAZWAN]
‘The sanction committee does not even respect the right of the dead to be buried according to Islamic rules….’

['Revelations']
"Therefore shall her plagues come in one day…"

[GHAZWAN]
‘….because the UN sanction committee prohibited Iraq from importing shroud cloth.’

['Revelations']
"Death and mourning and famine…..."

[GHAZWAN]
‘We say in our culture that the only belonging you take with you when you die is a four yard of a shroud…..’

['Revelations']
"….and the light of the candle shall shine no more at all in thee."

[GHAZWAN]
‘….and that the UN is depriving our people. They want them to go up - naked.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[VON SPONECK]
‘There is a much wider design here.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[HALLIDAY]
‘What else is that but genocide?’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[VON SPONECK]
‘Depriving another generation.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[US GENERAL WILLIAM LOONEY]
"And that’s what’s great about America right now."

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[HALLIDAY]
‘They know what they’re doing.’

[BUSH]
"Doing the Lord’s work."

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[GHAZWAN]
‘And nobody cares.’

[NASRA]
‘Why?’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[VON SPONECK]
‘There is a much wider design here.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[VON SPONECK]
‘Depriving another generation.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[HALLIDAY]
‘What else is that but genocide?’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[NASRA]
‘Why?’

[HALLIDAY]
‘They know what they’re doing.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[BUSH]
"Doing the Lord’s work."

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[NASRA]
‘Why?’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[GHAZWAN]
‘And nobody cares.’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[NASRA]
‘Why?’

[ALBRIGHT]
‘We think the price is worth it.’

[NASRA]
‘Why?’

[VON SPONECK]
‘There is a much wider design here.’

‘The President of Serbia, the largest republic in Yugoslavia, has said that he no longer accepts the authority of the country’s ruling Presidential council. The statement from the Slo…Slobodan….Milo..sevic came as his fellow communists mounted a demonstration on the capital, Belgrade.’