Averting Famine on Iraq: My Memories for Years of U.N Sanction 1990-2003

By Dr. Mohammed Mahdi Saleh Al-Rawi

Averting Famine on Iraq,
My Memories for years of U.N sanction 1990-2003
Washington post March 3, 2003: About Iraqi Food Ration System

“The ration program is regarded by the United Nations as the largest and most efficient distribution system of its kind in the world. International experts regard Iraqi program, which feeds more people than any other ration system in the world and is twice the size of WFP program worldwide operations, as the largest and most efficient in the world. The system was operating in weeks and it continued during the Gulf War, making Saleh something of national hero. I don’t think any body could do something better in term of accuracy and timely food distribution to the entire population. It is very impressive. Due said he fears a "catastrophe" if a conflict interferes with food shipments or if a change of government results in distribution being assumed by international aid organizations without participation of Iraqi civil servants.

"There's no alternative to the current system," he said. "There's no way we could create something else that would work half as well as theirs."

Dr. Mohammed Mahdi Saleh Al-Rawi
Ph.D in Regional Development Planning,Manchester University.U.K,1978 .
The Economic Advisor Of President Saddam Hussein 1981-1987,
Minister of Trade,Iraq, 1987-2003,(concerntly Minister of Finance 1989-1991)
Fellow of National Development Economic Instute of the World Bank, 1980,
Member of Intrem Committee of International Monetary Fund 1989-1991 ,
Iraqi Representative in the Economic and Social Council of Arab League 1987-2003,
Iraqi Representative in the Council of Economic Arab Union 1978-2003,
Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Jordan, 2014-2022.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669857792

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Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Mohammed Mahdi Saleh Al-Rawi.

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Rev. date: 03/08/2023

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Contents

Chapter 1: The Beginnings of Imposing the Sanction on Iraq

First: The American Position after Declaring Iraq’s Victory over Iran

Second: The Accumulation of Debts on Iraq and the Growing Financial Crises

Third: Revitalization Reconstruction and Expanding Military Industrialization Plans

Fourth: Military industrialization reveals and exaggerates its production and future plans in the media.

Fifth: The American side reduces the agricultural loan in half.

Sixth: President Saddam rejects an offer made at the end of 1989 on a settlement in the Middle East.

Seventh: President Saddam launches a violent attack on America and Zionism at the Arab Cooperation Council summit in February 1990 in Amman.

Eighth: The late Pres. Saddam Hussein raises the issue of low oil prices at the Baghdad Summit in May 1990.

Ninth: Congress approves Legislative Regulation 4585 imposing sanctions on Iraq on July 27, 1990, and sets August 1 to suspend export licenses to Iraq.

Chapter 2: Four Days that Changed the Face of the Region and Still Do!

First: The UN Security Council condemns the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and demands the withdrawal of Iraqi forces and calls on Iraq and Kuwait to negotiate to resolve their differences and supports Arab efforts to resolve the crisis

Second: The American president imposes a comprehensive American sanction on Iraq on August 2, 1990.

Third: Iraq agrees to withdraw from Kuwait and begins withdrawing its forces, and America thwarts it

Fourth: The Security Council issues Resolution 661 on August 6, 1990 imposing a comprehensive blockade on Iraq, including food, only four days after the issuance of Resolution 660, to compel him to withdraw from Kuwait

Fifth: Countries of the world are committed to implementing Resolution 166 when it is issued, and Jordan has not

Chapter 3: The situation of Iraq before the imposition of the embargo, according to United Nations reports

First: The status of the local agricultural production of food supplies and the population of Iraq

Second: The Office of the Presidency requests the periodic report on food stocks, and the US intelligence is investigating information about grain stocks in July 1990

Chapter 4: Adoption of Food Ration System to Face Famine and Sanction

First: Adopting the ration card in distributing food to face famine

Second: President Saddam agrees to approve the ration card

Third: Interviewing President Saddam

Fourth: The general foundations and principles in applying for the ration card and the food items it contained

Fifth: Determining the priorities of the work of the Ministry of Commerce and announcing the start of implementing the ration card at the beginning of September 1990

Sixth: Rearranging the use of food storage and limiting it to the ration card to face starvation

Seventh: American intelligence provided false information to its director about the grain storage in Iraq before the sanction

Eighth: Storing grains underground and distributing foodstuffs

Ninth: Adequacy of food storage after securing the needs of the armed forces and the need of the Ministry of Agriculture for seeds

Tenth: The role of the private commercial sector

Eleventh: Issuance of a decision involving farmers and merchants with the death penalty

Chapter 5: Preparations Taken before the start of the war

First: Preparations for the 1991 war

Second: Meeting with Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh to retrieve a sugar steamer

Third: The start of the military aggression on the night of January 16–17, 1991

Fourth: Cessation of compatriot operation was issued on March 2, 1991

Fifth: Mass starvation and economic collapse became imminent immediately after the cease-fire

Sixth: Contact the Australian wheat council

Seventh: Overcoming the crisis of the collapse of the economic situation by providing the local currency

Eight: The Security Council issues Resolution 687 on April 2, 1991, maintaining sanctions on Iraq and imposing new conditions on the destruction of Iraq’s weapons

Ninth: The secretary-general of the United Nations sends a message to countries that have Iraqi funds

Chapter 6: Sources of Ration Card Financing in the First Seven Years of Hardship to Prevent Famine

First: How did we get past the famine?

Second: Iraq reconnects directly with the world by sea after opening the port of Umm Qasr

Third: Iraq’s revenues from hard currency, inflation, and the citizens’ sale of their belongings in the first seven years

Chapter 7: Hussein Kamel’s Escape and Iraq’s Acceptance of Negotiations with the United Nations to Export Oil in Exchange for Food

First: Hussein Kamel’s escape to Jordan

Second negotiations with the United Nations to implement Resolution 986 (1995)

Third: President Saddam forms a committee to negotiate the terms of implementing the oil-for-food program and reducing the flour quota, which led to the approval

Fourth: Determining the materials included in the ration card and their quantities

Fifth: Formation of the leadership committee for the memorandum of understanding

Chapter 8: Building the National Food Reserve to Counter the Disruption of Food Supplies under the Oil-for-Food Program to Prevent Famine

First: Commencing the implementation of the oil-for-food program

Second: The secretary-general of the United Nations sends a report on the implementation of the oil-for-food program to the Security Council

Third: Oil revenues through the oil-for-food-and-drug program

Fourth: Pricing oil sales in euros instead of dollars

Fifth: Purchases on the oil-for-food program

Sixth: The type and quantities of imported foodstuffs within the oil-for-food-and-drug program

Seventh: President Saddam and the Palestine question in the oil-for-food-and-drug program

Chapter 9: Oil Revenues, Ration Card Expenditures during the Sanction Period

First: Details of the amounts spent on the ration card

Second: Central Bank reserves of $120,000 in 1997

Chapter 10: Effects of the Imposition of the Embargo and the Implementation of the Oil-for-Food Program

First: The effects of the imposition of the sanction

Second: The return of economic and trade relations with the world and Iraq’s exit from the sanction ring (Return relations with Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, reconciliation with Kuwait and President Saddam warn about the coming Iranian threat)

Chapter 11: Iraq Signs a Free Trade Agreement during the Embargo Period with Arab Countries

First: Heading the Iraqi delegation to the International Conference on Financing for Development in Developing Countries in Mexico, which was attended by US President Bush

Second: Smart sanctions

Third: The president’s envoy to congratulate His Highness Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan on the success of the kidney transplant

Chapter 12: The Security Council Is Changing Its Goals According to American-British Political Motives to Change the Iraqi Regime

First: Pres. Saddam Hussein refused in 1994 the offer to lift the sanction by accepting to join the settlement project for the Palestinian cause

Second: US President Clinton threatens to stop the oil-for-food program

Chapter 13: Preparing for the War

Approval of the return of the inspection committees and the formation of a committee to negotiate with them headed by the vice president of the republic.

Chapter 14: Arab Summits in Amman, Bruit, Sharm Alshaik, and the Islamic Summit in Doha

Chapter 15: The Start of the American-British Aggression on March 19, 2003, and the Occupation of Iraq and the Lifting of the sanction on It

Chapter 16: The Role of President Saddam Hussein in Assigning the Ration Card

First: The role of the late president in assigning the ration card and justice in its application

Second: Justice in the application of the ration card

Third: Trials of Hussein Kamel to abolish the food ration system

Fourth: The position of the opposition on the ration card

Fifth: The people’s adherence to the ration card

Appendices

To the souls of my father and mother.

To my wife, son, and daughters,

Who accompanied me on the journey of facing the sanction for thirteen years and the suffering during the period of my custody at the American Cropper detention facility after the occupation of Iraq for nine years? They did not leave Iraq until after my release.

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In the name of Allah the Merciful:

Joseph said, You will plant for seven years consecutively; and what you harvest leave in the spikes, except a little from which you will eat(47) Then will come after that seven difficult years which will consume what you saved for them, except a little from which you will store (48) Then will come after that a year in which the people will be given rain and which they will press olives and grapes. (49).

Famine can be defined as the exposure of a group of individuals or societies to a complete lack of food for a period of time that leads to the suspension of the body’s organs from performing their activities, and the stopping of the body from moving, and then death. Mass death leads to the spread of epidemics, especially the plague.

The complete or partial interruption of food for a limited period or a long period is due to natural factors (drought, floods, and diseases that lead to damage to agricultural crops) and human factors of a political or military nature (such as the embargo imposed on cities during the fighting in most countries of the world throughout history or the sanction), as well the sanction that was taken by the Security Council under Resolution No. 661 of 1990 as the only case throughout history imposed on a country, which is Iraq. Sandy Berger, National Security Adviser to U.S. President Bill Clinton, stated that we imposed the toughest siege on Iraq in the history of mankind and deprived Saddam Hussein of oil revenues worth $150 billion to prevent him from developing weapons of mass destruction.

The first case of food interruption, which caused famine and led to the collapse of the state in Iraq due to food depletion, was in the Sumerian period, more than four thousand years ago. Jabber Khalil Ibrahim,* professor of history at the College of Arts at the University of Baghdad, mentions this in his research entitled The Embargo in the Ancient Era until the Fall of Babylon, which he presented at one of the annual conferences held by the Ministry of Trade for Iraqi historians, about the sanction that the city of Ur faced (in 2006 BC), the capital of the Sumerian kingdom in the third dynasty of Ur. The quantity of imported food did not reach Ur due to the incursion of the Amorite peoples, advancing from the desert of the Levant toward the cities of Sumer, and the prices of foodstuffs rose outrageously, reaching fifty or sixty times causing famine in the cities of Sumerian Kingdom. Elam (Persia) led an attack on the country and the destruction of the city of Ur and Abi-Asin taken to Elm and a military unit set up in Ur. This horrific tragedy shook the conscience of the Sumerian poet, as Dr. Jabber Khalil Ibrahim says, so he composed a 450-line poem called an epitaph.Below are excerpts from it:

In Ur, no one went to get food, and no one went to get a drink.

Its people were like the water of a well.

Their strength is weak and their feet are unable to walk.

Its people have perished their souls like a fish held by a strong hand,

The small and the large, lifeless on the ground, none of them is able to stand, and its king has no bread left to eat.

Yes, there is no bread in his palace to eat, and it is no longer possible to live in it.

Ur, whose reliance was on its black heroes, fell into a massacre

And her people fell prey to the grip of the enemies

Whoever among them did not die by the action of weapons died of starvation?

Ur inside it is death and outside it I die, inside it we die of starvation,

And outside it we kill with the weapons of the Elamites

...

That city has been turned into ruins,

Its walls are cracked, and people do not forget

In its high doors, in which they were strolling

The bodies of the dead were thrown out,

And in its wooded streets, where feasts were held, they lay scattered,

And in all its ways, in which they rambled, the bodies of the dead were laid, and in their squares, where festivities were held, men lay in heaps.

Ur, whose strong and weak are devoured by hunger

The fires covered the fathers and mothers who did not leave their homes, and the children lying in their mothers’ arms, like fish, carried away by the waters. In the city, the wife was forsaken, and the sons forsaken,

Ur was destroyed, and its people were made homeless.

But the Sumerian poet did not give up hope that Ur would return and be rebuilt again after the black days had passed, as he put it, saying:

May we rebuild Ur again amid the manifestations of joy and happiness, and that its people bow before its gods in reverence, and Ur lifts its neck to the sky.

People gathered for an age in the country, from the bottom to the bottom

And the ways of foreign countries were opened to him, and so he wrote salvation to the city of Ur.

This poem, more than four thousand years ago, expresses the impact of food shortages and famine in the decimation of most of the population of Ur and the collapse of state authority and its occupation by the Elamites.

An example of the siege of cities is the siege of the city of Babylon, where the influence of the Babylonian Empire extended at the time of Nebuchadnezzar to include Armenia in the north, Elam in the east, and the Levant and the Mediterranean in the west. At the time of his rule, which lasted forty-three years, it became the most important political and cultural center in West Asia, as mentioned by Dr. Jabber Khalil Ibrahim. The mentioned empire weakened at the time of its last ruler, Nabonidus, to be occupied by Cyrus the Persian in 539 BC in cooperation with the Jews who were exiled by Nebuchadnezzar and inhabited Babylon. However, the people of Babylon did not succumb to the Persian occupation, so Ndento-Bel led a revolution against the Persians, and the country became independent for a year and a half until the Achaemenid House sent an army to subdue it. This was followed by another revolution led by a person who called himself Nebuchadnezzar IV, in which the occupiers were expelled, and the country’s independence was achieved.

Herodotus, the Greek historian, recounts the story of the siege that Dara’s Achaemenid army struck on Babylon, which he describes as a suffocation that lasted one year and seven months, during which Dara failed to capture the city. Herodotus points out that the people of Babylon gathered in the towers above the wall of their city and mocked Dara and his great crowd, and a man called them, saying, Why are you Persians sitting, and why don’t you return to your homes? You will not take possession of this city of ours until the mules have boiled, you will give birth to a cow, and a camel is a mare. This is the extent of the incapacitation because female mules do not give birth at all, so how can they give birth to a foal? And the amount of incapacitation that the Babylonians put in place is an expression of self-willingness and the ability to stand up to the occupier.

Baghdad was subjected to three major sieges, which led to the depletion of food stocks. Its inhabitants were subjected to severe food shortages and exorbitant increases in prices. The first of these was the siege imposed by forces coming from Persia under the leadership of Al-Tahir bin Hussein to support Al-Ma’mun bin Harun Al-Rashid against the caliph, his brother Al-Amin, in the year AH 197–AD 812. The second siege was by Turks (AH 351–AH 812) during the time of Caliph Al-Mustaeen Be Alla. The third was imposed by the Seljuks at the time of the Abbasid Caliph AlMuktafi Amr Allah in the year AH 551.

Dr. Ali al-Wardi* mentions that Abdul Aziz al-Qassab writes in his book, From My Memories, of what he saw on the road between Aleppo and Mosul in the village of Deir Qabou—human corpses lying on both sides of the road in an abundance that cannot be described, and upon entering the village, he found the hungry scattered in it and unable to move due to the severity of their hunger, which resulted in the disintegration of their livers. He saw the corpse of an animal with about fifty hungry people gathered around it, and each one of them cut something of its flesh by means of a shovel, then withdrew to be replaced by another hungry one. They ate the meat of dogs and cats, just as they ate the blood of sacrifices after it had frozen, and when the butcher arrived in Mosul, he found a famine there, no less than it was in Deir Qabo town.

Some of the famines that befell Iraq and Baghdad due to floods and damage to the agricultural crop, as mentioned by Hanna Batatu, author of the Book of Iraq,* in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries and mentioned in the official records included:

• famine in the year 1261

• famine and pestilence of 1689

• flood, failed crop, and famine of 1786

• plague and annihilation of most of Iraq’s population in 1802–1803

• flood and pestilence of 1822

• flood, famine, and pestilence of 1831 (when the population of Baghdad fell from 82,000 to 88,000)

• epidemic and famine in 1877–1878

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*Ibraheem, Kalil, The Embargo in Ancient Era until the Fall of Babylon, S, Ministry of Trade conference on sanction in Iraqi History, November 1989.

*Al-Wardi, Ali, Social Profiles in the Modern History of Iraq, Part IV, p. 449.

*Batatu, H., Iraq, Table No. 2-1, p. 43.

*Dr. Muhammad Salman Hassan, who taught me economic planning at the master’s level at the Urban and Regional Planning Centre at the University of Baghdad in 1974, mentions that the population of Iraq has decreased to 1.52 million. This is mentioned in the Bulletin of Oxford University, Institute of Statistics, vol. 20, No. 4, 1958.

The population of Iraq increased at the beginning of the twentieth century, reaching 2.9 million people according to the general population census for the year 1972. Then it increased to 4.8 million people, according to the general census of the year 1974, and again increased to reach 6.9 million according to the general census of the population of the year 1957. It reached 12 million people according to the general census of the year 1977, rose to 16.3 million according to the population census for the year 1978, then reached 22.5 million in the last census of 1979, before the occupation of Iraq, which is the last census that has been conducted so far. The population of Iraq, according to the ration card statistics, within the recent distribution plan of the oil-for-food- program, reached 24.6 million people at the end of 2003 (the population of Iraq was 18.5 million when the Security Council imposed the embargo on Iraq in August of 1991 with an increase of 8 million people).

This book reviews the blockade imposed by the Security Council pursuant to its Resolution No. 661, August 6, 1990, and until its lifting immediately after the occupation of Iraq by its Resolution No. 1483 issued on May 22, 2003, explaining the real reasons behind the imposition of the embargo and comparing the embargo imposed on Iraq with the embargo imposed by the Security Council on other countries since its establishment. The book also deals with the measures taken by the Ministry of Commerce in facing the embargo, especially in the first seven years before the Oil-for-food Programme 1996 was enacted, which was called the Seven Years of Hardship. The book also deals with the preparations that were taken from 1997 until the occupation of Iraq to prevent food interruption during the implementation of the Oil-for-Food Programme and as a precaution to stop this program completely before the invasion of Iraq in light of U.S. President Clinton’s threat to stop it by building a strategic stockpile. The book touched on the measures that were taken to destabilize the siege and spare the Iraqi people from starvation, documenting this with the available dates and documents. This despite the fact that most of them were burned and destroyed immediately after the invasion of Iraq to preserve the events of the most difficult period in Iraq during the period of the comprehensive siege imposed by the UN Security Council for a period of thirteen years, which is considered the cruelest in the history of the human race, as described by Sandy Berger, National Security Adviser to U.S. President Clinton.

This book includes sixteen chapters, beginning with the first chapter, The Beginnings of Imposing the Sanction on Iraq, and ending with the last chapter, The Role of President Saddam Hussein in Assigning the Ration Card.

He helped me in my mission as Minister of Trade during the sanction, which is my previous job in the presidential office. I was in direct communication with the late president for seven years since January 13, 1982, as the economic advisor until my appointment as Minister of Trade on August 3, 1987. I continued to communicate with him about the ration card and prevented anybody from interfering in the work of the ration card. By virtue of my previous work as head of the Economic Department, I submitted to the President Saddam the work of the economic ministries through the president of the presidential office for approval, disapproval, or amendment of the recommendation. Food and its distribution according to the ration card without referring to the presidency or the Council of Ministers, but I take decisions based on the foregoing and based on the confidence of the president in me. The members of the leadership and the late vice presidents knew this and took it into account. The reader will see through the presentation of the events, some of them at length, how decisions were taken by the late president, and the expression of opinion by members of the Council of Ministers or members of the committees chaired by the late president.

What is included in this book is a recording of events as they happened and according to their times, without commenting on their validity or mistakes. I do not mean that praise or slander. All the names that were mentioned in my memoirs, my relations were good with them, and some of them extended to family relations, but honesty requires that I record the events for history so that one of the most important periods in the contemporary history of Iraq and the suffering of its people is not exposed to fraud or its features were obliterated during a period of an unjust siege that was not considered. Neither the Security Council nor America and Britain showed compassion and mercy to a rich country and its people who confined them in a closed prison and allowed them, after seven lean years, to obtain a small amount of their money to buy milk, food, and medicine for their children in return for obtaining a third of that amount to pay the expenses of the United Nations and the committees on weapons of mass destruction and to pay compensation. It kept the people of Iraq under a systematic sanction, recording the largest crime of genocide in the history of the twentieth century by the Security Council and the forces controlling it. It did not allow the lifting of the sanction on Iraq until after it occupied his country, and destroyed it under the pretext of revealing weapons of mass destruction, which it did not find. Security Council did not apologize to Iraqi people and compensate them for this suffering and deprivation, and she is now lamenting the danger of starvation that threatens the world’s population as a result of the current Russian-Ukrainian war.

The style contained in the book is my style and my way of writing. I wrote part of it in Cropper Camp, which was established by the American Occupation Authority near the airport immediately after the occupation of Iraq, as I had the honor of being among those targeted by the brutally aggressive administration of Bush Jr. My name was 35 of the 55 most wanted list announced by American Ministry of Defense about weapons of mass destruction. This list was adopted by Security council 1815 resolution. My detention lasted for nine years, until March 18, 2012, when I was released. On December 1, 2020, the Security Council removed my name from the aforementioned list.

God grants success.

Dr. Muhammad Mahdi Saleh Al-Rawi Amman –

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Chapter 1

The Beginnings of Imposing the Sanction on Iraq

After the Ottoman Empire lost World War I to the Allies, the Balfour Declaration was announced to establish a Zionist entity in the land of Palestine, and the immigration of Jews from all over the world increased to replace the Palestinian landowners. In 1947, war broke out and the Iraqi army was one of the main contributors to that war. During the rule of President Abdul Rahman Aref, full relations with the United States of America were severed for its support of the Israeli aggression in 1967 in its occupation of more Arab lands (the West Bank and Sinai). That relationship remained severed after the revolution of 17–30 July 1968. The Iraqi army weighed heavily in the 1973 war, and relations with America continued to be severed until 1982, when Donald Rumsfeld visited Baghdad as an envoy of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, to meet with Pres. Saddam Hussein and presented at the meeting, as mentioned in his book titled Known and Unknown, a proposal to extend an oil pipeline through Jordan to the port of Aqaba and establish a refinery as well. President Saddam Hussein asked Rumsfeld whether America would provide guarantees that this project would not be jeopardized by any Israeli aggression, but the American envoy did not give any guarantees and left the main issue. The president, as Rumsfeld says, did not ask for any help from America in the war with Iran three years after the eruption of war, which Rumsfeld expected the late Iraqi president to ask for. But the visit represented the beginning of the opening of commercial and then diplomatic relations between the two countries, Iraq and America, where diplomatic relations were restored in 1984. The United States of America provided credit facilities for the purchase of foodstuffs and other agricultural products in the amount of $400 million in 1982 within the GSM program, the American agricultural loan program offered by the United States to a number of countries in the world. The mentioned financial facilities rose to $600 million in 1984 and then to $800 million in 1986.

In August 1987, when I was appointed as Minister of Commerce, the final version of the Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation between the United States of America and Iraq was ready to be signed after intense negotiations by the Ministries of Commerce and Foreign Affairs in both countries. During that visit, I signed with my counterpart, the U.S. Acting Secretary of Commerce Georg Brown on August 26, 1987, a comprehensive agreement between the United States of America and Iraq called the Agreement on Commercial, Economic and Technical Cooperation agreement between the government of Iraq and the government of United State of America. The signing ceremony was attended by the technical delegation and Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon on the Iraqi side, while on the American side, the American technical delegation and a number of senior officials, including Richard Murphy and U.S. Undersecretary of State James Baker. The attached agreement in (Appendix No. 1) in English stipulates the following:

The Government of the Republic of Iraq and the Government of the United States of America, noting the development in economic and trade relations, and desiring to encourage trade exchange and economic, scientific and technological cooperation between them on the basis of equality and common interests within the framework of the laws and instructions prevailing in the two countries, have agreed on the following:

Article 1: The two parties dedicate their efforts to create the best conditions for enhancing economic and technological cooperation between the two countries in the commercial, industrial, agricultural, financial, energy, technology transfer, and transportation and health sectors.

Article 2: The two parties devote their efforts to developing and diversifying the trade exchange between the two countries in order to achieve a balance in mutual benefits.

Article 3: All activities covered by this agreement will be subject to the conclusion of agreements by the two parties within the framework of the laws and instructions in force.

Article 4: The two parties note the importance of technology transfer and trade in technological products in the development of economic and technological cooperation.

The other three articles included the formation of joint committees and the nonrestriction of trade, and economic and technological cooperation between the concerned parties in both countries in this agreement. During that visit, credit facilities (the American agricultural loan in the amount of $1 billion) were signed with an increase of $200 million in 1986. The agricultural loan provided to Iraq is the largest that the United States has granted to countries covered by agricultural credit facilities. In addition, I met in Washington with the head of the Export- import Bank of the United States and signed a short-term loan of $200 million for one year. The delegation succeeded in signing with the National de la Fore Bank, which handled the financing of a GSM Agricultural, medium-term loan of $200 million to cover some of Iraq’s needs for capital goods and industrial production requirements that are not covered by the agricultural loan.

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My visit to Washington resulted in the signing of the aforementioned economic cooperation agreement, and the obtaining of financing amounting to $1 billion and $400 million. The visit was successful and confirmed the desire of the two countries to strengthen and develop cooperation. The delegation received a high-level official reception, and a number of American newspapers focused on developing the relationship with Iraq. The Iraqi ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon, accompanied the delegation in all stages of the negotiations, and he enjoyed a high reputation in the diplomatic community in Washington from the American administration. I became responsible for the Iraqi government for economic and trade relations with the United States.

On my second visit in September 1988, where meetings are held annually between the two sides, the agricultural loan was increased to $1 billion and $100 million to cover the entire needs of the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture of corn, 80 percent of Iraq’s needs of rice, a third of Iraq’s needs of wheat, sugar, and infant formula, in addition to all its needs of wood. The Ministry of Industry used to meet some of its needs from that loan for agricultural production requirements such as tobacco.

In the same year, 1987, an American frigate was accidentally destroyed in the waters of the Arabian Gulf by the Iraqi Air Force during military operations with Iran, killing all the crew of the frigate, and the families of the victims were compensated with $1 million for each family, without affecting the development of the relationship between Iraq and the United States of America.

First: The American Position after Declaring Iraq’s Victory over Iran

On August 8, 1988, Iraq declared its victory over Iran, as all Iraqi lands occupied by Iran were liberated, starting from the Faw Peninsula in April 1988 and all the sectors of the south, center, and north, and the pursuit of Iranian forces inside its lands, which forced Iran to accept the ceasefire Security Council Resolution No. 598 of 20 July 1987. President Saddam Hussein sent ministers to deliver his invitations to Arab kings and presidents to attend the victory celebrations in Baghdad. My task was to convey his official invitations to King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, king of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan Al Nahyan; and the ameer of the State of Kuwait, Sheikh Jabber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

In the midst of the Iraqi people’s celebrations of the victory over Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives, under pressure from the anti-Iraq Zionist lobby, agreed to impose sanctions on Iraq on September 22, 1988, forty-five days after the war ended. The draft resolution to impose a unilateral sanction on Iraq was approved by the Congress under the bill S.2763, which was called the Prohibition Regulation (the 1988 Genocide) as included in the third section of the bill as follows:

1. Directing the CEO or the representative of the United States of America in all international financial bodies