(02/98) Once again, the United States is threatening to bomb Iraq to 'punish' Saddam Hussein for refusing to open up certain sites to United Nations weapons inspectors. But if the U.S. does bomb Iraq, it will not be Saddam Hussein who suffers, it will be the innocent people of Iraq.

The people of Iraq have already suffered so much. 150,000 Iraqis were killed during the Gulf War, and the nation's infrastructure, including its water and sewage treatment plants was completely destroyed. Today human waste is still piled in the streets of Iraq's second largest city and most Iraqis don't have access to clean drinking water. Seven years of harsh economic sanctions have claimed the lives of over one million Iraqis -- including at least 567, 000 children. Iraqi families have barely anything to eat -- a little bit of rice, some lentils, a small bag of flour. Iraqi hospitals don't even have antibiotics or clean syringes. None of this has affected Saddam Hussein, who is still in power.

The face of U.S. policy toward Iraq is the face of a child starving to death in a hospital outside Baghdad with no clean water to replace the fluids he has lost. The doctors and his grieving mother stand over his bed but there is nothing they can do to help him.

Why is this child suffering when Iraq doesn't present a military threat to the U.S. or its allies? Even Iraq's Arab neighbors don't feel threatened enough by Saddam Hussein to support a U.S. attack against Iraq. The U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein is violating U.N. resolutions prohibiting him from building or stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. This is true, and Saddam Hussein's actions are deplorable. But the U.S., Britain, France, China, Russia, Pakistan, India, and Israel are also building and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in violation of international treaties, a World Court ruling, and countless U.N. resolutions. Where are the weapons inspectors in our weapons labs? Where are the economic sanctions against the members of the U.N. Security Council who won't dismantle their weapons of mass destruction? These questions have been raised by many in the Arab world who sense hypocrisy on the part of the U.S. and its allies. If international law is to be meaningful it needs to be enforced fairly and consistently. And innocent people must never be made to suffer for the crimes of their governments.

And there is no evidence that more bombing and continued sanctions will convince Saddam Hussein to stop building these weapons. We have already turned a nation that once had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East into one of the most desperately poor countries in the world. In fact, we may be making the situation worse -- people in desperate situations often resort to desperate measures.

William Penn wrote that "Force subdues, but love gains." In a best case scenario, bombing or tighter sanctions might convince Saddam Hussein to temporarily open Iraqi weapons sites to U.N. inspectors. But what will happen six months, or one year, or five years down the road? Saddam Hussein will still be in the same desperate situation, and will continue to resort to desperate measures. Compassionate, effective diplomacy that replaces threats of violence with measures that promise to bring the Iraqi people out of poverty could offer Saddam Hussein a graceful way out of his desperate situation and spare hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

If we go to war again we will be creating a more dangerous situation for ourselves. Violence begets violence. Many in Middle East have already expressed a growing frustration over the hypocrisy of the U.S. policy of threatening to bomb Iraq because Iraq is suspected of having weapons of mass destructions while ignoring Israel's nuclear program and continuing to build, stockpile, and deploy its own nuclear weapons. If we bomb Iraq, resentment of the U.S. will grow, and Americans will most likely be the targets of terrorist acts. The World Trade Center bombers and the man who shot the commuters outside the CIA headquarters cited U.S.-backed violence against Muslim and Arab peoples as the reason for their actions. We we engage in violence against innocent people around the world, we in a sense invite violence against our own people.

Bombing and sanctions will not end the crisis in Iraq. We have tried violence and it has failed. Let us see what diplomacy and understanding will do.