The Scourging of Iraq
Geoff Simons
Macmillan Press
St. Martin’s Press
The main purpose of this book is to highlight the continuing and unjustifiable punishment of the Iraqi people through economic sanctions. It rests on the simple principle, enshrined in the Protocol 1 Addition (1977) to the Geneva Convention (1949), that the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is illegal and ethically indefensible. The book does not represent apology or exculpation for Saddam Hussein (I have charted his bloody rise to power in Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam, 1994). It is important to remember that many of the politicians, business leaders, pundits and journalists who today are keenest to maintain economic sanctions on Iraq are precisely the people who in the 1980s did all they could to build up and sustain the tyrannical Iraqi regime. What is argued here is that it is unjustifiable in both law (Protocol 1; UN General Assembly Resolution 96(1); the UN Genocide Convention; etc.) and natural justice to target helpless men, women and children as a method of overthrowing a national ... | 
