Prof faults U.S. for sanctions on Iraq

By ALISON PRIDE , Chronicle Staff Writer

The United States shouldn't fight terrorism with terrorism, says Thomas Nagy, associate professor of expert systems at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Nagy spoke to a small crowd Sunday night at Montana State University. His visit to Montana was sponsored by the Montana Peacekeepers Network and included stops in Billings, Helena, Butte and Missoula.

Recently named by a writer in the New York Post "one of the eight professors that hate America," Nagy said there's more than one way to practice patriotism.

"I don't want to burn the flag," he told the room. "I want to wash the flag."

Nagy spoke extensively about his own call to activism and how one day, while conducting some online research on Gulf War Syndrome, he came across a partially declassified document that seemed to indicate the United States intentionally bombed Iraq's water infrastructure during the war.

Furthermore, he said, the 1991 Defense Intelligence Agency document made the destruction of Iraq's clean water supply sound like no more than good strategy.

In the years since the Gulf War, Nagy said, international organizations like CARE and UNICEF have estimated that 500,000 Iraqi children under 5 have died of water-borne illnesses like cholera and typhoid fever.

U.S. sanctions imposed on Iraq have denied the country the equipment and chemicals needed to provide safe water, he said. In 2000, Iraq requested $11 billion to rebuild its sanitation system.

"The U.S. permitted $160 million," Nagy said. "That works out to $2 per Iraqi citizen. And this is for a destroyed system."

For Nagy, the U.S. policy is tantamount to terrorism and a violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the destruction of "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population." Safe drinking water falls in to this category.

"There's no wiggle room," he said.

When he initially came across the information, he said, he tried to find alternative explanations. "It was with great reluctance I came to these conclusions," he said.

Despite traveling widely and conferring with other scholars, he added, "I haven't found any credible refutation."

In September of this year, Nagy traveled with a special fact-finding delegation to Iraq in an attempt to estimate (among other things) civilian fatalities in the event of another full-scale war. The children of Iraq are even more vulnerable now than they were in 1991 because of sickness and food shortages.

"I don't care who's right and who's wrong. You just can't subject little children to this," he said.

Nagy suggested several avenues of action for people interested in protesting the U.S. sanctions against Iraq. Turn off your television, he said, and spend the time reading about the issue. Find support from other peace activists.

"If you think through what positive actions can be taken in addition to protesting, then I think you will act," he said.

For Peacekeeper volunteer Matt Furshong, Nagy's message wasn't all depressing.

"Any time you have someone who's willing to stand up and be counted among the truth tellers of our time and take personal and professional risks, it's inspiring," he said.

For more information on the Montana Peacekeepers Network or Thomas Nagy's work, log onto www.montanapeacekeepers.org

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