Iraq: Innocent victims made to suffer for the sins of Saddam

THE DISNEY PARK is empty and the government has banned the export of school textbooks - because not a single Iraqi schoolbook has been printed since 1990. Nor has a single school been built anywhere in Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Lack of funds, is the reason it seems (though not enough to stop Saddam building more palaces).

The Internet is a mystery to Iraqi children. New computers are banned under UN sanctions; they may have a dual military purpose. So, it appears, may cotton - because there are no more cotton sheets for hospital wards - and paper, too. Exercise books have run out; in Baghdad, one young mother admitted that she tells her children only to write in pencil, so that she can erase their work and give them back their exercise books to use again. Always supposing the children have pencils, which are subject to UN restrictions because they contain graphite, which could be used for military purposes.

The idea of Saddam's legions stripping the wood off school pencils to get at the graphite would be funny if the effect of UN sanctions was not so immoral. In the Basra General Hospital, children are suffering from typhoid, almost certainly from drinking water contaminated by sewage.

And who is to blame? Well, once we have gone through the Saddam routine - it is he, we are told, who is really being punished for his wickedness - we find that Iraqi water treatment plants are not being repaired. And why not? Because each individual item of machinery has to be manufactured specifically for the plants.

Technology that was up-to-date in 1990 is now obsolete. It is becoming ever more difficult to obtain spare parts. Iraq used to build its water plants with machinery from Spain, Italy and France. And UN sanctions committee approval is needed for each spare part. So the tap water is polluted.

When I ask a doctor at the Basra General Hospital why there are no children in the Disney Park, he replies: "Because they are all sent out to work by their families." On every street, children sell cigarettes, nuts, matches; or just beg. Others claw through rubbish tips for resaleable goods. They are being punished, you see, because of a man called Saddam Hussein.

Readers who wish to help the cancer-stricken children of southern Iraq can send cheques made out to The Independent Basra Fund, to PO Box No 6870, London E14 5BT.