Denis Halliday

With the $5 billion in contracts on hold, together with the bureaucracy and the politics of the U.N. and the Iraqi desire to have some sort of kickback on oil sales -- so they can use that money outside of the oil-for-food program -- it's going to be a real standoff situation where somebody will have to back down. And hopefully that will be the U.N. -- in the best interests of the Iraqi people.

But hasn't the oil-for-food program helped improve the standard of living amongst Iraqis to a certain extent?

There's no doubt that oil-for-food has brought in basic food needs for the great majority of the Iraqi people and that the rations have become a currency -- that food is often used to buy shoes for children or books or clothes or to buy animal proteins, items not included in the oil for food rations. In addition there is the money coming from Iraqis' relatives overseas -- a hugely important contribution. And I think it's quite ruthless of the Americans to cut off a hundred dollars or so a month that helps keep families alive.

To what degree have the sanctions themselves actually entrenched the Iraqi regime's power?

The sanctions regime in Iraq has dreadfully weakened the professional middle class. The very people who might focus on governance and might make demands for participatory government are the very people who've been destroyed, their incomes demolished by massive devaluation [of the dinar] and by inflation. They now have no other concern but survival. At the same time, however, the central government, given the rations distribution system and the employment of 49,000 agents, is in total control, more than ever before. Because the average Iraqi has no alternative but to accept these handouts -- a survival tool for every family in the country.

What would be the best way for the Bush administration to foster democracy?

I think that the way to get democracy into Iraq is to end the economic embargo, to restore the income level and the buying power of the Iraqi people, to get people back to work, restore the high educational standards, allow people the means to travel overseas again as they used to -- generally to restore the health and wealth of Iraq and the Iraqi people. That is what will bring change. Nothing else will, in my view. And we have to recognize that the only people competent to make decisions about the future of Iraq and its system of government is the Iraqi people. We cannot second-guess them long-distance from overseas.

But Saddam is a ruthless despot and remains a fundamental problem for the Iraqi people. In its condemnation of Saddam, the Bush administration certainly has a claim to the moral higher ground, doesn't it?

I don't think so. I mean, Saddam Hussein may not be a nice man, but neither was George Bush Sr. Anybody who oversaw the Gulf War is well aware of crimes against humanity and is responsible thereof. We don't have to like the president of Iraq. Did we like the president of Indonesia? Or the Congo? Or Chile -- Mr. Pinochet? I don't think so.

We have no justification to punish the innocent civilians of any country simply because we don't like, in this case, a man who was [once] a friend and ally to the United States. For example, Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq in 1983 -- spoke with Saddam Hussein, asked for an exchange of ambassadors. They know each other! Why can't Rumsfeld go back and reopen this dialogue and begin to understand what makes Iraq tick and help to create an atmosphere in the Middle East of peace -- as opposed to sustaining war, fear and terror, which the U.S. is doing at the moment.

What do you feel might be a realistic way to end the current crisis between Iraq and the U.S.?

The great challenge today is to find a solution that is acceptable to those that have power in Washington and London and those on the Security Council and those in Baghdad. We have to get all of these elements lined up, and I daresay we have to include Israel as well. We need to look at what's viable under the charter and international law. We have to lift the economic embargo. We need to control arms and arms sales. And that means, in a sense, sanctioning ourselves, because we are the great problem: The five permanent members of the Security Council produce and sell something like 85 percent of the military weaponry in the world today. And they're the very countries that supposedly are in charge of international peace and security. That's quite a ludicrous situation we've got here.

The Americans are way out in front in terms of arms sales. We've got to control that and we've got to diminish the availability of weapons of all sort -- including weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Then [we must] encourage Iraq to rebuild its relations with its neighbors and to deal with its own issues of civil rights, its relations with the Iraqi Kurdish population and with Kuwait for example.

All of this is possible. It's a matter of setting the situation up in such a way that there's no further loss of dignity and sovereignty on the part of Iraq, and that the neighboring states will no longer feel threatened and, in fact, acknowledge that there is no danger in Iraq beyond the rhetoric of the United States. It's a big task. I'm not saying it's easy. But I think we're beginning to see a change and let's hope that the meeting of the Arab League in Beirut [at the end of March] will reveal some moves toward peace in the Middle East, including the resolution of the Iraqi problem.

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