United Nations sanctions against Iraq, which were put in place after the Persian Gulf War, are hurting the people of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein himself. Hussein is using the money he receives from illegal trade and programs to help the people of Iraq for his own personal use. The sanctions were originally created to force Hussein to stop building weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hussein, however, still maintains these weapons and uses black-market money to develop them. With lack of a better plan, the sanctions are still in effect.
             The economic sanctions against Iraq began over ten years ago when the Iraqi army began to occupy Kuwait in 1990 (1). These sanctions were created so that Saddam Hussein would pull his troops out of Kuwait. But the UN forces, led by the United States, were able to rid Kuwait of the Iraqis prior to the sanctions having been fully enacted. Since Hussein continued to possess weapons of mass destruction, the sanctions were not lifted until he permitted UN inspectors to verify that he had destroyed these weapons. Hussein has yet to let the UN inspectors into Iraq, therefore, the sanctions are still being imposed.
             The original embargo banned all trade with Iraq and froze all Iraqi assets that existed overseas. Food and medical supplies were exempt from this embargo, but Iraq was unable to afford these products because it did not have any income from exports. The impact of the sanctions was magnified greatly because of the terrible infrastructure in Iraq. The infrastructure was damaged by war with Iran and the Persian Gulf War (1).
             The sanctions being imposed on Iraq are hurting the people rather than Saddam Hussein. For example, Basra is Iraq's second largest city and the electric power, when available, flickers on and off. It can take up to ten minutes for a telephone call to be connected. There is a thick layer of smoke covering the city because of "jury-rigged" gene...