Bitter Iraqis remember Bush senior as ‘Mr Embargo’
BAGHDAD: The death of former US president George HW Bush stirred bitter memories for Iraqis of ‘Mr Embargo’ – the man behind crushing sanctions they blame for ravaging their country.
Under Bush’s command, US soldiers in 1991 drove invading Iraqi troops from Kuwait, which strongman Saddam Hussein had infamously dubbed his nation’s 19th province.
Iraq was slammed with crippling global sanctions and an oil embargo that left many relying on ration cards and slim salaries for over a decade – a period not easily forgotten by those who lived through it.
“For Iraqis, Bush has no honourable reputation. Not a shred of respectability,” said Shamel Abdulqader, a 60-yearold writer in a café on Baghdad’s famed Mutanabbi Street. He called the former US leader ‘a criminal and an aggressor’ – blaming him for the breakdown of ties with Iraq that the West pinned squarely on Saddam.
Starting in 1990, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq that were seen as the toughest in UN history, with a near- total trade and financial embargo.
The sanctions were lifted in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by Bush’s son, but the shortages they brought are still fresh in the minds of Iraqis.
“Bush was Mr Embargo – he hit the Iraqi people hard. In the end, it was the Iraqi people who paid the price,” said Abdulqader, who sported a dark moustache and walked with a cane.
Baghdad saw a period of relative prosperity during the 1970s, but the embargo laid waste to the economy that had emerged from eight years of brutal war with Iran in the 1980s.
“Iraq was on the fast- track to becoming a developed nation, with gross domestic product ( GDP) tripling and high foreign currency reserves,” said economic analyst Ahmad Subeih.
“When the embargo was imposed in 1990, it drained everything. GDP dropped from US$ 33 billion to US$ 16 billion because of it and 193 major firms closed,” Subeih added.
Salaries plummeted by some 90 per cent, he said.
To eke out a living, Iraqis sold their personal belongings and took up multiple jobs. Government employees moonlighted as taxi drivers and university professors would polish shoes in the streets for extra cash. Even after sanctions were lifted, the economic impact of the conflict lived on.
Baghdad still has to pay reparations to Kuwait, so far doling out US$ 47.9 billion to an estimated 1.5 million claimants. Many Iraqis see a direct connection between Bush’s 1991 intervention, the US-led invasion overseen by his son 12 years later, and the country’s poor state today.
“It’s Iraq’s bitter destiny that the country’s ruin and the destruction of its infrastructure was all tied to the Bush family,” said Jamal al- Itabi, 70, tears welling up in his eyes. — AFP