Diagnosis: Mercury by Jane M. Hightower

Author:Jane M. Hightower [Hightower, Jane M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781597264532
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2013-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

In June 1972, an editorial in the British Medical Journal, noting the necessity of developing standards for acceptable daily intake of mercury, commented on the incident and its aftermath: “Unfortunately, the seed grain was dressed with a mercurial compound known to produce irreversible injury in man,” and “the devastation in Iraq is probably less amenable to therapy and rehabilitation.” The editorial went on, “There is danger that hypothetical hazards will attract study while little is done to prevent real hazards, for it is easier to form pious resolutions than to stop people doing dangerous things. But the manufacturers and distributors of substances known to be dangerous can be identified and their activities controlled—though probably only by the concerted action of medical men.”44

Why did the Kurds, with just 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq’s population, receive this grain out of proportion to other groups in Iraq, I still wondered. Perhaps they were in more desperate need. Or they just planted more grain than any other group. I was unable to find specific information on the cultivation practices in Iraq by region for 1971–1972. Could there also have been a motive of Saddam’s for “purging” the enemy at that particular time? Was there an enemy?

Iraq contains the world’s second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. In 1971, control of the country’s oil industry was vested in the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a consortium of five of the world’s largest oil companies: BP, Shell, Esso, Mobil, and Compagnie Française des Pétroles (CFP). The IPC, which had been organized in part by Qassim, the previous leader of Iraq, accounted for the entire oil production of Iraq and effectively controlled prices and quotas. This was viewed as a kind of foreign occupation of the Iraqi economy, and the Ba’ath party was eager for the Iraqi government to gain ultimate control over the country’s oil wealth.45

In 1971, Saddam, together with the oil minister, assumed responsibility for dealing with the oil consortium. To nationalize the IPC, Saddam first needed to form alliances. Although he was anti-communist, he was even more anti-imperialist. He felt that an alliance with the Soviets would give him access to arms purchases and, at the same time, Soviet protection from Iran. The Soviets said they would support nationalization of the IPC and purchase any Iraqi oil surpluses. Saddam also developed an alliance with the French government, which said it would decline to join a boycott for nationalizing the IPC so long as French interests were not harmed. “So long as we have oil, we have power,” Saddam is said to have commented. “I want Iraq to have the last barrel of oil in the world.”46

Before the nationalization of the IPC took place, battles for the oilfields were ongoing. Both the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north were considered a problem for the Ba’ath. Despite this, Saddam began secret negotiations with the Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, and one text claims that Saddam personally directed attempts to accommodate the Kurds’ wish for self-autonomy.

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