butterpaper.com/war

War as a humanitarian response -
Saddam Hussein leads a vicious regime with no respect for human life. Many of his people are starving in a country which was once prosperous. This is one secondary justification for the invasion by the Coalition of the Willing.

PEOPLE
	George Bush Jnr	" America views the Iraqi people as human beings who have suffered long enough under this tyrant. And the Iraqi people can be certain of this: the United States is committed to helping them build a better future. If conflict occurs, we'll bring Iraq food and medicine and supplies and, most importantly, freedom." George Bush, speech, February 10, 2003
	Dick Cheney	"At the time, we did not know that while Cheney headed the company, Halliburton had done business with the notorious Yadana pipeline project in Burma – an environmentally damaging project on behalf of which, according to a U.S. federal court, egregious human rights abuses were committed, including murder, torture, rape, forced labor and forced relocation." Earth Rights October 2000 PDF
GROUPS & COMPANIES
	United Nations	Studies by respected medical organizations estimate that the death toll could rise to the hundreds of thousands. Confidential U.N. documents warn that a war could trigger a "humanitarian emergency of exceptional scale" -- including the possibility that 30 percent of Iraqi children could die from malnutrition. Noam Chomsky March 13, 2003
	United Nations	" A recently leaked UN report headed “Likely humanitarian scenarios”, and dated 10 December 2002, supports predictions of a humanitarian catastrophe in the event of further war. It estimates that 16 of the country’s 26.5 million people are totally dependent on the government monthly food ration, the distribution of which will be severely jeopardised with the likely targeting of roads, bridges and railways. Further predictions in the report are that 39% of the population will need to be provided with clean water, 5 million would require assistance with sanitation; 2 million children will require treatment for severe or moderate malnutrition; and 900,000 refugees will require assistance." Dr Sue Wareham, February 2003, in The Paper [Link to UN report]
	Iraq - ethnic tensions	" US and British decisionmakers have exploited popular humanitarian sentiment for the most cynical of realpolitik reasons. They have no desire for the Shiite majority to take control or for the Kurds to achieve independence. Their policy is to keep them strong enough to cause trouble for Saddam Hussein while ensuring that Saddam Hussein is strong enough to keep repressing them. This is not a new policy. It is a direct descendant of British imperial policy from World War One onwards. Britain controlled Iraqi oil wealth through Sunni minority monarchs who put down rebellions by the Kurdish minority and the Shiite majority. When those Sunni minority monarchs became too nationalist and too powerful, Britain fuelled Kurdish and Shiite opposition just far enough to rein in the monarch but not far enough for the opposition to actually win." Dr Eric Herring March 2001 (academic advisor to John Pilger)

External links:
A transcript of the leaked UN report on the humanitarian consequences of war in Iraq, December 10, 2002