Teach-In to Explore the Effect of Sanctions in Iraq

Speakers with backgrounds in the military, business, and academia will bring their varied perspectives to bear at a teach-in at Smith College about sanctions in Iraq.
The event will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 4, in Sage Hall, Green Street. It is free, open to the public, and wheelchair-accessible.

Jack Scharfen, a retired Marine who has written extensively on national security issues, will address the dynamics of economic conflict and the reasons why sanctions work or fail. In his 1995 book "The Dismal Battlefield: Mobilizing for Economic Conflict," Scharfen argues that economic force rarely succeeds because it is neither well understood nor properly employed. Scharfen has worked as a civilian national security analyst and has taught a course on economic sanctions at the United States Congressional Studies Institute.

Also slated to speak is Nancy Gust, a business consultant to Fortune 500 companies who traveled to Iraq last fall as a representative of "Voices in the Wilderness," a campaign to lift the current sanctions. Gust will give an eyewitness account of the impact of the sanctions on the health, education and social structure of Iraqi society.

Peter Pellett, professor of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will discuss the conditions he has encountered during a number of United Nations missions to Iraq on which he served as an expert evaluating the food, nutrition, and health consequences of embargoes and sanctions. In an address to the U.S. House of Representatives last fall, Pellett noted: "Although [sanctions] result in enormous human suffering, they are, for us, an easy option and after being imposed can be conveniently forgotten by all except those affected. ... In my view, sanctions policies have already produced far more destruction to the ordinary people of Iraq than a civilized world should permit."

Discussions at the teach-in will be moderated by Gregory White, assistant professor of government at Smith, whose teaching interests include international political economy and political theory.