Harvard Group to Visit Iraq

Frustrated by the limited coverage in U.S. military reports and in the western press of Iraqi civilians during the Gulf War, a team of six students and two experts on international law will travel to Iraq tomorrow to spend two weeks reviewing 50 bomb sites.

Members of the group hope to determine whether some of the bombing raids in the U.S.-led attack violated international law as laid out by the United Nations, said Steven R. Donzinger, a third-year law student and one of two organizers of the trip.

The trip will present the first on-site inspection of post-war Iraq by scholars versed in international law, he said.

Students from the School of Public Health (SPH) will also examine the impact of the embargo and the war on the health of Iraqi civilians, by examining the effect of destroyed power plants and contaminated water supplies, group members said.

"The impact of the destruction of electricity and water purification on civilians, especially children, is enormous," said Megan Passey, a masters candidate at SPH.

Donziger and Roger Normand, the other trip organizer, said that the American military's restrictive press policy during the war has magnified the task ahead of the group.

"We were disturbed by the Pentagon's characterization of the war as a painless, antiseptic exercise rather than something that causes extreme pain for people on the ground, as wars usually do," Donziger said.

In addition to the Harvard contingent, Donziger said that two award-winning documentary film-makers will make the trip and record their observations. Also, two other legal scholars, a University of Tennessee professor and the legal director of the Seattle-based International Commision on Medical Neutrality, will travel to Iraq.

Each of the participants has an extensive background in human rights and in fact-finding missions, Donziger said, adding that the group will also take along two tons of medical supplies.

And when it returns, Donziger said, the group hopes to publicize its findings and "sensitize people and policy makers to the plight of the innocent civilians on the ground."

Donsziger said that, because the team might be subject to interference from the Iraqi government, it will "let the facts speak for themselves," using painstaking methods to verify information uncovered on the trip and testimony taken from Iraqis.

Still, Donziger said that the group has been promised "a maximum of freedom and independence by the Iraqi government.