The years of U.S. support of the Iraqi regime helped to entrench Saddam Hussein in power . The U.S. policy of economic sanctions has made things worse - not better. By reducing the Iraqi people from relative prosperity to desperate poverty, we have undermined the moderating forces of the middle class and civil society. We have deprived the very institutions that could bring about democratic change. Public health care and education systems have collapsed, unemployment rates have soared and Iraq's educated middle class has virtually disappeared.
Electrical outages remain commonplace.
Many professionals, including doctors and health workers, have fled Iraq or resorted to driving cabs-the main source of income in urban centers. A significant portion of the money collected as transit taxes has gone toward weapons and funding factional wars. Economic sanctions, though intended to weaken Iraq's elite ruling class, only strengthen its political hegemony. Much of the money goes into the patronage system that allows Saddam to maintain the allegiance of factional leaders and remain in power. In addition, economic sanctions have led to the military's further consolidation of power over rural areas and much of Southern Iraq, where extreme scarcity has created a greater dependency on Iraq's rationing system of emergency goods.