A Seattle activist is petitioning the US Supreme Court to overturn a fine he received from the US government for delivering medical supplies to children in Iraq.

Bert Sacks is a member of Voices In The Wilderness, a peace group that defied economic sanctions against Iraq after the first Gulf War. Sacks transported medicine to civilian hospitals in Iraq for use by children and other civilian patients. After his return from Basra in 1998, customs agents confiscated his notebooks and photographs. In 2002 Sacks was fined $10,000 by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Sacks has filed a petition with the US Supreme Court challenging his fine and the US government's restrictions on deliveries of food and medical supplies to Iraqi civilians.

"After the 1991 Gulf War, the US coalition forces bombed virtually all of Iraq's electrical generating plants. And so they had no electricity to pump water or process sewage and that was what led to epidemics of water-borne disease and the need for medicines to help deal with it," Sacks says.

Sacks' petition, however, addresses a larger question about US foreign policy.

"The petition does call for an overturning of the fine against me," he notes. "But what we're asking for is actually something much more than that. We're asking for a ruling on the question 'Is it legal for the United States to kill 500,000 children by pursing a policy that knowingly did that?'"

The petition also calls into question the US policy of destroying Iraq's infrastructure through massive bombings.

"The bombing of the infrastructure led to 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq. When you do that to a population of 20 million people you leave them hopeless and desperate and angry and violent. Violence rules. It's the disintegration of the rule of law. It's the disintegration of society. The violence has even spread to the hospitals. So people are even afraid to go into hospitals because if it's known where they are, even if they're wounded, there can be attacks and people can be taken out of hospitals. Our presence there can't lead to a better situation and sending more troops can't make things better."

Sacks sees the current war as just one more in a long series of US military and economic interventions in Iraq.

"We have an obligation to the Iraqi people for this sixteen years of war. From their point of view it's been one horrible war with three phases. Starting with the Gulf war--the deaths of so many people. Then followed by something like 500,000 children's deaths and probably an equal number of [other] civilians, leading up to this invasion which has been 650,000 (according to Dr. Les Robert's estimate) of civilian deaths occurring. It's just awful and there's no way to make it better by sending more troops. We have to commit to getting out. And we have to encourage our political leaders to make the statement that we have no intention to stay there and keep our permanent bases."

Sacks' petition is supported by Denis Halliday, a 34-year veteran of the UN who resigned in 1998 to protest the sanctions, after heading the Iraq oil-for-food program.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the petition within two months.