Denis Halliday

Who is Denis Halliday?

Denis J. Halliday was the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from 1 September 1997 until 1998. He is Irish and holds an M.A. in Economics, Geography and Public Administration from Trinity College, Dublin.

After a 34-year career at the United Nations, where he had reached Assistant Secretary-General level, Halliday resigned in 1998 over the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, characterizing them as "genocide". He subsequently gave the following explanation of his decision to resign:

I often have to explain why I resigned from the United Nations after a 30 year career, why I took on the all powerful states of the UN Security Council; and why after five years I continue to serve the well being of the people of Iraq. In reality there was no choice, and there remains no choice. You all would have done the same had you been occupying my seat as head of the UN Humanitarian Program in Iraq.

I was driven to resignation because I refused to continue to take Security Council orders, the same Security Council that had imposed and sustained genocidal sanctions on the innocent of Iraq. I did not want to be complicit. I wanted to be free to speak out publicly about this crime.