While First Lieutenant Ehren Watada faces court martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq to fight, Bert Sacks was fined $10,000 for going to Iraq to bring humanitarian aid. In 1997, Bert Sacks brought medicine to Iraqi civilians in defiance of the U.S. sanctions. Sacks is now petitioning the Supreme Court to take up his case. [includes rush transcript]

The U.S. government fined him $10,000 but Sacks has refused to pay. He has argued that the actual crime was not his humanitarian efforts but the U.S. sanctions. It has been estimated that the sanctions led to the death of 500,000 Iraqi children. His petition questions whether it was legal for the US to have knowingly caused the deaths of Iraqis through sanctions. Bert Sacks joins me now from Seattle.

We called the Treasury Department to invite them on the program. Molly Millerwise, a spokesperson at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, declined to be on.

• Bert Sacks, peace activist who was fined by the U.S. government for bringing humanitarian aid to Iraq is petitioning the Supreme Court to take up his case. More information at BertOnIraq.blogspot.com.