When he took office he left in place for 8 years the deadly economic sanctions against Iraq -- that hurt only the most vulnerable members of the nation, the children, the sick, the elderly the poor. Half a million deaths of vulnerable people.
Proud members of the Democratic Party, do not allow your party loyalty and pleasure with policies that help citizens of the U.S. blind you to the horrors that the U.S. has inflicted on the rest of the world -- horrors inflicted by Republican and Democratic administrations.
Ashamed. Bill Clinton should be ashamed. If I met him, that is exactly what I would tell him.
UN (US/UK) SANCTIONS: Primary cause of 600,000 deathsAugust 1990 - March 2003
The United Nations Security Council has maintained comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq since August 6, 1990. The international community increasingly views the sanctions as illegitimate and punitive, because of well-documented humanitarian suffering in Iraq and widespread doubts about the sanctions’ effectiveness and their legal basis under international humanitarian and human rights law. (2)
It is now clear that comprehensive economic sanctions in Iraq have hurt large numbers of innocent civilians not only by limiting the availability of food and medicines, but also by disrupting the whole economy, impoverishing Iraqi citizens and depriving them of essential income, and reducing the national capacity of water treatment, electrical systems and other infrastructure critical for health and life. People in Iraq have died in large numbers. The extent of death, suffering and hardship may have been greater than during the armed hostilities, especially for civilians, as we shall see in more detail below. Comprehensive sanctions in Iraq, then, are not benign, non-violent or ethical. (2)
A UN "Oil-for-Food Programme," started in late 1997, offered some relief to Iraqis, but the humanitarian crisis continued. (1)
Over a period of about five years, serving an Iraqi population of 23 million, the program has delivered roughly $200 worth of goods per capita per year, including oil spare parts and other goods not directly consumed by the population. Allowing for domestic production outside the Oil-for-Food program and for smuggling, the result still appears to leave Iraqi citizens an exceedingly low per capita income which may be at or below the $1 per day World Bank threshold of absolute poverty. (2)
The measurement of deaths rests on the concept of “excess” mortality – those deaths that exceed the mortality rate in the previous, pre-sanctions period or that exceed a projection of the earlier trend towards further gains. (2)
All of these excess deaths should not be ascribed to sanctions. Some may be due to a variety of other causes. But all major studies make it clear that sanctions have been the primary cause, because of the sanctions’ impact on food, medical care, water, and other health-related factors. (2)
Prof. Richard Garfield of Columbia University carried out a separate and well-regarded study of excess mortality in Iraq. Garfield considered the same age group and the same time period as the UNICEF study. He minimized reliance on official Iraqi statistics by using many different statistical sources, including independent surveys in Iraq and inferences from comparative public health data from other countries. Garfield concluded that there had been a minimum of 100,000 excess deaths and that the more likely number was 227,000. He compared this estimate to a maximum estimate of 66,663 civilian and military deaths during the Gulf War. Garfield now thinks the most probable number of deaths of under-five children from August 1991 to June 2002 would be about 400,000. (2)
There are no reliable estimates of the total number of excess deaths in Iraq beyond the under-five population. Even with conservative assumptions, though, the total of all excess deaths must be far above 400,000. (2)
In the face of such powerful evidence, the US and UK governments have sometimes practiced bold denial. Brian Wilson, Minister of State at the UK Foreign Office told a BBC interviewer on February 26, 2001 “There is no evidence that sanctions are hurting the Iraqi people.” When denial has proved impossible, officials have occasionally fallen back on astonishingly callous affirmations.
In a famous interview with Madeleine Albright, then US representative at the United Nations, Leslie Stahl of the television show 60 Minutes said: “We have heard that half a million children have died . . . is the price worth it? Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.” (2)
(1) Sanctions Against Iraq
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/indexone.htm(2) Iraq Sanctions: Humanitarian Implications and Options for the Future
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/2002/paper.htm
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