>here is one explanation.
>I can't vouch for it, but it
>looks authoritative:
>
>http://slate.msn.com/code/Explainer/Explainer.asp?Show=10/9/2001&idMessage=8414
>
>mbs
>
>
>
>What are the figures for deaths per week? month? of Iraqi children? And
>what is the source of these figures? UN is a bit vague.
>
>Carrol
>
>P.S. Whatever the answer to this question, the sanctions and bombing of
>Iraq certainly come a lot closer to being a "crime against humanity"
>than does 9/11. Nevertheless, people do want hard figures and
>trustworthy (i.e., "establishment") sources.
It doesn't come much more establishment than this. I posted the full text of this a while back - it should be in the archives.
Doug
----
Foreign Affairs - May/June 1999
Sanctions of mass destruction John Mueller; Karl Mueller
THREAT ASSESSMENT
[...]
It might help if severe economic sanctions were designated by the older label of "economic warfare." In past wars economic embargoes caused huge numbers of deaths. Some 750,000 German civilians may have died because of the Allied naval blockade during World War I, for example, a figure that does not include embargo-related deaths in Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria or German deaths between the end of the war and the lifting of the blockade upon the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Fewer than two million people, by comparison, have been killed by aerial bombing in all the wars of the twentieth century combined.
During the Cold War the effect of economic sanctions was generally limited because when one side imposed them the other side often undermined them. Thus the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba was substantially mitigated for decades by compensatory Soviet aid. Butin the wake of the Cold War, sanctions are more likely to be comprehensive and thus effective, in causing harm if not necessarily in achieving political objectives. So long as they can coordinate their efforts, the big countries have at their disposal a credible, inexpensive, and potent weapon for use against small and medium-sized foes. The dominant powers have shown that they can inflict enormous pain at remarkably little cost to themselves or theglobal economy. Indeed, in a matter of months or years whole economies can be devastated, as happened in Haiti in 1991 and Serbia in 1992.
The destructive potential of economic sanctions can be seen most clearly, albeit in an extreme form, in Iraq. That country seems to have been peculiarly vulnerable because so much of its economy was dependent on the export of oil, because the effects of sanctions have been enhanced by the destruction of much Iraqi infrastructure during the Gulf War, and because the country's political leadership sometimes seems more interested in maximizing the nation's suffering for propaganda purposes than in relieving it.
No one knows with any precision how many Iraqi civilians have died as a result, but various agencies of the United Nations, which oversees the sanctions, have estimated that they have contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths. By 1998 Iraqi infant mortality had reportedly risen from the pre-Gulf War rate of 3.7 percent to 12 percent. Inadequate food and medical supplies, as well as breakdowns in sewage and sanitation systems and in the electrical power systems needed to run them, reportedly cause an increase of 40,000 deaths annually of children under the age of 5 and of 50,000 deaths annually of older Iraqis.
The importation of some desperately needed materials has been delayed or denied because of concerns that they might contribute to Iraq's WMD programs. Supplies of syringes were held up for half a year because of fears they might be used in creating anthrax spores. Chlorine, an important water disinfectant, has not been allowed into the country because it might be diverted into making chlorine gas, a chemical weapon developed for use in World War I but then abandoned when more effective ones became available. Medical diagnostic techniques that use radioactive particles, once common in Iraq, are banned under the sanctions, and plastic bags needed for blood transfusions are restricted. The sanctioners have been wary throughout about allowing the importation of fertilizers and insecticides, fearing their use for WMD production, and as a result disease-carrying pests that might have been controlled have proliferated. Although humanitarian exceptions to some of the restrictions have been available all along, Iraq has been slow to take advantage of them and they have been plagued by administrative chaos and organizational delays; as a result they have been inadequate to the scope of the problem.
Some casualty estimates have been questioned because they rely on Iraqi reports, and the government of Iraq clearly exaggerates its losses in hopes that sanctions will be removed. On the other hand, it is likely that estimates are low in some areas. In particular, many infant deaths may go unreported because ailing babies are not taken to hospitals now clearly incapable of saving them. The United Nations also suspects that many deaths go unreported so that survivors can collect an additional food ration. And some studies have been based on data gathered by foreign researchers in Baghdad and then extrapolated to the rest of the country, a process that may understate the national toll, since Baghdad is generally in better shape than other areas.
These statistics are often lamented by the sanctioning governments but not usually denied. Instead it is pointed out that the sanctions have been designed not to cause pain for its own sake but rather to accomplish several desirable objectives. One is to keep Saddam Hussein from developing terrible weapons with which he can once again threaten his neighbors. Another is to remove him from office.
Unsurprisingly, Saddam has not cooperated in allowing the sanctions to have these effects, regardless of the human cost. Unlike many dictators, Saddam cannot flee to a haven elsewhere: the only place he is reasonably safe is in control in Iraq. He has clung tenaciously to power, crushing all opposition, and has sought to rebuild his military capabilities, including, it appears, his chemical and biological arsenals.
And he has been wary of infringements on Iraqi sovereignty, including the presence of arms inspectors and other outsiders whose activities might undermine his weapons programs or even his survival. In an important sense, therefore, the costs of the sanctions are being caused by Saddam's policies rather than the sanctioners, an argument the latter often make in their own defense. If the Iraqi dictator would only do as they demand, they argue, the sanctions would be removed. Yet the sanctioners are effectively asking Saddam to commit suicide or at least put his life in greater danger, an outcome they know is unlikely. In the end, therefore, the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people Saddam's hostages-are both his fault and a predictable consequence of the sanctions policy.
LET THEIR PEOPLE GO
How DO the human costs of the Iraqi sanctions compare with those of weapons of mass destruction? The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki together killed more than 100,000 people, and a high estimate suggests that some 80,000 died from chemical weapons in World War I. If one adds the deaths from later uses of chemical weapons in war or warlike situations (excluding the deaths of noncombatants in the Nazi gas chambers), as well as deaths caused by the intentional or accidental use of biological weapons and ballistic missiles, the resulting total comes to well under 400,000. If the U.N. estimates of the human damage in Iraq are even roughly correct, therefore, it would appear that-in a so far futile effort to remove Saddam from power and a somewhat more successful effort to constrain him militarily-economic sanctions may well have been a necessary cause of the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history.
It is interesting that this loss of human life has failed to make a great impression in the United States. Americans clearly do not blame the people of Iraq for that country's actions: even at the height of the Gulf War, 60 percent said they held the Iraqi people innocent of responsibility for Saddam's policies. Yet the massive death toll among Iraqi civilians has stirred little public protest, and hardly any notice.
[...]
JOHN MUELLER is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. KARL MUELLER is Assistant Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The opinions expressed herein are their personal views.