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High rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water were reported during sanctions at least some of these results were anticipated in advance of the imposition of sanctions The modern Iraqi economy had been highly dependent on oil exports; in 1989, the oil sector comprised 61% of the GNP. A drawback of this dependence was the narrowing of the economic base, with the agricultural sector rapidly declining in the 1970s. Some claim that, as a result, the post-1990 sanctions had a particularly devastating effect on Iraq’s economy and food security levels of the population.
Shortly after the sanctions were imposed, the Iraqi government developed a system of free food rations consisting of 1000 calories per person/day or 40% of the daily requirements, on which an estimated 60% of the population relied for a vital part of their sustenance. With the introduction of the Oil-for-Food Programme in 1997, this situation gradually improved. In May 2000 a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) survey noted that almost half the children under 5 years suffered from diarrhoea, in a country where the population is marked by its youth, with 45% being under 14 years of age in 2000. Power shortages, lack of spare parts and insufficient technical know-how lead to the breakdown of many modern facilities.[27]
Estimates of excess deaths during sanctions vary depending on the source. The estimates vary [31][38] due to differences in methodologies, and specific time-frames covered.[39] A short listing of estimates follows:
Unicef: 500,000 children (including sanctions, collateral effects of war). "[As of 1999] [c]hildren under 5 years of age are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago."[31][40]
Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998.[41]
"probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20. October 2003[42]
350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", Slate Explainer, "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?", 9. October 2001.[43]
Economist Michael Spagat: "very likely to be [less than] than half a million children." He claims that these estimates are unable to isolate the effects of sanctions alone due to the lack of "anything resembling a controlled experiment".[44]
"Richard Garfield, a Columbia University nursing professor ... cited the figures 345,000-530,000 for the entire 1990-2002 period"[45] for sanctions-related excess deaths.[46]
Zaidi, S. and Fawzi, M. C. S., (1995) The Lancet British medical journal: 567,000 children.[47] A co-author (Zaidi) did a follow-up study in 1996, finding "much lower ... mortality rates ... for unknown reasons."[48]
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark: 1.5 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning).[49]
Iraqi Baathist government: 1.5 million.[29]
Iraqi Cultural Minister Hammadi: 1.7 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning
Originally posted by ninjas4321
I think i have it figured out...
The following statement from Usama bin Laden and his associates purports to be a religious ruling (fatwa) requiring the killing of Americans, both civilian and military. This document is part of the evidence that links the bin Laden network to the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.
Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.