CIA Crimes in Iraq - Killing By Sanctions

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• published: 15 Jan 2013
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For more, Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq Effects on the Iraqi people during sanctions: High rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water were reported during sanctions The overall literacy rate in Iraq had been 78% in 1977 and 87% for adult women by 1985, but declined rapidly since then.[citation needed] Between 1990 and 1998, over one fifth of Iraqi children stopped enrolling in school, consequently increasing the number of non-literates and losing all the gains made in the previous decade. The 1990s also saw a dramatic increase in child labor, from a virtually non-existent level in the 1980s.[citation needed] The per capita income in Iraq dropped from $3510 in 1989 to $450 in 1996, heavily influenced by the rapid devaluation of the Iraqi dinar Iraq had been one of the few countries in the Middle East that invested in women's education. But this situation changed from the late eighties on with increasing militarisation and a declining economic situation. Consequently the economic hardships and war casualties in the last decades have increased the number of women-headed households and working women. Researcher Richard Garfield estimated that "a minimum of 100,000 and a more likely estimate of 227,000 excess deaths among young children from August 1991 through March 1998" from all causes including sanctions.Other estimates have put the number at 170,000 children. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight-year period 1991 to 1998. As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: "Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war." Estimates of deaths due to sanctions: Estimates of excess deaths during sanctions vary depending on the source. The estimates vary due to differences in methodologies, and specific time-frames covered. 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." Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998. "probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20. October 2003 350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", Slate Explainer, "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?", 9. October 2001. Economist Michael Spagat: "very likely to be [less than] than half a million children" because estimation efforts are unable to isolate the effects of sanctions alone due to the lack of "anything resembling a controlled experiment", and "one potential explanation" for the statistics showing a decline in child mortality was that "they were not real, but rather results of manipulations by the Iraqi government." The Lancet publication[48] was the result of two separate surveys by UNICEF[28] between February and May 1999 in partnership with the local authorities and with technical support by the WHO. "The large sample sizes - nearly 24,000 households randomly selected from all governorates in the south and center of Iraq and 16,000 from the north - helped to ensure that the margin of error for child mortality in both surveys was low," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said.[28]