By the end of 1995 alone, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization said that after careful investigation it had determined that as many as 576,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of sanctions. The mortality rates were soaring with terrifying speed. The infant mortality rate had gone from 47 percent per 1000 in 1989 to 108 per 1000 in 1996. For kids under five the increase in the rate was even worse, from 56 per 1000 in 1989 to 131 per 1000 in 1996. By 1996 the death count was running at 5,000 children a month.
Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent books are Bernie and the Sandernistas: Field Notes From a Failed Revolution and The Big Heat: Earth on the Brink (with Joshua Frank) He can be reached at: [email protected] or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3.
