Wirt obfuscates:
> Ken fulminates:
>
> > Whether "these sorts of publications" are filled with with few facts
> > is not the issue.  It's whether _this particular article_ is.   This
> > article provides more facts than you have so far.
> >
> >  Here's a page from PBS's Frontline with plenty of links:
> >  http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq/sanctions.html
>
> That's kind of you, but I don't feel obliged to be your educator. You
> should know this material already. It's been in the news (and the
> medical literature) constantly for nearly a decade now.

That's a nice attempt to avoid any responsibility to back up your
assertions!  First you criticized the article (by association only!!!)
as providing "few facts"; then, when you are challenged, you mumble "Well
you should already know the facts."

I'm not sure why you even bother posting anything about this since you
assume we already know everything about it.  And I notice you still
haven't challenged any statement in the Irvine Review article.

Here is a longer excerpt from the State Department report that it linked to:
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/0126spend.htm
  "During this period, US$7.8 billion were available to Iraq for
  purchases during this period, yet Iraq submitted purchase applications
  worth only US$4.26 billion - barely 54 percent of the amount available
  for purchases to help the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people. In
  key sectors of the Iraqi economy, Saddam's regime's disregard for the
  welfare of the Iraqi people is made plain:

  - Despite the international concern for the health and nutritional
    needs of the Iraqi people, the total value of applications received
    in the health sector was only US$83.6 million. US$624.7 million are
    allocated by the UN for the Iraqi health sector, meaning that Saddam
    Hussein spent only 13 percent of funds available for health supplies
    it could have purchased

  - Iraq submitted only US$21.5 million in applications for educational
    supplies, barely six percent of the US$351.5 allocated for this
    purpose.

  - Iraq submitted only US$184.7 million in water and sanitation
    applications, out of US$551.1 million available.

  - Iraq requested only US$22.7 million in applications for spare parts
    and equipment for the oil sector, just three percent of the US$600
    million allotted.

  More than US$4 billion sit in a United Nations escrow account,
  available to the Iraqi government for the purchase of the humanitarian
  supplies the Iraqi people so desperately need, and which the Iraqi
  regime claims it cannot obtain due to economic sanctions."

=====================================================================
But I'm sure it was our fault that Saddam didn't spend the money.

Since you already know everything about the situation, I'm sure you heard
about Saddam deliberately withholding medicines and vaccines that were
already in the country:


http://mattwelch.com/FreelanceSave/StarBabies.htm
  "Baghdad hospitals told reporters from the BBC, Newsday and other
  media that they were forced to save each and every dead baby's corpse
  ­ regardless of cause of death ­ to display in made-for-Al-Jazeera
  protests against the murderous sanctions.

  The doctors also explained how medical supplies delivered by the
  oil-for-food program would be deliberately diverted or damaged. 'We
  would get a shipment from the Ministry of Health of vaccines provided
  by the World Health Organization,' one doctor told journalist David
  Rieff, who wrote a long and critical article on sanctions for the July
  27 issue of the New York Times Magazine. 'But then we would be
  instructed not to use them until they had reached or even exceeded
  their sell-by date. Then the television cameras would come, and we
  would be told to lie and tell the public how the UN made ordinary
  Iraqis suffer.'"


==================================================================

So, yes, a lot of children died; probably fewer than the earlier UNICEF
estimate, but still an appalling number.  Saddam was able to blame the
sanctions, and those who are predisposed to think ill of the U.S. fell
for his tricks.  But I suppose any dictator can repeat this game, so it
does mean that the already ineffectual United Nations has lost its main
enforcement mechanism.

Is this situation accurately summed up by this statement: "The United
States has almost certainly killed and maimed more Iraqis during the
last decade than did Saddam Hussein's government."?

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