Two UN coordinators resigned over Iraq sanctions while Albright defended the child deaths

Evidence

But ice cream was a crime. The dairy infraction stemmed not from the caprice of a mad dictator but from the necessities brought about by living under sanctions. After Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the international community, led by the United States and administered by the United Nations, erected the strictest and most draconian sanctions program the world has known, drastically limiting the importation of foods, medicines, and equipment into the country. Saddam’s regime quickly realized that to maintain both the population and its terrifying grip on power, it would need to institute food rationing. Most families were sold monthly supplies of 180 pounds in total of flour, rice, sugar, cooking oil, beans, and tea along with sixteen bars of soap for about sixty cents. Under sanctions, however, medicines became scarce and child mortality and malnutrition skyrocketed, totaling at least half a million preventable childhood deaths, according to UNICEF. The country’s entire physical infrastructure, maintained without any new equipment, sagged to the point of near collapse. Denis Halliday, the UN assistant secretary general who administered the program, stepped down in 1999 in protest. “I am resigning,” he wrote in his departure letter, “because the policy of economic sanctions is … destroying an entire society. Five thousand children are dying every month. I don’t want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide.” Under sanctions, blackouts became frequent, since electricity was in short supply. Sugar imports also dropped. Considering the energy required to run freezers and the high sugar and milk content in the confection, ice cream became simply unsustainable. To ensure compliance, the regime banned the sweet dessert and criminalized its sale. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 584 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: UN sanctions killed at least half a million Iraqi children — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 584

Broader Connections

• UN sanctions killed at least half a million Iraqi children #corroborates (0.85) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 584