1996 – Secretary of State – 500,000 dead Iraqi kids “worth it”
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) had an article back in late 2001 with a quote from then Clinton administration Secretary Madeleine Albright during an interview with Lesley Stahl. Concerning U.S. sanctions against Iraq, Albright thought the half million dead Iraqi children were worth it.
Hat tip to Gateway Pundit who posted the following video.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4
Transcript (brief)…
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
From the FAIR arcticle…
It’s worth noting that on 60 Minutes, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl–a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. In general, the response from government officials about the sanctions’ toll has been rather different: a barrage of equivocations, denigration of U.N. sources and implications that questioners have some ideological axe to grind (Extra!, 3-4/00).
There has also been an attempt to seize on the lowest possible numbers. In early 1998, Columbia University’s Richard Garfield published a dramatically lower estimate of 106,000 to 227,000 children under five dead due to sanctions, which was reported in many papers (e.g. New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2/15/98). Later, UNICEF came out with the first authoritative report (8/99), based on a survey of 24,000 households, suggesting that the total “excess” deaths of children under 5 was about 500,000.
Remember the Iraqi government just released figures on how many Iraqis (civilians, military and police) have been killed during the last five years – mostly all by terrorists/insurgents – and the total is estimated to be 85,000.
The Lancent survey of Iraq war casualties, often cited by anti-war activists and politicians, provided a peer reviewed study revealing deaths to be more than seven times what the Iraqi government just released.
Back to Gateway Pundit yesterday…
Not one million as Ron Paul claimed.
Not 600,000 as the discredited Lancet Study revealed.
3 Comments
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My, my, how standards (if you can call them that) change for Democrats.
Most of "Dear Leaders" staff are people who idolize Chairman Mao, who killed, at conservative estimates, 70 million of his own people. With that as a standard, 500,000 dead kids is just a start.
Oh Professor Dimsdale,
You're being charitable by accusing the Democrats of mere hypocrisy. The body of evidence points to them as pure merchants of death. Witness dear leader's militant support of partial birth abortion, backed up his 100% approval rating by Planned Parenthood and NARAL.
Democrat/Socialist/Communist controlled areas are death factories: witness Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist Vietnam, Communist Cambodia. Funny how you never get refugees from capitalism.
What gives pause is their maniacal and masterful use of spin to pin the blame on others. Clinton paraded over the death over 500,000 Iraqi children, while Bush killed Saddam and Sons. And who gets tagged as the "murderer" ?