DON'T SHOOT! STARVE 'EM OUT:

Iraqi-Americans want Saddam toppled, too. But not if it means more pain for their loved ones. A daughter's lament (Lorraine Ali, 9/23/02, Newsweek)

Believe me, I would like nothing more than to see Saddam's regime fall, but I do not want the Iraqi people crushed under the rubble-again. [...]

Since we implemented sanctions against Iraq in 1990, the child-mortality rate in this once prosperous state has doubled. The World Health Organization estimates that 5,000 Iraqi children die each month due to malnutrition and lack of medical care; by another estimate, the sanctions cost 250 lives a day. As for the economic fallout: the Iraqi people (not Saddam) became destitute overnight. In 1989 the Iraqi dinar was worth $1.25. Today it's 2,500 dinars to $1. That means a dozen eggs can cost a month's salary. It's hardly a tactic that's weakened Saddam's resolve. He's now had a decade to manipulate a starved nation that at one point was strong enough to rise up against him. We should have finished what we started in the gulf war, or at least backed the Iraqi people once we encouraged them to stage a revolution.

Though the statistics we hear quoted about the effects of sanctions are obviously ridiculous, let's assume for the sake of argument that they're accurate. Can opponents of regime change explain their notion that sanctions, which amount to little better than the slow starvation of the Iraqi people, are more humane than a quick war, however brutal? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 21, 2002 8:50 AM