The sanctions against Iraq were a comprehensive financial and trade embargo imposed by the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

(UNSC) on

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's

invasion of Kuwait The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was an operation conducted by Iraq on 2 August 1990, whereby it invaded the neighboring State of Kuwait, consequently resulting in a seven-month-long Iraqi military occupation of the country. The invasion and Ira ...

, stayed largely in force until May 22, 2003 (after

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

's being forced from power), and persisted in part, including

reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation * Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin History *War reparations **World War I reparations, made from G ...

to Kuwait. The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...

(WMD). In December 2021, Iraq's central bank announced that it had paid off its entire debt of $52 billion in war reparations to Kuwait. The UNSC imposed stringent

economic sanctions Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they ma ...

on Iraq by adopting and enforcing

United Nations Security Council Resolution 661 In United Nations Security Council resolution 661, adopted on 6 August 1990, reaffirming Resolution 660 (1990) and noting Iraq's refusal to comply with it and Kuwait's right of self-defence, the Council took steps to implement international sanc ...

in August 1990. Resolution 661 banned all

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

and financial resources with both Iraq and occupied Kuwait except for medicine and "in humanitarian circumstances" foodstuffs, the import of which was tightly regulated. In April 1991, following Iraq's defeat in the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

, Resolution 687 lifted the prohibition on foodstuffs, but sanctions remained in effect with revisions, including linkage to removal of weapons of mass destruction. Despite the provisions of Resolution 706, Resolution 712, and Resolution 986, the UN and the Iraqi government could not agree on the terms of an

Oil-for-Food Programme The Oil-for-Food Programme (OIP), established by the United Nations in 1995 (under UN Security Council Resolution 986) was established to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs f ...

(OFFP), which effectively barred Iraqi oil from the world market for several years. When a memorandum of understanding was finally reached in 1996, the resulting OFFP allowed Iraq to resume oil exports in controlled quantities, but the funds were held in

escrow An escrow is a contractual arrangement in which a third party (the stakeholder or escrow agent) receives and disburses money or property for the primary transacting parties, with the disbursement dependent on conditions agreed to by the transacti ...

and the majority of Iraq's purchases had to be individually approved by the "Iraq Sanctions Committee," composed of the fifteen members of the UNSC. (Additionally, some funds were withheld for Kuwaiti reparations.) The sanctions regime was continually modified in response to growing international concern over civilian harms attributed to the sanctions; eventually, all limitations on the quantity of Iraqi oil exports were removed (per Resolution 1284), and a large proportion of Iraqi purchases were pre-approved (per Resolution 1409), with the exception of those involving

dual-use technology In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.

. In later years, Iraq manipulated the OFFP to generate

hard currency In macroeconomics, hard currency, safe-haven currency, or strong currency is any globally traded currency that serves as a reliable and stable store of value. Factors contributing to a currency's ''hard'' status might include the stability and ...

for illegal transactions, while some neighboring countries began to ignore the sanctions entirely, contributing to a modest economic recovery. By reducing food imports, the sanctions appear to have played a role in encouraging Iraq to become more agriculturally self-sufficient, although malnutrition among Iraqis was nevertheless reported. The effects of the sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq have been disputed. Whereas it was widely believed that the sanctions more than doubled the child mortality rate, research following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has shown that commonly cited data were doctored by the Saddam Hussein regime and that "there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions". Nevertheless, sanctions contributed to a significant reduction in Iraq's per capita national income, especially prior to the introduction of the OFFP. Most UNSC sanctions since the 1990s have been targeted rather than comprehensive, a change partially motivated by concerns that the Iraq sanctions had inflicted disproportionate civilian harm.

Prior calls to sanction Iraq

The

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...

generally supported

during the

Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations S ...

, despite Iraq's extensive use of

chemical weapon A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...

s against post- revolutionary

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. In response to reports of further Iraqi chemical attacks against its

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

minority after the end of the war with Iran, in September 1988 United States (U.S.) senators

Claiborne Pell Claiborne de Borda Pell (November 22, 1918 – January 1, 2009) was an American politician and writer who served as a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island for six terms from 1961 to 1997. He was the sponsor of the 1972 bill that reformed the Basic ...

and Jesse Helms called for comprehensive

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

sanctions against Iraq, including an oil embargo and severe limitations on the export of

dual-use technology In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.

. Although the ensuing legislation passed in the U.S. Senate, it faced strong opposition within the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

and did not become law. Several U.S. commercial interests with ties to Iraq lobbied against sanctions, as did the State Department, despite Secretary of State George Shultz's public condemnation of Iraq's "unjustified and abhorrent" chemical attacks. According to Pell in October 1988: "Agricultural interests objected to the suspension of taxpayer subsidies for agricultural exports to Iraq; the oil industry protested the oil boycott—although alternative supplies are readily available. Even a chemical company called to inquire how its products might be impacted."

Administration

As described by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

(UN), the

(UNSC) Resolution 661 imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq following that country's August 1990

. These sanctions included strict limits both on the items that could be imported into Iraq and on those that could be exported. UN Resolutions

660 __NOTOC__ Year 660 ( DCLX) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 660 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era b ...

661 Year 661 ( DCLXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 661 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the ...

, 662,

664 __NOTOC__ Year 664 ( DCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 664 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era be ...

, 665,

666 666 may refer to: * 666 (number) * 666 BC, a year * AD 666, a year * The number of the beast, a reference in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament Places * 666 Desdemona, a minor planet in the asteroid belt * U.S. Route 666, an America ...

, 667, 669, 670,

674 __NOTOC__ Year 674 ( DCLXXIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 674 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...

677 __NOTOC__ Year 677 ( DCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 677 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar e ...

678 __NOTOC__ Year 678 ( DCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 678 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar ...

and 687 expressed the goals of eliminating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and extended-range

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are guided only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles stay within the ...

s, prohibiting any support for

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

, and forcing Iraq to pay

war reparations War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. History Making one party pay a war indemnity is a common practice with a long history. ...

and all foreign debt.

Limitations on imports

When the

(OFFP) allowed Iraq to resume exporting oil in 1996, the resulting revenue was held in

; Iraq had to ask the "Iraq Sanctions Committee" (i.e., the fifteen members of the UNSC) to individually approve its purchases, with "foodstuffs and certain medical, health and agricultural materials exempt from review" according to the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

. (Additionally, some of the revenue was redirected for other purposes, notably reparations to Kuwait.) In May 2002 the process was streamlined by Resolution 1409, which established a "Goods Review List" for dual-purpose items. From then on, all other Iraqi purchases were automatically approved, while the listed items were reviewed separately.

Enforcement of sanctions

Enforcement of the sanctions was primarily by means of military force and legal sanctions. Following the passage of Security Council Resolution 665, a ''Multinational Interception Force'' was organized and led by the U.S. to intercept, inspect and possibly impound vessels, cargoes and crews suspected of carrying freight to or from Iraq. The legal side of sanctions included enforcement through actions brought by individual governments. In the U.S., legal enforcement was handled by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). For example, in 2005 OFAC fined Voices in the Wilderness $20,000 for gifting medicine and other humanitarian supplies to Iraqis without prior acquisition of an export license as required by law.

Effectiveness

There is a general consensus that the sanctions achieved the express goals of limiting Iraqi arms. For example, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith says that the sanctions diminished Iraq militarily. According to scholars George A. Lopez and

David Cortright David Cortright is an American scholar and peace activist. He is Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and chair of the Board of the Fourth Freedom Forum. Saddam told his

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI) interrogator that Iraq's armaments "had been eliminated by the UN sanctions."

Oil-for-Food Programme

As the humanitarian impact of the sanctions became a matter of international concern, several UN resolutions were introduced that allowed Iraq to trade its oil for approved goods such as food and medicine. The earliest of these, Resolution 706 of 15 August 1991, allowed the sale of Iraqi oil in exchange for food, which was reaffirmed by Resolution 712 in September 1991. The UN states that "The Government of Iraq declined these offers". As a result, Iraq was effectively barred from exporting oil to the world market for several years. In April 1995, an

(OFFP) was formally created under Security Council Resolution 986, but the resolution could not be implemented until Iraq signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the UN in May 1996. Under the OFFP, the UN states that "Iraq was permitted to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months, with two-thirds of that amount to be used to meet Iraq's humanitarian needs. In 1998, the limit on the level of Iraqi oil exports ... was raised to $5.26 billion every six months, again with two-thirds of the oil proceeds to be earmarked to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people." In later iterations of the OFFP (pursuant to the December 1999 Resolution 1284), there were no restrictions on Iraq's oil exports and the share of revenue allocated to humanitarian relief increased to 72%; 25% of the proceeds (which were held in

) were redirected to a Kuwaiti reparations fund, and 3% to UN programs related to Iraq. The first shipments of food arrived in March 1997, with medicines following in May 1997. The UN recounts that "Over the life of the Programme, the Security Council expanded its initial emphasis on food and medicines to include infrastructure rehabilitation". The UN, rather than the Iraqi government, administered the OFFP in Iraq's

Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region ( ku, هەرێمی کوردستان, translit=Herêmî Kurdistan; ar, إقليم كردستان), abbr. KRI, is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok ...

. While the OFFP is credited with improving the conditions of the population, it was not free from controversy. The U.S. State Department criticized the Iraqi government for inadequately spending the money. In 2004–2005, the OFFP became the subject of major media attention over corruption, as allegations surfaced that Iraq had systematically sold oil vouchers at below-market prices in return for some of the proceeds from the resale outside the scope of the programme; investigations implicated individuals and companies from dozens of countries. In 2005, a UN investigation led by

Paul Volcker Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended th ...

found that the director of the OFFP, Benon Sevan, personally accepted $147,184 in bribes from Saddam's government, which Sevan denied. By the late 1990s, the Iraqi economy showed signs of modest growth, which would continue until 2003: Iraq's

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is oft ...

increased from US$10.8 billion in 1996 to US$30.8 billion in 2000. The OFFP was the major factor in this growth, as it led to the inflow of

, which helped reduce inflation. (Another factor was illegal transactions, as many countries began to simply ignore the sanctions.) While internal and external trade was revitalized, this did not lead to a significant increase in the standard of living for the majority of the population; on the contrary, the government tried to prevent benefits from flowing to Shi'ite areas in southern Iraq to persuade more countries to oppose the sanctions. In 2000, the national income per capita was estimated to be US$1,000—less than half of what it had been in 1990, according to Robert Litwak.

Effects on the Iraqi people during sanctions

High rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water were reported during the sanctions. In 2001, the chairman of the Iraqi Medical Association's scientific committee sent a plea to ''

The BMJ ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...

'' to help it raise awareness of the disastrous effects the sanctions were having on the Iraqi healthcare system. Thomas Nagy argued in the September 2001 issue of ''The Progressive'' magazine that U.S. government intelligence and actions in the previous ten years demonstrates that the U.S. government had acted to intentionally destroy Iraq's water supply.

Michael Rubin Michael Rubin (born 1971) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He previously worked as an official at the Pentagon, where he dealt with issues relating to the Middle East, and as political adviser to the Coalition Provis ...

criticized Nagy for "selective" use of sources and argued that "the documentary evidence eviscerates Nagy's conclusions," opining that "if Saddam Hussein's government has managed to spend more than $2 billion for new presidential palaces since the end of the Persian Gulf War, and offer to donate nearly $1 billion to support the Palestinian intifada, there is no reason to blame sanctions for any degradation in water and sanitation systems."

Denis Halliday Denis J. Halliday (born c.1941) was the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from 1 September 1997 until 1998. He was previously Deputy Resident Representative to Singapore of the United Nations Development Programme.Murphy, C.N., 2006 ...

was appointed UN

Humanitarian Coordinator The Humanitarian Coordinator is the senior-most United Nations official in a country experiencing a humanitarian emergency. The Humanitarian Coordinator is appointed by the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator when a new emergency occurs o ...

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. In October 1998 he resigned after a 34-year career with the UN in order to have the freedom to criticise the sanctions regime, saying "I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

." However, Sophie Boukhari, a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Courier journalist, reports that "some legal experts are skeptical about or even against using such terminology" and quotes Mario Bettati for the view that "People who talk like that don't know anything about law. The embargo has certainly affected the Iraqi people badly, but that's not at all a

crime against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

or genocide." Halliday's successor, Hans von Sponeck, subsequently also resigned in protest, calling the effects of the sanctions a "true human tragedy". Jutta Burghardt, head of the

World Food Program The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен� ...

in Iraq, followed them.

Impact on agriculture

Throughout the Ba'ath Party's rule over Iraq, the agricultural sector had been under-performing. Those in the U.S. who supported sanctions believed that low agricultural production in Iraq (coupled with sanctions) would lead to "a hungry population", and "a hungry population was an unruly one". The Iraqi government, which understood the serious effects the sanctions could have on Iraq, was able to increase agricultural output by 24 percent from 1990 to 1991. During the sanction years, the agricultural sector witnessed "a boom of unprecedented proportions". Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) introduced several decrees during this period to increase agricultural performance. These decrees may be separated into three categories: *They introduced severe penalties on farmers (or landowners) unable to produce at full capacity on their land. *Government programs made it cheaper (and therefore more profitable for farmers and landowners) to produce. *Programs were initiated to increase the amount of

arable land Arable land (from the la, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for th ...

. The RCC introduced Decree No. 367 in 1990, which stated that all lands which were not under production by their owners would be taken over by the state; if the owner could not use all of the land he owned, he would lose it. However, the RCC's policy was not "all stick and no carrot". The government made it easier for farmers and landowners to receive credit. On 30 September 1990, the

Ministry of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...

announced that it would increase loans to farmers by 100 percent, and would subsidize machinery and tools. In October 1990, the RCC stated it was planning to utilize and exploit "every inch of Iraqi arable land". While official statistics cannot be trusted entirely, they showed massive growth in arable land: from 16,446 donums in 1980 to 45,046 donums in 1990. In turn, irrigation projects were launched to meet the increased demand for water in Iraq's agricultural sector. The increase in agricultural output does not mean that hunger was not widespread; prices of foodstuffs increased dramatically during this period. However, overall the sanctions failed and (indirectly) led to an unprecedented improvement in agriculture, creating a constituency of farmers in central Iraq who had a vested interest in the sanctions remaining in effect. Data from 1990 is also consistent with the observation that destruction wrought by the 1991 Gulf War may be more responsible than the sanctions themselves for reducing Iraq's capacity to increase food production further. Joseph Sassoon commented on Iraq's successful use of food

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

to mitigate the effects of sanctions and war, suggesting that Iraq's government was not wholly lacking in competence or efficiency despite being portrayed as such by critics.

Estimates of deaths due to sanctions

Estimates of excess deaths during the sanctions vary widely, use different methodologies and cover different time frames.Iraq surveys show 'humanitarian emergency'

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...

Newsline August 12, 1999 The figure of 500,000 child deaths was for a long period widely cited, but recent research has shown that that figure was the result of survey data manipulated by the Saddam Hussein regime. A 1995 ''

The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...

'' estimate put the number of excess deaths of children under the age of five at 567,000, based on a small sample size

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

(FAO) survey conducted in Baghdad with Iraqi government interviewers that found a child mortality rate of around 200 deaths per 1000 births—several times larger than the previously reported rate. When Sarah Zaidi, one of the study's coauthors, carried out follow-up surveys in 1996 and 1997 with

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian interviewers, "many of the deaths were not confirmed in the reinterviews. Moreover, it emerged that some miscarriages and stillbirths had been wrongly classified as child deaths in 1995." The child mortality rate suggested by Zaidi's 1996 survey (38 per 1000) was less than one-fifth that of the 1995 figure (206 per 1000). Zaidi remained concerned about humanitarian conditions in Iraq, but forthrightly acknowledged a problem of replication, hypothesizing at the time that "an accurate estimate of child mortality in Iraq probably lies between the two surveys." She later told Michael Spagat: "My guess is that 'some' Iraqi surveyors recorded deaths when they did not take place or the child had died outside the time frame but they specified the opposite." A more detailed and seemingly more credible 1999

study called the "Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Survey" (ICMMS), using survey data from nearly 40,000 households again collated by Iraqi government field workers (except in the autonomous Kurdistan Region), calculated that roughly 500,000 children had died as a result of sanctions, based on the assumption that the child mortality rate had more than doubled from 56 deaths per 1000 births (during 1984–1989) to 131 deaths per 1000 births (during 1994–1999). Notably, the ICMMS found a steady decline in the child mortality rate after 1992 in areas where data was collected by Kurdish, rather than Iraqi government, interviewers. Limited child mortality data from Iraq's 1997 census was inconsistent with some ICMMS findings, and, much later, a 2017 study in ''

'' described "the rigging of the 1999 Unicef survey" as "an especially masterful fraud". The three comprehensive surveys (using full birth histories) that have been conducted since 2003—namely, the 2004 Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), which was initially discounted by the Volcker Committee for finding far fewer child deaths than expected, and the

Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys The Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) are household surveys implemented by countries under the programme developed by the United Nations Children's Fund to provide internationally comparable, statistically rigorous data on the situation o ...

(MICS) carried out by UNICEF and Iraq's Ministry of Health (MOH) in 2006 and again in 2011—all found that the child mortality rate in the period 1995–2000 was approximately 40 per 1000, which means that there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after sanctions were implemented. As a corollary, "there was no major improvement in child mortality" as a result of the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

, contrary to claims made by some of its proponents. Despite disproving its 1999 study in 2006 and 2011, UNICEF never formally disavowed the ICMMS results (or released the survey's underlying data to the public); however, the UN revised its official child mortality figures for Iraq to match the corrected data.

Controversies

Culpability

Scholar Ramon Das, in the Human Rights Research Journal of the New Zealand Center for Public Law, examined each of the "most widely accepted ethical frameworks" in the context of violations of Iraqi human rights under the sanctions, finding that "primary responsibility rests with the UNSC" under these frameworks, including rights-utilitarianism, moral Kantianism, and consequentialism. By contrast, some academics, American and UN officials, and Iraqi citizens contend that this ignores the consequences of allowing Saddam to continue his policies with no deterrence and unlimited capacity.

Controversy about regional differences

Some commentators blame Saddam Hussein for the excess deaths reported during this period. For example, Rubin argued that the Kurdish and the Iraqi governments handled OFFP aid differently, and that therefore the Iraqi government policy, rather than the sanctions themselves, should be held responsible for any negative effects. Likewise, Cortright claimed: "The tens of thousands of excess deaths in the south-center, compared to the similarly sanctioned but UN-administered north, are the result of Baghdad's failure to accept and properly manage the UN humanitarian relief effort." In the run-up to the Iraq War, some disputed the idea that excess mortality exceeded 500,000, because the Iraqi government had interfered with objective collection of statistics (independent experts were barred). Other Western observers, such as

Matt Welch Matthew Lee Welch (born July 31, 1968) is an American blogger, journalist, author, and libertarian political pundit. Early life Welch was born on July 31, 1968 in Bellflower, California. He was raised in Long Beach, California. He attended U ...

and Anthony Arnove, argue that the differences in results noted by authors such as Rubin may have been because the sanctions were not the same in the two parts of Iraq, due to several regional differences: in the per capita money, in war damage to infrastructure and in the relative ease with which smugglers evaded sanctions through the porous Northern borders. Spagat argued in response that "it is hard to believe that these factors could completely overwhelm the major disadvantages of the Kurdish Zone in which perhaps 20% of the population was internally displaced compared to about 0.3% in the South/Centre" and that the

Iraq Family Health Survey On January 9, 2008 the World Health Organization reported the results of the "Iraq Family Health Survey" published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Some analysts, such as

Walter Russell Mead Walter Russell Mead (born June 12, 1952) is an American academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He was also the editor-at-large of ...

, accepted a large estimate of casualties due to sanctions, but argued that invading Iraq was better than continuing the sanctions regime, since "Each year of containment is a new Gulf War."

Albright interview

On May 12, 1996,

Madeleine Albright Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic ...

(then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) appeared on a '' 60 Minutes'' segment in which Lesley Stahl (referring to the 1995 FAO study) asked her "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" and Albright replied "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it." Albright wrote later that Saddam Hussein, not the sanctions, was to blame. She criticized Stahl's segment as "amount ngto Iraqi propaganda"; said that her question was a

loaded question A loaded question is a form of complex question that contains a controversial assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt). Such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the qu ...

; wrote "I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean"; and regretted coming "across as cold-blooded and cruel". The segment won an Emmy Award. Albright's "non-denial" was taken by sanctions opponents as confirmation of a high number of sanctions related casualties. Albright addressed the controversy at length in a 2020 memoir: "In fact, the producers of ''60 Minutes'' were duped. Subsequent research has shown that Iraqi propagandists deceived international observers ... Per a 2017 article in the ''British Medical Journal of Global Health'', the data 'were rigged to show a huge and sustained—and largely non-existent—rise in child mortality ... to heighten international concern and so get the international sanctions ended.' ... This is not to deny that UN sanctions contributed to hardships in Iraq or to say that my answer to Stahl's question wasn't a mistake. They did, and it was. ... U.S. policy throughout the 1990s was to prevent Iraq from reconstituting its most dangerous weapons programs. Short of another war, UN sanctions were the best means for doing so."

Iraq Inquiry

The

Iraq Inquiry The Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot)John Chilcot Sir John Anthony Chilcot (; 22 April 1939 – 3 October 2021) was a British civil servant. In 2009, he was appointed chairman of the Iraq Inquiry (also referred to as the "Chilcot Inquiry"), an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the ...

examined a February 2003 statement by then-

British Prime Minister The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

that "today, 135 out of every 1,000 Iraqi children die before the age of five". The inquiry found that the figure in question was provided to Blair by

Secretary of State for International Development The minister of state for development and Africa, formerly the minister of state for development and the secretary of state for international development, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The off ...

Clare Short Clare Short (born 15 February 1946) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1997 to 2003. Short was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 t ...

and the

Foreign & Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreig ...

(FCO) based on the 1999 ICMMS study, but an internal caveat from the FCO and the Department for International Development (DFID) to the effect that the ICMMS was of questionable reliability because it had been "conducted with the Iraqi regime's 'help' and relied on some Iraqi figures" was not communicated to Blair by a 10 Downing Street official. The inquiry noted "The level of child mortality in Iraq estimated by the ICMMS was significantly higher than that estimated by later surveys," citing revised UN "estimates that the under‑five mortality rate in Iraq was 55 per 1,000 in 1989, 46 per 1,000 in 1999, 42 per 1,000 in 2003, and 37 per 1,000 in 2010 (when Mr Blair gave his evidence to the Inquiry)."

Lifting of sanctions

Following the 2003 U.S. invasion, the sanctions regime was largely ended on May 22, 2003 (with certain exceptions related to arms and to oil revenue) by paragraph 10 of UNSC Resolution 1483. In December 2010, the UNSC "voted to return control of Iraq's oil and natural gas revenue to the government on 30 June and to end all remaining activities of the FFP. Iraq's Chapter VII obligations "concerning the return of Kuwaiti and third-State nationals" were rescinded in June 2013 by Resolution 2107. In December 2021, Iraq's central bank announced that it had paid off its entire debt of $52 billion in war reparations to Kuwait.

Legacy

In a 1998 fatwā, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden cited the sanctions against Iraq as a justification for violence against Americans. Bin Laden stated that the sanctions had caused the deaths of 1 million Iraqis in an effort "to destroy Iraq, the most powerful neighboring Arab state." In a 2015 article in the journal ''

International Affairs International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...

'', Francesco Giumelli noted that the UNSC had largely abandoned comprehensive sanctions in favor of targeted sanctions since the mid-1990s, with the controversy over the efficacy and civilian harms attributed to the Iraq sanctions playing a significant role in the change: "The sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 covered all goods entering or leaving the entire country, whereas those imposed today are most often directed against individuals or non-state entities, and are more limited in scope. ... The widespread view ... that 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of UN comprehensive sanctions itself rang the death knell for the perceived utility of comprehensive measures." In a similar vein, Albright herself told an interviewer in 2020 that "we learned in many ways that comprehensive sanctions often hurt the people of the country and don't really accomplish what is wanted in order to change the behavior of the country being sanctioned. So we began to look at something called 'smart sanctions' or 'targeted sanctions.'"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iraq Sanctions Modern history of Iraq International sanctions United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning Iraq 1990 introductions 2003 disestablishments Causes and prelude of the Iraq War United Nations Security Council sanctions regimes