For all our trouble, Iraq is still presumed to have chemical and biological weapons, if not nuclear ones. In the end, things are the same as they were before, give or take a few bomb craters. That may be frustrating for us, but it's really no picnic for the people of Iraq, whose country has been turned into a permanent disaster area. The food rationing system provides less than 60 percent of the required daily calorie intake, the water and sanitation systems are in a state of collapse, and there is a critical shortage of life-saving drugs. Thanks to the lack of clean water, diseases like cholera have become commonplace.
Malnutrition is rampant.
Infant and child mortality have more than doubled in the last decade. Hundreds of thousands of people have died due to this multitude of woes. American policy makers disavow any blame for such consequences, saying it rests entirely on Saddam Hussein, who has diverted his country's meager resources into building up his military arsenal rather than alleviating the misery of his subjects. But even UN experts admit that life in Iraq would be much less grim without the embargo. Of course, there are unfortunate occasions when we have to inflict hardship on innocent people to achieve something vital.