Cheap and silent, they are the most effective means for the impoverishment of a whole country. Sanctions mildly weaken the strongest of a society and kill the weakest. The danger of sanctions is that the application of them is often done without much forethought for the consequences.
Sanctions are easy to misrepresent as innocuous, as is the case with the sanctions on Iraq.
The common perception is that the economic sanctions on Iraq are not hurting the common citizen. Unfortunately this is far from the truth. Half a million children dead. 5000 more children die every month. 5000 more elderly die every month.