In Iraq the United States (via the UN) imposed a draconian sanctions regime that kept Iraq’s economy close to the preindustrial state in which allied bombing had left it in 1991. The Clinton administration repeatedly stated that sanctions were meant to target Saddam Hussein’s regime and not the Iraqi people. The reality, however, was that ordinary Iraqis suffered most. More than a million died. When Albright was asked by Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 1996 about half a million dead Iraqi children, she replied, “We think the price is worth it.” Thus, the humanitarians were quite content to carry out their foreign policy agenda on the dead bodies of children.

XREF: Connects to broader critiques of humanitarian intervention and sanctions-as-policy, echoing arguments about civilian casualties in economic warfare.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 410