Who was Madeleine Albright?

Albright, a key player in “liberal internationalism,” a foreign policy school linked with President Woodrow Wilson and his aim of “making the world safe for democracy,” died on Wednesday at the age of 84. In the 1990s, she was a key figure in American foreign policy, first as a UN ambassador and later as Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton. Without comprehending her conduct, it is impossible to comprehend that time of history and its implications for the fight against terror.

Albright, in particular, was a driving force behind Clinton’s catastrophic Iraq policy. Albright’s strategy was ruthless in and of itself, and it helped set the groundwork for the 2003 Iraq War.

In an appearance on “60 Minutes,” Albright said the most famous comments of her career while serving as United Nations ambassador in 1996.

Lesley Stahl, the show’s reporter, inquired about the impact of UN sanctions on Iraqi society, adding, “We have heard that a half-million children have perished. That’s more children than were killed in Hiroshima. Is the price, you know, worth it?”

“I think this is a very hard choice,” Albright said calmly, “but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

Albright's infamous "we think the price is worth it" comments.

You can watch this and be the judge. pic.twitter.com/Dtwl4ymMRm

— ℮oin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) March 23, 2022

This appears to be heinous when taken out of context. It’s more nuanced in historical terms, but it’s just as horrible.

Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the United Nations imposed harsh sanctions on the country. During the Gulf War the following year, Iraq was forced out of Kuwait. Iraq was therefore required to declare and accept the destruction of all parts of its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs by UN Security Council Resolution 687. The resolution went on to say that penalties “shall have no further force or effect” after that.

Following the Gulf War, a tiny UN survey in 1995 discovered a massive increase in the mortality rate of young Iraqi children, implying almost 500,000 more fatalities. This was undoubtedly what Stahl was alluding to. Similar findings were observed in a UNICEF investigation from 1999.

These startling figures were widely reported, even by the Iraqi government. However, based on various surveys performed after the US-led 2003 war of Iraq, a 2017 paper in the prominent medical magazine The BMJ presents a compelling argument that the 1990s surge in child death rates did not occur.

These assertions are referred to in the article as “a magnificent falsehood,” based on the premise that they constituted deliberate deception on the side of Iraqi survey participants in the 1990s. As a result, the premise of Stahl’s query was incorrect, despite the fact that Stahl would have had no way of knowing.

But it isn’t the full tale. As The BMJ’s report shows, infant mortality rates in Middle Eastern nations including Jordan, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have dropped dramatically since 1970. It decreased in Iraq as well but subsequently plateaued, particularly after 1990. According to the publication, Iraq’s rate is now “nearly double that of the other countries.”

The difficult fact is that the sanctions had a terrible impact on Iraqi society; anyone who remembers the realities of Iraq in the 1990s understands it couldn’t have been otherwise. Many children who would otherwise have lived died as a result of the sanctions, albeit this was very definitely not due to a huge, continuous rise in the child mortality rate, but rather because the rate did not continue to drop.

So, even if Stahl got the scale incorrect, Albright can be charged for her sick indifference to the impact of US policy on Iraqi children. (Albright afterward apologised for her statements in a tone that made it apparent she was sorry she had inadvertently betrayed her genuine viewpoint.) But the nature of what Albright considered “worth it” is considerably worse.

We now know for certain that Iraq complied with Resolution 687’s disarmament requirements, if not entirely by the end of 1991, then certainly by 1995. Despite the fact that Albright claimed in her book “Madam Secretary” that “Saddam Hussein could have saved any child from suffering simply by fulfilling his commitments,” the sanctions were never eased.