September 14, 2000

              Albright's Indifference
              by Matthew Rothschild

              This week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reprised her role as the
              queen of indifference.
 

              Back when she was U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Albright made an infamous
              comment to Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes," saying that it was worth it to let
              500,000 Iraqi kids die due to sanctions.
 

              Now she is more diplomatic, saying at the United Nations on Tuesday,
              September 12: "We must continue to do all we can to ease the hardships faced
              by Iraq's people. But we must also defend the integrity of this institution,
              our security, and international law."
 

              When she was asked by reporters after her speech about humanitarian groups
              that are urging the lifting of sanctions, Albright said: "While those groups
              may be well-meaning, they need to understand who the villain is. The villain
              is Saddam Hussein. It is very, very simple."
 

              Or is it?
 

              No matter how villainous Saddam Hussein is, the United States has pushed a
              policy that has resulted in as many as one million civilian deaths in Iraq.
              Albright knows full well that Saddam Hussein is not going to change his tune
              and bow to U.S. pressure; these sanctions have been in place now for ten
              years, and he hasn't budged an inch.
 

              Meanwhile, the death toll continues to mount.
 

              Albright cannot evade complicity in these deaths simply by putting the
              villain tag around Saddam Hussein's neck. He may be content to see one
              million Iraqis die. We should not be.
 

              U.S. policy is responsible, in no small part, for the ruinous sanctions that
              continue to take their murderous course in Iraq. These sanctions are not
              hurting Saddam Hussein, their putative target. They're hurting only
              civilians. If the United States didn't insist on the sanctions, Iraqi
              children wouldn't be dying at the rate of 5,000 a month.
 

              For Albright and the United States then to sit back and blame all of these
              deaths on Saddam Hussein is the height of immorality.