The UNICEF report took pains to spread the blame
for increased mortality in the south, mentioning factors
such as a dramatic increase in the bottle-only feeding
of infants in place of more nutritious (and less likely to
be tainted) breast milk. ‘It’s very important not to just
say that everything rests on sanctions’, Bellamy said in
a subsequent interview. ‘It is also the result of wars and
the reduction in investment in resources for primary
health care.’ But in the hands of sanctions opponents
and some news organisations, these findings were
translated into a UN admission that sanctions were
‘directly responsible’ for killing half a million children
(or even ‘infants’).
By November, UNICEF was annoyed enough with
the frequent misinterpretations to send out regular
corrective press releases, saying things like: ‘The surveys
were never intended to provide an absolute figure of
how many children have died in Iraq as a result of
sanctions.’ Rather, they ‘show that if the substantial
reductions in child mortality in Iraq during the 1980s
had continued through the 1990s—in other words if
there hadn’t been two wars, if sanctions had not been
introduced and if investment in social services had been
maintained—there would have been 500,000 fewer
deaths of children under five.’