Teribus, I'm sorry (again) - I did overlook your later post. In fact I seem to have missed a whole bundle of posts there. All the same, it would have been helpful to have a date reference with your original stats.

In mid-February 2003, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta revealed that the U.S. infant mortality rate was 7.00 as of 2002, backsliding from 6.8 in 2001. Just so we're clear about this, we have here a US source indicating an adverse trend in the US, right when everything should be getting rosy under Bush's compassionate leadership.

The source you were quoting against my earlier stats was the CIA. Even if their stats were identical with UNICEF's (which I somehow doubt), the adverse trend in Cuba is no more noteworthy than that in the States.

I did not mean anthing pejorative when I said the US average masks internal disparities. It just happens to be a fact. UNICEF in its 2003 report observed that the rate in Cuba was notably consistent across regions and across the population, rural Guantanamo faring the worst with 8.00 infant deaths per thousand. Disparities in the US are of a much greater order, but I don't have figures. (I don't have a copy of the complete UNICEF report, which no doubt would cover the point.)

Re your continued citing of Soviet aid, I really think some proportionality would be in order, especially if you're going to accuse me of clutching at straws. The US is the richest nation in the world. I don't know where Cuba sits in the league table, and there are, in any case, several ways of measuring a nation's wealth. Nevertheless Cuba falls a long way behind the US, by any reckoning.

When I referred to the negative impact of US sanctions, I suppose I should also have mentioned Soviet aid as a quid quo pro (how far they cancel each other out, I wouldn't know). Equally you also might aim to mention both if you mention one.

So I don't think I was clutching at straws. I do believe Cuba's achievements in the fields of health, healthcare and education to be hugely impressive - the more so because it is so impoverished in relation to its rich neighbour. On the other hand, I'm not impressed by Cuba's human rights record, but I could probably say that about most countries on the planet.