Art,

Somehow I remember pratically every tidbit I read, but I can hardly remember where :) So I went internet searching. There's a lot of info about malnutrition in Iraq, but little recently about causes of death. It's hard to get updated statistics out of a country who's infrastructure is mostly destroyed.

The most recent and unbiased figures I could find were from the 1998 UNICEF report "Impact of the Sanctions on the People of Iraq." Page 42 notes that they feel the actual death rate is much higher than reported and "The increase in mortality reported in public hospitals for children under five years of age (an excess of some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is mainly due to diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. In those over five years of age, the increase (an excess of some 50,000 deaths yearly compared 1989) is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or kidney diseases . . . With the substantial increase in mortality, under-registration of deaths is a growing problem." Elsewhere it notes that prior to the sanctions, 92% of the population had access to safe water.

Not the precise info I was looking for, however page 32 also notes that "Water treatment plants lack spare parts, equipment, treatment chemicals, proper maintenance and adequate qualified staff. ... Plants often act solely as pumping stations without any treatment... The distribution network, on which most of the population relies, has destroyed, blocked or leaky pipes."

An interesting article on post-sanction healthcare and death rates is here: http://www.iacenter.org/rc12600.htm It quotes many statistics, but does not specify sources.