Saifedean Ammous on the appreciation of the Iraqi dinar in 2003

Should a currency credibly demonstrate its supply cannot be expanded, it would immediately gain value significantly.  In 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, aerial bombardment destroyed the Iraqi central bank and with it the capability of the Iraqi government to print new Iraqi dinars.  This led to the dinar drastically appreciating overnight as Iraqis became more confident in the currency given that no central bank could print it anymore.  A similar story happened to Somali shillings after their central bank was destroyed.  Money is more desirable when demonstrably scarce than when liable to being debased.

~ Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard, p. 68

Osama bin Laden on U.S. sanctions on Iraq

You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day.  It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern.  Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.

~ Osama bin Laden, "Letter to the American People," November 2002

Tom Woods on sanctions on Iraq and inevitable reprisals "in the form of terrorist attacks" (2001)

In general, a policy of sanctions hurts only the civilian population, leaving the government more or less untouched.

If anything, sanctions may even tend to strengthen popular support for the government inasmuch as the leader can now portray himself and his nation as the besieged victims of a vindictive U.S.

Especially disconcerting about the Clinton-Albright policy [of sanctions on Iraq] was its blithe disregard of any long-term consequences for the U.S. essentially starving a helpless country to death.

Set aside the morality of the question for a moment, as Clinton and Albright did, and think only of U.S. interests.  The Gulf War has been over for 10 years, and American students still can't distinguish Baghdad from Wagga Wagga on a map.  But do you suppose the Iraqi people have forgotten, or ever will?

If the U.S. continues on its present course, it is next to impossible to imagine that we can forever avoid the terrible reprisals, in the form of terrorist attacks - nuclear, chemical or otherwise - that our policy makes almost inevitable.

~ Thomas E. Woods, Jr., "Lift U.S. Sanctions: They Choke The Tyrannized More Than The Tyrants," Investor's Business Daily, March 19, 2001

Madeleine Albright on U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq

Lesley Stahl: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

~ Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996

(Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl--a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions.)