That is grossly, and purposely, misleading, touted disingenuously by political detractors of Bill Clinton. Albright's sanctions were never on food or medicines, and the claim that her moves are directly responsible for so many deaths is highly partisan, not accurate. She has said a thousand times since the referenced interview that her answer was stupid and clumsy and that she regrets it, but even so, "worth it" is a misleading tiny snippet of a much longer answer that talked about these kinds of international policy decisions always being difficult. Misleading, because it is meant to make her sound callous, when she is anything but.

@MikeInBatonRouge

@MikeInBatonRouge You seriously are defending someone because she regretted saying something, but had no regret over the action that actually killed people. Instead of being defensive, learn about the policy that was put in place. She knew at the time that Iraq imported 70% of their food, medicine and agriculture products, and still put into action the oil for food program. Why? To control and ensure Iraq still pumped oil into the global market.

How about this.. find one example of when sanctions actually worked to stop a hostile nation. One example where brutal economic sanctions on the poorest people of a 3rd world country brought about a positive outcome. Good luck.

@Marz again, you are singling out Albright for a policy that was aimed at preventing war. It is easy to do, because sanctions are ALWAYS a compromise tactic, both implicitly acknowledging a failure of diplomacy and putting forth an alternative to direct military action. The best anyone can ever say about sanctions is that some may be partially effective, but then always at a cost to civilians. Always. But huge numbers of civilians have also died as a result of W. Bush's Iraq war, which Clinton's administration, for their part, tried to avoid. The WWII allied blockade of Germany was estimated to have led to upwards of 3/4 of a million deaths by starvation.

The U.S. has a long and history of employing sanctions. It is a dubious strategy and easily criticized, because it is frought with drawbacks. Albright did not invent it. She was tasked with the responsibility to advise and implement a strategy that was never going to have any good options. Dismissing everything she has to say from her 80 years of extensive life experience because of it just seems out of balance.