NP - Fighting the Forces of Invisibility

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:
> 
> Rushdie:
> 
> "Terrorism is the murder of the innocent"
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55876-2001Oct1.html
> 
> This is no statement exclusively on the WTC-attack, this is a general
> statement by Rushdie. So he logically says the accepted death of those
> 500.000 Iraqui kids (worth the price, just an inevitable collateral damage
> according to Dave Morris) was terrorism too.

Where did you get these figures. ? This number, half a million Iraqi
children (why only children? ) has been floating around for a while.
People seem to accept this number. I'm not disputing it, but what does
it mean exactly? 

Collateral damage? That's when a military strike, say a cruise missile 
fired by the Russians at a bridge or a weapons plant in Afghanistan hits
a day care center and kids are killed. 

So did the USA kill 500,000 Iraqi children in this way? 

Or did they starve? Or die of malnutrition? 

Do these number play vulgar with the facts, with the deaths of kids?
I've also read that  that the children died because of USA sanctions.
What are the facts?