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November 21, 2004
The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein...
A new study shows that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has jumped dramatically to 7.7 percent. The conditions are now worse than they were before the invasion under Saddam Hussein, during sanctions. No small feat.
Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
...By one count, 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water. The country's sewer systems are in disarray.
The whole article is here.
The big problem in Iraq isn't lack of available calories per se, although that too can be an issue among the poor. It's the contaminated water, which causes chronic diarrhea, which leads to malnourishment. Plus, many families are subsisting on low-quality foods, especially without adequate amounts of protein. That leads to a generally weakened immune system...
All of this could be addressed by repairing the infrastructure devastated by decades of war and suffocating sanctions, by providing widespread employment, by expanding preventive health-care -- in others words a government responsive to the needs of people of Iraq.
Oops, sorry, what am I writing. Government, responsive, needs of people. What silliness. Back to planet Earth. I mean children of Iraq will continue to live and die under appalling conditions which we have helped create and are now helping worsen. Good thing "moral values" "swung" the "election."
Posted by zeynep at November 21, 2004 01:31 AM
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Comments
you must think low of most all of us in the US military. i mean, don't you think there's people who serve the US who wouldn't like to reconstruct water purification plants and work closer with the local pop to create jobs? i know i'd love to, but the damned insurrgents keep wreaking havoc on us - and those iraqis working alongside us - whenever we go out into the general pop. have you a better idea how to accomplish these goals you suggest we're neglecting without getting myself or my comrades getting trying to do it?
Posted by: chris at November 21, 2004 03:24 AM
I have an idea Chris. Why don't you just leave Iraq?
Posted by: Dominion at November 21, 2004 04:05 AM
The function of the US military is genocide while looting and wasting the natural resources on this planet. If you're part of it - this gigantic extinction of life in various forms -then there is no chance in hell you will receive any understanding from the peoples. The upper classes has to be destroyed. Their mechanisms of control, their "democracy", is laughable, a black joke.
Posted by: Jim at November 21, 2004 09:54 AM
I do think the insurgents bear much of the responsibility for this, but the funny thing is, they are doing exactly what the US did in the first Gulf War. Blow up the infrastructure and prevent its repair through sanctions, in the hope that the people will blame the ruling authority. Funny how terrorism works--good when we do it, bad when others use the same tactics.
Posted by: Donald Johnson at November 21, 2004 03:17 PM
Americans - wake up, get out of Iraq, and stop exploiting the world for your own benefit. until you do these things, there will be resistance. you're neither liked nor needed anywhere. you are the problem.
Posted by: lotus at November 21, 2004 04:05 PM
Lotus:
I do think you have to differentiate between nationality and government/military action. Unless you really think the two are in unison? (sometimes they seem to be I think - but generally not at all). In my opinion you have to apply a class perspective in analysis of the racist slaughtering carried out by the US. Mainly by the US, since they are the leader of the imperialist/capitalist ambitions in the world. Iraq is, as Indian author Roy has pointed out, the frontier against imperialism. Therefore support should be given to the freedom fighters - no matter what they do and who they are. Foreign figters? No problem if their struggle is against the "coalition of the willing". Iraqi resistence is heroic and bold since they have few means to defend themselves against the perverted US soldiers various death weapons. The illegal invasion of Iraq will go down in history as perhaps the most cowardly action ever. These are not times in which we can remain neutral. The nazis has to be stopped.
Posted by: Jim at November 21, 2004 04:58 PM
Let the market take care of it.
Posted by: Alex P Worrell at November 22, 2004 09:34 AM
the idea that the failure of the US and the Coalition Provisional Authority to get basic services in Iraq up and running, like water and electricity, is because of the violent resistance is false
see, for example, Pratap Chatterjee's recently published book, "Iraq, Inc.", and the numerous writings of Naomi Klein on this topic
a lot of money got stolen by a lot of companies without any of the work being properly done, without any disruption by the resistance
and, because they were cheaper, these companies had a pervasive practice of frequently refusing to hire Iraqis and seek their assistance
the sooner we stop claiming that we are trying to help the Iraqis, while demolishing their country and taking their resources, like oil, the better
Posted by: Richard Estes at November 22, 2004 08:48 PM
There were hundreds of thousands of children that were killed as a result of our earlier sanctions on Iraq following the 1991 war. This can just be seen as a continuance of the American government's "starve the country into submission" routine. Sadly, it is far too common. "Sanctions" almost always tend to hurt exactly the people they should be in place to help and protect.
-Anthony
http://leftcoast.blogspot.com
Posted by: Anthony Smith at November 23, 2004 12:00 AM