From BBCNews:
Increasing numbers of children in Iraq do not have enough food to eat and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished, a UN report says.
Malnutrition rates in children under five have almost doubled since the US-led intervention – to nearly 8% by the end of last year, … (more below + POLL)
Only a smattering of U.S. media outlets have the story so far.
The AlJazeera story notes that “in reporting the 7.7 percent malnutrition rate for Iraqi youngsters, the Norwegian-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science said last November that the figure was similar to the levels witnessed in some African countries.”
Speaking to the UN human rights body on Wednesday, Jean Ziegler, a hunger specialist, noted that malnutrition amongst Iraq’s young almost doubled since the U.S. led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.The UN’s Human Rights Commission’s special expert on the right to food said that by last fall 7.7 per cent of children under the age of 5 in Iraq suffered from acute malnutrition.
Malnutrition, a disease which is exacerbated by the lack of clean water and adequate sanitation, is a major killer of children in poor countries. Children who survive are usually physically and mentally impaired for life, and are more vulnerable to disease.
The situation facing Iraqi youngsters is “a result of the war led by coalition forces,” said Ziegler, an outspoken Swiss sociology professor and former lawmaker whose previous targets have included Swiss banks, China, Brazil and Israels treatment of Palestinians.
A quick study on how politics and war affect child nutrition, from the AlJazeera story:
Ziegler did not mention the role violence is playing in the nutrition problem, something often cited by aid groups.
Last year, Carol Bellamy, head of UNICEF, said the violence hampers the delivery of adequate supplies of food.
Ziegler also cited an October 2004 U.S. study that estimated as many as 100,000 more Iraqis, [mostly] women and children, have died since the start of the U.S.-led invasion . . . The number is higher than those who would have normally have died, based on the death rate before the war.
“Most died as a result of the violence, but many others died as a result of the increasingly difficult living conditions, reflected in increasing child mortality levels,” …
The U.S. response so far, from the BBCNews:
That point is aimed clearly at the US, but Washington, which has sent a large delegation to the Human Rights Commission, declined to respond to the charges, says the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva. …
Emphases mine.
very succinctly.
“I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”
I do not have a link. She said it on national television, and I, like billions of other people around the world, remember it rather clearly.
She was referring to the effects of sanctions, but imperical evidence (available on any webcam showing a view of the streets of Washington) indicates that it is quite applicable to the most recent US activities in Mesopotamia.
In her defense, she has apologized countless times for it … I forget the exact phrase too … but I heard her live on the Seattle NPR station one day, and she lamented ever saying it, said it had come out wrong, and said she’d keep apologizing the rest of her life.
what she said, which I think Ductape has recollected exactly right, was honest.
The sanctions were causing extreme hardship, but we felt the policy was worth it to secure our interests.
But in OUR defense, Saddam did not make good faith efforts to use his resources equitably to do what he could to alleviate the problems.
That’s why the US chose him to use when it suited their purposes. They did not need someone with a predilection for worrying about hungry children.
I agree with you that Albright was being honest, and I do not doubt that she wishes she had not been quite so honest on television.
However, in fairness, then, as today, actions speak louder than words. Had she sat their and wept for the starving tots, it is unlikely that few outside the US would have perceived her as being sincere, though many might have acknowledged her dramatic talent.
It’s 17,000 children per day. Rather astonishing, isn’t.
I read this several months ago and it’s rather sickening. When I think about the Billions missing and how that could repair or completely rebuild the water system I see red and the air turns a bit blue…well make that a lot blue. I read that there was raw sewage just running in the streets in some places in the poorer parts of Bagdad for instance and this is just so awful. We are going into our 3rd year of being in Iraq and just what exactly have we really repaired or rebuilt there? and I’m not talking about fixing up some schools that we bombed.
Bush is about as interested in the kids there as he is here which is to say, zilch. But their fucking free dammit…so that makes it all ok. Well that’s enough for one of my little mini rants here.
I also think sanctions aren’t a good idea as they never really work..except to hurt the people of the given country.
Then there’s this:
Former Kuwait Manager Indicted For Million Dollar Payoff
by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch
March 29th, 2005
Overlooking a private white sand beach on the Persian Gulf, some 40 miles south of Kuwait city, is the Khalifa Hilton. It boasts no less than a dozen swimming pools and offers its guests activities such as windsurfing, banana boat rides and deep sea fishing. Every single one of the 84 luxurious air-conditioned villas face either the main pool, which is shaped like a giant guitar, or one of the two adjoining pools that resemble shimmering blue door keys.
In late 2002, a company from Texas, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, arrived and took up residence in the villas, paying $200 per person, per night. The total hotel tab soon reached $1.5 million per month. …
The corruption and continued billions that are being ripped off almost makes the words ‘war profiteering’ almost seem petty. We keep reading about one scandal after another and yet nothing at all is being done about it. Not much is even being reported on tv anymore about this kind of corruption. But then the MSM didn’t seem to get too worried about that 9 Billion Bremer ‘lost’ in the shuffle so what the hell, right.
I seem to remember reading on Riverbends blog over a year ago that there was a bridge that needed to be rebuilt and various Iraqi builders puts bids in, one being for either 50,000 or half a million yet the contract went to an american for I think 50 Million. I may be wrong on those figures but the difference was that great of a disparity whatever the exact figures were. And I don’t know if the bridge ever did get rebuilt.