[Mb-civic] Conditions worse than under Saddam & "Catastrophe" in Iraq

Sat May 21 15:52:29 PDT 2005

Iraqis Endure Worse Conditions Than Under 
Saddam, UN Survey Finds

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1816

by Chris Shumway 
A major study by the UN and Iraqi officials found that life in Iraq has 
decayed significantly since foreign forces invaded, following a general 
trend seen in most sectors since the imposition of a global embargo in 
1990.

May 18 - Responses to a detailed survey conducted by a United 
Nations agency and the Iraqi government indicate that everyday 
conditions for Iraqis in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion have 
deteriorated at an alarming rate, with huge numbers of people lacking 
adequate access to basic services and resources such as clean water, 
food, health care, electricity, jobs and sanitation.

"This survey shows a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq," 
Barham Salih, Iraq's minister of planning, said in statement, adding: "If 
you compare this to the situation in the 1980s, you will see a major 
deterioration."

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducted the far 
ranging survey, titled "Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004," in 
cooperation with Iraq's Ministry of Planning.

Researchers determined that some 24,000 Iraqis died as a result of 
the US-led invasion in 2003 and the first year of occupation. Children 
below the age of 18 comprised 12 percent of those deaths, according 
to survey data.

The study also indicates that the invasion and its immediate aftermath 
forced more than 140,000 Iraqis to flee their homes.

The 370-page report evaluating the survey, which was in turn based on 
interviews conducted with more than 21,000 Iraqi households during 
the spring and summer of 2004, might not end the controversy over 
civilian casualty figures, but the study's authors drew a narrower range 
of estimated deaths. They report that the total number of war dead is 
between 18,000 and 29,000.

But they also acknowledge that their numbers are derived from a 
question -- posed to household members concerning dead and 
missing relatives -- that "underestimates deaths, because households 
in which all members were lost are omitted."

Other sources have reported widely varying figures for civilian deaths. 
Iraq Body Count, a website that tracks reported civilian deaths in Iraq, 
put the total number of civilians killed by military intervention at 
somewhere between 14,619 and 16,804 during the time covered by 
the UN survey.

A survey published last fall in The Lancet, a renowned British medical 
journal, extrapolated that 98,000 "excess civilian deaths" had occurred 
in Iraq during roughly the same period covered by the UN study, 
compared to the number of deaths to be expected in relative peace 
time. The authors of that study, who based their findings on interviews 
with fewer than 1,000 Iraqi households in various regions, were also 
careful to note that based on the same confidence level as the UN 
report, the possible range ran from 8,000 to 194,000 deaths.
Child Malnutrition Worsens

In addition to deaths attributed to warfare, Iraqi children have suffered 
from a lack of adequate nutrition since 2003, the survey reports.

Data from the survey indicates that 23 percent of children between six 
months and five years suffer from chronic malnutrition, while 12 
percent suffer from general malnutrition, and 8 percent experience 
acute malnutrition.

The malnutrition figures are consistent with statistics from previous, 
smaller surveys cited earlier this year by Jean Ziegler, the UN's expert 
on malnutrition.

Ziegler drew harsh criticism from US officials in March when he told 
the UN Commission on Human Rights that child malnutrition rates in 
Iraq had nearly doubled since 2003. Ziegler said the rise was "a result 
of the war led by coalition forces."

In addition to war, the new UN report suggests that more than a 
decade of harsh economic sanctions against Iraq, enthusiastically 
supported by the US and British governments, has had a major impact 
on the health of Iraqi children.

"Most Iraqi children today have lived their whole lives under sanctions 
and war," the study says, noting that "the suffering of children due to 
war and conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed 
by military activities."

The survey notes that children under the age of 15 make up 39 
percent of the country's total population.
Health Care Facilities Dilapidated, Doctors Frustrated

Years of sanctions and war have also had a major negative impact on 
Iraq's health care system, once considered among the best in the 
Middle East, authors of the survey observe.

The list of "current major problems" includes "lack of health personnel, 
lack of medicines, non-functioning medical equipment and destroyed 
hospitals and health centers."

Iraqi health officials express a great deal of frustration at their limited 
capacity to provide services to those who are chronically ill and to the 
increasingly high number of people wounded in attacks by rebels, 
foreign occupation troops and Iraqi security forces.

In interviews with the Christian Science Monitor, doctors at Baghdad's 
Yarmouk Hospital, said the main problem at is funding for basic 
medical services. In fact, they say the money needed to run the facility, 
which has the biggest patient load in Baghdad, has run just out.

"The health ministry does not have money to spend until July," Tala Al-
Awqati, a pediatrician at Yarmouk, told CSM. "A lot of things have 
stopped," she said, "People are not getting what they need from the 
health services. Money for disinfectant is not there anymore; 
sometimes we must buy it ourselves."

Iraq's Health Ministry had requested $2 billion for health care services 
in 2004 from US controlled funding sources, but reportedly received 
less than half that amount - only $950 million. Doctors told CSM that 
due to poor funding and the slow pace of the US-led reconstruction 
effort, projects to repair hospital water pipes and sewage systems are 
left undone.

In addition to poor facilities and the lack of medicine and personnel, Al-
Awqati suggested that poor security is one reason the infant mortality 
rate in Iraq remains high under the US-led occupation. "Women can't 
reach the hospital at night," she said, referring to the lack of safety 
near her own facility.

The UN survey reports 32 deaths per 1,000 births during infants' first 
year. The report further indicates that "infant and child mortality rates 
appear to have been steadily increasing" during the last 15 years of 
war and sanctions. The number of mothers who die during labor was 
93 for every 100,000 births, far worse than the rates of maternal 
mortality in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Iraqis Lack Safe Water, Sewage Treatment, Electricity

The condition of Iraq's health care infrastructure is mirrored by that of 
the country's larger civilian infrastructure, which the UN report says is 
marked by "degraded or disrupted electricity supply, sanitation, and 
communications."

In comparison with earlier statistics from Iraq on key measures of daily 
living conditions - such as reliability of electrical service, access to safe 
drinking water and sanitation systems and access to health care -- the 
report concludes that "an alarming deterioration in the indicators is 
apparent."

Of the households surveyed, 51 percent of those in urban areas of 
southern Iraq live in neighborhoods "where sewage could be seen in 
the streets." Nationwide, 40 percent of families in urban areas and 30 
percent in rural areas reported living in neighborhoods where they can 
see sewage in the streets.

Iraqis are not fairing much better with respect to clean sources of 
water. The survey indicates that only 54 percent of households 
nationwide have access to a "safe and stable" supply of drinking water. 
An estimated 722,000 Iraqis, the report also notes, rely on sources that 
are both unreliable and unsafe.

Conditions are worse in rural areas, with 80 percent of families drinking 
unsafe water, the report says. According to researchers, "the situation 
is alarming" in the southern governorates of Basra, Dhi Qar, Qadisiya, 
Wasit, and Babil, located near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. A large 
percentage of the population in this region relies on water from 
polluted rivers and local streams, the report says.

Although 98 percent of Iraqi households are connected to the electrical 
grid, 78 percent of them report "severe instability" and low quality in the 
service, according to the survey. As a result, about one in three Iraqi 
families now relies on alternative sources of electricity such as 
generators, most of which are shared between households.
Literacy in Decline

The past two decades of war and sanctions have also taken a heavy 
toll on Iraq's education system, the report states.

The literacy rate among those between the ages of 15 and 24 is just 
74 percent, the survey reveals - a rate researchers note is only "slightly 
higher than the literacy rate for the population at large." But this figure 
is lower than literacy rates for those 25-34, "indicating that the younger 
generation lags behind its predecessors on educational performance."

The survey also indicated that the literacy rate for women in Iraq has 
stagnated in the past two years. In some governorates, however, the 
level of female illiteracy is very high.

Overall, the gender gap in literacy is diminishing in Iraq, according to 
the report - but this appears due more to a drop in the literacy levels of 
men rather than gains made by women.

--------------
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8882.htm

"Catastrophe" in Iraq

Dahr Jamail

05/18/05 "Iraq Dispatches" - - I neither read nor listen to corporate 
media drivel concerning Iraq...but today I wonder what they could 
possibly be saying to justify the failed occupation of Iraq on this horrible 
day. I also wonder how people in America have yet to take the 
appropriate action necessary in order to force their government to 
impeach Bush and bring him and his regime to justice for the countless 
war crimes they have committed in Iraq.

Yesterday Hassan Nuaimi, high ranking member of the Association of 
Muslim Scholars (AMS) was found dead in Baghdad. One of his arms 
was broken and a hole was drilled into the side of his head.

This coming the day after the AMS had accused the Shia led 
government of state sponsored terrorism by using the Shia Badr 
Brigades to murder Sunnis.

In response to the murdering of Nuaimi, two Shia clerics were gunned 
down in Baghdad yesterday.

Harith al-Dhari, head of the AMS, blamed the Shia Badr Brigades for 
the recent spate of killings of Sunni clerics in the country.

Dhari, making a statement that could be interpreted as an 
announcement of civil war, said Sunnis would not keep silent over the 
killings.

"We are heading towards a catastrophe, only God knows when it will 
end, this is a warning from us," he said angrily.

The Badr Brigades were in exile in Iran during much of Saddam's rule, 
and returned to Iraq after the invasion and have been a fully 
operational militia in Iraq ever since. I have seen their members in full 
uniform and with heavy weapons in Baghdad during a Shia 
demonstration last summer. The Badr Brigades was headed for years 
by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance 
who won the largest percentage of votes in the January 30 "election."

There has been a low-grade civil war going on for quite some time-but 
now the veil has been ripped off by the statements made by Dhari.

All Sunni mosques in Iraq will be closed for three days...an ominous 
symbol of things to come.

Thus, any argument that the US military should remain in Iraq to 
prevent a civil war can be flushed. Besides, anyone arguing that the 
US military was there to protect the Iraqi people is either blind, in 
denial, or knows absolutely nothing about the reality on the ground in 
occupied Iraq. The US military in Iraq are unable even to protect 
themselves, let alone civilians.

I conducted an informal interview two days ago with a UN official here 
in Amman...thus I'll leave his name out of this...for now. He told me 
that 95% of the reconstruction funds for rebuilding Iraq have been 
spent outside of Iraq.

So the argument of staying in Iraq to help rebuild the country-that too 
could have been flushed long ago. Want to find someone accountable-
look to some of the larger contributors to the Bush Administration. We 
all know their names by now. Check their profit margins as of late while 
you're at it.

I watched the news about the aforementioned statements by al-Dahri 
on Al-Jazeera with one of my close Iraqi friends here. As we watched 
the large funeral procession with the body of the murdered cleric while 
al-Dahri made his ferocious statements, I watched her head drop into 
her hands as she said softly, "This is so horrible what has happened to 
my country since the Americans came."

And she couldn't be more correct. For the Bush Administration is guilty 
under international law for the catastrophe Iraq has become. Under 
international law it is the primary responsibility of the occupier to 
safeguard the citizens of the country they occupy.

For the Bush Administration, that means over 100,000 dead Iraqis and 
counting.

Other news most likely omitted by most corporate television outlets in 
the US today?

In Baquba a car bomb detonated near a police convoy which injured 
18 people, most of them policemen. 

In Kirkuk 7 bodies of Iraqis who worked for a security company were 
found.

In Baghdad a roadside bomb aimed at a US convoy injured 7 Iraqis.

A Transport Ministry driver was shot dead in Sadr City.

In Beji 2 Iraqi police were killed by a car bomb.

In Mosul mortar attacks killed 2 Iraqis and injured 7 school kids.

So that's nearly 500 dead Iraqis in a little over two weeks to add to the 
list of crimes for the Bush Administration, which grows longer with 
each passing day.

Visit Dahr Jamail's web site http://dahrjamailiraq.com

©2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail. 

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