100 Children Die Daily in Iraq

[cal04]

In one month, 3000 children died in Iraq; on average, that is 100 per day. Though many are innocent victims of incessant clashes, most succumb to malnourishment and unsanitary living conditions.

The shortage of drugs and modern equipment is worse than when Saddam Hussein was in power - when international embargoes isolated the country.

Shells and shrapnel, grenades and bombs are other factors affecting the health of children. According to disclosures from the Health Care Ministry, children are suffering from diseases that were never reported before the war. Rimad Cuburi, a doctor in one of the country's largest children's hospitals, said the ailments arouse from some of the American weaponry.

Meanwhile, in the Sadr City section of Baghdad, clashes between Moqtada Al-Sadr's militia and American forces restarted with 34 deaths and 174 injuries. One American soldier is among the dead.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&hn=12137

[berner59]

1. what if Kerry threw this fact....

out to Bush at the debate??? What would Bush say?? hmmm....

[sonicx]

4. email the idea to Kerry here...

[e-mail]

always send great ideas directly to the campaign. :)

[daleo]

7. Bush would say it's the fault of terrorists and liberals

"Now watch this drive".

[mzmolly]

2. hmmm, wonder what the "Pro-Life" movement thinks of this.

How very sad. Iraq is the size of California - imagine ... *sigh*

[Southpaw Bookworm]

17. They don't care

After all, these are just little brown babies already born, and the pro-life movement in the U.S. is only concerned about white fetuses.

[The Straight Story]

3. What was that number under saddam, and what is it for the US?

I can hear that being asked. And what is it for the US and why???

[gottaB]

8. if you hear it, the response should be that it's beside the point

The US has assumed responsibility for security in Iraq, and for providing basic services.

One month's data is not a good basis for extrapolation, but there are causes for concern.

WHO estimates based on 2002 data are here:

For Iraq: http://www.who.int/countries/irq/en

For the US: http://www.who.int/countries/usa/en

There are roughly 12.5 million children in Iraq. If 36,500 children die this year, that would be a death rate of 2.92 per 1000 children--much lower than the US. I think the data are incomplete.

(Incidentally the highest death rate in the world right now is in Darfur, Sudan.)

Morally, I don't know how one distinguishes between 1 and 100,000 unnecessary deaths. Besides being shock to the conscience, I suppose the larger numbers indicate a pattern of negligence and repeated abuse.

ON EDIT: Miscalculated. AGAIN. I think it's right now, but do your own math.

[snowFLAKE]

19. Why are you Trying to Mislead?

By stating that the number of children dying in Iraq is much lower than in the USA?

By consulting your own links the child mortality (for Children under 5) is 9/7 per 1,000 in the USA and 119/111 in Iraq. (for M/F, respectively). No comparison, really. Indeed, quite the opposite of what you claim.

Further, are there really 12.5 million children under 5 years old in Iraq? - where do you get this Rather Remarkable number - Considering that the entire population is roughly 25,000,000 - It is quite extraordinary that 50% are under 5.

[gottaB]

21. dear snowFLAKE, I provided links and suggested you do your own math

The definition of child mortality. I missed the WHO's definition of "child" and wrongly assumed that it was 18. Thank you for noticing the error.

You appear to have overlooked the fact that the WHO numbers were based on data from 2002.

When I said "I think the data are incomplete," that was an indication that I do not believe the conclusion that the death rate in Iraq at present is lower than it is for the US.

By way of correction. If we guess the number of under-fives in Iraq to be about 4 million, and assume that 36,500 under-fives will die in 2004, then the death rate would be 9.125, or slightly higher than the number reported by the WHO for the US, but much lower than reported for Iraq in 2002. If we guess the number of under-fives to be about 3 million, the death rate given our assumptions would be about 12. I still maintain that the data are incomplete.

There are many gaps in our knowledge, and mortality rates can be and are misreported. The CIA factbook, for instance, in its ranking of death rates, routinely reports death rates for industrialized Western countries that are higher than those in Middle Eastern countries. That could be due in part to differences in the age structure of the respective populations, but misreporting is likely also a factor.

[cal04]

5. not sure about this source

This is heartbreaking.

Responsible for tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties and over a thousand deaths among his armed forces, George Bush is sufficiently incompetent not to know where or when to stop because neither his God nor his Dick have given him a message.

After the slaughter of so many innocent lives in his chimerical quest for the Holy Grail (WMD), after the torture and rape of prisoners, after the sexual humiliation involving the most shocking acts of perversion witnessed outside Treblinka or Belsen or Dachau or Auschwitz, after the wholesale theft of Iraqi property, the US Armed Forces have now taken to committing massacres against children.sorry. "insurgents".


The third massacre since September 9th took place in Fallujah, where the local general hospital has confirmed that seven civilians have been murdered by US Armed Forces, including a woman and three children. The television does not lie. The images show screaming and terrified babies being pulled out from under piles of rubble. There are also eleven wounded, some in serious condition, including more children.sorry. "insurgents".

The legacy of Bush is that these images will not be shown to the citizens of the United States of America. The legacy of Bush is that this war criminal, this mass murderer will go down in the annals of history as the biggest liar and cheat the world has ever known. He is a fraud.

http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/399/14318_bush.html

[agincourt]

6. I seem to remember,

a lot of bellowing about all the Iraqi children starving under Bill Clinton. Now we find they are starving under bush when billions have been allocated for "reconstruction". The corruption of this administration still suprises me 3 1/2 years later. I thought I'd be used to it by now.

[kysrsoze]

9. Okay, before we start asking Kerry to start hammering this....

Is it really true? 3000 kids in a month? This doesn't follow the "normal" death rate. If it's exaggeration, he would come off looking like an idiot. Anybody know if this news source is reliable? I've never seen it before.

[leftchick]

10. as long as they are not killing a fetus....

this won't matter to the "christians" like bush*...
:puke:



Wounded Iraqi boys wait inside an ambulance at the restive city of Fallujah to be transferred to another hospital. The boys were victims of US air strikes late 25 September 2004 on suspected hideouts of a militant group in Fallujah.(AFP/Fares Dlimi)

[0007]

11. "Let us Pray"

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved fire sides to smite the foe.
O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst,
sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it
-- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

-- Mark Twain, "The War Prayer".

An Iraqi child.
Shame Shame on...........

[leftchick]

18. thanks for posting that again 0007!

Mark Twain said it best.... :(

[GiovanniC]

12. If This Is True...

If this source is credible, and this statistic could be proven (I am highly skeptical), then here is the perfect line for Kerry in the debates:

"I think we all can agree that 9/11 was a horrible, horrific tragedy. Think about all those people who died that morning -- on the planes, in the World Trade Center, in the Pentagon. Think about those people, so desperate that they threw themselves out of the building, falling to their deaths. Three thousand people.

Now imagine they were all children.

That's what this idiot is doing in Iraq in one month."

[jumpstart33]

15. It simply doesn't matter to most Americans!

No child is important to Americans except their own fair-haired brats. Don't you understand that to most Americans who will be voting for Bush, another dead Iraqi child is one less terrorist? If we cared about the children of the world we would be spending those billions in countries to build up their infrastructure to make it fit to serve its people. Instead, all the US and other western nations have done or cared about is taking the resources, setting up puppets who take from their own people in order to make it easy for their wertern puppet-masters to continue to take the wealth from the country. We want brutal dictators in place to keep the masses down and to keep them from demanding the democracies or social-economic systems that would educate them to kick our butts out! Think about the billion wasted on Iraq, that have yet to build one new school, and what that money could in the poor neighborhoods of American cities as well as help the poor children in African countries and Carribbean countries.

[llmart]

16. This is the crux of the problem.....

These are little brown children and the majority of Americans could care less about what we are doing to that country. They just want their lattes and "Survivor" shows. Don't you dare show them pictures on their TV screens that are upsetting to their comfy little worlds.

[jumpstart33]

13. Listen up!! At least 12 Children were dying as a result of US sanctions

BEFORE the US invaded in 2003. The US is directly responsible (although hinding behind a UN resolution that the US was responsible for) many, many deaths of children, the sick, and aged as a result of US sanctions from Desert Storm. We bombed continually since 1992, cut off needed shipments of food and medicine. Saddam was many things, but he didn't treat his people like they have been treated at western hands.

[drscm]

14. Better they die there than in our streets and neighborhoods.

(A Huge Sarcasm Off)

[leftchick]

20. sounds like....

compassionate "christian" conservatism to me....