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Iraqi infant mortality soars by 150 percent—a damning revelation of US war crimes |
Current rating: 0 |
by Bill Van Auken via sam
(No verified email address) |
09 May 2007
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“A child in the poorest fifth of a population is more than twice as likely to die compared to a child from the richest fifth,” the study finds. “Eliminating health-care inequities—and bringing mortality rates among the poorest 80 percent of the population down to those prevailing among the richest 20 percent—would prevent about 4 million of the 10 million deaths each year.” |
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The infant mortality rate in Iraq has increased by a shocking 150 percent since 1990—the highest such increase recorded for any country in the world—according to an annual report issued by the child advocacy group, Save the Children.
According to the report, in 2005, the last year for which reliable data is available, one in eight Iraqi children—122,000 in all—died before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were recorded among new-born infants, with pneumonia and diarrhea claiming the greatest toll among Iraqi babies.
The infant mortality rate has long been considered one of the key measures of societal progress and wellbeing. The astounding figures recorded in Iraq are an accurate reflection of the social devastation wrought both by the US invasion of 2003 and more than a decade of US-backed economic sanctions that preceded it.
“Conservative estimates place increases in infant mortality following the 2003 invasion of Iraq at 37 percent,” according to the Save the Children report. The implications of such a change—in the space of just two years—are staggering. Given the steady escalation of the armed conflict in Iraq and the continued deterioration of social conditions for masses of people in the country, the rate of increase in infant and child deaths was no doubt even greater over the course of 2006.
The report blamed the horrific decline in infant and child health since the invasion on the steadily worsening living conditions for the Iraqi population as a whole, including “electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation.”
This overall destruction of basic social infrastructure unleashed by the US invasion and occupation has been translated into a horrendous decline in child health. “Only 35 percent of Iraqi children are fully immunized, and more than one-fifth (21 percent) are severely or moderately stunted” as a result of malnutrition, the study found.
The statistics compiled by Save the Children indicate that in 1990 the mortality rate for children under five in Iraq stood at 50 for every 1,000 live births—among the best outcomes reported for the entire Arab world at the time. In 2005, the figure was 125 per 1,000 live births—roughly equivalent to the figures recorded in countries like Malawi, Mauritania, Uganda and Haiti.
While some countries—all with one exception in Africa—have higher death rates than Iraq, none came even near the rate of increase in infant mortality recorded by the US-occupied country (Botswana came closest, with a 107 percent rise, while still recording a slightly lower rate of 120 deaths per 1,000 live births).
The destruction of the conditions and very lives of Iraqi children began well before US troops invaded the country in 2003. The 1990-1991 Gulf War saw more than 90,000 tons of US bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq, smashing much of its essential infrastructure, including power plants and water and sanitation systems and creating the conditions for a public health disaster.
The war was followed by a decade of punishing sanctions that deprived Iraqi children and the population as a whole of essential medical supplies and adequate nutrition. Even chlorine, needed to purify water, was embargoed, depriving infants and small children of a clean water supply and condemning many to death.
US-backed sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi children
It was during this period that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that an additional half a million Iraqi children had died between 1991 and 1998 as a result of the sanctions.
In 1998, the coordinator of United Nation humanitarian operations in Iraq, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest calling the sanctions a form of “genocide” and “a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq.” Halliday said at the time, “We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”
President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, confronted in a television interview with the UN estimate of 500,000 children having died as a result of the US-backed sanctions, famously answered, “We think the price is worth it.”
The rise in infant mortality rates represents the starkest manifestation of the murderous impact that US aggression upon Iraq and its children over a protracted period. But there are many other indications that for those who survive, conditions of life have become increasingly unbearable.
According to figures reported by the Iraqi government, some 900,000 children have been left orphans by the carnage that has swept Iraq since the US invasion of 2003. It is estimated that at the present levels of violence, some 400 children are left orphaned every day in the country.
The Iraqi Ministry of Education, meanwhile, estimates that barely 30 percent the country’s 3.5 million elementary school children are attending classes, a sharp decline from 75 percent last year. A study sponsored by the World Health Organization in the Iraqi city of Mosul, found fully 30 percent of school children surveyed suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.
Significantly, the other country that is presently occupied by the US military and remains the scene of a bitter counterinsurgency war—Afghanistan—ranks as the second worst in the world in terms of its infant mortality rate, with 257 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In other words, more than one out of four Afghan children dies before the age of five. On average, every Afghan mother sees two of her children die as infants, while one in six women die in childbirth.
According to the Save the Children study, 40 percent of Afghan children are malnourished and less than half have access to safe water. The report also notes that, while “1 child in 100,000 in the United States dies of pneumonia each year, roughly 1 in 15” dies of the disease in Afghanistan.
On a world scale, Save the Children reports, “Every year, more than 10 million children die before they reach the age of 5, most from preventable causes and almost all in poor countries.” It adds that while infant global infant mortality rates had improved in previous decades, “rates of progress are slowing and in many countries, child death rates are getting worse.”
The organization insists that available and low-cost solutions could easily prevent 6 million of these deaths annually. These include, “skilled care at childbirth, breastfeeding, measles immunization, oral rehydration therapy for diarrhea and medical care for pneumonia.” But for many of the most impoverished countries, and for many others in the most oppressed layers of society elsewhere, these elementary forms of health care and education are not provided.
The statistics included in the report also indicate that the problems of infant mortality reflect the worldwide growth of social inequality, which is literally killing millions of children every year.
“A child in the poorest fifth of a population is more than twice as likely to die compared to a child from the richest fifth,” the study finds. “Eliminating health-care inequities—and bringing mortality rates among the poorest 80 percent of the population down to those prevailing among the richest 20 percent—would prevent about 4 million of the 10 million deaths each year.”
In addition to the growing impact of social inequality within each country, the gap between the wealthiest and most impoverished countries has also continued to widen. While in 1990, the child mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa was 20 times higher than for the industrialized countries, by 2005, the rate was 28 times as high, the study said.
See Also:
Iraq war "surge" claims lives of 12 more US soldiers
[8 May 2007]
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/iraq-m08.shtml
International conference on Iraq: bitter antagonisms on display
[7 May 2007]
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/iraq-m07.shtml
Report warns of civil war spreading to Kurdish north of Iraq
[5 May 2007]
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/kurd-m05.shtml
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/iraq-m09.shtml |
This work is in the public domain |
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US helicopter kills 7 civilians including two children |
by Parrot Press
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 May 2007
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A United States attack helicopter killed seven civilians including two children when it fired on resistance north of Baghdad.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Donnelly, a spokesman for US occupation forces stationed north of the Iraqi capital, denied some media reports that the helicopter had fired on a school on Tuesday (local time).
"It's traumatic and entirely unfortunate that this happened," he said.
He says an investigation has been opened into how the civilians could have been killed.
The helicopter attack allegedly killed two of the resistance, but interviews with residents later showed that the five other civilians including two children had also been killed.
He had no information on the age of the children.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1918953.htm |
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Afghan air raid kills civilians |
by from al jazeera
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10 May 2007
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An air raid by foreign forces has killed 21 civilians in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, the provincial governor has said.
Assadullah Wafa said a village in Sangin district of Helmand province was bombed late on Tuesday...
"Twenty-one civilians, including women and children, were killed," the governor said.
It was not clear whether the raid was by Nato's International Security Assistance Force or the separate US-led coalition, which both operate alongside the Afghan military.
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James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Afghanistan, said Taliban sources were putting the number killed at about 50, while local sources said it was at least 40.
Bays said Nato had denied any knowledge of the air raid. The US-led coalition said it was checking the report.
He said there had been intense fighting in Sangin in recent days.
The claim of civilian casualties is the latest in a string of such incidents which have angered Afghans and prompted Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to tell the foreign forces in his country to take more care in battle situations.
Authorities are still investigating an incident in the western province of Herat last month where UN and provincial Afghan investigations have found that about 50 civilians were killed.
'Shameful'
The latest casualties came even as a US commander admitted that civilian deaths in the country were "shameful".
Colonel John Nicholson, a US brigade commander, apologised on Tuesday to family members of 19 Afghans killed and 50 injured by US forces in an incident more than two months ago.
"I stand before you today deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that Americans have killed and wounded innocent Afghan people," Nicholson said he told the family members.
"This was a terrible, terrible mistake, and my nation grieves with you for your loss and suffering. We humbly ask for your respect and forgiveness," he said.
There has been growing anger in Afghanistan over civilian deaths in coalition military operations. |
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Militant admits urinating on dead Iraqi at Haditha |
by Parrot Press
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 May 2007
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A US militant Iraqi occupier has admitted he urinated on the head of one of 24 Iraqi civilians killed by his unit in Haditha, saying he was motivated by anger over the death of one of his squad members.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1919131.htm |
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Afghanistan: 40 civilians killed in US strike |
by Joe Kay via sam
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 May 2007
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At least 40 Afghan civilians were killed in air strikes on Tuesday, adding to the mounting death toll from the escalation of US operations in the country. The latest incident occurred in the Sangin district of the southern province of Helmand, the scene of stepped-up US and NATO attacks in recent months.
Earlier reports put the civilian death toll at 21, according to the governor of Helmand, Assadullah Wafa. Reuters reported the larger figure on Thursday, citing eyewitness accounts.
As usual, the US initially claimed that all of those killed were Taliban fighters. This latest incident, however, appears to have followed a pattern repeated in other areas recently. According to military spokesman, US forces came under attack while patrolling in the area, and one US soldier died in the fighting. The embattled patrol responded by calling in air support, which carried out indiscriminate bombing raids, including on local villages.
Major William Mitchell, a spokesman for the US-led coalition troops in Afghanistan, claimed Wednesday, “We don’t have any report of civilian casualties.” Sergeant Dean Welch, a US spokesman at the Bagram Air Force base, acknowledged there were such reports, but said they were not “confirmed.”
A report in the Toronto Globe and Mail on Thursday refutes these claims, however, noting that after the incident local villagers brought their wounded and dead to a nearby military base to protest the killings.
“A grim tally emerged as angry villagers brought their injured and dead to Forward Operating Base Robinson, an outpost shared by Canadian, British, and US troops,” Globe and Mail reporter Graeme Smith reported from Sangin District. “There were seven women, three men and two children among the dead; five women, five men and 15 children were injured.”
The newspaper interviewed one of the survivors, a 13-year-old boy named Rahmatullah. In addition to a wounded uncle, four of his other relatives were killed, he said, but he dragged two of his brothers alive from the mud rubble of a house. “The people who bombed us are bad guys,” Rahmatullah said. “They should attack the Taliban, not us.” The villagers who were killed belonged to tribes generally considered hostile to the Taliban.
Some residents rejected statements by Governor Wafa and the US military that there were Taliban in the area, and that they hid in civilian homes to use the civilians as shields. “There were no Taliban in our area,” one resident of Sangin told Reuters by phone.
The recent killings are part of a broader US-led offensive to recapture parts of the country not under the control of the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai in Kabul. In January, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, with the support of both the Democrats and Republicans in the US, announced an increase in the US-military presence to prepare for a “spring offensive.”
On Wednesday, the military announced that about 4,500 troops from the 101st Airborne Division would be sent to Afghanistan to maintain the current troop strength at least through 2008. There are currently about 25,000 US troops in Afghanistan, including two combat brigades, in addition to troops from Britain, Poland and other countries.
The deaths Tuesday come on the heels of several other attacks that have killed scores of civilians. At the end of April, air strikes in the western Herat Province killed at least 50, while other attacks in the south have killed dozens, including one incident, also at the end of April, in which 13 civilians were killed.
Near Jalalabad in the east, 6 Afghans were killed during a raid in April, while 19 civilians were killed and 50 wounded when US marines went on a killing spree in March.
All of these incidents are combining to sharply increase popular opposition to the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan. Each of the killings has been followed by large protests, sometimes lasting for days, demanding the withdrawal of US and other military forces.
Growing concern within the Afghan government that popular opposition could undermine the Karzai government was on display Tuesday, when the upper house of the parliament voted for a military cease-fire and negotiations with the Taliban.
Meanwhile, a US Army brigade commander issued a cynical apology for the deaths of the 19 civilians near Jalalabad in March. Colonel John Nicholson said he was “deeply, deeply ashamed” by the incident, and said the military was issuing payments of US$2,000 as “essentially a symbol of our sympathy to them” and “a way of expressing our genuine condolences over the incident occurring.”
Haji Lawania, who was injured and had two relatives killed by the Marines, expressed what was no doubt the reaction of many of those involved, saying, “We don’t want their money and apologies. If somebody loses one of his family members, an apology won’t bring him back.”
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/afgh-m11.shtml |
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House Democrats pass new measure to fund US war in Iraq |
by Barry Grey
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 May 2007
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The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted by 221-205 Thursday to pass a new bill to fund the war in Iraq, a measure stripped of even the non-binding timetable for withdrawing combat troops that was included in the measure vetoed by President Bush on May 1.
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/bill-m11.shtml |
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