UN Monitor: War on Iraq Has Doubled Malnutrition Among Iraqi Children

UN Monitor: War on Iraq Has Doubled Malnutrition Among Iraqi Children: "Acute malnutrition rates among Iraqi children under five rose late last year to 7.7 per cent from four per cent after the ouster of President Saddam Hussein in April 2003, said Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food.
Malnutrition, which is exacerbated by a lack of clean water and inadequate sanitation, is a major child-killer in poor countries. Children who manage to survive are usually physically and mentally impaired for the rest of their lives and more vulnerable to disease.
Acute malnutrition signifies a child is actually wasting away.
The situation facing Iraqi youngsters is 'a result of the war led by coalition forces,' said Ziegler, a Swiss sociology professor and former legislator whose previous targets have included Swiss banks, China, Brazil and Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
Overall, more than one-quarter of Iraqi children don't have enough to eat, Ziegler told a meeting of the 53-country commission, the top UN rights watchdog, which is halfway through its annual six-week session.
The U.S. delegation and other coalition countries did not respond to the report.
Ziegler's criticism Wednesday was in line with previous studies of the food crisis in Iraq since the U.S.-led war two years ago. "

Blair tried the Human Rights excuse for his war briefly. No Human Rights organisation would back him. This is one reason he does not mention it any more. Even with the effects of depleted uranium on children after the first gulf war, Saddam's children were doing better than they are today. Now the chief architect of this destruction of a people is made head of the worl bank.

Will he support the poor people of the world if their needs clash with US interests, he was asked on the BBC this morning.

He replied that he was responsible to his share holders. I wonder who owns the shares in the world bank?

This morning I have a sense of dispair.

But there is a little good news. Someone in the American Congress is making speeches about the urgent need for change, peak oil, and the need to go green. Americans have a lot of creative energy. They could use it to do something positive.

But the neo cons in power just seem to want to speed up Armaggedon.