The humanitarian crisis in Iraq
In today's NYT (via TruthOut), Frank Rich says:
Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That's a total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this month that Iraq's child-survival rate is falling faster than any other nation's. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of 5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what's happening in the country he gave "God's gift of freedom."
So, "give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free," right? Isn't that what the statue's inscription says? It doesn't seem to apply if you're Iraqi:
Since the 2003 invasion, America has given only 466 Iraqis asylum. Sweden, which was not in the coalition of the willing, plans to admit 25,000 Iraqis this year alone. Our State Department, goaded by January hearings conducted by Ted Kennedy, says it will raise the number for this year to 7,000 (a figure that, small as it is, may be more administration propaganda). A bill passed by Congress this month will add another piddling 500, all interpreters.
The humanitarian crisis triggered by our country's government has been roundly ignored by the very people yapping about bringing Iraqis freedom from tyranny, and it has hit children worst of all. The report referenced by Rich above is titled "State of the World's Mothers;" the summary pages (with analysis and video) begin here, and the full PDF of the report can be downloaded here.
Regarding Iraq, the report says:
Iraq's under-5 mortality rate is in the middle range when compared to other developing countries, but it has worsened faster than any other country. In 1990, 50 Iraqi children died per 1,000 live births. Today, the rate is 125 per 1,000 births.
The infant mortality rate in Iraq today is 12.5%, two and a half times what it was in 1990. According to the report, this is the worst downturn in infant mortality of any country in the world. The nexus between war and the deaths of children is unmistakable:
Nine of the 10 countries with the highest under-5 mortality rates in the world are currently experiencing, or emerging from, armed conflict. In all of these countries more than 1 child in 5 will die before reaching his or her fifth birthday. In Niger, Afghanistan, Angola and Sierra Leone more than 1 in 4 will die.
Although Iraqi children had it bad before the 2003 invasion due to sanctions, repression, and generally crappy living conditions, our little adventure in regime change has undeniably made matters worse:
Since 2003, electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation have worsened already difficult living conditions. Some 122,000 Iraqi children (1 in 8) died in 2005 before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were among newborn babies in the first month of life. Pneumonia and diarrhea are the other two major killers of children in Iraq, together accounting for over 30 percent of child deaths. Only 35 percent of Iraqi children are fully immunized, and more than one-fifth (21 percent) are severely or moderately stunted. Conservative estimates place increases in infant mortality following the 2003 invasion of Iraq at 37 percent.