Considering the fact that the pre-war numbers were already staggeringly high, this is yet another shameful moment in the American occupation of Iraq. The long term impact of malnutirition means that we are going to witness a generation of sick Iraqis (those who will manage to survive) who will not be able to contribute their full potential to the rebuilding of Iraq. When I traveled across Southeast Asia I remember being alarmed at the number of locals who suffered from sicknesses such as various eye problems and even TB of the spine, all because of malnutrition in the 1970s. Now remind me again of who the "values" party is these days?
After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across a country convulsed by instability and mismanagement. While attacks by insurgents have grown more violent and more frequent, deteriorating basic services take lives that many Iraqis said they had expected to improve under American stewardship.
Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.
