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From: Bart (129.171.32.13)
Subject: Child malnutrition in Iraq doubles under Bush from what it was under Saddam, agencies report
Date: November 21, 2004 at 7:50 am PST

Child malnutrition soared in Iraq, agencies report

The Washington Post
November 21, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

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 that takes in chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, an African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is worse than rates in Uganda and Haiti.

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 cost lives that many Iraqis said they expected to be improved under American stewardship.

"The people are astonished," said Khalil Mehdi, who directs the Nutrition Research Institute at the Health Ministry. The institute has been involved with nutrition surveys for more than a decade, including the latest, which was conducted in April and May. It has not yet been publicly released.

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