The New Nation - Internet Edition

Fatema G Valji

In 2003, allegedly to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, the US and Coalition forces launched a war to bomb Saddam Hussein into oblivion, topple the Ba'athist regime and instate a new era of "liberty and peace." By late April, down plonked Saddam's statues (the man himself remained underground) and tanks rolled into Baghdad flying the US victory flag. Five years, 3 980 US military deaths and in the calculation of Nobel laureate and former World Bank economist, Joseph Stilgitz, $3 trillion later, no WMD have been found, while Iraq overflows with blood and despair. Even by Iraq Body Count's conservative estimate, between 81,000 and 89,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the 2003 invasion. The World Health Organisation estimates that from 2003-2006, the US-led Multi-National Forces (MNF) and sectarian fighters have been responsible for the deaths of 151,000 Iraqi civilians. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), approximately 34,452 people were killed in 2006 alone, while the group Just Foreign Policy places the figure of civilian casualties in the last 5 years at a colossal 1 million.

The massive post-invasion death toll in Iraq has left tens of thousands of children orphaned and women widowed. In 2006, studies by the Ministry of Women's Affairs concluded there were approximately 300,000 widows in Iraq's capital city alone. In 2007, Iraq's anti-corruption board estimated there were 5 million orphans in Iraq. The widows, orphans and other survivors in Iraq's enduring conflict are steeped in a miserable marinade of insecurity and displacement. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 4 million Iraqis are displaced, with approximately 2 million refugees in neighbouring Syria and Jordan.

In Baghdad, one of the world's most dangerous cities, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates a quarter of the city's 6 million residents have been displaced from their homes. March figures indicate that in spite of the recent US troop surge in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad still suffers a reduced murder rate of 29 violent deaths a day.

With unemployment levels between 25 and 40 percent, and over 50% in some areas, food insecurity and deprivation is also rife. Before the 2003 invasion, twelve crippling years of US-led economic sanctions, resulted in the death by malnourishment and lack of medical care of 1 million Iraqis. Last July, Oxfam revealed that 43 percent of Iraqis were earning less than 1 dollar a day while 4 million Iraqis depended on emergency assistance for survival.

Millions of Iraqis are also deprived of clean water and medical care. According to the ICRC, "the humanitarian situation in most of the country remains amongst the most critical in the world." With water and sanitation systems in utter disrepair, 70 percent of Iraqis do not have access to safe drinking water.

While in the 1980s Iraq boasted one of the best healthcare systems in the Middle East, in the volatility of recent years, thousands of doctors have fled, hospitals are failing and children's healthcare now ranks amongst the world's bottom three. The ICRC declares that Iraq's healthcare system is now "in worse shape than ever."

The suffering of Iraq's children is particularly harrowing. There are more starving children in Iraq now than during the black decade of West's economic sanctions, during which half a million children died due to severe malnourishment and the breakdown of sanitation and healthcare (UNICEF). Child malnutrition rates, Oxfam reveals, have increased from 19 percent during the 1991-2003 embargo, to 28 percent currently.

The scars of child trauma associated with sustained violence and insecurity also run deep in Iraq. Many children pass dead bodies on their way to school, wake up to the sound of gunshots and have seen one or more relatives die in mortar or bomb attacks. Studies by Iraq's Ministry of Health show 70 percent of children in Baghdad suffer trauma symptoms such as stress related bed-wetting or stuttering.

The millions of children ensnared by the gripping fear and distress of living in a war zone, cope with limited support - hospitals are too overstretched to deal with psychological trauma, many of the best psychologists have fled and international organisations such as Save the Children and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society have suspended work with child victims due to insecurity or limited funding.

Yet the incessant carnage fuelling terror and trauma, persists. While President George Bush claims that last year's 30,000 US troop surge is allowing "normalcy" to return to Iraq, Iraq's official March death toll, higher than any other month since August 2007, indicates otherwise. Heavy fighting in Baghdad and Basra and a scourge of deadly bomb attacks killed 1,082 Iraqis in March alone, including 952 civilians.

It seems that for Iraqis daily battling death and indigence in an imploding country, the devastating legacy of Iraq's plunge into war 5 years ago, will be stoically suffered for years to come.