Mashgal Anur, Adras Hussein and Misal, all under 1 year old, all suffering from nutritional marasmus.  Their mothers, at the Basra Pediatric Hospital, one by one presented their children for the photographer.  “The U.S. government wants the next generation weak and mentally retarded,” said Dr. Firas Abdul Abbas. Photo by Chuck Trapkus, May 1998

DID YOU KNOW…
* That the U.S. has waged a war on Iraq for over 8 years now?
* That over 1 million Iraqis, mostly children, have died as a result of the ‘sanctions’ in place for 8 years?
* That over 5,000 Iraqi children die every month as a result of these sanctions?
* That we refuse the Iraqi people the most basic of necessities: food, clean drinking water, and medicines such as aspirin?
* That the U.S. continues to bomb the country of Iraq, practically on a daily basis now?
* That we are in the process of destroying an entire nation?
* That the rest of the world, including the U.N., is bitterly opposed to this?
* That the U.S. is in flagrant violation of international law by its actions in Iraq?

They are Iraq’s lost generation – stunted by malnourishment, trapped in ignorance,
orphaned by war, and forgotten by the world
from a report by Boston Globe staff writer
Charles M. Sennott, 01/25/99:

‘On Baghdad’s streets, many children are stunted by years of malnutrition.  Children who say they are 15 and 16 look more like 9- or 10- year olds.  They are glaringly uneducated and ignorant of the modern world.  Of 30 children interviewed through an interpreter, not one of them knew what a computer was.  Simple questions were greeted with blank stares and downward glances.

‘A tall boy with vacant eyes sits in front of the huge mural of Saddam Hussein.  The boy is filthy, and flies are buzzing around him.  About six younger boys, sitted on rusted paint cans, explain that he just doesn’t talk to anyone anymore.
‘He used to talk and he used to go to school,” says one of them.  “But now he won’t say anything.  He just sits there and gets food out of the trash.”

‘Says Michelle Nahal, director of the Middle East Council of Churches aid program in Iraq: “Most are orphans of war, all are malnourished and their growth stunted as a result.  The problem is these developmental problems can’t be reversed.  This generation will be written off.” ’