Iraq, no one speaks for them

I wish to inform and hopefully to move you. I have gathered information from various sources like UNICEF, the United Nations, WHO, medical journals and relief organizations among others. The figures are often based on estimates in part based on verifiable reports because hard figures are difficult to gather. I tried whenever possible to use multiple sources.  You are invited below the fold where I hope we will  find a sense of proportion and perspective.

I am constantly astonished by the number of people who either have no clue or simply do not want to know. Since 2003 nearly 3 million Iraqis have fled their country, with more than 100,000 leaving every month. The figures vary, but it is now thought the number of displaced Iraqis still in country number number in excess of 1.7 million. Every day the civil war intensifies the numbers go up. The countries taking the largest number of refugees is Syria and Jordan. Iraqis are used to living in a secular state with certain rights unknown in ultra conservative Syria. In addition to Shia and Sunni, about half the refugees in Syria are Christian. Jordan is more western but their economy is being strained to the breaking point, neither country can really give homes to millions of fleeing Iraqis. In first nine months of 2007 only 133 of the planned 7000 Iraqi refugees were allowed into the United States. European nations like Sweden have taken thousands more.  In addition to the obvious toll on the refugees and their hosts, relief organizations report nearly half of all refugees are children. UNICEF also tells us displaced children are at the greatest risk for death. In fact the burden of this war on Iraq's children is staggering.  UNICEF also informs 1/2 of the Iraqi population is under the age of 18, children who will ultimately suffer the most. Before, because to the embargo and the first Gulf War Iraqi children and their mothers were chronically malnourished. Now 1 in 8 Iraqi children die before their 5th birthday. Again from UNICEF, 2003 report, of the more than 122, 000 reported deaths of children under 5 more than half are infants. There are 10's of thousands of orphan living on the streets and countryside, many left to starve. Children are hit so hard because of the lack of food, custodial parent, clean water, lack of health services and childhood disease like measles. In 2004 we spent princely $37 per capita in Iraq for medical needs.  The dead, nearest estimates are now upwards of 1,000,000 Iraqis have perished, today an Iraqi civilian is 58 times more likely to die a violent death than before the war started. More than 1.5 million seriously injured.  These figures represent 7.2 million people, nearly 25% of the Iraqi population is either dead, maimed or a refugee.   Let me help you try wrap your mind around those numbers. 7.2 million people represents  the combined populations of our 10 least populace states,  D.C., Wyoming, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Hawaii and Vermont. Twice the population of Los Angeles, roughly the combined populations of Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix and San Diego. Bring a destroyed infra-stucture and on going Civil war to add to the deadly mix.  We see the flag draped coffins and for every one of our dead there are 300 dead Iraqis, 300. For every soldier who comes back wounded and maimed there are more than 53 Iraqis just like him.  I don't know how one puts this in proper context, how do you find ways to convey the monstrous enormity of what we have done. How do you get people to understand it just isn't about US, it isn't about our dead and wounded, it isn't about oil or who is right or wrong, it is about the 27.5 million INNOCENT people of Iraq we are literally liberating to death.