Today's report in the Guardian should make sobering reading for all who are concerned about events in Iraq.

It says that the chief victims of the growing humanitarian crisis are children. The article,based on the Oxfam report,says that children are not getting enough food,are malnourished ,are lacking sanitation and clean water and are living in extreme poverty.Many are now worse off,four years after the invasion, than they were living under the Saddam dictatorship.

Four million Iraqis ,including some of the country's most skilled people are living in exile having fled the war zones,the sectarian killings and the mayhem that is Iraq.Unemployment in the country is at 50 percent.

The invasion of Iraq,which followed years of sanctions has driven Iraq back into barbarism.Society has been shattered and the conflict looks set to continue and possibly even escalated if Bush launches an attack on neighbouring Iran as he is being urged to do by some neocons in Washington.
albert