The tragedy is that Iraq, contrary to the images, is mostly an urban country, and when you wreck power lines, destroy sewage treatment plants, and desecrate hospitals, these kinds of numbers are inevitable. I personally don't believe that the numbers have gone up in any drastic way -- and I have studied the numbers available from various desk studies, etc. -- the child mortality figures began spiralling up during the cutbacks created during the Iran-Iraq War in the 80's, and as far as I can figure, have remained steadily awful, probably at about 100,000 unnecessary deaths per year. There has been no respite, except a brief lull in 1990-1991. Saddam was a monster, the people wrecking the electrical system (in spite of gallant attempts to keep things going) are terrorists, and the Americans still refuse to deal with the dimensions of what they precipitated.

yours,

Peter T.