Southern Iraq Can't Support Any More displaced persons. Turning them away.

[madfloridian]

I remember sometimes when Howard Dean said Iraq would probably not be better off with Saddam gone, nor would we here be safer. He was attacked strongly for those words...but he was right.

Asked if the Iraqi people are better off now than they were under Saddam, Dean said, "We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance." CNN 2003

...." In a major foreign policy address Monday, Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein as "good news for the Iraqi people and for the world," but also claimed that his capture "could have taken place six months ago."
"The capture of Saddam has not made America safer," Dean also said in the speech."

...."DNC Chair Howard Dean: "It Looks Like Today, And This Could Change, As Of Today It Looks Like Women Will Be Worse Off In Iraq Than They Were When Saddam Hussein Was President Of Iraq." (CBS's "Face The Nation," 8/14/05)

I just read at Iraq Slogger that a mother with a nursing baby was killed in the streets for not wearing her veil. Millions fleeing. We just cut off electricity to the city of Baghdad. I would say Dean was right.

Our country has only taken 63 Iraqis recently who have been displaced. This is a human tragedy with millions leaving their homes.

Southern Iraq can't support anymore IDPs.

BAGHDAD, 12 July 2007 (IRIN) - Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in southern Iraq are concerned about the fate of newly arriving internally displaced persons (IDPs), after the authorities in the southern provinces said they could not cope with any more of them.

Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty
Baghdad, IRAQ: A displaced Iraqi fills a jerry can with drinking water from a broken pipe next to a camp for displaced people in Baghdad, 20 June 2007

“Officials in the southern governorates have told us they cannot take in more IDPs as their security cannot be guaranteed,” said Mayada Obeid, a spokesperson for South Peace Organisation, based in Basra.

“Police in Najaf and Basra have told us they have reported cases of new IDPs being targeted by militias, and at least seven people have been killed trying to settle in displacement camps,” said Obeid.

....."A senior official in Basra Governing Council, Hassan Abdul-Kareem, told IRIN: “We can no longer ignore the lack of essential supplies in our governorate. Previously displaced families are demanding our assistance and we cannot satisfy even their needs. There are no places for their children in schools, we cannot give them medical care and the price of goods is high.”

“We understand that the situation is critical for families fleeing their homes but we cannot be the only ones to help all those displaced people. The only way to prevent the situation from deteriorating further is to ban IDP camps from accepting any more displaced people,” he said.

People from Sadr City now are leaving their homes daily. It is like in Fallujah...they can be treated like enemy combatants if they stay.

Leaving Sadr City



WISSAM AL-OKAILI/AFP/Getty
Baghdad, IRAQ: Iraqi children stand in their house after it was raided by US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad's impoverished district of Sadr City, 30 June 2007.

A human tragedy for which we are responsible.

[madfloridian]

1. Polluted water. I have written, emailed, phoned. Now I can just write.

Lacking of Clean Water Making Iraqis Sick



WISSAM AL-OKAILI/AFP/Getty
Baghdad, IRAQ: Iraqis fill pots with water from a pipe linked to Diyala River, crossing an area nearby a garbage dump, northeast of Baghdad, 07 June 2007.

BAGHDAD, 3 July 2007 (IRIN) - Iraqi Health Ministry officials warned on 3 July of a possible increase in waterborne diseases among children and the elderly during the summer's hottest month of July.

Water and sewage networks have not been repaired and this could exacerbate the problem, which has been further highlighted by five cholera cases recently reported in southern Iraq, the officials said.

"Many cases of viral hepatitis, diarrhoea, typhoid and bacterial infections have been registered in Baghdad due to polluted drinking water," Ahmed Assad Naji of Baghdad's health directorate said.

"Water is an enormous need, and people take it where they can get it, and they are getting it from places where it is not always clean. The deteriorated security situation has made it very hard to repair the country's sewage and water networks to work properly and that caused these waterborne diseases," Naji said.

So sad and so tragic.

(Bet if I added the words Vitter, diaper, or Sheehan or other buzz words people would pay attention. But I won't while all these people are suffering so much)

[madfloridian]

2. One last kick for early afternoon.

.

[demoleft]

3. "This one has my child's age..."

Major Brian Krakover is reported to have said it, watching a 4 year iraqui child going under surgery in Baghdad.
An Italian paper has made a coverage of Emergency in Baghdad.
Impossible to translate the stories or the silliest ways children like that got wounded or killed like soldiers in war.
It's hell.

[madfloridian]

4. Here's another at DU who cares...

about the tragedies and sees more than I do and hears more.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1325465

More Anericans care, but it is easier not to talk about it.

[madfloridian]

5. More destruction there today. No end. Reuters reporters also killed.

Iraqis stand at the site of an explosion in the Amin neighborhood of eastern
Baghdad, Iraq Thursday, July 12, 2007 where U.S. troops and militants
clashed. An Iraqi photographer and driver employed by Reuters news agency
were killed while in the area, the London-based agency said. The victims
were identified as photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed
Chmagh, 40, but the circumstances of their deaths were unclear. (AP
Photo/Ali Kadim)


http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3371340

"U.S. troops raided a Shiite area of Baghdad on Thursday, capturing two militants believed linked to Iran and sparking a battle that Iraqi officials said killed 19 people. Two employees of the Reuters news agency were among the dead.

Angry residents of the Amin district many of them Shiites who fled to Baghdad from Baqouba, where U.S. troops are waging an offensive against insurgents accused U.S. helicopters of striking buildings during the fight with gunmen and killing civilians.

The U.S. military said Friday that nine insurgents and two civilians the Reuters personnel were killed.

Iraqi police and hospital officials who put the toll at 19 said the dead included at least one woman and two children, and some of the men slain appeared to have been armed and firing on the Americans."

[madfloridian]

6. I just read an article at Yahoo....the scariest sentence jumped out at me.

We have got to get our troops out of there. We can not let this continue to happen.

He said Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070715/ap_on_re_us/marines_iraq_shooting

"Prosecution witnesses testified that Thomas shot the 52-year-old man at point-blank range after he had already been shot by other Marines and was lying on the ground.

Lopezromo said a procedure called "dead-checking" was routine. If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead, he testified.

"If somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice," he said.

The jury is composed of three officers and six enlisted personnel, all of whom have served in Iraq. The trial was set to resume Monday"