Conditions for Iraqi children worsen sharply: UNICEF

GENEVA (AFP) - Conditions for children in Iraq have deteriorated sharply in recent years as their humanitarian plight has fallen largely into neglect, a senior UNICEF official said Monday.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that the condition today is much worse," Dan Toole, acting deputy executive director of the UN Children's Fund, told journalists after being asked for a comparison with the situation under Saddam Hussein's regime.

"Children who have had to flee Iraq -- and millions have fled -- are much worse off than a year ago and they certainly are much worse off than they were three years ago," he added.

Toole said there were signs that the health and nutrition for Iraqi children was "changing for the worst", despite recently released two-year-old indicators that had shown signs of an improvement.

UNICEF said the information gleaned from people leaving Iraq, and from the agency's "quite limited" access within the country, indicated that the number of female-headed households has increased "dramatically" because mostly men have been killed in the violence there.

"Many of those women are too frightened to bring their children to health clinics, many are too frightened to send their children to school," he added

Only two-thirds of Iraqis have access to clean water, according to UNICEF.

"My concern is that the focus on Iraq is on the political situation, the security situation, it is not on the lives of Iraqis living day in, day out, with deprivation, with lack of food, with lack of medical supplies," he said.

"That says something about the attention of the world, the attention of our leaders," Toole added, urging a greater focus on the impact on children.

UNICEF says its aid programmes for children in Iraq have only received about one-third of the funding they need.

See kids, Iraq is improving daily, everything's getting better, just listen to the President and you'll see!

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - Attacks in Iraq last month reached their highest daily average since May 2003, showing a surge in violence as President George W. Bush completed a buildup of U.S. troops, Pentagon statistics show.

The data, obtained by Reuters from the Defense Department, showed an upward trend in daily attacks over the past four months, when U.S. and Iraqi forces were ramping up operations against insurgents and militants, including al Qaeda, in Iraq.

Pentagon officials were not immediately available to comment on the statistics.

The June numbers showed 5,335 attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces, civilians and infrastructure.

June's total was 2.5 percent below an October 2006 peak of 5,472 attacks and slightly lower than the 5,365 attacks in May.

But because June has only 30 days, the average daily number of attacks was 177.8, higher than the 176.5 last October and 173.1 in May.

The Pentagon statistics, which come as pressure mounts in the U.S. Congress for a troop withdrawal from Iraq, depicted the most intensive month for daily attacks since Bush declared major combat operations at an end in May 2003.

Daily attacks rose as the Bush administration moved the last combat battalions into place for a security clampdown in Baghdad, part of a controversial U.S. strategy to stabilize Iraq with an additional 28,000 troops.

Bush and other senior officials have predicted that a rise in violence from insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq would occur this summer as the so-called "surge" strategy takes hold.

A crucial report expected in September from U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, could force a change in U.S. policy if it suggests the strategy is not working.

U.S. military commanders have sought to paint a more upbeat picture of events on the ground while pleading for additional time to determine whether the Bush strategy can succeed.

The statistics showed the 177.8 attacks per day in June were above the 157.5 in March, the lowest daily average for any month in 2007. Total monthly attack figures have also climbed to well over 5,000 from a low in February of 4,561.

Attacks last month were up 46 percent from a year earlier, with the statistics showing 3,642 attacks or 121.4 per day on average in June 2006.

The June 2007 statistics confirmed a significant decline in the targeting of Iraqi civilians, with such attacks falling 18 percent to 763 from a 2007 high of 932 in May.

Attacks on Iraqi security forces fell to 889 in June from 987 in May, while attacks on coalition forces rose about 7 percent to 3,671 from 3,423.


See kids, with attack levels that low, the Iraqi army will be ready to take over in no time! Just trust what the White House says about the war, they've been telling us the truth about amazing Progress for the past 4 years, Iraq's almost to the number one spot on biggest failed states, only those darn Sudanese are beating us!

TURKEY SHELLS NORTHERN IRAQ AFTER ATTACK

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Turkey's army heavily shelled Kurdish rebel targets just inside the border of northern Iraq on Wednesday, a Kurdish official said on Thursday, adding there were no casualties.

Jabar Yawer, deputy minister for Peshmerga security forces in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, said the barrage followed the killing of three Turkish soldiers when their vehicle hit a rebel landmine near the border with Iraq.

Yawer said about 100 shells were fired at an area near the town of Zakho inside northern Iraq and residents were forced to flee. Kurdish officials denied reports Turkish war planes carried out bombing raids.

Turkey accuses militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of using bases in the mountains of northern Iraq to hit its forces.

The Turkish army has raised troop levels in the country's restive southeast to 200,000, security sources say, and refuses to rule out the possibility of a cross-border operation.

Turkey's military is known to sometimes shell PKK targets inside Iraq, as well as stage small raids across the border.

The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic Kurdish homeland. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

See how awesome this is guys? The Kurds are being allowed to attack other countries from inside Iraq and try to start new wars. This truly shows how much America cares about spreading peace in the Middle East. None of this awesome freedom would have been available to the Kurds if the dirty peacenik liberals had their way.