WP,pg1: Wounded Iraqis Left Broken and Burdened

[DeepModem Mom]

Wounded Iraqis Left Broken and Burdened
With Medical Facilities Strained, Assistance Is Hard to Come By

By Jonathan Finer and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, June 2, 2005; A01


....The U.S. military keeps a meticulous tally of its wounded -- 12,762 in Iraq as of Wednesday, along with 1,658 dead. Scenes of soldiers convalescing at well-equipped hospitals such as Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center are familiar symbols of the human cost of the war.

But more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion, there is little available data on the far greater number of Iraqi civilians wounded in the invasion and subsequent violence related to the insurgency. And few of the victims' stories have been widely reported.

While attacks on civilians are increasing, the wounded are getting little help from overburdened medical facilities, according to interviews with more than a dozen patients, physicians and health officials in Baghdad. The best rehabilitation hospital in the Iraqi capital is running out of artificial limbs and might soon close, its director said. And most of the wounded fall back on the only support network they have: their families.

Attempts to quantify civilian casualties here have largely focused on the number of dead, not the wounded. A widely criticized study by an international group of university professors released in October estimated that the invasion had caused 100,000 civilian deaths. At least 21,940 civilians have been reported killed in news stories, according to a database compiled by the group Iraq Body Count, which does not track the number of wounded....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/01/AR2005060101718_pf.html

[Erika]

1. While Bush has peace of mind & worries about his little girls

Remember, as each day passes, we are one day closer to getting rid of this guy.

[ninkasi]

2. And the Idiot

refers to Iraq as "America's golden moment." I'd like to get the Iraqi's opinion about that. That coward can do nothing but destroy and cause pain and suffering. I consider our invasion not America's golden moment, but rather America's years of shame.

[babylonsister]

3. October '04-100,000 Iraqis dead; how many now?

True numbers? I wonder if anyone has them? Iraqis, soldiers, the number wounded on both sides, PTSD-for what?

[LynnTheDem]

4. But they're ever so much better off now without Saddam...well except for

all them 100,000+ Iraqis we killed that Hussein wasn't going around killing and hadn't been since 1991.

Ok and the 'less electricity' thing. Less clean drinking water. Less employment...less security...higher crime rates...more violant crimes...less freedoms for women...martial law...foreign invaders destroying homes & entire cities...

Forget all that! They're better off now because...ummm because...because they just are!*

*Spoken with the defiant belligerance of a 5-year old, just like bush.

[leftchick]

5. This is one horribly sad article....

The Prosthetics hospital was looted too?!? There are too many war crimes to list by the USA. God Forgive AmeriKa.

:(

[Judi Lynn]

6. Three children playing in Baghdad killed in mortar blast along with their

Three children playing in Baghdad killed in mortar blast along with their uncle

By Paul Garwood
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:45 p.m. June 1, 2005

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A mortar barrage killed three Iraqi children and their uncle as they played together outside their Baghdad home, the latest deaths in an insurgency that claimed a total of six lives Wednesday and showed no signs of slowing down.

Twelve-year-old Sabaa Haitham, her brother Sajjad, 10, and their 8-year-old cousin Mina Mohammed Abid died when one of two mortar rounds slammed into their home in the southern Doura neighborhood, Yarmouk hospital morgue official Razzak Hassan said.

The children's uncle, Lu'ay Salih, in his mid-20s, also was killed in the 6 p.m. explosions that peppered their victims with razor sharp pieces of shrapnel.

"What have those kids done to deserve this? They were just playing in the front yard," said grieving Haitham Salih, father of Sabaa and Sajjad, outside his demolished house. "It's a disaster. I lost two of my children, my brother and my niece."
(snip/...)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20050601-1345-iraq.html

[babylonsister]

7. .