Bob Herbert: The Nightmare Is Here

http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/09/bob-herbert-nightmare-is-here.html

Bob Herbert: The Nightmare Is Here

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Iraqis are enduring most of their suffering out of the sight of the rest of the world. International relief organizations and most of the news media are largely kept at a distance by the insane levels of violence.

Access to safe drinking water is a problem in much of the country. (The World Health Organization was asked to help with a recent outbreak of cholera in parts of Kurdistan that is believed to have been caused by polluted water.) Sanitation facilities are routinely crippled by violence and sabotage. The economy, like the country’s infrastructure, is in shambles.

The worst aspect of the nightmare, of course, is the rain of death that has descended on Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Controversy has surrounded virtually all attempts to estimate the number of civilian casualties, but no one disputes that the toll is staggering.

The U.S. government has behaved as though these dead Iraqis were not even worth counting. In December 2005, President Bush casually mentioned “30,000, more or less” as the number of Iraqis killed in the war. The White House later said there were no official estimates of Iraqi deaths.

We shouldn’t be so cavalier. Based on all available evidence, it seems unreasonable to believe that fewer than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed thus far. Many very serious scholars believe the total is much higher.

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These are just a few of the things you won’t hear much about from the American officials in Washington who profess to care so deeply about the people of Iraq.

here in the U.S.? Unforgiveable. I about choked when I heard * say in his speech that pulling out would create a "humanitarian nightmare". Now the world knows, once again, how ignorant * is!

:cry: I feel helpless and hopeless for Iraq, not to mention the anger, disgust and frustration for the Bush/Cheney cabal!:mad: