01/11/07

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Death, disease and starvation await Iraq's children should war break out, and casualties in the thousands or even in the hundreds of thousands cannot be ruled out, according to a report released Sunday by an independent team of European and American experts.

The team forecasts a ``grave humanitarian disaster'' in its report prepared by 10 experts from the International Study Team, an independent group of academics, researchers, physicians and child psychologists founded in 1991 to examine the effect of military conflicts on civilians.

The report, titled ``The Impact of a New War on Iraqi Children,'' expressed concern not only about casualties among children as a direct result of combat, but more importantly as a result of the results of war -- including disruptions of food supplies, lack of medicines, the flight of refugees.

Some 500,000 children already malnourished or underweight, and Iraq currently only has a month's supply of food and three months' supply of medicines. If a war -- especially a lengthy one -- cuts off supplies or damages Iraq's already decrepit medical infrastructure, then children would see the most suffering, said the report.

``While it is impossible to predict both the nature of any war and the number of expected deaths and injuries ... casualties among children will be in the thousands, probably in the tens of thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands,'' team leader Eric Hoskins said.

The report's findings, read out at a news conference, were based on data collected in three Iraqi cities -- Baghdad, Basra and Karbala -- and interviews with 200 families. The team did not receive any help from the Iraqi government and hired its own interpreters, said Hoskins, a Canadian.

The United States and Britain are assembling the biggest ground, air and naval force in the Persian Gulf region since the 1991 Gulf War, threatening war against Iraq to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction. On Monday, the chief arms inspectors are to deliver to the U.N. Security Council a crucial report on the progress of two months of searching for biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in Iraq.

``Iraq's 13 million children are at a grave risk of starvation, disease, death and psychological trauma,'' Hoskins told reporters, summing up the findings of the survey, conducted Jan. 20-26. ``Iraqi children are more vulnerable than ever,'' he said. Iraq's under-18 population was worse off than on the eve of the 1991 war, when a U.S. led coalition drove Iraq's army out of Kuwait.

Twelve years of economic sanctions, imposed by the United Nations after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, have left Iraq's economy shattered, although expansion of the oil for food program in recent years have improved conditions somewhat.

Under the oil for food program, Iraq is allowed to sell unlimited amounts of oil to buy humanitarian goods and pay war reparations.

Figures published in September 2000 by the United Nations and the World Food Program said malnutrition among children in Iraq was very serious outside Baghdad and in rural areas, reflecting the effects of drought and poverty.

But it found the nutritional situation in the north ``significantly improved.'' In the north, the oil-for-food program is implemented by the U.N. Inter-Agency Humanitarian Program on behalf of the government of Iraq, the report said.

``No one is ready for this war. Not the national government not the United Nations,'' said Hoskins, a medical doctor, referring to preparations for any humanitarian crisis that may result from a military conflict.

The report said that interviews with Iraqi children showed they had great fear of a new war.

It said researchers were shocked to learn that children as young as four and five had clear concepts of the horrors of war, speaking of the threats posed by bombs, guns, destruction of houses, burning homes, killing of people: and in the end referring to their own families ``We will all die.'''

``Iraqi children already are psychologically and mentally exhausted,'' said Hoskins, alluding to the U.N. sanctions.

The International Study Team's backers include World Vision Canada, Oxfam Canada, United Church of Canada and the University of Bergen. Its report on the humanitarian situation in Iraq following the 1991 war was considered the most comprehensive of such reports. It was based on more than 9,000 household interviews in 300 locations across Iraq.

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