Iraq:
Situation Grows More Critical as Bush Declares It Is More “Normal”

Nov 5, 2007

Ignoring reality in Iraq, President Bush recently declared, “Slowly but surely the people of Iraq are reclaiming a normal society.”

Normal society? Only someone comfortably sheltered in the White House or a ranch in Texas could say something so absurd!

From the beginning of the war up until now, both the U.S. and Iraqi governments have severely underestimated the number of Iraqi people killed in the war. A study based on a survey done between May and July 2006 by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health estimated that about 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion and occupation–in a country with a population less than one-tenth that of the U.S.!

This was before the worst of the U.S. and militia violence against the population started. Another independent medical survey taken recently estimates that more than one million Iraqi’s have died by now.

In addition to all those killed in Iraq, it is estimated that more than four million men, women and children have now been driven from their homes by U.S., Iraqi army and militia attacks. About half of these refugees have fled to other countries, most to Syria and Jordan. The other half are refugees in their own country, fleeing from military forces that sweep through whole neighborhoods.

These refugees amount to about one out of every five people in the entire Iraqi population. According to the United Nations, their expulsion from their homes has created the worst refugee crisis in recent history. And their numbers continue to grow.

According to a welfare office in the Iraqi government, more than half of these refugees have been driven from their homes since the U.S. troop “surge” began.

This is the stark and horrible reality for the people of Iraq today. This is the product of the U.S. war.

Normal? Only in hell!