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George & John - and the real world in Iraq, like malnutrition

John Howard had lunch with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld yesterday ABC News reported this morning. It also recorded the fact that PM Howard will meet with George Bush in the Oval Office.

Whilst these two self-congratulating "close friends" will doubtlessly pat each other on the back, they may care to ponder this report from the LA Times:

"One in four Iraqi children suffers from chronic malnutrition, as poor security and poverty take their toll on the youngest generation, health and aid workers said Saturday.

The situation is worse in remote rural areas, where as many as one in three children suffers from problems associated with poor diet, such as stunted growth and low weight, according to a recent government report that surveyed 22,050 households in 98 districts around the nation."

The article goes on to paint a grim picture of health-conditions in Iraq. Is this the "success" of the Iraq War we keep on hearing about? It doesn't look like it even if it is said by health-workers that some things were worse under Saddam. Read the complete LA Times article here.

And if John is prepared to duck down the road and get himself a Washington Post newspaper, he can read the opening paragraph of this article:

"Bad stuff happened in Iraq, stuff Adam Reuter doesn't want to talk about. Not with his friends, not with the line cooks in the burger joint where he worked when he first came home or the tenants in the apartment complex he manages now.

He doesn't even want to talk about it with his wife, who worried because he was jumping out of bed in the middle of the night."


The WP interviewed 100 returning veterans. You can read the full article here. As they say:

".....a constant theme through the interviews was that the American public is largely unaffected by the war, and, despite round-the-clock television and Internet exposure, doesn't understand what it's like".

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