Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, a Canadian engineering professor and national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress,  published an article on the grim statistics in Iraq.  It’s not clear where he gathers all of these statistics from, although there is one reference to the British Oxford Research Bureau. If any readers have insight into where these numbers come from, your comments and identification of sources would be welcome.

More than one million Iraqis have been killed over the past five years, a large number of them civilians, especially women, children, the elderly and the ill. The British polling agency, Oxford Research Bureau, estimates the Iraqi death toll to be even greater, at 1.3 million.

Today in Iraq there are more than one million widows, most of them under 30 years of age, and a staggering five million orphans. Of these, 1.6 million are under 12. All of these millions are destitute and many are homeless as well. An increasing number support themselves and their families through prostitution, according to beleaguered Iraqi humanitarian aid organizations, whose meagre resources cannot begin to address the scope of need.

The drop-out rate among school children is at an all-time high of 33 per cent. Urgently needed social services, such as mental health and therapeutic counseling for school-aged children - some of whom have lost all members of their immediate families-is almost non-existent.

Even further marginalized beyond the reach of most relief resources are the estimated three million Iraqis with special physical and mental needs; many of them require constant medical care and are not receiving it.

Contrary to U.S. president George Bush’s claim that an influx of 30,000 more American troops last year quelled bloodshed, preventable deaths from all causes are in fact rising in Iraq. Deaths rose again sharply in February and early March of this year. New figures from the Iraqi government also indicate that civilian casualties in February 2008 were 33 percent higher than in January.

Internal and external displacement is another under-appreciated crisis that has ravaged Iraq over the past five years under occupation. More than 150,000 Iraqis languish in American military prisons, or in those of the puppet Iraqi government. Many of these prisoners are women and children, aged eight to 14.

Three million civilians have left their homes in and near conflict zones and moved to remoter parts of the country in hopes of greater safety. Another four million have become destitute refugees, mainly in Syria and Jordan. Their numbers have overwhelmed the aid resources of both countries, resulting in one of the worst - and most under-reported-humanitarian disasters of recent history.

Unemployment has reached a staggering 90 percent and there is a crisis in skilled services resulting from the deaths of some 400 professionals, including doctors, nurses, professors and teachers. As a result, medical facilities are almost non-functional and no sustained care or treatment can be given to people with serious conditions, or illnesses such as cancer. Electricity is available for only a few hours every day, and only 25 percent of schools and universities are even minimally functional.

Food staples, when available (and often, they are not) are distributed through monthly ration cards, while at the same time Iraq’s oil resources are being robbed-literally from under the nation’s feet - by American interests who are providing no fiscal accountability to anyone.

Whoah, wait a sec, here I was going to righteously object to the accusation of thievery and unaccountability, but then I remembered that the U.S. lost $8 billion in cash in Iraq that was earmarked for reconstruction of the country.  Okay, so Dr. Elmasry continues… 

Not surprisingly, Iraqis believe that the U.S. is financing its $3 trillion war against them by looting their oil.

Ironically, they can no longer afford to use their country’s only economic resource - consumer prices for gasoline and other kinds of petroleum-derived fuels have gone up by an incredible 2000 percent since the American invasion, while other services (when you can get them) have risen 100 to 150 per cent above pre-occupation levels.

Well, we do know that at least one of the Iraq’s perceptions is inaccurate.  The U.S. is not financing its war, at least not completely, by looting Iraqi oil.  It is financing it by borrowing money it doesn’t have from China.  And, thus, ironically, it seems like today’s U.S. citizens and their future generations have lost quite a bit of freedom … to China.

Somehow this “gift of freedom” doesn’t seem very “precious” anymore, does it?