Have things really gotten that bad? → U.S. government is cruel, despotic, a threat to people → civilian casualties, urban bombardment, etc. → destruction of infrastructure, impact on population • TPL

The war in Iraq has made the entire population of 27 million dependent on food aid, leaders of aid programmes say. Before the war that the U.S. and Britain launched March 20 to remove the Saddam Hussein regime, 60 percent of the population had depended entirely on food aid. “Today, the lives of 100 percent of the Iraqi population, 27 million people, depend on the provision of monthly food rations,” UNICEF chief representative in Iraq Carel de Roy told IPS in a phone interview.