Iraqi Children

GENEVA -- The situation for Iraqi children is getting worse and, in some respects, was better before the war began, a senior UN official said yesterday. "Children today are much worse off than they were a year ago, and they certainly are worse off than they were three years ago," said Dan Toole, director of emergency programs for the United Nations Children's Fund. He said Iraqis no longer have safe access to a government-funded food basket, established under Saddam Hussein to deal with international sanctions.

BAGHDAD - A US helicopter strike north of Baghdad killed eight people in a vehicle, including at least two children, Iraqi officials said yesterday, insisting that all the dead were civilians. The US military said six were Al Qaeda militants but acknowledged that children were killed. Adding to the confusion, Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of three children - the eldest appearing to be in his early teens - along with the bodies of five men, at the hospital in Beiji, where the dead were taken after the strike Wednesday night.

BAGHDAD - A US helicopter strike north of Baghdad killed eight people in a vehicle, including at least two children, Iraqi officials said yesterday, insisting that all the dead were civilians. The US military said six were Al Qaeda militants but acknowledged that children were killed. Adding to the confusion, Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of three children - the eldest appearing to be in his early teens - along with the bodies of five men, at the hospital in Beiji, where the dead were taken after the strike Wednesday night.

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated his explosives as American soldiers were handing out toys to children northeast of Baghdad yesterday, killing at least three children and three of the troops, US and Iraqi authorities said. Seven children were wounded in the attack near Baqubah, where US soldiers wrested control from Al Qaeda in Iraq last summer. The attack, along with a series of other blasts in the capital and to the north, underlined the uncertainty of security in Iraq even as the US military said violence is down sharply across Iraq.

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber detonated his explosives as American soldiers were handing out toys to children northeast of Baghdad yesterday, killing at least three children and three of the troops, US and Iraqi authorities said. Seven children were wounded in the attack near Baqubah, where US soldiers wrested control from Al Qaeda in Iraq last summer. The attack, along with a series of other blasts in the capital and to the north, underlined the uncertainty of security in Iraq even as the US military said violence is down sharply across Iraq.

GENEVA -- Malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis has almost doubled since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a hunger specialist told the UN Human Rights Commission yesterday in a summary of previously-reported studies on the nation's health. By last fall, 7.7 percent of Iraqi children under 5 suffered acute malnutrition, compared with 4 percent after Hussein's ouster in April 2003, said Jean Ziegler, a specialist on the commission. Malnutrition, which is exacerbated by inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean water, is a major killer of children in poor...

AMMAN, Jordan - Israeli doctors screened 40 Iraqi children suffering from heart disease yesterday - a rare case of direct cooperation between the Jewish state and the Arab country. The doctors said they hope their work will help improve relations between the two Mideast nations and ease tensions between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. Dr. Sion Houri, director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, said he thinks "ties and friendship" are being built through his work in Jordan with the Iraqi children ...

GENEVA -- The fighting in Iraq is "wreaking havoc" on the children, all but preventing relief groups from working in the country, the UN children's agency said yesterday. In a sign of the difficulties faced by humanitarian efforts, the first independent aid convoy to enter the city of Fallujah after two weeks of fighting had to turn back before delivering aid because of security fears, the international Red Cross said. The Red Crescent convoy of ambulances and three trucks carrying blankets, water, and first-aid kits managed to enter the city Monday before it had to...

BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bomb exploded next to US troops handing out candy and toys yesterday, killing 27 people, including 18 children and teenagers. An American soldier was also killed and at least 70 people were injured, including a newborn and three US soldiers. Parents heard the shattering explosion and raced out to discover children's mangled, bloodied bodies strewn on the street in the Shi'ite Muslim neighborhood. Children's slippers lay piled near the blast crater, near a crumbled child's bicycle as blood pooled in the street.

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three US lawmakers during the run-up to the US-led invasion, federal prosecutors said yesterday. An indictment unsealed in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit group, of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Hussein's regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

AMMAN, Jordan - Israeli doctors screened 40 Iraqi children suffering from heart disease yesterday - a rare case of direct cooperation between the Jewish state and the Arab country. The doctors said they hope their work will help improve relations between the two Mideast nations and ease tensions between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. Dr. Sion Houri, director of the pediatric intensive care unit at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel, said he thinks "ties and friendship" are being built through his work in Jordan with the Iraqi children "Our only previous...

GENEVA -- The situation for Iraqi children is getting worse and, in some respects, was better before the war began, a senior UN official said yesterday. "Children today are much worse off than they were a year ago, and they certainly are worse off than they were three years ago," said Dan Toole, director of emergency programs for the United Nations Children's Fund. He said Iraqis no longer have safe access to a government-funded food basket, established under Saddam Hussein to deal with international sanctions.

BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bomb exploded next to US troops handing out candy and toys yesterday, killing 27 people, including 18 children and teenagers. An American soldier was also killed and at least 70 people were injured, including a newborn and three US soldiers. Parents heard the shattering explosion and raced out to discover children's mangled, bloodied bodies strewn on the street in the Shi'ite Muslim neighborhood. Children's slippers lay piled near the blast crater, near a crumbled child's bicycle as blood pooled in the street.

GENEVA -- Malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis has almost doubled since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a hunger specialist told the UN Human Rights Commission yesterday in a summary of previously-reported studies on the nation's health. By last fall, 7.7 percent of Iraqi children under 5 suffered acute malnutrition, compared with 4 percent after Hussein's ouster in April 2003, said Jean Ziegler, a specialist on the commission. Malnutrition, which is exacerbated by inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean water, is a major killer of children in poor countries.

GENEVA -- The fighting in Iraq is "wreaking havoc" on the children, all but preventing relief groups from working in the country, the UN children's agency said yesterday. In a sign of the difficulties faced by humanitarian efforts, the first independent aid convoy to enter the city of Fallujah after two weeks of fighting had to turn back before delivering aid because of security fears, the international Red Cross said. The Red Crescent convoy of ambulances and three trucks carrying blankets, water, and first-aid kits managed to enter the city Monday before it had to turn back,...

PORTLAND, Maine -- A US Army paratrooper killed by a suicide bomber while handing out candy to Iraqi children was remembered yesterday as a good man who stood up for his beliefs and died while extending his hand in friendship. More than 400 people filled the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception to honor Sergeant Jason Swiger, who was killed March 25 in Baqubah, Iraq. Military officials told family members that he was killed after he and several other soldiers left the protection of their Humvee to hand out candy to children after their convoy stopped.

KENNEBUNK, Maine -- Several family members of soldiers killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, said they were happy that President Bush took time to meet with them at the start of his weekend trip to Maine. Nancy Kelley, whose son, Army National Guard Captain Christopher Cash, was killed in Iraq in 2004, came away from the meeting impressed by the president's sincerity. "He cares about every single family, and he has been doing this all around the whole country," said Kelley, who brought a framed photo of her son with Iraqi children.