A U.S. invasion of Iraq would deal a devastating blow to that nation’s 13 million children, a new study has found. Compiled by an international research team which visited Iraq in January, the study concluded that: the 1991 Gulf War and a dozen years of economic sanctions have crippled Iraq’s health system; more than 500,000 Iraqi children under five are acutely malnourished or underweight; most Iraqi families have exhausted their financial resources and are highly dependent on government food rations; and the infrastructure upon which the country’s population depends – electricity, water and sanitation – remains badly in need of repair a dozen years after it was damaged in the 1991 Gulf War.

“World leaders have been consumed with issues concerning military action,” said Rupen Das, director of World Vision Canada’s humanitarian assistance program and a member of the team. “We urge these leaders to publicly acknowledge the impact this action would have on Iraq’s civilians, who are already suffering the crippling impact of sanctions. The Iraqi children alone give them 13 million reasons to acknowledge the need and do something about it.”

The team, consisting of nine researchers, physicians and psychologists, has sent its findings to the U.N. Security Council, and to the governments of Iraq and Canada. Organizations providing financial support for the trip included: Inter Pares; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Oxfam Canada; Peacefund Canada; Physicians for Global Survival; Project Ploughshares; United Church of Canada; United Steelworkers; War Child Canada; and World Vision Canada.