by will sprout

Created on: September 20, 2008   Last Updated: November 16, 2008

Where do we begin to understand the important issues which face a country torn apart by war; do we start with the women and children who have suffered and died or do our thoughts turn to our own soldiers, those who stand and those who die.

And who do we turn to when we seek an answer to the problems that now affect the country?

And who do we hold responsible for the chaos which now remains where the Hanging Gardens

of Babylon once flourished.

After five years since the invasion of Iraq
by the American led invasion, the violence and division within the country is at its highest since the days before the Prophet Mohammad.

Here, in this man made environment, Iraq
contains the largest displacement of a human population in the world, creating a humanitarian crisis of immense proportion. Probably the most vulnerable are the 2.7 million internally displaced people who have deserted their homes for safer locations within the country. These people live, mostly without employment, in squalid conditions and with very little food. Here in this existence they live lacking the basic amenities, such as running fresh water or electricity.

But who's responsibility is it; we could maintain the stance that the responsibility rests with the Government of Iraq, and it is they who must devise and implement a plan which will address the humanitarian needs of the displaced and other vulnerable people of Iraqi, and that the United States should merely provide the technical expertise required for them to do this.

It's true that the Iraq Government has access to countless billions of dollars, but they do not have the capacity or political expertise to use these resources for humanitarian needs. Because of this failure the local Militia are providing the social services for their own neighbourhoods; in this way it is they who come to control the towns and cities. When these Shiite and Sunni militias provide the delivery of food, oil, electricity and money, they sponsor the common people of Iraq
to join their group.

Yet this is by no means an end to the suffering numbers of its people, there are those, estimated by Refugee's International, a further 1.5 million of them who live in the neighbouring countries of Syria
and Jordan to name two, who exist in very similar conditions.

And when these people return to their homeland they usually find that the homes that they had have been occupied by others or simply destroyed. Because of the collapse of the social services and failure by their government even

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