70 percent of Iraqi children suffer trauma stress

Half of Iraq's population of 27 million are children.

A USA Today report indicates that 70 percent of Iraqi children suffer from symptoms of traumatic stress syndrome manifested in psychiatric and psychological symptoms. These children daily witness death and destruction in their neighborhood. This is not surprising since a third of our own soldiers in Iraq return with symptoms of mental illness and traumatic stress disorder.

But it is difficult for citizens in the U.S. to empathize with those in Iraq.

The U.S. has suffered over 3,700 deaths and 27,000 wounded. Multiply these numbers by one hundred and you can get a sense of the impact of the war inside of Iraq -- a country one-tenth the size of our population.

[Excerpt of an article by Adil E. Shamoo, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine]