Increasing numbers of children in Iraq do not have enough food to eat and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished, a UN report says. Malnutrition rates in children under five have almost doubled since the US-led intervention — to nearly 8% by the end of last year, it says.

The collapse of the Iraqi government is going to mean the collapse of the Iraqi food distribution system, which the United Nations has called one of the best in the world; Saddam has discovered that feeding people keeps them firmly under his control. The US military doesn’t have the ability to feed 24 million people, and current US postwar plans are to entirely shut out the UN programs with the most experience doing this, in favor of American companies who have landed juicy rebuilding contracts.