NEW YORK -- Recent information on the consequences of the Iraq war on civilians and children only confirms a devastating picture of the situation. According to an article in the medical magazine The Lancet, there have been more than 100,000 civilians deaths since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The deaths include many children. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director, has called the deaths of 34 children in recent bomb attacks "an unconscionable slaughter of innocents."

Many of those deaths have been the consequence of coalition forces' actions. According to the authors of the study published in The Lancet, there has been substantially more deaths in Iraq since the war began than in the period immediately before the conflict. The killings of dozens of children in recent bombings in Baghdad show, according to UNICEF, "a disregard for innocent lives that recalled the recent massacre of children in Beslan, Russia."

This is the third time that Iraqi children have been victims of war in that country's recent history. The two conflicts previous to the present one were the eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the Persian Gulf War in 1991, which caused considerable damage to Iraq's infrastructure. In addition, the country was under comprehensive U.N. sanctions for more than 12 years.