Across the wire from our friends at GNN today: Oxfam and the aid agency network NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) report that life in Iraq is far worse than it was before the US rolled through in 2003.

“According to the report, four million citizens (15%) regularly cannot afford to eat; 70% are without adequate water supplies (up from 50% in 2003); 28% of children are malnourished (compared with 19% before the 2003 invasion).” (The Independent)

This is just the tip of the humanitarian crisis that festers almost unannounced beneath the front page suicide bombings and Iraqi police desertions. Besides the immediate health crisis there is the near total collapse of the educational system and the millions of displaced women and children who have become refugees in their own country.

According to Oxfam 80% of aid agencies operating inside Iraq say they could do more if they had more money. But that’s not what Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are going to worry about when they go to Saudi Arabia this week.