In February, the Washington Post ran a story about embarrassingly bad conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the United States' premier facility for returning war veterans. Americans were shocked to learn of rotting walls, mouse droppings and roaches in rooms where injured soldiers were recovering. The country watched in disgust as the Bush administration fumbled to deal with the situation, and Army Sec. Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down.

The Washington Post recently released another article on injured Iraq War soldiers. Some veterans are not given crutches or wheelchairs after losing limbs. One man had to hire a private physician to stitch up his leg stump after discovering it had not been properly closed by the military's medical care providers. The same man had to buy his own food and medicine and also had to tip a nurse to care for his wound. Another man arrived wounded by shrapnel that damaged his small intestine and left it exposed. He had to wait an hour outside a hospital in the sweltering sun until he received treatment.

These men are not American soldiers, but they fight just as hard in Iraq and do more dangerous work. They are Iraqi soldiers who have risked their lives and made it through the battles, only to come out maimed and unable to find a government or institution willing to help them heal. The conditions at Walter Reed look top-notch compared to the care injured Iraqi soldiers get.

Where's the outcry this time around? There is none.

Just like the Jessica Lynches Americans dote on, these soldiers have names, families and faces. Unfortunately, Americans have failed miserably in proving to them that this whole war, their injuries, sacrifices and identities, are not in vain.

Mohammed Hamis Jassem is the soldier who stood outside the hospital for an hour with his intestines exposed before he recieved treatment. "I wish I died in that explosion," Jassem said. The 24-year-old signed up to fight in return for the $400 a month salary that Iraqi soldiers get paid. His parents had to sell a plot of land to help pay for his treatment, according to the article. He now empties waste through a bag attached to his abdomen, and he traveled to Iran for eye surgery that set him back $5,000.

This is ironic, to say the least. Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside Americans are going to Iran, America's stated archenemy in the Axis of Evil, for surgery. Meanwhile, wounded American soldiers are quickly bundled up and flown to a first-class military hospital in Germany. Medical expenses for rehabilitation and prosthetic limbs alone cost taxpayers between $58,000-157,000 per soldier, according to the article. Iraqi soldiers do not appear to be guaranteed a minute of care other than what is absolutely necessary to keep them breathing.

What about the soldiers who die? They leave families and children behind. According to a report by Save the Children, they can't expect to fare any better. The report indicated that the chance an Iraqi child will live past the age of five has gone down faster than anywhere else in the world since 1990, due in large part to lack of clean water and hospitals.

How have billions of American dollars been spent? So far, it appears they have been spent on weapons and services from corrupt, incompetent private contractors, not at all on empowering Iraqis with democracy and healing the injured.

Not so long ago, many traveled to Iraq to be educated in its schools and to be healed in its hospitals. Oh, Iraq — the world's fertile crescent, the land of the ancient Mesopotamians who gave the world towering structures and rich culture, the home of an empire that gave us volumes upon volumes of scientific and literary knowledge.

To see what Iraq and its people have been reduced to because of the greedy claws of political aggression should make the world weep.

Reach columnist Hanady Kader at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.